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.
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:
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!
There's a problem with people wanting to take shortcuts to get to that $10K per month level.
We want to get you out of that way of thinking. You have to do 3rd grade before you go to college. If you jump right in without the warm-up, you stand the chance of the whole venture falling in on itself.
You want to do this the RIGHT way.
A lot of people in internet marketing get to that number but without sufficient preparation, they fall into the trap of having to put a lot of money back into the business or maybe have to hire a lot of employees, so when it comes down to it, they're actually "netting" quite a bit less than the $10K per month.
Four Daily Tasks
We've covered the Four Daily Tasks principle before. To recap, it means to take 4 tasks EVERY DAY that you can complete. 3 of them are your longer tasks, your half hour to 40 minute tasks. Then, you complete a "gimme" task that take just a few minutes.
Being able to finish FOUR THINGS EVERY DAY is very purposeful and motivating.
Why "tasks" and NOT "time"? It's not a matter of how many hours you put in per week. That's an employee way of thinking, i.e. "If I make $10 an hour and I put in 40 hrs. this week, I've made $400."
You're not an employee. You're a one man show, a business owner. For you to be successful, it's about hitting milestones.
Your four tasks need to be things that are actually able to be completed that will put you in the position of making money.
Changing your Twitter background doesn't do that. If you're making a membership site, and you've only made 10% of it, that's not complete. If you register a domain name for your site that is a complete task and puts you on the path. If you have set up your membership site that someone can see is complete with a PayPal button, THAT is a complete step.
Attitude Adjustments
When it comes to mindset, one of the most powerful things Robert ever learned was it's either inside of you or outside of you.
If something is not working for you, only one of two things needs to happen: you either change the way you think about it or you change what you're doing.
80% of your problems are in the way you think about them. If your business is not succeeding and you're walking around complaining that "life isn't fair", it's time to stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something different. If you're buying thousands of dollars of products but you're business still isn't up and running or successful, these 2 things need to happen:
Finish one of the courses that you keep buying. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start implementing something.
The problem with your beliefs is that your beliefs are set in stone first. Then, you filter the information and facts that you find through that belief system in a way that lets you reinforce those beliefs. A lot of this is subconscious.
If your personal belief is that making money online doesn't work then everything you read or take in that says the opposite, you will ignore it or think it's fake.
What's really scary about this is it turns into an echo chamber. You're going to believe that people who think and talk like you are smarter than everyone else, because you can relate to them better. The problem is that if you're grumpy and you make friends with 5 other grumpies, you reinforce each other's beliefs and drag each other down.
"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right." -- Henry Ford
We need to model. We need to look at what it is that we want. We need to find who has it. Then, we need to emulate what they are doing to get there.
Steps On The Path To $10K Per Month
Phase 1: Freelancing. This is your quick way to get from $1k to $2k per month.
Fiverr (Fiverr.com)- a website where you can sell any service that you are skilled at. It doesn't have to be an advanced skill. It can be anything from transcription to voiceovers to converting documents to testing iOS apps. It sounds like you'd have to make a crazy amount of sales at $5 each to get anywhere, but the secret is in the up-sells. Additionally, although it doesn't sound like much, it may work out to be $7 or $8 per hour of work in income, you've now saved the time from having to spend countless hours looking for a job, you can work from home avoiding gas and parking costs, etc.
Uber (Uber.com) – this is like being a private taxi service. This works particularly well if you're in a larger-scale city and can work peak times, like weekends and nights. It is possible to make $1000 or more per week doing this if you can meet those 2 aspects.
Airbnb (AirBNB.com) – a property rental service. You can rent out a shared room, a private room or an entire home. Like Fiverr, there is a public profile rating system so you can see other reviews and know who is trustworthy and who is not.
Ebay and Craigslist (Ebay.com and Craigslist.net) If you're using it and have no plans of using it in the future, sell it!
FBA-Fulfillment by Amazon. This is where you find items that are low-priced and ship them into Amazon and make a profit on the difference between what it's sold for and what you purchased it for.
There's a little more advanced information to this and you can find out all the different ways to use and profit from FBA at Robert's program, www.dropshipceo.com.
Phase 2: Information Products. This is where you can make about $2K to $5K per month.
At some point, you're going to cap out on freelancing opportunities and just not be able to get over that $1K-$2K mark due to time constraints, etc. This is your next step.
First, you want to find a niche. Go to Clickbank.com and check out their "Marketplace." These are all the subjects and topics that people are looking for answers to. These are their "pain points"-the issues that they have where they are willing to pay for products that can help solve them.
Then, you can go to Robert's site, IncomeMachine.com, where you can find out how to take advantage of that niche, how to build a product with video and/or e-books, how to optimize putting together a program for people to purchase.
Once you get on the way with selling your product, you are building a "list", i.e. people who are purchasing your product that you can market to in the future.
As you build up that list, you can then joint venture with other peers in your niche (or a very similar niche) to piggyback on each other in an affiliate-type structure, where each of you benefits from the sale of either one of your products and you're both building lists.
You can also set up podcasts or webinars at this point, where you interview each other, guest blog, etc. This grows and grows.
When you're putting together information products for sale, it's best to go from "idea to implementation" within 3 to 7 days.
Some of what you turn out will be great and some of it may turn out to be duds.
It makes no sense to spend a year or two trying to get it perfect. Just get it out there and your customers' responses will tell you what you're doing right and wrong.
The ones that turn out successful, you can then spend more time revising and improving those or capitalizing on them. Let the duds go. They were just experiments.
As your information product business grows, you can let go of the more time-consuming and less-paying things you were doing to get by, you can step renting your room, etc.
Phase 3: Passive Income. This is where you're getting to that magical $10K per month.
This is the dream that you want to achieve. You need to build a membership site where people are paying to keep engaged with your program in one fashion or another.
Robert's MembershipCube.com will walk you through all the steps to set up a successful membership site.
For example, one of Robert's clients/students, Dr. Charles runs a directory. There's a certain procedure he teaches other doctors. When the doctors buy and complete his training, they get added to the nationwide directory so local people interested in that service can find them. These doctors are paying Dr. Charles monthly to stay in that directory. If they stop paying, they are deleted.
Ask yourself, what sort of service related to your niche would people be willing to pay for month after month? Do you have something where you could also provide a directory that people can pay to join?
Robert also has membership sites that people pay to have access to, such as www.podcastcrusher.com and www.makeaproduct.com. People want to learn how to do podcasting and create e-books because these are items that you can sell that will generate leads. What skill do you have that you can teach people that will provide them with real value?
Coaching
Once you've developed your information product in Phase 2 and a membership site in Phase 3, your next step to that $10K per month passive income can be coaching.
You've developed your DVD on guitar playing in easy steps in Phase 2, then you created a membership site in Phase 3, where you show monthly how to learn in just 1 day all the popular radio hits and started a directory for local guitar teachers.
The next step would be coaching. For a certain $ amount per hour (say $200 per hour), you will get on Skype with your client and walk them through any difficulties they are having or help them with starting their own local guitar teaching business.
Now, you've gotten to a level where you wake up in the morning and have an entire leads list that you can email with future products and services. You're pretty advanced at this point and getting ABOVE that $10K is going to seem a lot easier than it was GETTING to it.
