Robert Plank

Today's training is so important that I'm giving it to you in PDF report format and I want you to print it out with your printer (yes, really) and send me a picture of it printed out sitting on your desk. (SERIOUSLY!)

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"7 Keys to Residual Income" Free Report

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Just to recap: grab the report, then register for the webinar, then check out the instructions in that report very carefully to discover how to save your 70% coming up. We'll talk again very soon!

In our online business, I can think of quite a few "duh" moments where as soon as I discovered them... everything changed. My level of income, the things that were and weren't important,

• Just the fact that I could charge $997 for a course
• The fact that I could launch a course that didn't need 100% live training sessions
• The fact that I could re-market old courses
• The fact that I could re-market using old recorded webinar pitches (and sometimes make more money from those launches)

And anytime I deal with anyone starting out for the first time online I hear the same series of questions...

• What's the best time of day to mail?
• How often should I mail my list?
• What's the best price point?
• What's a good open rate, click rate, conversion rate once I mail?
• What should I price my upsell at?

And the ONLY correct answer to these questions: I DON'T KNOW!
(The answer is NOT "you should test that...")

I simply don't have enough information about you and your business. What's even worse, I quickly realized most people were ASKING THE WRONG QUESTIONS. Let me see your product so we can figure out what to price... oh you don't have one. How often do you mail your list already... not at all...

It's okay, it's fixable, let's just ask the RIGHT questions.

Look, you're asking around about the best day to mail and the "best split test results" because that's what you view as the fun stuff. Creating an OPTIN PAGE? Yuck... writing an INFORMATION PRODUCT? How many months is that going to cut out of my life? A 30-day AUTORESPONDER FOLLOWUP SEQUENCE? Excuse me for a second while I flip over to Twitter to re-tweet some stuff...

80/20 Rule: "The Base" vs. "The Tricks"

Have you heard of this thing called the 80/20 rule? It shows up everywhere in life. It basically means that there are a couple of things you should focus on, and a lot more things you need to cut out of your life...

80% of your results come from 20% of your effort, and the remaining 20% of your results come from 80% of your effort.

Let's say that over a 2 or 3 day period, you finished 10 tasks, some money-making and some not money-making. You ran a pitch webinar for your product, recorded some membership content, wrote an article, marketed on Facebook, checked email, posted on forums, contacted some potential joint venture partners, outlined a new product, responded to customer support issues and fixed a problem in your WordPress setup...

Were all those things necessary? I guess... BUT... it is possible that out of those eight items I listed, there were probably JUST TWO that made most of your money. Out of that list, there were probably JUST TWO things that made you the most money. TWO THINGS that you enjoyed doing, that you did quickly so it was the best use of your time. The remaining EIGHT items? You probably could have automated, outsourced, delayed, or ignored them. Were they a waste? No, but they weren't the best use of your time.

What's my point? Look at your business in two parts:

THE BASE. These are the fundamentals you literally hear everyone talking about. Have a sales letter, payment button, and download page or membership site. Have a blog with articles and drip content. An optin page giving away an ethical bribe with a follow-up sequence getting people to buy.

THE TRICKS. Run this split test, add this special graphic next to your buy button. Place this exit popup downsell. Post content on this social bookmarking site. Run a special paid ad on this site in this way. Make sure your buttons are drawn up in this special color.

For some reason, most people ignore "the base" because they hear about it so much, it's such common knowledge, that it's not new and exciting, therefore it must not be important. Gurus have created 100 pages and they've forgotten how important they are, and newbies have heard about optin pages 100 times (without creating one, or it took a month and I don't want to go through that ordeal again) so even though I hear it all the time, I'm used to hear it and I won't listen...

But the cruel joke is: setting up "the base" only takes 20% of your time, energy and effort, and is responsible for 80% of your income, I guarantee it! Does that mean "the tricks" are unimportant? Of course not, but it's all about diminishing returns. "The tricks" are still important, but they are those unimportant tasks we talked about. The tricks take 80% of your time, energy and effort, but are only responsible for 20% of your income.

Newbies get excited about the tricks because they see it as a way to skip the "outdated stuff" like optin pages or sales letters and take advantage of this hot new traffic source which is really "here today, gone tomorrow."

Gurus get excited about tricks because making THIS change to their optin page and THAT change to their sales letter and tracking THOSE sales meant the difference between a $1 million business this year and a $1.1 million business this year. Of course it's exciting to share how these Ten Changes, or Ten Minutes of Work, boosted this business by $100,000... but those TRICKS are useless without the BASE. And once you have the BASE, the TRICKS are so much better.

Marketing By The Numbers: Clickthrus and Attendance

I know, the "base" doesn't sound sexy and the "tricks" sound too dangerous. You don't want to admit that you need the base, because you're not a newbie and you don't want to seem dumb in front of your friends. But here are a few "average" numbers you can somewhat expect:

1. If you have a very simple optin page with a headline, three bullet points, and a call to action... plus your optin bribe is cool enough and relevant enough for your traffic, expect a 50% optin rate, and a 1% daily attrition rate (bounces and unsubscribes)
2. The emails you send "should" get a 2% clickthru rate, which should keep its effectiveness every day for a week, so if you email the same offer once a day for 5 days, expect a 10% clickthru rate of your entire list – provided your emails are interesting enough for people to click and open
3. You should expect around $1 EPC if you're mailing to a decent sales letter that's an appropriate match for your audience – niche, skill level and price point – that means if you have a $100 offer, expect a 1% conversion, $50 offer, 2% conversion, $7 offer, 14% conversion
4. On webinars you can expect about a 50% registration rate, 33% attendance rate (out of total registrations only), and a $20 to $100 EPC on the webinar (although that last number is SUPER unpredictable)
5. You can expect about $1 per subscriber per month if you're marketing to your list (this number kept showing up everywhere for me during my early days of email marketing)

These are all rough estimates, and things might change for you, but once you know these basic numbers, life gets a lot easier. For example...

