Personal

People Don’t Buy During The Holidays?

December 26, 2016

I don't lose any sleep over this, but I roll my eyes when someone says...

  • November and December are slower months!
  • No one is online during holiday time...
  • Don't even bother marketing or sending emails until January...
  • Don't you want to take some time off?

And my answers are:

Of course I take time off -- that's what scheduled blog posts and scheduled autoresponder emails put in the queue in advance are all about (bonus if people can't really tell if they're live or pre-scheduled)...

Many people (not you personally, but others) are working too hard and not working smart enough. They could get a lot more done in less time AND possibly use these few days off to plan their next move or squeeze in an hour here and there...

What about eBay? Amazon? Retail stores? There are tons of people buying. And if you say that's apples and oranges because I run an online business... well... aren't there some people out there who are using this end of the year time to look into running their own online business?

Sure, grandma won't buy an e-book or course but grandma might give those grandkids gift cards or money that they'll use to build their business

This is the last chance for many business owners to lock-in their purchases (business write-offs) for tax time -- for example, I bought myself Google Glass (now discontinued) during the holidays one year...

And most importantly, what's the difference if you setup a web page in late December 2016 that gets sales in January 2017? February or March 2017? You have to set it up in the first place...

"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great." -- Zig Ziglar

What's the easy answer? You need to setup, at the very least, an opt-in page and a sales letter using Paper Template.

Of course take a bunch of time off to get that perspective, recharge your batteries and figure out your next move... but what counts is not so much thinking or planning, but ACTION...

Setting up a web page that sells something is the best ACTION you can take this holiday season, and using WordPress plus Paper Template is the best way to do it quickly while also having all the little features you need.

080: A Day in the Life of Successful Internet Marketer Robert Plank

March 18, 2016

Ever wonder what those successful internet marketers do all day? Probably less than you, and that's why they make more money. Let's talk about how to "work" smarter (and not harder) to do more in less time, just like the "big guys" do...

  • Catchphrase of the Week: make your own luck
  • Quote of the Week: "Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction." -- Harry S Truman
  • Marketer of the Week: Mark Hess (give your buyers exactly what they want, understand what leads them to buy from you, race to the inbox)

How to Be Happier, More Organized, and More Productive

  • Thought #1: What's Good About This?
  • Thought #2: Be Desperate to Reduce Clutter
  • Thought #3: Because I Can (silence the haters)
  • Try things out of curiosity to see what response I get.
  • If I repeat those things, then they worked! Watch that too.

A Day in the Life of Robert Plank

  • morning routine?
  • send a quick email every day
  • meditation? reading?
  • time management: don't check email in the morning, don't multitask, get everything done before the afternoon
  • appointment based business
  • Four Daily Tasks
  • Income Machine
  • help desk, checklist, system
  • send an email every day or build up your list to the point where sending an email is worthwhile.

062: How Is Your Online Business (And Your Personal Life) Doing, on a Scale From One to Ten?

November 6, 2015

Are you scared? What if you became more aware of what made you anxious, scared, or nervous? Could you dissect those into smaller pieces? If you did, you'd be able to change and improve those small, manageable pieces...

What if I asked you to write down a page of words to describe a "bad mood" such as: flustered, dejected, beat-down?
What if I asked you to then write a list of words describing a "good mood" such as: happy, energized, bubbly?

My guess is, that list of "bad mood" words would be longer than the "good mood" list. Let's change that for you.

To become more successful in both our personal lives and our businesses, we need to become more detailed about the positive things and less detailed about the negative. Whatever you apply more detail to is where your mind will focus.

What's the "trick" for overcoming that fear and thinking more positively and effectively?

Answer on a 1 to 10 Scale

When you go to the store, the clerk asks, "How are you?" Both of you are expecting your response to be a mono-syllabic "good" or maybe a "great."

Instead of doing that, ask yourself how you are on the 1-10 scale. Maybe you're having a "better than average" day, so you say 8.1.

Not only do you cause a "pattern interrupt" for the clerk, which might get you a nice laugh, but it will help you out by causing you to actually think about how you feel, instead of just replying generically with a word that has no real meaning.

Use the 1 to 10 Scale in Your Own Business

Okay, so we can see how evaluating yourself on a 1-10 scale can put you more ‘in touch' personally, but how does it help in your business? Here are a few examples:

Writing and Revising: The majority of people are not the greatest writers but if you are in internet marketing, you have to put out content. You need to be able to put out on okay first draft and for the most part a first draft is good enough. This isn't school and you're not going to triple your income by making some small edits to an email.

If you're writing a book, you might need to spend more time than on a blog post, but the principle is the same. We don't want to spend an hour writing 1 chapter of a book and then spend 5 hours doing edits.

How do you edit quickly so you don't consume all of your time? Again, the answer is scale from 1 to 10. Once the book is written (and it's been typed/spell-checked), you could just skim paragraphs and rate each one on a scale from 1 to 10 for substance.

Then, you quickly average those to get an "overall" rating. If you come up with an 8 or 9, great. But, if you come up with a 7.0 book, and you wanted an 8.0, your strategy would be to just go through and focus on fine-tuning the lower-rated paragraphs.

Overall Business Strategy: What if you're not making enough money from your online business? What if someone asked you, "How are you doing with Facebook ad campaigns?" If you answered with "good" or "okay", that's not going to help. "Good" is not measurable and it's an "automatic" response, instead of one that forces you to look for clarity.

Use that 1 to 10 scale to pinpoint issues. Rating gives you better accuracy about what/where the problem is and where you'll improve it.

Here are 10 areas that you could focus on and maximize to improve your business overall and make more money.