P.S. 5 hours per week to $10K....where'd that come from? Your 5 hours per week is your 4 daily tasks. Spend an hour or less every day on the path to making money. It's fun, things move a lot of faster, and it keeps you motivated!
The Product: This is a solution to a problem. Also called an "information product" The Offer: Is the whole package grouped/stacked in a way that's really "sexy"
Let's Break Down Information Products
Here's a little exercise for you:
Go to ClickBank.com. At the top there is a tab that says "Marketplace." Click on the magnifying glass. It shows top offers on this site. These are real things that people are looking for-i.e., infertility cures, how to play piano, etc. Since people are looking for them, you know now that these are subjects that people are willing to pay for if you provide an "information product" that will help them fix it.
An Information Product can be an E-book, a video, or a PDF file. It just needs to be digital.
An Information Product is a step-by-step repeatable solution to a problem many people have.
Let's Break Down Offers
An offer is how you "package" the Information Product.
Most solutions involve combining 2-3 things, if not more, so those become your "offers."
This is the "extra stuff" that people will find exciting and desirable.
For example, if your Information Product is an E-Book on "How to Play Piano", your "extras" could be that you're going to teach them how to read sheet music or you're going to teach them how to play the most popular 5-10 songs right off the bat. You could include a monthly video meetup (via Skype or Google Hangout) to talk about what they're learning.
Now, they're not getting "just a book." Anyone can go buy a book and they probably already have and didn't find the answers they were seeking. You are here to take it to the next level and give to them what other's didn't.
What Do You Need To Sell Effective Offers? Good Copy!
Here are Robert's "Geeky Copywriting Terms"...
Product-see above.
Features-what it is. In this example, it is an "extra" on how to read sheet music.
Benefits-what you can do with it once you learn it. Once you learn how to read sheet music, you can literally read limitless songs. The benefit is WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH IT. What people are REALLY looking for is what THEY can get out of your training.
The Hook-what the offer hinges on. This is where you boil down your offer to the coolest thing you have included and inform about it in a short, concise sentence. This is what most of your marketing and your follow up emails and your sales copy is going to hinge on. Most people are going to be sold on the one thing because it's the coolest thing you have going on.
Let's put ourselves in the mind of your prospect . Someone just wants to play the piano. They want the shortcut. Your "Hook" would be: PLAY GUITAR TODAY.
That's an easy way to find a hook-take something that people expect to take months or years to learn and show them how to do it in a REALLY short time.
On his IncomeMachine.com, he teaches the 8 things you need in under 3 days. Shows people how to stop spinning your wheels and get something completed.
The formula is: How to get something big in value for little in money in a short amount of time without a lot of unnecessary stuff and fluff.
The Magic Wand-what would you add into this package if you could wave a magic wand, if anything was possible? It doesn't have to be practical. Think big and open up that creativity.
A Short Little Break for Some Quick Thoughts from Robert
Dunning-Kruger Effect: intelligent people tend to underestimate themselves while idiots tend to be overly confident and very often loud. That's okay. Just rest in the knowledge that if you're quiet but very capable that's okay too.
Facebook: Everybody's Facebook persona is better than real-life. When you see someone on there who's bragging every day, just know that they're more than likely overcompensating.
Thank You: Just say "Thank You" when you receive a compliment. It's that simple.
And, now…back to the show!
Let's Talk About Consistent Passive Income
This is your goal in Online Marketing. You want to get to a point where people are continuing to buy from you but you are not working harder than ever to keep up. The goal is to work less and continue having income and grow and excel.
People make a lot of mistakes in this area. Here's where they fall down:
People think that you can just create a membership site at $5 or $10 a month. They believe they will get 50k customers at a tiny monthly cost who will never remember to cancel it. That's not a way to make money. The way to find real money is to find solutions for people, price it reasonably, have happy buyers on your buyers list and continue to sell to them.
People just load up their site with interviews, articles and tidbits, etc. That's a lot more work for you and it has no substance and more fluff for them. Again, the way to find real money is to find solutions for people, price it reasonably, have happy buyers on your buyers list and continue to sell to them.
People want to give a "bulk discount" or a short "free trial" with a payment later on. That's just gimmick-y. You only want to price low (and it needs to be a high value product) if you're trying to build a list to sell higher-priced products later.
People use "geeky" research tools. Doing all this research on your competitor's blog posts and ads and pricing is not productive. You don't want to look to your competitors just for their pricing. To make this productive, you need to be concerned with what their hook is and come up with something better. The core of your marketing should be fixing a problem your customer has in a unique and fresh way.
People load up their site up with 20 bonuses, 1000 hours of video, etc. No one cares how many hours or years you worked at something. What they care about is "is this solution going to fix my problem?"
People get too close to their offers and too in love with their own stuff. They are so worried about having stuff and more stuff, that they end up just churning out crap. Again, think of a problem you're solving, create a product to solve that problem, throw in some offers that mean something and that you can keep active on a consistent basis for people to continue to buy packaged just as it is.
Okay, I've had enough problems! Let's Talk SOLUTIONS!!
What Makes Good Offers... What You Need to Know:
Not all websites can be recurring membership sites. For ex: "Dollar Shave Club." You're not a startup. You're here to start making money, not invest millions.
You need to solve a real problem 1-30 days. This is why Robert likes FIXED TERM membership sites. It's easier to make the course and sell it over and over again. The average attrition rate for membership sites is 3 months. If you charge someone $10/month and they only stay for 3 months then you've only made $90 and you constantly have to come up with new content to hopefully even keep them on your site. INSTEAD, solve their problem in a shorter amount of time, package it that way, that's what's on your sales and membership page(s) and you can keep selling that same product over and over again for $150. It's easier to sell once than to keep people engaged indefinitely.
Sell what you sell. Sell what you sell at the price you always sell it at and make it really easy for the customer to buy it. No one wants to wait 2 hours on a video for a "buy button" at the end and no one wants to pay $100 today and see it discounted to $50 the next day. Both of these tactics will just annoy potential customers.
Stomach buying from your competitors. That's right, buy your competitor's product. See what they're leaving out and how you can maybe do something better than them. If they're champions, then figure out how you can emulate them.
Eat your own dog food. Use the products you sell. Make it clear on your site to your potential customers that you use them.
The Magic Wand (yeah, it's that important we said it twice!) Do something fantastic. If you're Information Product is teaching them how to have their own membership site, do the initial set-up for them and your information product is how they can "run it."
How Do You Present an Offer?
First is The Core Offer. Tell them how many modules they're getting (the ideal number is 4). Every 60 to 90 minutes they get to the next milestone.
Tell them about the bonuses (which are also digital, like PDF checklists). Then, here is the physical bonuses (it could be anything from a DVD to a handheld video recorder, depending on the product you're starting with and the cost).
The FOUR Questions that will determine what you include in your total offer package:
What do people need to fill in the gaps? Could you send an iPod or camera to record video? Can you hook them up with an adwords coupon to help get them started?
What new problems do they have now that they solved the first problem? For example, they set up the membership site, now they need content. So, now you have a training on how to record and publish PowerPoint content using a video player.
Is there anything that can be a shortcut for them? An external service, a "Done-for-You" or even a simple calculator For example, in DropshipCEO.com, Robert offers a built in software tool that generates an email to all the customers requesting them to leave an Amazon review.
Is there something huge and cool that you could put in the offer that makes them say "Gotta Have It." For example, In Robert's SpeedCopy.com, he includes his huge swipe file.
