Archive for April, 2008
Behind Schedule
I've been so behind schedule ever since I came back from the Warrior Event seminar in Austin. I have a ton of blog posts outlining a bunch of the stuff I learned... just be patient.
I've "only" put together 8 1/2 sales letters and recorded two e-classes. An e-class with me is approximately 30 daily episodes, each episode is about five minutes.
I make it a point to handle a finite number of projects at one time. Absolute maximum is four. The number I want is one. I usually end up working on about two projects at a time.
The problem when you promote stuff as an affiliate: you are the same as everyone else!
Why not add some of your own stuff as a bonus -- check out script number 7 of Top Secret PHP to learn how to modify OTHER people's pages and add your own affiliate bonuses.
I bought Kevin Riley's Recipe for Post Product Launch and was so impressed with it, I put together a PowerPoint presentation and recorded a Camtasia video of me dictating it.
When you buy that product through my affiliate link, I add you to an autoresponder and send you another five minute episode every day for a month.
It appears as if I'm putting 20-30 minutes a day into the class, recording the video, uploading it, sending out the e-mail message... when really, I recorded all the videos in a couple of hours and wrote all the daily follow-up messages in under an hour.
Think about recording PowerPoint videos the next time you promote an affiliate product.
People hate work and like having things laid out for them. It's easier to watch a little bit of video every day then try to crack a book... that's too much like school... yuck, I'm having nightmares already!
Just make a separate slide for each page to keep things simple. Make three bullet points for each slide summarizing the main points. Print out the entire book out on your printer.
Record your video and read the text word for word. When you have something of your own to add, just wing it.
When you're done with each page, pause the recording and see how long you've recorded. If you're close to five minutes, save the video and start a new one.
Why five minutes? Because Camtasia allows you to save to MP3 audio and those will be your CD tracks.
That's right, you just added even MORE value to your own customized affiliate product because you have the daily videos people can watch every day... and you've given them audios so they can burn them to a CD or to their iPod.
I've done this with one affiliate product and one product I bought rights to.
You could produce the video into a DVD as well if you felt like it.
I know many of you are resisting me here. But think about this... don't you want to be considered an expert in your niche? Every time you see someone speak on stage at a seminar... either live or when you watch it on a DVD... do you wish that was you presenting?
There is also that added bonus that after you read an entire book allowed, you become an expert on that subject. You know it backwards and forwards. If someone asks about a subtopic in that book, you could explain EVERYTHING!
This is how you will get to to that point. Not just by creating the video products but by getting lots of practice in, being an instructor.
I know you would rather host a seminar, charge $1000 per seat and get 50 attendees and make $50K in a weekend than launch a lousy $27 e-book and try to make that same amount of money over the course of a few years.
Am I right?
What do you personally do to differentiate yourself as an affiliate? Do you offer personal consultation? Bonus products? Daily videos? Something else I haven't thought of? Please, share with me... I need the usual ten comments.
p.s. If you want those videos, check out:
www.PostProductLaunch.com
DON'T purchase from that site just to see how I roll the videos out. I have no what I'm doing. I really suck.
Only check out that product if you're interested in grabbing new affiliates AFTER your product is initially launched, you want to know how to properly host your own seminars, turn customers into promoters, blah blah blah... đŸ™‚
How To Break Into Any Niche Part 4: Don’t Burn Up Your Blog Too Fast
In the past we've talked about creating an autoresponder sequence to automate relationship building with your prospects or even your existing customers.
If you had 10 autoresponder messages, you wouldn't set them up to use them up in 10 days. You'd space them out to give subscribers a chance to take in the information.
Remember, you aren't only concerned with readers. The bottom line is how much money does your blog make... if it makes nothing then what's the point?
I'm not saying it has to make money directly with ad space or AdSense. If your blog gets you some regular traffic, which leads to more autoresponder signups, which eventually makes you more sales, then your blog is a source of income.
- You want to keep your readers' interest, but at some point get them a little bit bored so they'll check out one of your other products that sells something.
- You want to give other blogs and sites a chance to mention a recent article of yours before it's taken off the front page.
- Don't forget that search engines penalize sites that toss up too many pages too quickly and don't grow at an average rate.
Like I said when I started this blog, I wrote 50 blog entries before I made the blog public. I could post one entry a day and burn it all up in two months, then be left with nothing else to write. Or I could post one entry per week and last a year. I could post 2 entries a week and last 6 months before I had to come up with any new content.
Here are my tips about not burning up a blog too fast, based on my experience with running membership sites and watching other peoples' blogs start out well but eventually fail miserably:
- Have a reserve of emergency articles -- at least 6 months to a year's worth -- to continue populating your blog at a regular pace. This doesn't have to be a lot. If you intend on posting a minimum of one article per month, all you need are 6 to 12 articles.
- Don't post more than twice a week. Daily is too much even for active subscribers to keep up with.