  • Time management and Mindset
  • Building the List
  • Email Follow-up and Auto-responder sequences
  • Membership Retention
  • New Customers
  • Joint Ventures
  • Free Traffic
  • Paid Traffic
  • Info Products and Recurring Income
  • Big-Ticket Sales and Coaching

Write a number next to each of those above items. Look at these factors individually and "score" them. This draws attention to areas where you'll capitalize to improve the overall picture.

For example, if a real problem that you have is not emailing, rate that lower. If you need more traffic, then you'd rate those lower.

Doing these one by one will help you think of solutions to improve that specific aspect of your business. Then, look at that average number. You'll see where you are and where you're headed.

Today's Winning Quotes

  • "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, but small minds discuss people." (Eleanor Roosevelt)
  • "I found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances, be more active and show up more often." (Brian Tracy)
  • "1 in 160 are Millionaires in the U.S. 1 in 1460 are millionaires in the world." -- Dan Kennedy

Check out Robert's proven method for writing a winning e-book at Make a Product, his A-Z strategy for developing your own "free traffic-generating" podcast at Podcast Crusher, or his fun and easy course on creating your own graphics at Graphic Dashboard.

You can also get more personal guidance in his monthly mastermind at Double Agent Marketing.

Making Money in Bed: Ten Quick Pieces of Internet Marketing Advice from a Guy with a Broken Ankle

October 23, 201553 Comments

I broke my ankle in two places this past Saturday evening. I was dancing at a wedding and walked over a wet spot on an already shiny, slippery, coated cement floor. There was water (or maybe wine) spilled in a little spot that I didn't see, and I slipped and landed on it with all my weight.

The technical term is a "fibular and medial malleolar fracture" and they had to reset (or I guess "reconfigure") the bones (very painful) and I'll be hopping around on crutches for a few weeks and keeping it elevated in bed.

What I found interesting is that the orthopedist, emergency room doctor, nurse, etc. kept asking me... what do you do for a living? Is this going to affect your work? Luckily I've "worked" from home for 6 1/2 years and I'm glad I don't have to worry about that kind of thing.

In fact, the last couple of days have been hugely productive in my business. I've been making leaps and bounds in productivity, getting my upcoming "Website Remote" wordpress tool ready for our November 11 launch date, even from bed (currently "My Little Pony" sheets):

image

I'll give you ten quick reasons why you can run a business, even if you're bedridden and only have a few hours per day:

Lesson 1: The Best Productivity Tool at Home: Camtasia + GoToWebinar + Google Calendar

Many internet marketers consider themselves in "learning mode" which really means they're spending all their time studying (and doing a good job of it) but not implementing, but if they are implementing, they're just dabbling, taking action on the fun or small stuff, and not what's going to make them money. Or they can self-label as a "procrastinator" which is just a fancy way of feeling sorry for yourself.

The best thing I did in my online business (which I delayed for years) was recording video for products instead of writing them. You can whip up an easy $47 or $97 product in 1 to 3 hours -- do it all in one take and don't worry about the "umm's."

Don't nickel and dime yourself looking for "free" or "cheaper" alternatives. You'll end up piecing together lots of things that don't do what you want and wasting money and time on the wrong tools.

Use Camtasia (free trial) and a $30 Logitech ClearChat USB headset. Show whatever you need to show on your screen (PowerPoint, web browser, or software) to teach someone how to do something (edit video, trade in the stock market, soup up your race car).

Then, use GoToWebinar to meet and record each "module" of your course if you want to do it live (using Camtasia to save the video for sale later). Use GoToWebinar for a bonus Q&A session and even to pitch the course later. We give you a free GoToWebinar at WebinarCrusher.com and even if you were a cheapskate, you could knock all this out within 30 days and only have to make one payment.

Also use Google Calendar to show up on whatever webinar Q&A, product creation, pitch sessions, or even meetings. Use them to meet your deadlines, i.e. even just to create one 1-hour module each day for 4 days, whip up a 1-hour sales letter on the 5th day, and so on.

Lesson 2: The Best Productivity Tool Away from Home: iPad + LogMeIn + Evernote

What do you do if you're not at home? What have I been doing while laying in bed and still building my business?

It's simple. You don't need to drag the computer to bed or find a crappy iPad version for the apps you want to use for coding, word processing, and web page editing. Heck, you can get most things accomplished using a web browser...

But for many desktop tasks such as coding and web page editing, I prefer to use LogMeIn, which is a remote desktop program. Install the LogMeIn "control panel" on your desktop, and then you can remotely control it from your iPad. See your screen, click, drag, and type.

I use an iPad Air. You want to get the cellular version so you can connect even if you're not on Wifi (AT&T only costs me $29.99/month for this). A 64GB iPad Air 2 costs $729 and a 32GB iPad AIr 1 costs $579. Either price is more than worth it for the ability to use the internet anywhere without a bulky laptop or a tiny phone.

An important accessory is the Logitech Ultrathin iPad keyboard which is much better than Apple's iPad keyboard, although I don't use it as often as you think. I use it for typing blog posts and reports, but not for coding. The only trick to getting the keyboard is that you have to be very careful to get the right one for your iPad (iPad Pro, iPad Air, etc.) because all iPads are different sizes now.

I prefer remote desktop when I'm using the iPad because I can set something in motion (like processing a video), and then come back to it later. I can start typing a document, or edit a web page, and close the connection, then come back later and all my old windows are still open.

If I don't have the time or the connection to hop onto a remote desktop just to write a quick note, Evernote is good for jotting down "scraps."