The "Ultimate Offer Master List"
You need to go "Deeper Focus." Really hone into those things your customer desires.
Template or Checklist or a Swipe File: For example, a Checklist with How to Play Guitar would ask, "what kind of guitar do you have/plan to buy? Do you plan to play acoustic or electric? Did you buy extra strings?, etc. etc. You want to group these in 10-question sections by break-down of the subject. One guy who does real estate includes a swipe file of all of his successful real estate ads
Software (can be Web-Based or External): For example, WPNotepad.com lets customers track their own progress through their program on your membership site.
Or, you could offer a coupon for an external service, like a coupon for Camtasia Studio software.
Or, it could be a bundled service. Customers who purchase the program at WebinarCrusher.com, get automatic account with "GoToWebinar."
"Done- for- You": Just like it sounds... do something for them. If you're teaching them the Amazon FBA program (Dropshipceo.com), offer to make their first call to a supplier WITH THEM.
Go for the Low-Hanging Fruit (stuff that's pretty easy to do)
Mixed modalities: Make audio and/or video for things that are also written. Or, if your Info Product is already in video, provide them with an accompanying manual (use Lulu.com for this)
Resale Rights: This is a right to resell this and that part of your course. Don't sell the entire course. But, you can give sell them re-sale rights on maybe 3 of the videos in the program.
Personal coaching: Statistically, only about 5 -15 % of your customers will actually talk to you. Use TimeTrade.com to put up a special link in your site where they can schedule a time to talk to you. Or, give them access to text you with questions (use a Google Voice number for this). Extra content: interviews with experts. Extra resale rights you bought and re-packaged from a site like Master-Resale-Rights.com. (just don't tell them you did that)
"Go Large" with Enlargement
Extra Live Webinars: like a monthly recurring webinar where your customers can have a Q & A session.
Physical items like DVD's: (use Kunaki.com) or cameras, etc as discussed above
Offer them "community": Facebook Groups or Forums (the tricky part about forums is either a ghost town or a mess that you have to moderate).
Certification Directory: Dr. Charles runs membership sites for different surgery procedures. As part of other doctors paying him monthly for access to the instructional videos, they're part of a directory. Then, when Dr. Charles advertises, and someone seeks him out, they will find a physician near them trained in his methods.
Live event: "I'm going to teach you how to do this at this time and this place" on't offer this without an actual date or hotel booked. Or, you can rent out a smaller space, like a loft (check out AirBNB.com).
"Bundle It": Buy a program from this site and get access to an additional site.
10 Built-In Benefits that Should Come with Every Offer
Proof and results
Customer support
Uniqueness
Up to date
Price
Guarantee refund
24-7 access
Lifetime upgrades
Access to course forever
Community (means what you want it to mean as much or as little as you want)
Robert's Closing Thought: When someone google searches your name what comes up? Make sure it's what you want them to see!
Use WordPress to setup and manage all your sites: blogs, sales letters, membership sites...
Use our Plugin Dashboard plugin to click around and setup all the anti-spam, navigation, SEO, security, management plugins and more (plus get your themes and settings the way you want them in just a few seconds)...
And finally, use Backup Creator to create a copy of your site for safekeeping and to clone the next time you create new sites. Backup Creator now protects over 91,000 and will automatically backup your site to Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, plus the 1 GB of free storage we give you as our personal "thank you" for using our plugin.
An online web-based digital membership site... you have a web page (a sales letter) where you offer to solve a simple problem: play guitar, reduce man-boobs, get your ex back. People click a button to buy the solution (a set of videos that play directly in their web browser) and they're taken to a member's area where they watch videos solving their problem.
A membership site: you need it to handle downloads whether you're running a single payment site ($10 one time, and yes, membership sites DON'T have to be recurring)...
Fixed term site (X number of payments) or forever-continuity (i.e. $37/month)...
And I don't want to tell you about how tough membership sites were during the "dark ages": your choices were either a $4000 piece of crap software that was old (even then) and didn't work right, or $400 per site and it literally took at least a week to connect the membership piece to WordPress, PayPal, and your email autoresponder...
Guess what?
You need to have a membership site
It needs to run in WordPress (so you can use your favorite themes and plugins with it, and it's setup in just a few minutes)
You need to host it yourself (hosted services that "do it for you" always end up lacking in what you want and a huge chunk of our coaching clients deal with people who want to migrate OFF those hosted membership platforms)
You need to get that membership site setup as FAST as possible and get your FIRST paying member as FAST as possible (even if it's just $10 one time)
The things that have always made money like having a sales letter and building a list STILL make money!
Can I tell you what made a huge difference when it came to setting up membership sites?
It's This: Your Membership Site Is Made Up Of "Levels"
Let me explain... NOT the way "they" explain it... they tell you to "setup levels for Silver, Gold, and Platinum." Or, "setup a level for your beginner golfing course with 24 lessons and then another level for your advanced golfing course"... that doesn't help anybody!
This makes more sense to me: sell access to your $100 (one-time) course on How to Buy and Flip a House. Create a single "page" in WordPress (it's ok if you don't know what that means yet) and pile your videos in there (I recommend four modules of 60-90 minutes each to get people to each milestone when it comes to buying and flipping a house.
Create the content (videos) for that site, put it in a membership site, create a 1-page "sales letter" listing a simple headline and 10 reasons people would want to grab your house compared to the alternatives. Add a PayPal button (a way to take payments online).
You're done at that point...
You can always add or change things later, like increasing the price from $100 to $497 to $1997 or add a second button next to it to give people the option for a payment plan.
THEN the next "course" or "page" or "level" (if you create one) would be called How to Buy and Rent a House. Not Advanced House Flipping, or House Flipping Volume 2. You find another NEED or PROBLEM people have and you solve that.
No one cares about your 400 hours of video...
No one cares about tips, tricks, interviews, tidbits -- get me from Point A to Point D and that's all you have to do.
Just take PayPal payments for now, don't worry about fancy stuff like an affiliate program (Clickbank) or taking credit card payments over the phone (Stripe)... the grass is always greener on the other side and what's more important is that you have SOMETHING rocking and rolling... just get to that one sale...
Don't worry about drip content (as the membership site owner, you're the only one that really cares about that) -- although we include our WP Drip plugin (we've been using it for over 6 years now) inside our Membership Cube course which also includes Wishlist Member.
Don't worry about organizing your content into a fancy "dashboard" just yet -- it's actually much easier to create the content (videos) first, pile them all on a WordPress "page" and then organize them... as opposed to trying to fill in a bunch of empty cubby-holes...
Membership Levels Explained: Don't Make This More Complicated Than It Has to Be
You make this real estate membership site and you have your "House Flipping" level and "House Renting" levels. It's much easier to use Wishlist Member. Most membership plugins that aren't Wishlist, even the WordPress ones, don't use "levels." When you use levels you can set one single page for that level, mutiple pages (and sub-pages) for that level... you could have a "Bonus" page that both levels share. It makes things a lot easier.
Now for one of my biggest breakthroughs with membership sites... levels are "on or off."
Someone buys the House Renting course from you, they pay, they create their membership account with you, now they're on the House Renting level.
Maybe they refund or they join using your payment plan and they eventually "cancel" or stop paying for that payment plan. PayPal sends a signal over to your membership site and "cancels" them from that level.