- If your articles are 1000 words in length or longer, break them up into manageable 250-500 word pieces. You can perform a word count using Microsoft Word or any decent text editor.
- Post replies to comments for two reasons: to let your readers know that you are reading what they say and encourage them to keep commenting, and keep your entries fresh, even if they are a few days or weeks old.
Comment below and tell me if you have a reserve of emergency articles for your blog or if you just wing it... and if so do you post on a regular basis or whenever you feel like it?
Coaching: Do You Have Someone to Call?
For 2008 I told myself I was going to treat my internet business more like a business. As in, put work into it every single day (even if it was just a little bit) instead of putting a ton of work into it every now and then (which is a hobby).
It wasn't a "New Year's Resolution." Those never work. I just kept telling myself every day that I was going to have a business instead of a hobby, and after several weeks, it finally stuck.
Building A Business Requires Personal Coaching.
My friend Steven Schwartzman (I've mentioned him before) is my consultant. I have joint ventured with him on projects for the past five years and flew to New York last summer to meet him and attend a Warrior luncheon.
I make more money than him but that's only because I put out more products. As far as internet marketing experience goes, he and I are equals.
Earlier this year he got back into internet marketing after a break for several months -- he was studying for the LSATs to get into law school. I've made it a point to call him every weekday to ask him what he accomplished that day, then tell him what I accomplished that day.
I've noticed a gigantic boost in productivity by doing this. If I have nothing to report I feel like I'm letting him down, and I think it has the same effect on him. We motivate each other pretty darn well this way.
So far in 2008, I've earned $30,247.38 just from PayPal sales alone. That's not counting my day job, that's not counting my Clickbank income, that's not counting my stock trading income (usually that last one loses me money... I hardly do that nowadays anyway).
That's 1,762 sales in the past 100 days. That's right, doing some simple math in your head will tell you: 17 sales and $302.47 per day.
I've launched 24 products since New Year's.
I'm telling you, you need someone like this. I'm not talking about instant messaging, that is a huge time waster. You need someone to actually call on the phone (not Skype, you should be away from the computer) at the end of the day and talk for 5-10 minutes maximum about what you both accomplished.
It needs to be someone far away, it needs to be someone who does the same things you do (marketing on the internet). It can't be someone you know, it can't be a real friend or a family member.
At one point Steven was very sick, on the couch, watching Jeopardy, but we randomly got the idea to get him to watch some internet marketing videos so at least he can accomplish something until he gets better. In the meantime he assured me he was less than a day away from finishing his special report.
As soon as he was all-better, I'm bugged him on the phone every day until it was finished.
I have been feeling a little bit down from these product re-launches, because I put a lot of work into videos for existing products, but each launch only gets me a few hundred dollars because most of my list already owns these products and I deliver free upgrades. (For brand new products, I am used to bringing in a couple thousand dollars in the first few days.)
However, Steven assured me that, in his words, "A few hundred dollars a day is nothing to shake a stick at." It's consistent income and though I have seen several $100-$150 days lately.
My combined income, taking into account PayPal fees, Clickbank, and day job income, equals $34,000 year to date or $136,000 per year. Profit from the past 12 days equals $275 per day on average... or $100,000 annualized.
I must be doing something right. Considering I made $90,000-ish last year INCLUDING day job income, I could be in for quite a boost if I keep doing what I'm doing all year round.
Sometimes it only takes a simple comment like "it's nothing to shake a stick at" to put everything in perspective.
You don't need to spend $2,000 a month on professional personal coaching unless you are making so much money that you need to get rid of that $2,000 for a nice tax write-off... yeah, I wish I'd thought of that before getting my bigass five-figure tax bill this month.
(For the rest of 2008 I have to pay more money per QUARTER in taxes than I made in INCOME for an entire year just a few years ago!)
You just need someone to talk to on the phone. Someone who won't steal your ideas and won't lead you on the wrong path. They can be your equal, it doesn't matter... you just need someone to TALK to.
Could you comment below and tell me if you have a business mentor? Are they paid or free? How often do you communicate? Has it helped you?
Private Label Rights: 4,444% ROI
Private label rights means: you sell someone your product and give them permission to rename and repackage the book under their own name.
Here is why offering private label rights guarantees you will stay poor forever:
(Keep reading below to watch a SECOND video that shows how I ended up making $1200 from this venture in 24 hours... in other words, I made 44 times my money back!)
Go to eBay and search for "private label rights" or "master resale rights."
You will find all kinds of e-books and software that originally sold for $100... for under a dollar.
If you offer private label rights to your products, your hard work is going to end up in the eBay graveyard.
Here is what I did today:
8:46 AM: I saw a product for sale with private label rights and I bought it.
10:00 AM: I work a day job so during my mid-morning break, I quickly edited the Word document to change the e-book name. I also changed the name so I would appear as the author.