Lesson 3: Your Goal is the Minimum Viable Product or "Version 1.0"

There's no point in having the fanciest tools (like iPads) or the best productivity strategies (like Four Daily Tasks, staying off Facebook and email) if it's not actually leading somewhere.

You should actually be excited about your business instead of just "going through the motions." (Imagine that.)

Can you make money from a course where the sales letter has typos and the paid product is 2 hours of video? Will fixing those typos or upping it to 3 hours double or triple your income? Probably not.

What will make you money is sending traffic to that COMPLETE system. Contact joint venture partners, buy some banner ads, mail youir list. You can't make one sale with something that's incomplete. You need a sales letter, download area, and payment button, even if it's "just good enough" to get you by for now.

Lesson 4: Have At Least 20 Buy Buttons or "Things" For Sale

I'm not saying you need to go crazy, but if you don't have 20 "things" you can buy, then you need to setup those 20 things over the next 12 months. I'm not saying you need 20 $997 courses.

But what if you bought from resale rights and setup a $27 package this coming Friday, including the download page, sales letter, and payment button? What if you setup an upsell for someone to buy coaching from you?

What if you whipped up your own $97 video series next week? Created a sales letter with your affiliate link, listing the exclusive bonuses you'll provide if someone buys through that link.

And once you find your "big hit" -- repeat the process and setup more membership sites, build the list bigger.

That way you can focus on helping your buyers and not just the freebie "tire kickers" who never buy and just complain.

We're just talking about setting up something that is complete. That could just be that you buy one, or a few private label rights products, and fiddle around until you're selling a pretty cool "package" that you can call your own.

Lesson 5: Make Consistent Progress Every Day

Have you noticed that I keep listing the same things, those things that actually make money, as opposed to bright shiny objects? List building, product creation, traffic, conversion tweaking, upsell funnels.

You don't need to reinvent the wheel from scratch or think of a new technique every time you want to make money. You also shouldn't be desperate for money at any point.

If you're pressed for time, then even putting in five focused minutes of setting up a web page and writing sales copy is more than most people (who aren't trying).

Lesson 6: Sell Both High and Low Ticket

I'm also tired of hearing of people thinking they need to pigeon-hole themselves into being "just" an affiliate marketer, just a product launcher, just a $7 buyer, just a $997 buyer. What a bunch of crap...

The only way to really know what's going to make you money is to put out (and update, and market) your products. See what sells the best, and repeat that. Usually, those things that you "think" will sell, will be your flops, and you'll be shocked at the products that take off.

For example, our Backup Creator plugin is protecting nearly 100,000 WordPress sites now, and I still don't know why it's such a popular product with us, but I don't need to know why, only that it IS popular, so I'll put more time and energy into it.

Lesson 7: Email Every Day

This is the worst kept secret in internet marketing, it's the technique I use when I want to increase my income, and it's something "timid" marketers are afraid to do.

There's nothing wrong with contacting your subscribers every day or several times per week. You don't need to "bombard" them with a new offer every day. It's actually better to continue a campaign (giving different reasons to click over and check out the same offer throughout the week).

Your subscribers are listening to other marketers, and they're playing on Facebook every day. So what's the difference if you dispense some free advice, send them to blog posts and podcasts, or short videos, and there happens to be a button to click or a link to buy at the bottom of the page?

Keep that list alive. If you don't email that list often enough, it will whittle down to nothing. Either schedule your upcoming email autoresponder messages 5 days at a time or spend 5 minutes every morning knocking it out.

Lesson 8: Have a Content Piggy Bank

Search engines like Google (plus social media neworks too, I guess) reward you for giving away lots and lots of free content. But they're going to punish you if you flood a bunch of stuff quickly and then neglect your blog for months or years.

Most marketers bite off more than they can chew when it comes to blogging. This means they blog daily for 30 days. Then there's nothing for a month. Then one post. Then nothing for two months. Then a single post. Then nothing for 6 months. Not good.

This is exactly why, for years, I only blogged (or podcasted) once per month, because I knew that was within my means. I had a pool of reserve content (some people call it a content piggy bank), that way I could schedule it all out, rearrange it later, and have posts and podcasts coming out even if I didn't know what to talk about that week or I "wasn't in the mood."

Have at least two podcast episodes or blog posts in-the-can. You don't want to be living paycheck-to-paycheck with your content.

Lesson 9: Focus On What Makes Money Sooner, Not Just What's Fastest, Easiest, or the Most "Fun"

It's fun to start and end projects. The first problem with that is that no project of ours is ever really "finished." So all you're left with is coming up with new ideas, registering new domain names, creating new graphics, writing "chapter 1" or making "video 1" of your new course.

You need absolute focus. You know what's the most fun? Making money. You don't need an office or business cards. You don't need to agonize over the perfect logo or color scheme for that next app of yours. Especially if thinking too much will delay you making money even for a few days.

You need better marketing which usually means better strategy, more traffic, making a better use out of your list, talking about the things your subscribers worry about (NOTE: worry about and not necessarily think about).

There's no reason for lazy marketing. Discounts are a "drug" that you'll hit for a big boost of income, but do it too much and you'll notice that without that discount, your sales will drop because you've now trained your customer to wait for the discount and punished them for paying full price. The solution: only use price discounts (even early bird pricing is a price discount) sparingly and use decent marketing (like mailing more often) instead.

Scarcity is a lesser "drug" that hurts your business just the same if you use it too much. You know what I'm talking about. Only 100 copies will be sold. This offer closes this coming Friday for two months. It's okay to use as one of the tricks to pull out of your marketing hat but it shouldn't be your entire business model.