So you can see that they "used to" be on that House Renting level, but they're now disabled from it, so they can't access the pages or pages (or posts) you've assigned to that level.
On or off. Your membership site doesn't care or notice what price they're paying, or if they're paying every 30 days or 60 days or on a trial payment or whatever. They join, they create their account. If they cancel or refund, PayPal sends that signal over to cancel them from that level.
You can host multiple products (levels) within the same membership site. You can change the price of your button later (just edit the page on PayPal's screen, takes 30 seconds). You can add a fixed-term (payment plan) button to give people the choice between paying the whole $997 or in installments. You can walk the price up as you pile in more members until you encounter price resistance.
Heck, I've even started sites as forever-continuity (people pay $37/month) and then when I become tired of updating it, I just switched the button to a single payment and it was now a "package" of videos and content...
Do you find yourself struggling with when you should be Hands-On vs When You Should Outsource? Robert shows you how the E-Myth can help you make the most effective decisions.
Robert is the author of Double Agent Marketing-a book about how to do the "day job" while starting up a successful online marketing business.
When you're starting an online business, sometimes you have to be in the "Must Have" mode and sometimes in the "Nice to Have" mode and you need to know the difference between the two.
Must Have: an online platform and a product. You won't achieve any income without these two in place
Nice to Have: attractive business cards, pretty graphics, multiple social media accounts
The average person attempting to make money online and failing has nothing for sale. They're focusing on the "nice to have's" which give the illusion of productivity but they are not income-makers.
When you're building your online business, you're in one of two places:
You want to increase your online income or you want to scale back the number of hours you're working on that business so you can spend more at home and doing the things that you enjoy.
People get into online marketing so they CAN achieve having more time to do the things they enjoy. What Robert keeps hearing from these entrepreneurs is that, in order to achieve this, they have to outsource everything.
But, you have to start somewhere and even Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, started by driving packages to the post office himself.
Let's Talk about Outsourcing
You DO have to be hands on when you're first "out of the gate"
People can get discouraged at first because they feel like they are doing all the work themselves and aren't seeing much initial progress.
The solution to that problem is to go for the first shortest path to making money--making an information product.
This will make you a handful of sales but most importantly, you'll start building a list of customers and build a relationship with them. You can start "talking" to them about what they're interested in, i.e. what kind of products will they buy in the future.
Then, you make the next biggest product. You start to grow, you start to raise capital. You won't ALWAYS have to invest 100% of your time in this business but as you grow, you can add "outsourcers."
Why else is immediate outsourcing a bad idea?
You need to know exactly what is going on in your business. You need to know the in's and out's.
"Learn enough to be dangerous."
Let's say you want to develop an app. You need to teach yourself how to get an app submitted, what it takes to market it, and then source code. If you hired out all of this, what happens if you want to add new features or the app developer you used goes out of business? You are locked out of your own product!
This is why YOU need to learn the basics (and even more if possible) so that the future of YOUR business does not depend on an outsourced agent.
Most of the time, the outsourced job will never be done to the level that you would have taken it to. This is not the outsourced agent's business-it is YOURS. So, you end up taking even more time to check on the progress of the work, pay the agent, etc. Then, you feel you have to hire a manager to take care of these things and then you feel the need to oversee the manager. It becomes a vicious cycle. This is where Checklists come into the mix and they are vital.
If you outsource everything, you won't see any profit! If you are constantly paying everyone else to do tasks that you can and should be doing, especially at the beginning of your business, you will not see any profit and therefore you will not stay productive or motivated to keep driving forward.
The E-Myth: One of Robert's favorite books dealing with Systematizing your Business
A. The Fat and the Thin Person Mentalities
a. Everyone has BOTH in their natures. b. It means that one day you wake up and you feel like a fat person and you're on the wrong track so you say you're going to work out, eat right, etc. This generally lasts a few days until you "feel thin" and you fall of track. Most everyone fluctuates back and forth between the two. c. What this means in practical terms is that generally once people get "on track", they take a break and then things go off the rails again. d. What's the solution? Solve a problem BEFORE it becomes one.
i. For example, when Robert and Lance first started out, they had fixed-term membership sites. Initially, they'd get a lot of members but when he looked ahead a few months, he realized their income would drop off a cliff. ii. So, he put new products in place to generate income so that does not happen.
B. The Differences between Workers, Managers and Entrepreneurs
a. Worker-just follows instructions. Does not really care about the business itself. An example would be a support desk employee. Their only responsibility is to take support calls and fix the issues. b. Manager-keeps things neat and organized. Examples are accountants and IT techs. c. Entrepreneur-the "creativity" behind the business, the one generating ideas.
C. Job Titles
a. List out the job titles in your business. Don't go crazy and list 50, just do about 10. An easy way to think of this is "how many hats are you wearing?" b. Examples would be sales copywriter, graphic designer, customer support, product creator, etc. c. Then, you start with the one with the least amount of thinking involved and/or what's the one that if the resulting work is not perfect to you, it would not be the end of the world? THESE are the positions/responsibilities you want to outsource.
D. The Checklist-this is the CORE of our discussion
a. Even though you may not need perfection (as discussed above), you NEED consistency for your business to thrive. b. Think about a hotel. In a hotel, housekeeping comes and changes the linen, vacuums, puts out new water glasses, etc. Although it may not be perfect every time, any single person in that hotel could do it effectively because there is a CHECKLIST that outlines what has to be done in every room. c. Even when you have total mastery over a subject, the execution of it will never be consistent unless you have that Checklist to work from. d. In all of Robert and Lance's programs, they have Checklists that you would personally use. For example, in PodcastCrusher (www.podcastcrusher.com), a Checklist would include:
Use this headset to record
Run a Mic Check
Resize your Frame, etc., etc.
You break down each task into sections so that you can easily outsource pieces of it that you may not want/have time to do. Perhaps you want to create the podcast, but you don't want to do the publishing tasks. If you've created the Checklist for Publishing your Podcast, you can outsource that to anyone to pick up and as long as it's followed, you could have multiple publishers over a period of time and still provide a consistent product over and over.
Let's Talk about An Easily Outsourced Element of your Business
One of the first, and best options, for outsourcing in your business is going to be customer support/help desk.
When you're first starting out, it's fine for people to email you once or twice a day. Oce you get over that volume, it becomes impossible to keep managing those responsibilities and get anything else done.
Robert and Lance used ZenDesk when they first reached that level. It is really cool software that, when people email you with issues, it creates a "ticket" and you can then assign that ticket to a particular person in your organization or an autsource agent to remedy the issue. For example, you may get 3 tickets for people wanting refunds and 2 tickets for people who've forgotten their password. You can now assign those "tickets" to outsource agents who will handle those requests for you.
You can easily find outsourcers/freelancers on oDesk (now called Upwork).
On this website, you can pay someone by the hour to resolve the ticket(s) and you have the added bonus of seeing what their screen looks like while they are working so they cannot overcharge you. You will also need a help desk/customer support system that provides canned responses to certain issues. In reality, you probably really only answer 5 to 10 types of questions, no matter how they're phrased by the customer. Depending on the problem, the customer gets a canned response back asking for further 3-5 pieces of information, then depending on that, the ticket is assigned to the correct person to fix the problem. Because you know about the 5-10 repeat help desk queries you get, you can now "Checklist" your help desk so that any outsourcer/freelancer/employee can take that email and/or ticket and resolve the issue without you having to do it.