Let's say you've built your list up to 1000 subscribers, not huge but somewhat respectable (whether you're a newbie or non-newbie) if you've just made list building your priority.

Mail for the same offer for 5 days, you'll get 20 clicks each day for a total of 100 clicks...

With 100 clicks, you can count on about $100 from this promotion...

Because I gave you that "dollar per month" guideline, you can easily tell that even if you run four promotions like this per month, you're only making about $400 so there's more juice you can pull out of your list...

BUT THAT'S FINE! You have "the base" in place which only took a couple of days (product, sales letter, optin page) and now you can add "the tricks" to increase your income...

Add in an upsell to boost it to $600 or so, a coaching or recurring option, a done-for-you option, $1000 is easily within reach NOW THAT YOU'VE FIRST HIT THAT INITIAL MILESTONE of 400 dollars.

And think about a scenario like this...

• Instead of going for the traditional "send some emails" approach, you schedule a 1-hour pitch webinar and mail for it – 100 clicks over 5 days
• 50% or 50 people register for that webinar
• 33% or 16 people actually attend the webinar

Most marketers (the ones who don't know what to expect) would be super bummed out that only 16 people showed up, webinars don't work and why the heck did I think this internet marketing thing was a good idea anyway? Only 1.6% of my list even attended?

Yeah but, it's not unusual at all to convert 10 out of those 16 on a live webinar at $97, and now you've made $1000 bucks from one hour of your time (plus you have a recording) so you've potentially earned $2000 from that list of 1000.

These are all examples, and who knows what you'll experience based on your niche, audience, offer, and marketing, but you get the idea. The "base" and the "tricks" can't exist without the other. PLUS, one isn't better than the other, they're just DIFFERENT!

The "base" got you from $0 to $400. The "tricks" got you from $400 to $2000. Without the base you wouldn't have any money to improve with tricks, without the tricks you wouldn't be able to progress past the $400 mark and achieve your true potential with that list of subscribers. Without the tricks, you probably wouldn't be able to build that list of 1000 to 2000 or 5000 or 10,000 or more.

The 95/5/1 Rule

I've found that the 80/20 rule just doesn't cut it when marketing to an email list, since so many of your subscribers won't buy, will only buy low ticket or will simply be one-time purchasers, no matter what you do.

But that's okay, IT'S A NUMBERS GAME! Here's what I've noticed over the years looking back at my email list subscribers:

• The top 1% become your coaching clients
• The top 5% become your recurring and high ticket buyers
• The remaining 95% are your low-ticket buyers and non-buyers

Let me explain. Let's say that you build that list up to 10,000 subscribers. Still not huge, still not close to my list size BUT we're now talking about decent and respectable numbers.

Let's assume that along the way you've setup a couple of products. A free product, a $7 product, a $97 product, a $997 product, and a $27/month product...

100 of those subscribers will literally buy everything you put out. It doesn't matter if it's $7 or $97. They'll actually USE your tools, template, software and training. They'll actually ASK QUESTIONS during your Q&A calls if you have them.

Here's where a lot of marketers mess up. They take the 80/20 rule to the extreme, examine their business, decide to take their low-end products off the market and focus entirely on coaching. Those 100 people at the top.

Maybe the $27/month plan is all that's left standing! And then inevitably as some of the coaching students drop off (which is just what happens on the internet), they don't replenish that top 1% with new people, and find themselves doing the same "time-for-dollars" work but putting in the same amount of time for less and less dollars. Attrition!

The lesson here is that it's important to have products on all price points so you can keep people coming in the funnel and walk them up. Get them used to you at $7 or $97 and then get them to buy the high ticket or recurring programs. Don't be a price snob and only charge $997 and up, but don't wimp out and refuse to go above $7 as a price point.

Now, the top 5%... with a 10K list we're talking about 50 people you can count on to buy high ticket $497 and $997 items, join $27/month and $97/month continuity programs (once again, DEPENDING ON YOUR OFFER AND HOW IT MATCHES TO THEM) but not necessarily interact.

This group won't buy EVERYTHING you put out, so you have to make a compelling argument and actually listen to the problems, struggles and frustrations of your marketplace, create a real sales letter dissolving their objections, market it more than once and package a really good offer together.

This group is the reason to have high ticket (single payment or payment plan) membership sites, not necessarily "monthly forever" continuity. If your highest priced product is $100 bucks, and you have 50 "high ticket" buyers, that’s a nice $5000. But if your high price point is $1000, that's a $50,000 payday you just made instead.

The remaining 95% is still worthwhile for a number of reasons:

• They will still help you adjust your launches and your offers
• Some of the 95% will graduate into the top 5%
• Low ticket items can still add up to a nice healthy chunk of your monthly income

In the same way you can't have the "base" without the "tricks" ... you can't have high ticket without low ticket and vice versa. If you only had high ticket offers, you'd still need to build that list and the best list to build is a list of buyers. If you only had low ticket offers then you wouldn't be giving your top 1% and your top 5% the chance to buy your best stuff.