Lesson 10: Beware of the $10,000 Per Month Comfort Zone

You need to treat your business like a real business. That means havng real deadlines. Would you be fired if you couldn't bring the good stuff in your business? Think about it.

Let's say you were hired as an internet company's copywriter. If your copy didn't bring in sales, maybe you'd split test, tweak the copy, or poll your list to figure out what to improve. If you were hired as a company's email marketer, and you went 2-3 weeks without sending a simple email to that list, wouldn't you be fired?

Years ago, I was told to write down my goals and I wrote down that I want a specific house (got it a year later), a specific car (bought it in cash a year later), and that I also wanted a $10,000 per month income, thinking that was all I ever needed.

There are a couple of problems with that. I'm not even going to get into how your expenses match your income unless you have a budget, you get slammed with taxes (even if you structure everything the way you should, you can only minimize them, not avoid them). =

The real problem with ramping your business up to $10k per month (which is really just 3 sales at $97 per day, or 2 coaching clients and 2 sales at $97 per day, or 1 coaching client plus one $97 per day plus your spouse's income, etc) and then stopping, is that you'll get comfortable.

Imagine if you stopped attending events, stopped with the joint ventures, shut off your traffic, didn't create any new products, stopped running webinars, didn't take any new risks...

You might be comfortable for 6, 12, maybe even 18 months. Your income might even "maintain" even if you didn't do anything new or build your list. The problem is when it starts to shrink. It might shrink slowly, you might play mindgames with yourself and try to say this is just a "phase" in your business, or that you're just having a couple of bad months...

But if your income is flat, you should be just as frightened as if it's taking a dip.

It's a slippery slope for your income to dip, then you lose interest in your business, then your income dips more, and you lose more interest... and the next thing you know, you're not interested in re-treading that old trail you went through a decade ago to get "back up to" $10,000 per month or higher.

Instead of going through all that, I would rather do the small things NOW to avoid a huge headache in the future, and that should be too. Like I said, that doesn't mean throwing out your websites for new ones, or becoming a workaholic, or anything like that. It means your #1 goal in your business is to make money, and then you can get excited about making more money, which in turn makes you even more money, so money becomes the "drug" or "high" that continues to move your online business forward.

Don't get comfortable with your income level, even if it's at some level about $10,000 a month. You should always want more, and you can get more just by doing something as simple as staying focused and making daily progress, even if it's just 5 minutes a day.

I'm still having lots of fun with my online business, even with a broken ankle, because it's still making me lots of money every day, and I hope yours does too. I also hope that our "Website Remote" plugin on November 11th (remote WordPress management tool) helps you make a lot of money, which equals lots of fun, which equals even more money in your online business.

050: Fifty Game-Changing Internet Marketing & Online Business Breakthroughs from 37 Mentors Including Mike Filsaime, Armand Morin, Jim Edwards, Stu McLaren & Others

August 8, 2015

An action-packed 50th Episode Anniversary Special with 50 Game Changing Internet Marketing and Online Business Breakthroughs from 37 Mentors...

Four Daily Tasks

You need to be completing 4 Daily Tasks. Before he realized this, Robert would have days where he'd knock out 20 or 30 tasks and then weeks would go by where he was burnt out and couldn't get the motivation to get anything done.
As soon as he realized the 4 Daily Tasks Principle, things really changed for him.

Today, of all the things you need to do, think about the 4 most important:

  • Send out emails
  • Run pitch webinars
  • Set up sales letters
  • Set up "buy buttons"
  • Contact affiliates to promote our products
  • Of all of those things, what is going to move you along the path of making money TODAY? That's where you should be concentrating.

On a weekday, you want to do (3) 45-minute tasks and (1) 15-minute task. On a weekend, do (4) 5-minute tasks. For more info, check out Robert's book called Four Daily Tasks.

List, Traffic and Offers

Everything you do in your online business goes to one of these 3 categories: list, traffic, or offers. If it's not, it's probably not making you any money which means it's not essential.

  • List: building your list or sending emails to your list
  • Traffic: doing ads, blog articles for SEO, podcasts for SEO, working with your affiliates to drive more traffic to your site (p.s. all of this is also building your list).
  • Offers: information products, iPhone apps, coaching programs, affiliate links that you promote.

Of all the things you could do today, you want to do something that meets at least one of these aspects as part of your 4 daily tasks. It's easy to get caught up in what you should do first, the "chicken or the egg" syndrome.

Robert's program, Income Machine can help with this. It shows you how to fill up the list, traffic and offers by still only completing 4 daily tasks. It shows you the 8 things to set up to satisfy having a good list, having decent traffic and having at least 1 or 2 offers for someone to buy. What you'll discover:

  • How to choose a niche
  • How to set up a website
  • How to set up an Opt-In page
  • How to set up an email follow-up sequence
  • How to set up a blog,
  • How to write a sales letter
  • How to start a membership site
  • How to drive traffic to your sites

Check out Robert's book called List, Traffic, and Offers. And, now for 50 Great Business Lessons from Robert's Mentors...