What would happen if you died today?
When you're running a business, you have a lot of people depending on you: your family, your business partners and your employees.
You have to think about: If something happened to me today, what processes do I have in place that will keep this company functioning and moving forward?
Use those processes to formulate your checklists!!
Tune in today (in fact, right now) to discover how to "get your head on straight!" Get your business built up to the level you want, as fast as you want, while you're excited each and every day and growing bigger and bigger every day...
Someone who hates you normally hates you for one of three reasons: 1. They see you as a threat 2. They hate themselves 3. They want to be you
Today's program is going to be very different than the normal format because we're going to jump around between real money-making case studies, mindset, mistakes I've made and the things YOU PERSONALLY can do to incrementally improve your business as your income increases and you gain simplicity and clarity along the way -- finish now and revise later!
How do you get the results and the income you want from your internet marketing business?
Tip #1: Self-Actualize
Be aware of the little crutches you fall back on daily that keep you from achieving your goals and keep you from being confident. When someone asks how you're doing, instead of saying "Good", change it up to "Fantastic", "Wonderful", etc…
Also, be aware of these "negative" words, Robert's 3 pet peeves:
Try: sounds like you're not even going to attempt it, whatever "IT" is. It is like you are giving yourself permission to fail. Instead, say "I'm going to do"
Work: sounds like something you don't want to do, like labor. Instead, say "I am (doing) this today", for ex. I am formatting my website today. Use an action.
Start: just like "try." Sounds like you're only going to get halfway done. Instead, use action again, such as "I am meeting a client today about my product."
If you complain all the time, you cement your ideas. If it's your belief that internet marketing is a scam or that you have to make only minimum wage, or someone else has to lose for you to win, anything you discover or new information, will only reinforce that. If information comes in that contradicts those beliefs, you're going to find a mental block/way around it instead of being inspired by it.
Tip #2: The Rule of FOUR: The Best Way of Increasing Productivity
Complete 4 tasks every day. They can be 4 big things or 4 small things but the best combination is 3 things at 45-60 minutes and a 4th thing at about 15 minutes. Fancy planners and endless to-do lists get so bogged down and leave you feeling unmotivated.
Successfully finish 4 tasks today, call it a day, and you are ready to succeed again tomorrow!
Robert's program, www.incomemachine.com, has a Facebook group where each member posts their 4 things for today, every day.
Tip #3: Finish Now, Revise Later: The Substance of Today's Podcast
You do NOT have to wait for something to be perfect. Finish it for NOW and you can make revisions later. What matters is that you have something on the table NOW that you can offer customers.
Why does Finish Now, Revise Later work?
You will start earning money to keep motivated and productive and inspired to keep growing and developing your business.
You can see what sells and what doesn't. You want to concentrate on your best sellers.
It's very important to start selling your product so you can see how people use it. You don't want to keep adding elements to it that people may not use and therefore waste your time and effort.
Example: Netscape Navigator "Blink Tags." Developers did this because it was "fun" to develop-but it doesn't make any money. In the same way, a lot of internet marketers spend entirely too much time on business cards, fancy logos, building Twitter followings, but those things do not make money. Get a product out there that does!
Let's talk about "Backup Creator" (www.backupcreator.com)
This is a WordPress plug-in that allows you to back up your WordPress site, as well as clone it so you can keep using it to make new sites.
This took about 3 days to make and it was not perfect but Robert and Lance put it out anyway because it was finished ENOUGH. It functioned and it did what it promised to do. Along the way, there were little hiccups and de-bugs they've had to make but if they had waited the last 3 ½ years until they thought it was perfect, they would have lost 3 ½ years of income PLUS the opportunity to see what worked and didn't. Along the way, they've made some upgrades and now it's just a matter of maintenance. At time of airing, Backup Creator is powering about 85 THOUSAND sites-imagine if they had lost all that opportunity by constantly waiting to "finish."
Tip #4: Avoid the "Money Zone"
What is the money zone? It is the zone of your lowest to your highest income.
If you are in the "money zone", you are either in a situation where you will make a certain amount of money no matter what happens in your life, which is holding you back AND the flip side of that is when you have an upper limit, no matter what you do, you'll always find a way to self-sabotage getting past that point.
You don't want to be TOO tactical OR too strategic.
Tactical: you're only looking ahead to your next installment, say $100. Strategic: you're planning 10-20 years down the road
The first step to fixing this is realizing you have this mindset and start to think differently. Just TODAY, think about what you can do differently to increase your income NOW.
For example, with Backup Creator, Robert and Lance thought what else can they do to increase money on the success they were already having with this product?
They started the Developer License that people can purchase as an add-on after purchasing Backup Creator. It is no extra work for them to maintain, it is simply a license for buyers to use it with their own clients to keep producing new sites. This is an additional income stream. They thought not just about their next $100, they had ideas of increasing their success, but they didn't get so far ahead that they got bogged down in details and couldn't make another move.
One final thought:
Be very careful with lifetime memberships. You really have to analyze the averages that people pay, how often they renew, etc. You do not want to offer a lifetime membership on a product that people would continue to renew on a yearly basis because in the end you will sell yourself short, have to keep working to add new upgrades and content, and start working on a less by less hourly basis.
For more great guidance and tips on Robert's system, you can also visit www.incomemachine.com.
This will help you get something out there, get to your first $100 or $1000 and get yourself motivated!!
If it's important, you'll find a way. If not, you'll find an excuse. -- Jim Rohn
If you don't build your own dream, someone else will hire you to build theirs. -- Tony Gaskins, Jr.
Join us on today's episode of the Robert Plank Show where we discuss passive income, your point and click online funnel, and more, including:
8 things to give up: 1. self rejection, 2. negative self-talk, 3. criticising others, 4. being a people pleaser, 5. fear of failure, 6. procrastination, 7. holding onto grudges, 8. expecting perfection
Three areas of your business: list, traffic, and offers
Selling any kind of physical product online is easy, and FREE -- "they" usually just take a cut -- if you know where to look...
If you want to sell a box of physical DVD's or CD's, Kunaki.com is the cheapest (and IMO easiest) place to do it -- just upload your DVD and artwork for the disc and case -- or use their built-in artwork creator
To sell a physical book (softcover or hardcover) that's at least 25 pages in length, whether it's 6x9 or 8.5x11 or any weird size, use CreateSpace.com -- upload your interior (Word document), graphics for front cover, back cover, and spine (they also have a cover creator)
If you need to get some books and manuals printed PRIVATELY, such as manuals ("textbooks") as a bonus for something like a paid course, use Lulu.com. Once again, upload Word document, upload cover or use their editor -- but the difference here is your books are NOT out in the open publicly. You order them on your own and set your individual customer's address as the shipping address
To sell just about anything else, from a product like a supplement or kitchen utensil you sourced from China, or "As Seen on TV" items you picked up at the local discount store, use Amazon FBA. What's great about Amazon is you can either ship the items yourself, or mail them all at once to Amazon's warehouse and THEY will handle delivery to those individual customers
If you want me to walk you through the exact process, claim your access to our Make a Product course for Kunaki and CreateSpace, and Dropship CEO for mastery on Amazon FBA.