Here's the best thing about the internet. It doesn't cost you anything to create these extra products or keep them online, so pull out a piece of your high ticket offer or recurring program and put them on the marketplace as low-ticket items with upsells into "the bigger courses."

Can you please go into the comments now and tell me... what was a "big breakthrough" or turning point, revelation, sudden moment you had where everything changed for you and your business?

Check out today's podcast to discover the must-have tool you need to have in your business to backup, clone and protect all your websites using just one plugin called Backup Creator...

Listen inside today's show to discover:

• How to adjust your mindset to finish what you start (warning: the two questions I ask at the beginning may shock or offend you)
• How to make websites fast
• Why you'll save weeks of time with a rollback and staging area
• How to make money setting up websites for offline businesses (in seconds) and generate instant cash flipping your sites (virtual real estate)
• And more

"Backup, Clone & Protect Your WordPress Sites" FREE Report

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Check out today's episode right now by clicking the "play" button below...

Question for you below: Do you use Backup Creator? Or a backup and cloning tool? What's your best tip or small piece of advice for someone managing or building websites?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:58 — 21.9MB)

There are four very simple tweaks that you need to make in the way you present your products and webinars if you haven't applied these already...

Look, let's think for a second about the "top 10 percent" of your subscriber list. They're going to buy everything you put out. It doesn't matter if you do a bad job of explaining it, or you don't promote it very often, even the price point doesn't matter THAT MUCH -- they're buying, mostly because they have the budget, they're the perfect fit for your products... and SOMEWHAT because of you and your personality. They trust you.

Then there's the "bottom 10 percent" of your list. I hate to use such derogatory terms but let's just say this is the crowd that either can't afford your product, doesn't want your product. They're never going to buy no matter what you do. Once again, I hope that doesn't offend anyone but there is a minority of people on your list who will NEVER buy anything from you in a million years.

That's fine. But the bulk of our subscribers are that middle 80 percent, the ones who buy sometimes but not always, THEY are the reason you run things like webinars.

Or add time based scarcity to "push them over the edge", mail a few more times, test and tweak headlines on your sales letter.

Heck, do you know why webinars are so important to the business that Lance and I run? Because most people don't click on an email under the 2nd or 3rd one... and if it's a sales letter or a training video, they might read half or watch half, and ALMOST buy... but not quite.

Why doesn't that middle 80% want to buy from you?

It's not about the price. Most people can scrape together a few hundred or a few thousand bucks if something's that important. People have credit cards.

After careful observation of the people on our webinars and on my list... the #1 reason people don't buy is because... wait for it... they're afraid of change AND on some deep level, they know they won't take action on what they buy.

Here's what you can do about that:

Multiplier #1: Add Something to Your Offer to Make It "Too Good to Pass Up"

Most marketers are lazy and can't think of anything other than reduce the price or add a deadline. Or even worse, a "crazy guarantee" (that's all been done to death and is nothing special)...

What if you partnered with some other business in your niche and arranged things so that if someone buys your product, they get someone else's product for free? Or you hired a programmer to whip up some kind of software or must-have tool to make it easier for someone to apply your training?

You could throw in a done-for-you or 1-on-1 call as a bonus, and if you get too bogged down with fulfilling it, remove it in the future.

Multiplier #2: Align and Sympathize with Their Problem

We're dealing with a tricky situation here. The problems that most people have... whether we're talking about lack of money, too much weight, general unhappiness, is the result of some underlying psychological issue.

Even worse: you can't explain to this 80% what their problem is, why they have this problem or how to solve it. They don't want to hear it! Either they agree with you, and they have to admit they've been doing things the wrong way, and now they're a victim OR you're insulting them.

More likely: they'll aggressively DENY they have this underlying psychological problem, they might not even want to admit it to themselves, and now you're really losing credibility.

If there's one common thread I've seen when it comes to copywriting, pitching, psychology, or even mindset and self-help it's this... if you've got a selling argument to make, you'll lose people if you flat out tell them they're wrong or that things need to change.

How about this... what if you turned it around on yourself and instead of telling people why THEY are dieting wrong or making money online in the wrong way... you shared the mistakes YOU made when trying to get a handle on your mindset, when you were trying to lose weight, when you personally were trying to make money online?

Be careful though... if all you do is tell me how much you suck, why am I going to listen to you? That's why you tell a "before-and-after" story. I was just like you and I had this, this, and this problem. I did that, that, and that didn't work. Can you relate? That's when I discovered... this big breakthrough. And do what I say here to get my same results.

Multiplier #3: Actually Market Consistently (Most Marketers Don't)

Speaking of big breakthroughs... the most obvious way to make more money online is the thing most marketers either don't think to do, or they're aware of it and they are simply too afraid to do it.

Send some more emails to your subscribers. Mail to the same sales letter, webinar replay, webinar registration every day for a week. It works!

Even if you came out with a product months ago or last year, and it's still online, isn't it true that you still have access to people that want it, but haven't bought? That middle 80 percent!

Multiplier #4: Break-In New Material to See What REALLY Triggers Them to Buy

A few things happen when you market consistently. One is that you'll get bored of your presentations and feel the need to "mix things up."