Mechanics, Marketing, Business, Branding and Strategy

  1. Allen Says: If you just have a sales letter, a payment button, a download page and a short report solving a problem, that's all you need to get started. Robert has started a lot of auto-pilot business just from having these 4 simple components.
  2. Gary Ambrose: One person CAN do everything. Gary is one of the first people Robert ever joint ventured with.
  3. Lance Tamashiro: A big result can be too scary for potential buyers. Go for a small achievable results in a short amount of time. Lance is Robert's business partner.
  4. Gary Ambrose: It's all about the Joint Venture. It's better to have an okay product with a lot of great affiliates and traffic rather than a spectacular product with no affiliates. This does not mean to put out bad products, but there is a point where it's good enough and it's more important to have good marketing than a perfect product and average marketing.
  5. Armand Morin: Double your prices. It sounds scary but all you need to do is edit a number on a website. If you want to make 10x your income, are you going to build up your list by that much or are you going to charge more?
  6. Josh Anderson: If you're making a newbie product, the budget for that is $100. That's a price point that doesn't hurt much for anyone that's new to a niche.Once you've done that, you can think about what else you could include in that $100 product and that is your upsell.
  7. Eric Louviere: Create a technology or a term that's more than a thing that already exists. If you tell someone that you have a copywriting course, that's okay, but if you call it the ‘copywriting and persuasion course' or the ‘hypnotic persuasion course', you're making it more than something else.This is the same principle Robert used when naming Income Machine. No one else has a term like that. And, there's really not a term for all those things bundled together.
  8. Michael Gerber (from the E-Myth): Checklist your online business processes so that they are repeatable. Robert has never met Michael personally but The E-Myth is one of the best business books he's ever read.
  9. Big Jason Henderson: Deliver downloads in a membership site even if it's a single-payment low-ticket item. If you're making all of these sales on your information product, why not put the product into a membership site so that you can show them upsells, etc.?
  10. John Calder: Get out more. There are places that you hang out, like FB groups, forums, etc. and if you're not careful, it becomes an echo chamber. You get locked into a certain way of thinking.
  11. Allen Says: No one wants to hear you saying "we here at Beltman industries..." What they want to hear about is you as an individual and real person. It's tempting for people to go all over Facebook and pretend to be Trump International and to seem really big, but it's better to be just an individual person.

E-mail Marketing

  1. Eric Louviere: Go on a site called EzineArticles.com, search your niche, pick out 3 articles. They will allow you to take up to 25 articles from any niche. Their condition is that you copy the entire article with everything intact including their byline. You can paste all 3 of these articles into a word document.Then sandwich your own gigantic links in the text between their own links in the bio boxes. Even if you're brand new in a niche and don't have time to write original articles, get 3 of these together in a logical sequence and then sandwich your links in between them so you're still abiding by the terms but you're also making something that leads back to your sites.
  2. Ryan Deiss: You don't want to have an opt-in bribe promising 7 Ways to do xyz, 7 tips for xyz Why? Because customers don't want to wait around for all 7 things.
  3. Mike Filsaime: Email every day. It's okay to email old offers. When someone joins your list, the first 7 days especially, they're the most active they are ever going to be.
  4. Robert Puddy: The best day to send an email broadcast was yesterday. The 2nd best day is today. This is a huge newbie problem. It doesn't really matter as long as you send something. Don't be superstitious. You're missing out on opportunities.
  5. Jim Edwards: Blend content and pitch in your email. When we build this list of subscribers, it's really tempting to give them lots of advice and helpful tips and freebies and goodies. You intend to warm them up and then hit them with your paid product in 2 or 3 months. You've overwhelmed them and you've gotten stuck in the Friend Zone.Because you've given them all this stuff for free, when it's time to sell, they've either cooled off or figured they have everything they need for free. It's too much of a shock for them to switch gears into paying you.
  6. Brian Garvin: Send new subscribers daily pitch emails, especially the first 7 days. If someone opts in on a Monday-are you really going to wait?
  7. Jason Parker: Commit to emailing for the same offer all week long What Robert learned from him unintentionally was that if you have something for sale, you need to dedicate a week to doing that. If someone is mailing for the same offer all week that tells you it's selling. If they're changing it every day. that tells you it's not selling.
  8. Marlon Sanders:  Your list gets trained. If you send your list free stuff every day for 6 months and then you ask them to buy something, they're not going to buy. But, if you send offers to them every now and then, they're used to you being the person who has things for sale. They also get trained for high-ticket and low-ticket. Mix it up. There's a real danger in offering them low ticket for too long. And, they're not trained at all if you don't email them regularly.
  9. Michael Fortin: Every post on your blog is another possible email in your follow up sequence.
  10. Armand Morin: The "Why didn't you buy?" email. See Robert's episode #48 for a full explanation on this concept.At the end of 7-10 days you have a lot of people warmed up but are on the fence. Out of all the possible things you could do or say in an email this gets the most responses.
  11. Gary Ambrose:  Combine 3 things that don't belong together to create kooky and creative emails. The emails that are going to get you the most opens and clicks are the "weird" ones because they stand out.
  12. Steve Schneiderman: Unintentionally, he taught Robert to mix up email subject lines. What irritated him about being this guy's subscriber was that literally every week or two he would send out an email titled "An Update From Steve Schneiderman" instead of having interesting subject lines. Robert never opened these "update" emails.
  13. David Cavanagh: Sometimes you just need to sell something quick for $10 to wake your buyers up, to get the juices flowing again.