Avenue #1: DVD/CD Boxes with Kunaki
Avenue #2: Physical Book with Amazon CreateSpace
Avenue #3: Sell (Almost) Any Physical Product Using Amazon FBA
Can I see what you are selling these days? What is the URL to your physical product?
If you take longer than three days to go from having an idea for an information product to having a buy button online, then you're doing it wrong. I want to ask this to you today, but you don't have to answer it:
If you HAD to put that info-product online within the next three days…
if you absolutely had to, were required by law,
faced death and the loss of your family if you didn't…
you'd find a way, wouldn't you?
REAL Information Products (Most Info-Marketers Miss This)
Let me explain an information product: people have always and will always want to discover how to play golf or learn the guitar…
But they don't want to walk into a music shop and have someone pitch to them, they're afraid of looking foolish, they don't want to pay hundreds of dollars a week to a guitar teacher… they don't want to a commit to a community college class or have a family member teach them…
They need you to give them a "package" usually of pre-recorded videos that get them from point A to point B. You're cutting through the "academic" crap and actually SHOWING the simple way (you actually explain a part of guitar playing and then play it on-camera).
Because you're ROCKETING towards the goal of them being able to play these three popular songs on guitar, you can avoid the long tedious "intros" or fanfare about the history of the guitar. You just get right to it. Get right to your system.
Fear of Launching
It frustrates me when I meet someone at an offline event, for example, and then I "run into" them a couple years later on a forum or Facebook group and I see that they're still not making money yet…
I don't have to tell you why this is:
Reason #1: no real sense of urgency: this person has another stream of income so there's no real motivation to make any money online
Reason #2: fear: it's as simple as that. I remember having my first information product (a collection of PHP scripts like a calendar plugin, quiz plugin, basic email autoresponder, etc.) ready to go and WAITING for a week. I asked this person and that person if I should put it out now, or wait longer? What if it was a flop? Shouldn't I add more bonuses? Was the price right?
In reality, I was asking around for the answer I wanted all along. I was hoping someone would tell me: don't put that product out yet, wait 6 months until this happens, or spend 3 months adding these bonuses so you can double your sales. Yeah right.
Let's say you had that guitar course. What's the harm in buying up what's called "private label rights" (just do a Google search) about guitar? Someone's already recorded videos doing what you want to teach, that you can buy for $20 or so.
After it's COMPLETE and selling, you can go back and decide if you're unhappy with the existing videos. Maybe you want to change the course to recommend the ONE specific guitar for beginners? And provide your Amazon affiliate link and also get them to buy a specific tool to make learning the chords easier -- or perhaps you mail this to them as part of the course…
Do you get it? Get something simple online (as simple as possible), focus on making sales NOW and improve later. It'll never be perfect, just improve incrementally.
"Lack of time is actually lack of priorities."
-- Timothy Ferriss
Reason #3: confusion: that all sounds great, but how the heck do I buy these resale rights? How do I record video? What do I use to host my site or my files?
24-Month Shortcut: Use PayPal to Take Payments
What about taking payments? Seriously, I've seen way too many people LOSE OUT on their internet marketing success, or have it delayed by TWO YEARS or longer just because they were confused about how to take online payments. I can't use PayPal… they don't have a 1-click upsell and they don't let me take offline credit cards! Maybe I should use Stripe, InfusionSoft, Ontraport?
Question: do you have a 1-click upsell ready to go? No you don't… that's something you can add later and it's not going to make or break your initial product sales…
I understand… you "might want" to take direct credit cards someday. But how about you forget about that for today and cross that bridge when you come to it?
The answer: use PayPal. Just do it! Not because it "has the most bells and whistles" but because you'll have something up and running today.
Income Machine System
As far as hosting your site, our Income Machine shows you how to register a domain name with NameCheap, get a Baby Account with HostGator, point your domain to your web hosting, now someone can type in Example.com (get a dot-com and not a .net or a .biz or anything like that) and end up on your (blank) website.
"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."
-- Vincent Van Gogh
What do you put on that website? WordPress, so that you don't have to learn HTML coding or how to upload files, and then our Paper Template so you can have one of those "piece of paper" looking sales letters…
With Paper Template, you can click one button and create a sales letter (pre-written, just fill in the blanks and delete what you don't need). Click another button to create a simple download page (hidden from your navigation and the search engines).
If this all seems confusing, it doesn't have to be… inside our Income Machine course, we give you a clone that you can stick on your site so you have SOMETHING setup that you can edit…
At this point you have a "template" of a sales letter (the front page of your site or the .com) and a "template" of a download page (one single page). Now what???
Step 1 of 3: Resale Rights & Download Page
As I said before, resale rights are a great starting point for your product because it means you can setup something for now and improve later. You can pay somebody a one-time fee (usually $10-$20) and in exchange, get the rights to place their videos and sales letter on your own site, keep all of the money, and make any changes you want including putting your name on it, rename the product, edit it as much as you want.
I know what you're thinking. Resale rights, only 20 dollars, it must be crap. A lot of resale rights are low-quality, especially things like written articles, but in my experience, PLR video is usually decent. Sometimes you get stuck with a bad PowerPoint-based product, but most of the time the videos show them actually taking some action.
For 20 bucks they'll give you a large 400 MB sized zip file with videos. Download, right click and unzip, verify that you're allowed to sell them and do what you want with them. Then re-zip JUST the video files. They're usually MP4 or AVI files. In Windows, select the files you want, right click, Send To, Compressed Folder.
What do you do with that zip file? WordPress has a way for you to upload SMALL files such as images, but for a larger download, you can use your web host's cPanel File Manager to upload right into what's called your WordPress "upload" folder. You don't need to install any software to upload files to your site.
Then you can browse to the Download Page on your WordPress site and link to that zip file for someone to download. As a bonus (if you know how to do this) you can upload the MP4 files individually to your YouTube account and set them to "unlisted" so they aren't public but you can place them right there on your download page.
Step 2 of 3: Sales Letter & Payment Button
You have a way for someone to claim and get their download, now let's create a way for someone to pay you money and get access to that download. (It's a lot easier by going backwards in this way.)
PayPal allows you to create a "buy now" button (we also show this inside our Income Machine course) where you basically tell PayPal: I want to sell a product with this name (what people see on the checkout page and on their payment receipt), for this price (i.e. $7.00 one-time), and send them to this specific URL only if they pay. This is your download page.
Once you've created the button (hosted at PayPal), they give you a special link or button you can place on your page. Guess what? If you had nothing else but a "piece of paper" template with nothing on it other than that button, you still have something for sale!
If you have five minutes of free time, stick a headline at the top of the page. Paper Template has dozens of headlines built in (I've distilled all of the various headlines that make sense on the Internet down to just a few). We are the only sales letter plugin out there with a built-in swipe file.
If you have five more minutes, add ten bullet points under the headline giving people just ten good reasons to buy your course on guitar, or ten things they'd walk away with after completing your paid course.
Step 3 of 3: Membership Site & Email Sequence
Notice I deliberately left out the "fanciness" that comes later. You have two choices: either try to ten things in "parallel" (at the same time), get tripped up, eek along and have ten things at 10%, ten things at 20%, ten things at 30%... or do it in "series" (one after another). Knock out your download page. Knock out your payment button. Knock out that basic sales letter.
THEN you can add in fancier stuff later. An easy example is your membership site. Create a separate WordPress installation in your "members" folder, create a SINGLE PAGE download area, and create your new payment button and switch it out onto the sales page. (Income Machine includes our Member Genius membership plugin.)