A few examples. After presenting Backup Creator a few times, I realized that what really lit our audience up on a webinar wasn't showing us backing a site up, blowing the site away and restoring... but cloning a site for an offline business. So why run a really involved pitch webinar with all these case studies when I can center it around explaining Backup Creator and then using it in this scenario?

Have you heard of Paper Template, our WordPress plugin that allows you to run WordPress as a sales letter? I "could have" tried to compare myself to other WordPress themes, I could have shown how to make an optin page and a sales letter...

But what really seemed to perk people up was creating a FUNNEL. Here's an optin bribe, here's a point and click sales letter, here's a download page, all working together.

It's like being a comedian who has lots of "jokes" and tests them out on the road to see what works well and what doesn't.

At the end of the day, we all really need to sharpen our axes and see if we can make more sales by testing out that new material and seeing what they really want... for example...

• They don't care about how hard you worked or how much stuff you have inside your membership site
• They don't want to learn, read, or watch... but they do want to "discover" or get this result instantly delivered to them
• They don't REALLY want to make all that money or lose all that weight so much as they want to be able to show their spouse or they brother in law how wrong they were to doubt them!

You need to keep these four breakthroughs in mind if you want to make more money this week and this month:

Multiplier #1: Add Something to Your Offer to Make It "Too Good to Pass Up"

Multiplier #2: Align and Sympathize with Their Problem

Multiplier #3: Actually Market Consistently (Most Marketers Don't)

Multiplier #4: Break-In New Material to See What REALLY Triggers Them to Buy

Which was your favorite? Are you using some or all four of these multiplier? Which do you need to do more? Please leave a quick comment below telling me.

Check out this episode of the Robert Plank Show (podcast) where we discuss how you can become a self-published author this week using Kindle and CreateSpace. I've published six full-length paperback books using Amazon in just a few clicks by uploading a Word document and a cover graphic (designed by someone else for $5), and I honestly believe that for your business to survive long-term, you need a book to keep building your tribe and your list. Topics include:

• The best way to discover your book's hook ("teaching" is not enough when publishing your book!)
• What type of book is best for you (interview book, bathroom book, business card book, or sales letter book)
• Secrets of the best selling book covers and listings
• How to make that book completely unique in a way that no one else can copy it
• How to generate more than enough content for your book in about an hour
• How to promote your book once it's out there (this is what most people miss)
• And more!

"Become a Published Author This Week" FREE Report

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Please click the "play" button below to listen and be sure to leave a quick comment. Help us get to 25 comments on this post and you not only make the Robert Plank Show continue, I'll post a transcript of today's episode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:07 — 55.0MB)

If you want to create a real internet business that you can use to generate income for yourself and your family, then you'll want to tune in to today's 25 minute episode of The Robert Plank Show which is called "how to setup a legitimate online business"... topics covered:

• A simple way to minimize your taxes so you can keep the money you earn
• How to create a membership site quickly to manage your members and create an automatic recurring income
• Save time with a support desk and partial outsourcing
• And more!

"Setup a Legitimate Online Business" FREE Report

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Be sure to click to listen to this episode right now and leave a quick comment.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:14 — 23.1MB)

If you've ever wanted to discover the secrets to getting a flood of visitors, optins, and sales to your website... then this will be the most important podcast episode you'll ever listen to!

"Claim Unlimited Internet Traffic" FREE Report

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Topics covered:

• How to know your numbers (hint: whether an ad is profitable or leaking money)
• The best free sources including email, SEO, social media, affiliate programs, forums, and more
• The best paid traffic sources including pay per click, Bing, Google, ad networks, retargeting, and more

Click the "play" button right now to discover the best proven and untapped traffic sources, and be sure to leave a quick comment below to allow the Robert Plank Show to continue.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:27 — 52.6MB)

There are no guarantees in life! And you don't know how much time you have left. That's why I think it makes ZERO sense to continue "getting by"... or running out the clock, or just trying to survive and just trying to make ends meet.

If you want to know exactly how I was able to quit my day job and become a full time self employed entrepreneur, then you're going to want to tune in to the latest and greatest installment of the Robert Plank Show...

"Quit Your Day Job" FREE Report

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Topics Covered Include:

• How to shake off that scarcity employee mindset and embrace the entrepreneur abundance mindset by solving a big problem that people have, be proactive not reactive (quit on your own terms), break down YOUR problem into manageable chunks, and use your weaknesses & aggravations to get things done
• How to manage your time and find that 1 hour per day to move your own business forward -- no matter how "busy" you already are
• Develop the right habits to ensure you're moving forward everyday and never have to go back to any kind of hourly or salaried employment
• How to always stay productive and conquer your own self-sabotaging inner game to instead live life on your own terms

Day Job Quitting Checklist

• entrepreneur mindset (strategic, career, discipline, Plan B, mindset)
• social support system (reason-why)
• cashflow
• money in the bank (safety net)
• legitimacy (i.e. health insurance)
• deadline to quit (urgency)

Finally, don't do what I did! I waited too long to quit my day job and almost earned 1 million dollars online before quitting. I almost didn't quit and as a result, the last 5 years of my life almost didn't happen! Click the play button below to listen instantly and as always, let me know what you think.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:49 — 55.7MB)

Let's talk about some shiny brand new stuff. Some of you are already excited, right? You don't know if I'm talking about hip new social media site, the latest WordPress plugin or the next edition iPhone, but you're ready for it! Screw that old stuff, it never worked, I want something new!

The reason the old stuff didn't work is because you either didn't apply it or you were eager to throw it all out in favor for the latest and greatest thing.