Product and Content Creation

  1. Jason Parker: Taught Robert that you don't delete your websites, your blog posts, etc. If you have a .com website out there, even if it only made 1 sale a year, that would double the money you're paying to keep that domain going. What can it hurt? Robert has a lot of old products out there. They still work they are still functional and still make occasional sales. Why cancel out all the effort you originally put in?
  2. Paul Myers: Sell the notes based on actions you're actually taking. Let's say you learn something, like WordPress blogging. You can buy some courses on WordPress and go in and play with it. You yourself might figure out a better way to do it, especially if you're applying it to your specific niche (i.e. WordPress for carpet cleaners). Now, you have a personal checklist, notes, etc. Make a case study of yourself and sell those.
  3. Mike Filsaime: Solve a problem, and then sell a product about how to solve it, and then sell a product about you made money selling THAT product.
  4. Jim Edwards: Taught Robert about how to do video and not to overthink it. Jim used to do a lot of video blogs using Camtasia.
  5. Wes Blaylock: You don't need to reinvent the wheel.
  6. Ben Prater: Simplification. Create "simple ware" type of software that only does one quick thing. You don't need to create the next Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop. A lot of people try to compete on features but what if you made a piece of software that was just a one-click?
  7. Stu McLaren: Create a product that other businesses use daily and that their business depends on. Stu invented WishList Member. He told Robert to make a product "call home" and have other businesses depend on it. This is where the product stops working if someone discontinues their membership in your site.
  8. Matt Bacak: The A9 method. He taught Robert how to recycle a single article into blog posts, press releases, videos, etc.
  9. Brian Garvin: Give your affiliates a lot of tools to promote your product. Articles, affiliate banners, tweets to paste, Facebook posts, extra audio files they can give away, etc. Make it easy for them to ‘sell' you.

Productivity

  1. Tim Ferriss: The Pareto Principle or the 80-20 Rule. He didn't invent this but he made it famous. 80% of your actions only generate 20% of your income, but the other 20% generate 80% of your income.
    It's a matter of optimizing, rearranging and prioritizing.
  2. Tim Ferriss: Parkinson's Law. The time it takes to complete a task expands to fill the time that you've allowed to do it. Tim is also the author of The 4-Hour Work Week.
  3. Jeanette Cates: Make any decision in 6 seconds or less.
  4. Steve Manning: The secret to writing a book in 14 days is to write under pressure. Set a timer and write as fast as possible Write everything as if you're responding to questions. It's easier to do that then to formulate statements.
  5. Lance Tamashiro: You have a 3-day window on any of your projects from "idea formation" to "burn out." If you have an idea, do everything you can to get something out on it in 3 days or less.

Copywriting

  1. Marlon Sanders: Just list 10 reasons why someone should buy from you. That makes for a good enough sales letter.
  2. Ken Evoy Which sells more copies? A beautiful website with no text on it? Or, an ugly website with text on it?
  3. Gary Halbert: Blind, Strategic Headlines. It's like an exciting mystery. How do I make more money on my house by taking it off the market? Someone has to know the answer to that.
  4. Eugene Schwartz: You have 4 marketplace cycles: Novelty, enlargement, sophistication, and abandonment over and over again and it happens with everything.
  5. Joe Sugarman: Explain away the objections. Just bring it up immediately and explain why it doesn't matter.
  6. Mark Joyner: Print the price on the button.
  7. Ray Edwards: There won't be a replay (for webinars). It adds a sense of urgency
  8. Michael Fortin: Avoid Upsell Hell. Just have one upsell.
  9. Joel Spolsky: Split testing. You send half your visitors to webpage A and half to webpage B.They have a slight difference between them. Look at the visitor value. One site has $10 product and one has $20. On website A, 100 people purchased at $10 and on B only 70 people bought at $20. Yes, you made more sales at website A but you received more value from website B. In other words, what makes you the most money, not just the most sales.

Personal Growth

  1. Ray Edwards: Keep your own side of the street clean. Don't complain. What is it going to accomplish?
  2. Dave Ramsey: Live below your means. It makes everything you do a lot simpler.
  3. Gary Bencivenga: Ask your subconscious for an answer to a problem you're having. Write it down before bed and sleep on it. Your subconscious will answer you.

Bonus piece of advice from Ryan Healy:Read fiction books unrelated to internet marketing to keep your creativity and motivation going. You can't be all marketing all the time. It's overwhelming. Your brain needs a break.

Join Income Machine 2.0 to Claim Your
All-in-One Money Making System Now

046: Did You Send Out Thank You Cards to Your Customers Yet?

July 11, 2015

No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you're still way ahead of anyone who isn't trying.

Very few marketers even make the effort of doing Thank You cards. Should this be part of your everyday routine? Are there tasks that are a "better" use of your time?

Maybe. But, what if, no matter what niche you're in, you just singled out 4 random customers today and just jotted down 4 quick Thank You's? It would take just a few minutes out of your day but put you way ahead of the curve.

You just want to thank your customers for buying from you. There's no "sell", no discount and no hustle. You are just thanking them for their business. They are part of your success. Here are your tools for "Thank You" productivity...

Thank-You Tool #1: WPKunaki

On Robert and Lance's website, MembershipCube.com, as well as their other membership sites, they use a plug-in called WPKunaki, which is an address collector.

When someone joins their membership site, the plug-in pops up and asks for their mailing address and runs it through the address validator. Lance would be really crazy not to be collecting addresses.

It's nice to have it on hand. He can use it for Thank You cards, he can use it to send them webinar or DVD copies as just a quick bonus. He can also use it for geographics to target customers later for Facebook ads.

Thank-You Tool #2: Phone Calls

Sometimes Lance will even call them on the phone.

If someone just bought a $7 e-book from you, they're not expecting anything at all, not even an auto-responder-generated email. So, if you make that call, you're way ahead of anyone else.

If someone bought from you and you contact them the same day, they are going to just be happy and not have any complaints.

Thank-You Tool #3: Send Out Cards

This is a service that will allow you to send traditional cards to your customers. These are NOT electronic cards. They are "paper" cards like you would get at the store so they are very personal, not "mass e-mailed" and they won't go to your customer's spam folder or look like another sales push.

There are also gift options within the Send Out Cards system that you can send to your customer as well.