Keep in mind this is a membership site where people only pay ONE TIME and only get access to ONE PAGE. The only improvement is that they now create an account to login and get back to that single download if they need it. If you want to add a 2nd page, other levels such as an upsell. That comes later.
Most people are setting things up in the wrong order. They create the "nice-to-haves" first instead of the "must-haves." They create their opt-in page first, their email autoresponder sequence, then they get tired and don't actually create something to sell. Complete things that make money first!
Templatize It!
What makes money: sending paid traffic to that sales letter, breaking even on the ad cost, and building a list of buyers. Joint ventures and affiliate traffic. Building your list. Mailing offers to your list.
"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."
-- Chinese Proverb
What good is the best information product in the world if no one actually buys it to see it? Get it online, get it selling, and when you're looking to improve that product… instead of throwing out the whole product to start over, think about this instead:
What step-by-step checklist or template can you give someone to make better sense out of those existing PLR videos?
No one cares about how many years you've studied guitar, how many hours the videos are (in fact, if you say there are 100 hours of videos, it talks me OUT OF buying), or how many pages are in the transcript.
They don't even care about "work" or "learning." They care about getting the result they paid money for, while having the most fun, doing the least amount of work, and getting it in the shortest amount of time!
That means your guitar course can have an additional checklist that says… buy this specific guitar, buy these strings, buy this pick, buy this equipment. Master these finger positions. Show you can properly mark time in this way. Play the background part for these five very simple songs. Play these five simple guitar solos.
Give people some easy tasks to check off. You can create any kind of checklist or fill-in-the-blank component in your membership site using our WP Notepad plugin.
If you can get rights to a piece of software or app that helps people to play the guitar, or recycle your early profits into outsourcing such a thing, that's another component you can use to improve your offer. Add in a 30-minute video Skype consultation (using TimeTrade to schedule the appointments) keeping in mind that only 10% of your customers will take you up on it, you'll record it and add it to a section of the member's area, and it's something you probably would have done for free anyway!
"There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing."
-- Elbert Hubbard
The easiest way to start making passive income is with an information product. The quickest and simplest way to sell that kind of product is with a piece of paper looking web page such as Paper Template.
My question to you today is: Where is your sales letter?
Be sure to post a URL below with a page of yours that has a WORKING buy button.
I'm curious and I'll be checking it out soon. Thanks.
If there's only one single "word" you should keep in mind for your online business in 2015 and 2016, it's this word: "complete."
If you have a buy button or an optin form online then you’re ahead of most people. It doesn’t have to be perfect as long as it’s complete. You can always improve later.
I'll admit it, I DON'T have it all figured out! But I'm right there with you when it feels like, as a home-based entrepreneur, no one else seems to be on the same track as you. In today's podcast I'm going to share a few tools with you to avoid burnout, information overload, fear of failure, and more. It's easier to edit crap than air!
(Lots of show notes this time around, please scroll down a little to see the audio player for today's action-packed super-sized episode.)
Self Help Advice You Might Have Heard Before (But Need to Hear Again)
You are your own worst enemy: it feels good to complain, self fulfilling prophecy
"We are what we repeatedly do" (you are what you eat)
"Your income is the average of your 5 closest friends"
Abundance mindset vs victimhood, resentment
"Some people say self help doesn't last. Neither does showering, and that's why we recommend it daily"
"Ask the computer called your brain the right questions" -- the phrasing is important, i.e. HOW can this be done and not CAN it be done
"Get Back on Track" Checklist
Don't share these answers with me or anyone else... it's explained in the second half of today's episode...
Self sabotage: In what way do you SOMETIMES have one foot on the break? (So you can overcome it)
What are you really afraid of and what sometimes stalls you out? (i.e. What if my websites go down, too many refunds, FTC, IRS)
Why did you get started in the first place? (what excited you back then that maybe you lost track of)
What gets you excited to grow your business and do what really needs to be done? (must be a different, better, more detailed and more emotional answer to the previous question)
Based on all this, what do you REALLY want to become a reality in the next 6 months? (a thing or activity, not money)
Simple Solutions to Become Motivated & Productive Anytime You Want
Willpower (iffy and unreliable but happens on occasion)
Take the first step today towards that goal (i.e. make that one quick phone call to get the ball rolling)
Lift app: take multivitamin, go to gym, read 30 minutes (just don't load it up with more than 3 things)
Morning routine: walk or run to "change the channel" in your mind
Mentor where you'll behave yourself (unmuted in a group), and you're looking for a SIMPLE SOLUTION to an EASILY EXPLAINABLE PROBLEM
Countdown timer or record your computer screen of you performing the task you want
Many of the things you buy on Amazon aren't sold by Amazon. They're either mailed from regular sellers just like you (kind of like eBay but faster and more civilized), and even many times if you get an item with that 2-day "Prime" shipping, it mails out of Amazon's warehouse but the item (crackers, light bulbs, computer monitor) is "owned" by someone else (anyone can be an Amazon seller)
How To Make Your First Sale Online
Register an Amazon seller account, find an old book in your house you won't use anymore, "list" that book for sale (you can type any UPC code into what you want to list) for 0.01 plus 4.99 shipping.
If it doesn't sell, no harm done, if it does sell, Amazon gives you a label, you put this in a small box, make a dollar or two profit
1000 per Month Formula
Go into your local Walmart, Kmart, BigLots, Costco, Sam's Club, scan barcodes with the iPhone app until you find something that sells for 3x on Amazon compared to the "discount" price at this store. Tell Amazon what items you're sending in and what price you're charging (you'll match the lowest) price -- you'll outsell most other sellers because they're shipping from home with "slow" shipping... your stuff will be sent out of Amazon's warehouse.
Once it's on its way to Amazon your job is done, Amazon takes the orders, mails out the items, and sends you money...
Private Labeling
Find a decent selling item (we have criteria and it's usually not something on the 1st or 2nd page)... find their supplier in China (easy to do when you click around), get some samples, create your own listing for this product, buy a SMALL order from them and get them to mail it into Amazon's warehouse. Make your first few sales, run Amazon ads and get reviews... replenish your inventory... pretty simple.
Simple UNLESS you get stuck in this or that Amazon screen, or mess up your ads, product listing, choose the wrong product, or get a bunch of inventory you can't sell and lost money on... you want to avoid this by instead following the instructions in our Dropship CEO course...
For example, if you're outside the US, there's an easy way to get started with Amazon and it involves getting a US bank account (which you can do even if you're not in the US)...
What you do with this information and your own results are up to you. But this is a method of selling that doesn't require your own website, list, or joint ventures and it actually scales unlike most internet businesses...
Unlike "those" PowerPoint courses or slow-paced courses, we actually set this all up in front of you and get you to do it as well, including lots of goodies like our "feedback getting" software (boosts your Amazon ranking) which no one else has. And it closes in just a couple days, so I'm looking forward to you joining it TODAY.
Check out today's Robert Plank Show (podcast) where we talk about making money using Amazon... no, I'm not talking about Amazon's affiliate program, Kindle, CreateSpace, or WebStores... this is their Amazon Seller Central program or Fulfilled by Amazon where you can sell any item they have in their catalog (such as books or cookware) OR create your own "gadget" that you buy for pennies and sell for tens of dollars all day long...