You'd be surprised how many people don't get this. Especially the ones who respond to something like this with, "I've heard of that... that's Bright Shiny Object Syndrome." Ok, you memorized the words but did you actually implement? Do you actually connect the phrases, facts, and figures you memorized (not sure why'd you do all that) to the actions you actually take or don't take? (Don't answer that.)

When Lance and I check in on the support desk for Backup Creator, you would be SHOCKED at how many people are moving their sites from one web host or another (sometimes the same people every month) because this other web host is 1 dollar a month cheaper or has a 1 month trial or has some new feature that I know I won't use but I think I might need.

It's fine if you've already done that, but I've caught you red-handed and it's time to stop.

The way I've always done business is... I try a few things out, repeat what does work and I don't repeat what DOESN'T work.

Direct response style sales letters, 1-hour webinars, 4-week webinar classes, emailing every day, those are all things that MAKE ME MONEY. I know everyone thinks they're special and that they're the one to business where sales letters don't apply or webinars don't apply – and yet, if you look up your most successful competitors, they're probably doing those things.

Danger #1: Google+ Hangouts on Air

Whether you do or you don't have a product or course yet, but you have a niche, you have a skill, and you have something to say, condense your "greatest hits" down to a 45 minute presentation (preferably with a live demo or magic trick) in there, mail every day for 5 days about it, do whatever you can to get 1000 people to view the special link to your live webinar presentation.

1000 eyeballs means you'll get about 500 people to register, and 166 people to show up. If you're "on a budget" so to speak, then register for GoToWebinar's 30-day trial or go with the lowest price packaged so that 66 out of your 166 people will actually be locked out of your webinar and you'll present to your 100 best people. Record it with Camtasia (also has a free trial) and post it online, email for that one for at least once a day for 5 days after you run it. Promote either your existing course or book, or promise the course you're about to create, at the end of that presentation.

Running a webinar usually means that you're 100% live on the spot, people can see your screen (so you should show a PowerPoint presentation and flip to your browser or to whatever you're showing on your screen) and speak your voice out live. Answering questions doesn't matter as much as you think it does. Running a "Q&A" session at the end is a really bad idea, makes your presentation way too long and gives people lots of reasons NOT to buy.

If you've heard of Google+ (Google's social network) they have added a feature called "Google+ Hangouts" for video conferencing, and "Google+ Hangouts on Air" where people can VIEW that video conference.

The problem with Hangouts:

• It shows up in a browser tab (instead of an actual program like GoToWebinar) so people can easily close it – even on accident
• It either shows your screen in a really tiny window (so no one can see what's going on)...
• OR most people opt for the web camera option, so I can see you drinking your bottle of water, I can see the stuff on your bookshelf behind you, I can see your bad lighting, I can see the reflection in your glasses and all your facial expressions, it's way less professional and way more distracting than  a PowerPoint presentation

The best reasons I've heard for running a Hangout instead of a webinar have been:

• It's free (you don't have 100 bucks a month to spare to grow your business?)
• The recording appears on YouTube instantly (you can't click the "Record" button on Camtasia?)
• I can show my face to you (I actually don't want to see your face)
• I can have multiple speakers on my Hangout (so you want a messy recording you can't control?)

The problem with running webinars for longer than an hour, running so-called "Q&A sessions", going for 4 or 5 hours, showing your face or answering every possible question under the sun, is that you're either talking to people who have no intention of buying (they're trying to squeeze all the information out of you in pieces) or you're talking to the people who can't buy it and are looking to justify a reason to NOT buy it. They'll keep asking until you give them the reason.

That's why I don't like Google Hangouts and you should instead run a real business, sign up for that GoToWebinar account and PITCH a real product instead of being a chicken. (Sorry if that seems harsh.)

Danger #2: Automated Webinars

The average marketer doesn't do webinars. Of those marketers that run webinars, I would say they run one webinar per YEAR on average. Why? It's awkward, they dread everything leading up to it, they dread running it, they don't want to go through that hell again. (Until a year later and they want money and forget how much they suffered through it.)

Condense your webinar down to 1 hour and find a way to have fun doing it, run at least 5 webinars per year (instead of just once per year) to work up that webinar muscle.

I see people hesitate with their webinars because they want to make sure they can "play that evergreen webinar 3 times a day afterwards."

They want to present once, record that webinar presentation, then put it online using a special service so someone sees a page that says... free training on this subject, coming up at this date and time, register here. That person enters their name and email address, then it says ome come back at this date and time to watch the live webinar.

The problem is the webinar isn't actually live, you're not on there at all, it's just a special video player that only streams the video once per day.

I know some people swear by automated webinars, but I don't use them and I don't suggest you use them either. Don't even get near it.

Why? Because you're LYING on an automated webinar. If someone registers and comes back at that special date and time, watches your stream and you claim to be live, you're actually lying to your webinar attendees.

I've heard some really bad advice about automated webinars including:

• Record about 10 minutes before the webinar starts so it looks like you're getting ready (what???)
• Make sure you play special sounds at the end of your call so it sounds like sales are coming in, or call your office phone from your cell phone so it sounds like people are calling to place their orders (your merchant account wouldn't like to hear that you do that)
• Use a countdown timer in your auto-webinar to "trick" people into thinking your offer is about to expire! (that can't be legal)

And you might say... but Robert, that's why I run automated webinars and I let them know it's automated. In that case, just put a video on a web page! When I tried out fake webinars a few times, here were my numbers:

• 50% of people opted in
• 33% of people actually came back to the webinar at the right time
• 6% of those people stayed till the end

When you combine those numbers, we're talking about 1% even looking at that offer. You send 1000 clicks to that fake webinar, 990 dropped off after jumping through all your hoops. If you convert at 10% at $100, then congratulations, you just made one sale.