To learn more about how Send Out Cards can help you personalize your relationships with your customers, go to DoubleAgentCards.com.

Thank-You Tool #4: Google Drive

If you have a Gmail account, you also have a drive account. If you don't already have one, go get one. It's free.

You can create any doc and have it be in your Google Drive, where you can now access it from anywhere.

A good idea here is to keep a journal of different contacts/activities that have with your customers. Here is where you can keep a journal of the Thank You cards that you send out.

"Cheesy" Marketing

You want to stay away from cheesy marketing. Many marketers tell you to look up today's holiday and give your customers a "special discount" for that day (example: a "Boxing Day" discount) or to look up your customers' birthdays market to them on their birthdays.

It sounds like a good idea but all these marketers who teach this have never personally marketed to me on in this way. They've really just posted an occasional sale here and there when they're probably running low in their bank account.

It makes more sense to just sell what you sell and be consistent. You don't have to have sales all the time if you're thanking your customers for being there.

The 1-4-15-80 Rule

This is an important concept that Robert talks about in his program Double Agent Marketing and its accompanying book. It's how your list is broken down:

  • About 1% will buy everything you put out.
  • 4% will buy most of your stuff.
  • 15% won't always buy high-ticket items but they will probably buy things where they can do a payment plan.
  • Then, your last 80% will probably not buy anything products/services over $20.

If that disappoints you, you can build a bigger list OR you can take better care of your list.

Even if your list is not that big you can still make sales. If you wanted to make $50K/month, would you rather have 100 subscribers and 50 sales of $100 each, regardless of the type of products? Or would you rather have 10,000 subscribers that only purchased $5 items. Robert has asked this of several of his customers and overwhelmingly people would rather work with the first option.

It's not necessarily about getting floods of people but about building a decent size list and really adding value in cultivating relationships with those who want to buy the higher-level products. It doesn't take much to:

  • Mail them a DVD (Kunaki.com for DVD production)
  • Mail them a book
  • Send them Thank You cards (Vistaprint.com for address labels and postcards)
  • Give them a phone call

Avoid the 3-inch DVD Syndrome

There are small writeable CD's. When Robert was first starting out, he saw these and thought, "Hey, cool I can fit this mini CD into a normal sized envelope. I can record something and send it out and I am going to make so much money."

If no one cares or no one plays it and it doesn't lead to anything it's not going to get you anywhere. In other words, something has to bring the customer back. It has to be intensely valuable and/or make the customer feel very valued.

Some Fun and Creative Marketing Ideas from Robert

One time for an event he took out Facebook ads that were so narrowed and targeted that the ad was basically just showing down to the 1 person he had picked out in Facebook.

For the one person he wanted to see it, he would put their name in the ad and their picture. He did successfully sell seats to seminars just based off this ad.

Another time, he went to Amazon and bought a huge box of microwave popcorn. He left the individual packages all sealed up in plastic and sent 100 of them out with copies of a quick letter. The letter basically said, "Here's some popcorn to watch this movie" and the URL in the letter went to an online "movie" that was pitching a live event. He spent $200 or $300 altogether on this marketing and sold seats to his event this way. It was a good return on investment.

An idea he's pursuing now is to send out copies of his Double Agent Marketing book to his customers along with a highlighter and a letter that says something along the lines of "this book has so much valuable information you'll need an extra highlighter."

Closing Thoughts

Don't do this to prospects or to people you plan to joint venture or network with. Do it low tech. once you start getting fancy it really kind of backfires.

These "Thank You" and marketing ideas are for your current customers, your best buyers and those you want to come back. Do it "low tech." Once you start trying to get "fancy", it really looks cheesy and can backfire. You just want to say Thank You and do something fun for them.

You can always reach Robert at his email via robert@robertplank.com. He would love to hear from you about your business and what marketing you're doing that is working successfully, and is happy to hear your questions. He may even feature your question on the show!

Join Membership Cube 3.0 to Claim Your
Membership Site Training, Plugins & Clones Now

Happy Holidays 2012 from Robert Plank (Free Kindle Books for You)

December 25, 201251 Comments

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year... today I want to give you three of my bestselling Amazon books 100% for free. Here they are:

I recommend you Ctrl+click to open each of those links in a new window, then the page "should" say purchase price for today only is $0.00, click the button and add them to your account, even if you don't have time to read them yet.

You can read these books whether you have an actual Kindle reading device, an iPhone or iPad (just install the app), or read it directly through your web browser.

Please claim your three books, post a comment below letting me know you've done it, give each book a quick read and leave me a quick review on Amazon. Thanks again!

Specialized Knowledge: How to Make $50 (or More) Every 5 Minutes, All Day Long, By Clicking a Few Buttons (Just Like I Did at Age 17)

August 26, 201137 Comments

Let me tell you something.

Do you want to know the first time I saw a balance of 1000 bucks in my PayPal account?

It was 2002... geez, a decade ago now, I was 17 years old. I was a senior in high school. I lived with my parents. And you know what I was doing to make my money?

Installing a link tracker plugin. I had programmed it, and people could buy it for 67 bucks (I think)... I would get 1/3rd of that money. Better than working at McDonald's at that age, right?

But the big bucks came in when someone bought that plugin... many people wanted "someone else" to install it.

5 Minutes = 50 Dollars

The price was $50 bucks per install. What they didn't know is it took me about 5 minutes to FTP up files, chmod files, create a database, import that database, create a cron job, edit a config file... in other words, my "specialized knowledge" was worth every penny to them even though I could do it fast.

As you can imagine, it didn't take long to fill up to 1k...