I ran into a roadblock... he provided layered graphics so I could easily change the name on them... but I didn't have the correct fonts installed on my system. I uploaded the files and went back to work.
11:30 AM: I got out of a meeting at work and took my lunch break. During that lunch break I found the CD with the fonts I needed, changed the graphics, setup the payment buttons, and sent a quick mailing to my list of 11,000 subscribers telling them about the product.
I should note that it took me years to get this list built up by releasing product after product. This is also a list that is very relevant to the product and therefore very interested in it.
Are you still building some generic incestuous list of internet marketing leads? Stop that now!
11:54 AM: The first sale rolls in as I eat the last of my re-heated macaroni and cheese (cooked it the night before... this ain't no crappy "boxed" stuff!). I hop in my car and drive the half mile down Monte Vista Avenue back to work to arrive right at noon.
That's It!
The rest of my work day consisted of working at my day job. I didn't do any other internet marketing work.
The Result:
A $27 investment on a private label rights product, in the morning, launched just before lunch and broke even before 12:30 PM.
By the time I checked that page after the end of the work day, I brought in 110 sales from a 12-cent dimesale which totals $732.60 (before fees)!
Where on Earth can you LEGALLY pay $27 and get $732.60 back in just a couple of hours?
I'm sitting on $700 profits for 20 minutes MAXIMUM of work on my part... I just made the equivalent of a week and a half of pay from my day job... during my coffee breaks!
Meanwhile, poor Jake has sold 8 copies at $27... which makes $216, minus $20 to run the WSO, minus whatever it cost him to write the sales copy and create the graphics... maybe he didn't break even.
Oh Well... Thanks for the Cash, Jake!
What lessons have we learned today, kiddies?
Lesson #1: Offering private label rights is a great way to devalue your product.
Lesson #2: If you can find someone dumb enough to offer private label rights for a product that happens to match your list PERFECTLY, grab it as soon as you can and put it up for sale that same day.
Lesson #3: You HAVE to do it that same day. By "put it up for sale" I mean the order link is live and you send a mailing out to your list. If you "wait" even one extra day, you won't feel like doing it anymore. I guarantee it.
You have to be faster than a speeding bullet when it comes to buying (and using) private label rights products... before someone beats you to it.
Can you please comment below and tell me if...
- You've offered private label rights in the past (and regretted it / didn't regret it)
- You've bought private label rights... did you forget to actually use them? How much money did you make?
You’re Fired!
Imagine for a second that you have a full-time employee working on your business. (Maybe you already have one.) I don't mean a pay-per-job kind of employee, I mean a salaried employee you pay every single month.
- You pay for this person's health insurance.
- You pay for sick and vacation days.
- You pay into their retirement account.
Their job is to build you a web presence and create new products and sites, write sales copy, buy advertising, and so on.
Despite all this, your employee frequently visits forums, checks e-mail, chats in instant messengers, and generally puts out products at a snail's pace... let's say 1 or 2 products per year when he could be producing one per month, easily.
Now that you've got that pictured in your head, tell me... are you that employee?
Do You Deserve To Be Fired From Your
Self-Employed Internet Marketing Job?
I am still following the daily video challenge and I hope you are too.
I recorded five videos instead of just one on Monday, to make up for my trip away from home at Disneyland... that was some nice downtime and recharged my batteries, by the way.
When I record a daily video:
- I make sure Camtasia is running, and that I have my headset on so I can talk about what I'm doing.
- I open up Notepad and write "Appointment with myself: Finish chapter 5 by 6:30 PM" (I set that to whatever the time is half an hour from now and whatever chapter I'm working on.)
- I set my alarm clock for 10 minutes -- use a kitchen timer or Cool Timer.
- I haul ass for ten minutes and stop immediately when it runs out, then explain what I'll be doing for the next ten minutes.
The above formula works wonders to keep me motivated.
Sometimes I'll start out and not feel like working, but within a couple of minutes I'll be in the exact mood I need to be in.
I recently discovered another hidden bonus about recording yourself at work: You have indisputable proof that you are working!
If you are one of those people trying to convince a spouse or family member that you are doing more than just clicking around on the Internet all day, give them access to the daily videos you are recording.
(Show them how to fast-forward to skip the boring parts.)
You can respond by saying, "Look, today I wrote 50 pages."
Or, "Today I wrote four sales letters."
If you didn't meet your goals, you can explain in the video, exactly why you didn't write that many pages or why you didn't make as much money as you wanted to that week.
Heck, it could also remind you what you were working on yesterday.
- Are you using a similar formula?
- Are you using video to document your work?
- Do you have some OTHER tip to keep yourself motivated so that you don't disappoint the people in your life?
- Should you really be fired from your self-employed job (or at least put on probation) and what will you do to make up for it?
Please comment below and let me know... I would really appreciate it.