Compare that to a video on a web page. My webinar replays tend to convert at 2 to 3 percent. I don't track how long people stay on the videos but I know that, because there's no opt-in, 100% of the people who click get to the web page (instead of 50%). 100% of people start watching the video (instead of 33% of 50%).

If you're interesting, it won't matter if you're showing it on a video or a webinar replay. But if you're uninteresting, an auto-webinar isn't going to save you! No one cares how beautiful the soufflé is, if the appetizer is turds in a blanket.

Danger #3: Busybody Marketing

There's nothing wrong with getting traffic. There's nothing wrong with getting your name out there. There's nothing wrong with presenting an offer and making sales.

Do you see some marketers who seem to be everywhere? You ask what's the best WordPress plugin for this, they're there. Ask on a forum the best way to do this thing, that person's there. It's almost like you're following you around the internet!

That's how they make sales. Spend most of their day on Facebook closing one-on-one. I have no problem hopping on Facebook every now and then to help out, but it's time consuming and I tend to get in a lot of fights. I also feel bad about being a broken record and promoting myself in someone else's group or thread.

But it doesn't stop after the sale. The current "trend" is to add a private Facebook Group as a bonus to a product or member's area. You buy that course about YouTube traffic, they link you to a Facebook group where you can ask any question about YouTube traffic at any time, or show your videos and get advice.

Sounds good... but the PROBLEM is that these groups are full of questions that are already answered in the product. Instead of saying... go to module 1 or page 12, they keep re-teaching the course over and over, one person at a time.

Once again, I have NO ISSUE answering questions, but if it takes that much time, and it's already covered, why repeat myself?

• Instead of Google Hangouts, run a 1-hour pitch webinar using GoToWebinar.
• Instead of automated webinars, place a video on a web page... we have a plugin called Paper Template for that.
• Instead of being a busybody marketer, make a product based on the activities YOU perform, that YOU reference, so that others will as well.

Can you please comment below, not just about your thoughts about Google+ Hangouts, fake webinars, and busybody marketers (whether you agree with me or not), but also... how do YOU PERSONALLY avoid shiny object syndrome? I look forward to seeing your comments below.

I almost wish I could say the clichéd line, "I don't know where this industry is headed..." But the fact is, we always have been, and probably always will be, distracted by at least 1000 new ideas and concepts every day when we're trying to build an income and a lifestyle online.

The biggest trap to avoid is the "herd mentality." If you've visited message boards in your niche you know what I'm talking about. Someone asks a question like, "What's the best membership software?" Gets a couple answers, doesn't get the exact answer they were looking for, waits until there are at least 20 different answers. You probably had one good answer in that heap somewhere but it was out-voted by the 20 other answers of the mob mentality.

You can't always tell who's telling the truth and who's making it all up. Who's actually teaching you what works or talking about something just because it's "hot right now" (like Google Hangouts).

I saw someone post on a forum the other day that just ran their very first webinar. I was about to post a congratulatory message... until I read further. The first webinar this person had ever run, was about how to run webinars! (Wait, what???)

Another very high profile marketer has taught, for a long time, to locate 20 competitors in your niche, buy all their products, then release your OWN products basically combining all their ideas together. Then this person bought one of my high ticket products... I quickly, quietly, and politely refunded the person.

For some reason,
many people label "untested" as "new"
and "proven" as "old."

"Creating an optin page, selling a product online, getting affiliates on my affiliate program, that's old stuff... I want something new and exciting." There's nothing wrong with new and exciting, as long as you have the BASE SYSTEM IN PLACE! (Lance and I call this the "Income Machine.")

Here are the biggest "strategy" problems or mindset problems I'm seeing today's marketers make...

• Mistake #1: Can't Separate the Forest From the Trees
• Mistake #2: Going Down the Rabbit Hole
• Mistake #3: Risky Marketing
• Mistake #4: Ignoring the 80/20 Rule
• Mistake #5: Not Understanding Why People Really Buy

Here's what I mean...

Mistake #1: Can't Separate the Forest From the Trees

The next time I hear someone teaching that everyone needs to sell at exactly $97, and have a $37 upsell with another $27 upsell and a $17 downsell, or use a big orange button on their sales letter with the text "Add to Cart" ... I just might throw my computer out the window.

Using your own success as a case study template for others to follow is just great. But did you make 1,000 sales at $97 just because the product was at $97 and that reason alone, or was it because...

• You had a clear compelling offer that people really needed that was the right thing at the right time
• You had a list of subscribers that trusted you
• You followed up with them multiple times

For me, it comes down to "must-haves" versus "nice-to-haves." Sure, maybe you said 1000 copies available, 34 copies remaining (and you were telling the truth) and that gave you a BOOST. Or you said offer closes Friday (and you were telling the truth) which gave you a BOOST. But it improved something that was already selling.

Mistake #2: Going Down the Rabbit Hole

The next logical thing that happens when people try to teach how they made money online... a new twist on an idea, which leads to a spinoff of one hair-brained idea after another.