And that paid for college. I'll admit I needed help from my parents for the first year living alone, but never fully. They gave me "some" money for rent. I paid the rest of my rent, plus school, plus food, cable, internet, clothing, all that good stuff...

Why am I telling you all this?

  1. Because I still believe that if you're starting out, the fastest way to make money is freelancing: performing a service in exchange for pay.
  2. You can get paid more per hour if you do whatever it is you do FAST
  3. You get paid even MORE than that if you have a SPECIALIZED SKILL and differentiate yourself

What's a specialized skill? Let's think about this...

Scenario #1: WordPress Installer

How much would someone charge you to install WordPress? 10 bucks? But what if...

  • You installed WordPress on their domain
  • You loaded it up with a beautiful looking WordPress theme
  • You customized it with all the SEO, social media, discussion, and traffic plugins they need
  • You setup their blog to retweet and post to their fan page every time you made a post
  • You loaded up the blog with YouTube videos, EzineArticles and PLR articles
  • You contacted 25 professionals in their niche asking for guest blog content
  • You brought people to the site to leave comments
  • You setup their autoresponder, optin form, and popup on that blog

Now how much is that worth? 100 bucks MINIMUM... and it still takes you under an hour of work.

Scenario #2: Offline Business Setup

A few months ago I had dinner with a small business who was getting his website setup. His "coder" gave him...

  • A professional design (magazine style WordPress theme)
  • "About Us" and "Photos" pages (content supplied by the business owner)
  • A Facebook Like button (installed a plugin)
  • Business information and a Google Map to the location (installed a plugin)
  • Coupon and QR code  (installed a plugin)

That took even less time and the business owner was happy to pay over 1000 dollars for it. Just something to think about... but what about this?

Scenario #3: Membership Site Ninja

I know a couple of people who are the "modern day equivalent" of what I used to do. They are membership site installers. Their full-time living consists of:

  • Installing WordPress
  • Adding a good looking theme
  • Setting up membership site software
  • Add a simple sales letter with a payment button
  • Setup "free" and "paid" levels
  • Install a forum
  • Install backup and monitoring plugins

Average price these people ask for membership site installations: $4000. For MAYBE an hour of work if you're slow and a riveting, action-packed re-run of "Mama's Family" is playing on your TV in the background?

My head is spinning right now with so many ways you can look at what freelance services other people are providing, and put your own "twist" on it. Here are some more examples...

  • Article writer: in addition to writing the articles, you could submit the article to 20 article sites, AND login to their blog once per day to post the articles they hired you to write
  • Copywriter: in addition to writing their sales letter, you could write and schedule the autoresponder emails, setup the thank you page offer and upsell, setup the affiliate program, and contact 20 joint venture partners
  • Graphic Designer: in addition to creating someone's logo, you could create their 3D cover, affiliate banner graphics, sales letter "doodles" and minisite design
  • Product Ghostwriter: in addition to writing someone's product, you could put it on Kindle and CreateSpace for them
  • Resale Rights Seller: in addition to selling resale rights to your report or membership site, you could install the sales letter and download page on their site for them

And how do you get these jobs? Easy... contact anyone who sells a WordPress plugin, WordPress theme, article creation course, graphic creation course, copywriting course... get yourself listed in their product and download page.

Remember, that's how I got all my "$50 installation in 5 minutes" jobs came from... someone bought the link tracking plugin, and they had all the instructions to install it themselves, but that download page said: contact this guy if you want to pay 50 bucks to get it installed.

Quick question: What have you done, heard of, or plan to do to make more money with freelancing and done-for-you services?

Where to Meet in Los Angeles, Sept 23 2010

August 15, 201051 Comments

Update: We're going with Sherm's suggestion and meeting on September 23rd 2010 from 4:30PM to 7PM at:

Melody Bar & Grill
9132 S Sepulveda Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90045
Neighborhood: Westchester / LAX

Who will be there: Robert Plank, Lance Tamashiro, Sherm Cohen, Wal Gifford (chunked out), Robert Vance, Rodney Daut, Evelyn Brooks, Dennis Barakos.

You guys voted for where we should meet for my 26th birthday and the majority said: Los Angeles!

Now my question for you is:

1. Are you "probably" coming, or "definitely" coming?

2. What bar in the LA area should we hang out at?

Preferably I want this near the airport, and there is no set time... people can just come and go throughout the evening.

Go ahead, answer those 2 questions for me right now so I can at least have a head count.

26th Birthday: Where Can We Meet?

August 2, 2010113 Comments

My 26th birthday is coming up in a few weeks, on Thursday, September 23, 2010. I'm having my "real" birthday party a few days before because on Thursday I'm going to be traveling to JVAlert Live in Denver.

Here's my question to you: what major city close to you, can you get to on Thursday, not for anything major, just to hang out at a bar where I buy you a drink?

I don't want to fly into the northwest, southwest, midwest, northeast, or deep south, and I'm staying in the United States... so that pretty much leaves these choices:

Update: Here's what you guys voted...

  • Los Angeles, CA (17 votes)
  • San Francisco, CA (10 votes)
  • Las Vegas, NV (7 votes)
  • Salt Lake City, UT (3 votes)
  • Denver, CO (6 votes)
  • Dallas, TX (9 votes)
  • Austin, TX (9 votes)
  • Atlanta, GA (12 votes)
  • Orlando, FL (6 votes)
  • New York, NY (7 votes)
  • New Orleans, LA (2 votes)
  • Washington, DC (2 votes)

Which of these cities can you be in to meet me on Thursday, September 23, 2010? Go ahead and vote with your comment below.  I'm not sure if I'll be doing it yet, it depends on the votes.

Back to Top