Someone thinks, how can I improve the conversion rate on my sales letter? I know... charge people a few dollars to read the sales letter... then they end up with a page with almost NOTHING on it, asking people to pay money, when people have no idea what they're getting...

The modern day version of this is a thing people have tried called a "paid webinar." I've seen a few people do it every few years. They say, I'm doing a webinar, it'll cost you 50 bucks to attend, I won't tell you what you're buying exactly, just trust me.

It might work ONCE. But it sells based on the novelty and curiosity, and maybe a little bit on the trust you've built up with your subscribers... so it won't work with new traffic.

The solution? Add more detail to that sales letter explaining what they're getting for their $50, so now you need a free webinar to explain the details on that sales letter... you're back to selling a regular $50 product.

(It reminds me when "non fast-forward" videos were popular. Remember those? I ran a few, and tracked about a 2% conversion rate across the board with webinar replays with videos where you could fast-forward to the end, and 3% for non fast-forward videos. Meaning... that boost in conversion from 2% to 3% made it an OPTION for me, but not always an option I choose to take.)

Mistake #3: Risky Marketing

But it gets even worse. About three years ago I saw a marketer run a "trial" webinar. Basically, get people to sign up for a $0 3-day free trial (which gets them access to the webinar). The idea is they get your free training, they get access to a product at the end (so there's no pitch), if they don't want it they can cancel the "trial" before it rebills, if they do like it, they do nothing.

It's almost as if everyone forgot how scary things were a few years ago when there were new FTC rules, Visa/MasterCard rules, PowerPay rules.

For example, people seem to have forgotten that most popular payment processors FORBID a countdown timer on a sales page! Or that using the term "cure" anywhere in your marketing puts you in Kevin Trudeau land.

If you have any kind of rebilling, to clearly state the price and frequency on your sales page itself -- don't just rely on the terms spelled out on the order page.

And one-click upsells... the customer must confirm that extra charge TWICE, meaning no 1-click upsells.

For some reason, people either forgot, weren't around back then, or think "the coast is clear" and are falling back into the trap of having multiple upsells and downsells...

Mistake #4: Ignoring the 80/20 Rule

The good news about this thing called the 80/20 rule is that if you have just 20% of the skill you can get 80% of the results. When I started I was a terrible copywriter.

You know what else... I don't always choose the "best" headlines. I forget many times to speak with "bucket brigades" (starting sentences and paragraphs with words like "Because..." or "And then..."). I don't know anything about rhythmic hypnotic language or appealing to different senses (do you see what I'm saying, hear me out, this is what it feels like).

Put together an offer that solves a real problem that real people are having right now, make a convincing argument to why you're the best and they need you right now... get it out there... you can always tweak "clever wordage" later (but the dumber, simpler sales letters always convert better for me).

Mistake #5: Not Understanding Why People Really Buy

This leads me to the real triggers that get people to buy. Many people wrongly think that limiting the number of copies available, increasing the price, dropping the price, adding a deadline on it... is what gets them extra sales. All it's doing is WINNING OVER those people who already know they should buy, but are on the fence and need one more reason TO buy...

Off the top of my head, here is a quick list of the reasons people buy from you...

• It solves their problem right now (value)
• They're ready to solve their problem (timing)
• They know they need it now (urgency)
• Bad things will happen if they wait or if they go to your competitor (scarcity)

Basically, if you know what brought people to your website, you know the state of mind they're in, the problems they've had leading up to discovering you and what they've tried in the past... plus knowing what they know and don't know... is a GREAT starting point for your sales letter... which leads me to what I think is the first rule of internet marketing...

Rule #1: You're Not Your Market

Remember earlier how I said someone ran their first webinar ever, and it was all about how to run a webinar?

Here's the problem: if you create a business around teaching weight loss, or webinars, or WordPress site building, you yourself don't stay "intermediate" for long. Either you're brand new to it and know nothing about it (so you shouldn't be teaching it) or you know it so well that you're an expert (and then you can't relate).

This is the big reason why I see these guys teach "advanced" internet marketing topics like automated webinars, 1-clicks upsells, funnels, traffic arbitrage. They're bored with the simple stuff. Not realizing that the majority of their market is not advanced. They're newbies, they just don't want to admit it!

Right off the bat, if you talk about running weekly webinars where it filled up all 1,000 seats every time... you make $100,000 every time you run an event... you're in the top 1 percent... you don't know where to stash all this extra money... and don't even bother asking "dumb questions"... you're not relatable!

On the other hand, if you dumb it down and talk about running webinars with 10 people where you make $100 or $1,000... that's not exciting enough.

The solution? Before and after... empathizing and connecting by saying, "I was just like you."

"I was just like you. I ran webinars and no one showed up, I was nervous and scared, I did everything wrong, until I developed a system for doing it the right way and here it is."

Rule #2: People Are Easily Distracted

Speaking of your pitch and your story... you SHOULD run these things called 1-hour no-cost pitch webinars where you demonstrate value, share some knowledge, introduce your offer and ask for the money and close it down.

The easiest way to simplify it so that you'll actually do it, have fun doing it, and continue doing it? Or the easiest way to make them more effective if you're already doing them?

Compress it all down to 1 hour. People don't need to know your life story, you don't need to start the webinar late ("to make sure everyone shows up" -- I guess???) You also don't need to unmute anyone else during the call, not even a business partner. This is a big one.

And if you're going to "launch" a product of yours (I've been doing them since 2001) limit it to 1 week, 2 weeks at the most. Meaning... you don't need 4 videos dripped out and a blog post with 2,000 comments and a PDF report or a mindmap.

Mail every day for several days leading up to a free webinar you're running. Run the webinar pitching your product where they can buy that night. Mail for several more days to the replay where there's a link to buy from the replay. Mail for a few more days directly to the offer. Done and done.

The reason for all this is because people are easily distracted. This is the same reason why, on a webinar, we mention the URL we're promoting multiple times... ideally, 10 different times, because most people are only half paying attention.

When it's a product with a payment plan, I list the exact dates they'll be rebilled when they join today, because most people aren't looking that closely.

If there are two payment options (like pay full price vs. a payment plan) I'm sure to list them side by side (NOT one on top of the other) and list out identical bullet points so it's 100% CLEAR that whether someone pays full price or a payment plan, they're buying the same thing.

We put the contents of our entire offer compressed into one single table, an offer stack, because people aren't going to scroll around or skip through the video to find out what module 3, 4, or 5 are.

Rule #3: Build the Damn List

Remember when Senator John McCain had the campaign slogan, "Build the damn fence?" Kind of an angry, almost immature thing to say but my attitude is the same with list building. Build the damn list!

Lance and I have private discussions over and over again about this marketer, or that marketer, who made it big in 1999 or 2004 or 2006 or 2008 or back in 2010 and are hurting big time, but don't want to admit their income has dropped drastically... and they have no idea how to get back to where they were...

I know the answer. Build the damn list! What happened back then was, everyone had "launch calendars" and when it was your turn, all these affiliates of yours would send massive traffic, massive sales, enough money to live off for a couple of years.

What happens when the money runs out? Most of these guys didn't email their list after their big launch, not really. Maybe once a month or once a year. The list ran out and the cashflow stopped.

You need to keep your list alive. If you treat your list well it'll decay at 1% daily and if you ignore it, or email too much, that will drop off even faster. But best case scenario, if you build your list up to 10,000 subscribers and aren't adding 100 leads a day, your business is slowly shrinking and dying. 50,000 subscribers and less than 500 leads a day, shrinking and dying. 100k subscribers and less than 1,000 new leads, dying.

Most people don't have the urgency that I think they should for building their list bigger, for some reason they think a small "tribe" of 1000 or even 100 or 10 people is going to support them. Not long-term it won't.

Rule #4: It's All About the Joint Venture

You need those little things like forum posts, articles with your name on them, blog posts, podcast episodes, paid ads but those are all just tiny trickles of traffic.

To get real traffic you need to tap into other peoples' lists.

The only realistic way to make that happen is with an affiliate program.

Setup an affiliate system with tools they can use to promote, actively get people to join and then regularly contact those affiliates to promote -- another big step people miss.

Once you have that affiliate program setup, you're going to want to do a bunch of things to get your name out there.  This includes doing things that the majority won't do (but are easy) like attending offline events. Connecting with people on Facebook groups and legitimately helping them without asking for anything in return.

Contact people one on one (make a schedule for X number of people you want to contact per day) with a PERSONAL message. See if you can get THEIR affiliate link for YOUR product on THEIR download page or membership site. Schedule a 20-minute interview with them if they have a blog or a podcast.

Get your affiliates on a mailing list so you can broadcast to them and remind/encourage them to promote. Give them lots of tools like pre-written emails and banner ads. When new affiliates join, they get on a timed follow-up sequence so they've given instructions on what to promote for those first 30 days. We run specials like prizes or increased commissions for short periods of time.

Anything to break even on our sales or even take a slight loss, because every one of those affiliate sales builds our list for us.

Speaking of joint ventures... the ULTIMATE joint venture that many people seem to miss is..

Rule #5: Get a Mentor

I'm not talking about JUST becoming a busybody on a forum or Facebook group. Or even attending offline events (which is good but not enough). Or even joining a mastermind where everyone is an equal. I'm talking about paying for a COACH who will tell you what to do to get you where you need to go. And to SOLVE all the problems that creep up on you!

Look, I've seen far too many people fall into the traps we've talked about today such as... giving away their best ideas before they've taken action on them. Next thing you know, you aren't as motivated to take action (because you talked about them so much), or someone copies you before you had a chance to implement. Or the strength in numbers from the inexperience mob drowns out the real answer you should have listened to. Or just maybe... you have actually been asking the same question over and over until you get the answer you were looking for. Don't do it!

Sometimes the truth hurts. Sometimes a coach will tell you, you're doing too much of this and not enough of that... or... throw this part of your business out because it's not working. It all comes down to this: do you want to be "comfortable" (and continue getting the same results you've always been getting), or do you want to be "temporary uncomfortable now and comfortable later" (get new and different results) with someone who's helping you?

I know what I want.

I think these five tools combined will really help you with your internet business:

• Rule #1: Understand you're not your market and sell to the mass newbies in your niche
• Rule #2: Make your marketing and offer as clear as possible because people get distracted
• Rule #3: Build the list so that your business is growing and not dying (maintenance is a myth)
• Rule #4: Recruit people into your product's affiliate program to take advantage of the "real" internet traffic
• Rule #5: Get a mentor who's already achieved what you want so you can follow their path

Now it's your turn. If you had to add just one extra "rule" to your personal internet business, what would it be? Comment below with your one-sentence "rule of internet marketing" right now.