Productivity Corner
Those four things you completed today, how much money did they make you?
Don't compare your insides to the outsides of others (your "behind the scenes" vs. their "highlight reel") and beware of someone who never shares their struggles & roadblocks (the most interesting part)
Have an abundance mindset, not scarcity (be careful about bitterness & jealousy) -- there's room for all of us to make money
Cycle through 4DT, accountability partner, calendar, countdown timer, Camtasia babysitter
Feature Presentation (Amazon FBA)
Yes, private labeling with Amazon FBA still works if you live outside the United States because you can send your shipping label to your supplier and they can mail directly into Amazon's warehouse...
Your first sale: list a $0.01 used book plus shipping as a Merchant Fulfilled item
Scanning & thrifting: Visit Kmart, BigLots, Walmart, Costco with the special iPhone app and find something listed on Amazon for 3x what you pay, send shipments in (Fulfilled by Amazon)
Sourcing/private labeling: find their supplier, get UPC code, samples, break even on sales while you grow the ads and reviews, then increase the price for a profit
CLOSING THOUGHTS: If people are making things too complicated for you, they haven't achieved mastery
Henry Ford says, "Whether you THINK you can or you can't, you're right!"
I turn 30 years old in less than 24 hours (be sure to leave me a quick "happy birthday" below) and I'm sure when you yourself turned 30, 40, 50 you probably got a little too nostalgic and made yourself feel bad about all the progress you didn't make while ignoring the progress you DID make...
I don't have all the answers, but I know that when I was 20 years old I was barely scraping by (trading time for dollars), when I was 25 I made some of the easiest money I'd ever made in my entire life (products and membership sites) and after age 25 I saw the cashflow cliff approaching... our niche getting too crowded and "tired" and I adjusted by making our courses high ticket and software low ticket to build the list...
I was introducing Lance Tamashiro (my business partner) on one of our webinars and I literally had no idea what to say to introduce him. Suddenly it hit me...
We all go through four stages in our online business: (1) bright shiny object mode, (2) learning mode, (3) fed-up mode and (4) making money from a "real" business
It's okay to build your test sites and goof around with WordPress or PHP plugins for the first few weeks... or maybe 1 day a week... but if you aren't making money from your online efforts, it's going to get boring FAST...
Most business owners also don't realize that they can BACKSLIDE from Level 4 (a real business that makes money) and fall way back into Level 2 (learning mode) -- for example, deleting old sites that no longer get traffic or spending 6 months moving everything to a new shopping cart system, eek!
I go through growing pains in my business all the time and I want to help you with those CHOICES you'll make (that no one else can make for you):
Decision #1: Fastest Way to Make Money?
The cop-out (but truthful) answer is: solve real problems that are hard for others, in demand by others (meaning lots of people already pay money for it) easy for you, and fun for you!
That means if you can show someone how to improve their golf game, you need to be firing on all cylinders. Setup a worker account on Fiverr.com and offer to critique peoples' golf swing (they send in a video). Record and post a quick 5 minute video every day about something golf related. Publish a quick article every day with something golf related. Buy other golf instructors' $97 courses and find what they're missing, or what unique twist you could bring to your own future "how to" golf membership course...
Decision #2: What Niche Do You Choose?
(a marketable skill like real estate, stock trading, playing guitar, dating, losing weight). This needs to be a "desperate" but not a "poor" niche. For example, coupon collecting and debt reduction seem like poor niches to me (unless you can find someone making good money with it).
A better alternative would be a course on people who want to build $500,000 of wealth into a million dollars or the 1 million dollars they saved for retirement into 5 million, don't you think?
Decision #3: What Price to Charge for Your Course?
Make it $97 with a 90 minute 4-step video plus a bonus report just to reduce the number of decisions you have to make at this point. The cliche is to have 10X the value and I agree with it. So sell a $97 course with $970 of value in your video and report
Decision #4: How Often and What Time of Day to Mail?
Controversy time. There's a Chinese proverb that says, "The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago." The way it applies to you with internet marketing is that you should have made that information product (membership site, course, whatever you want to call it) 3 months ago, you should have started building a list 3 months ago... but!
Today is close enough so get to it now and clear everything out of your schedule THIS WEEK other than making that product so you can start to make money from it. A piece of advice you're not going to like, but you're going to follow if you want money: send an email to these subscribers (even if it's only a list of 100) at LEAST 3 times a week, preferably 5 times per week or every day.
I won't go off on a tangent here, but you will lose 1% of your subscriber list every day, that's just how internet marketing works, and if it's up to you to generate enough traffic to MORE than replace that 1% of your list. People unsubscribe, that's just what happens.
Be CAREFUL of this: when people say... you email too much. Or I'm unsubscribing from you because you're trying to sell me something. In my case, didn't these people join my list because they wanted to be better marketers and site builders? And yet they don't like it when I'm marketing to them? Or showing them how to solve this problem they signed up to my list to solve?
I hear all the time, "I like such-and-such marketer because he didn't have anything for sale and he didn't try to sell me anything." Is that really the person you want as a mentor? Just something for you to think about.
Decision #5: Best Way to Build a List and Get Traffic?
The toughest question of all, right? Once you create that site, how do you get people to see it? I'm always reluctant to answer this question because 80% of the time, people don't even have something for sale so they're trying to put the cart before the horse: looking at a problem they're going to have in 30 days to avoid doing anything TODAY.
The easy "traffic" answer is to use a site like Fiverr to get 10 articles written, submit them to article sites, setup a free blog where you post these articles with links back to your sites. Setup AdWords ads, Facebook ads, retargeting, find a marketplace like a forum where people can trickle in every day. Setup an affiliate program, recruit your buyers into affiliates and also contact at least 5 people per day for either you to interview them about their product or you to be interviewed about your product (I use TimeTrade for this).
Decision #6: How to Tie it All Together?
I'm probably getting ahead of myself AND revealing too much at the same time, but inside our Income Machine course, we show you how to get it all setup and we basically say...
Use NameCheap to register a .com domain name (don't register this before joining our course because there are a few things to keep in mind that we don't have time to show here)
Use HostGator to host your website itself and WordPress to make it point and click easy
Inside Income Machine, we have a 1-click clone that will setup Paper Template on your "front-end" site (.com) to hold your opt-in page at Example.com/free (build a list) and sales letter at Example.com (sell a product)
Next, you setup another WordPress blog at Example.com/blog to hold your free articles and videos, and link back to that optin page
You 1-click clone our "back-end" site at Example.com/members to deliver your products, upsell and manage your members
You can now do the fun "traffic" stuff like article marketing, joint ventures, an affiliate program, podcasting, paid traffic, and more...
These Are the Pieces of Your Income Machine Once It's Setup
Niche & hook (domain name)
Web hosting (online presence)
Optin page (lead capture: Example.com/free)
Autoresponder sequence (automatic email followups in case they don't buy)
Blog (search engine traffic: Example.com/blog)
Sales letter (something to buy: Example.com)
Membership site (deliver what they bought: Example.com/members)
Do you see what I mean that you have to crawl before you run? Once again, thinking back to my "not making money" days vs. making money now (I have been full-time since 2009) -- when I wasn't making money, I wasn't "really" trying and my focus was split 1000 different ways. Compared to now, when I do just ONE thing at a time.
Productivity Milestone #1: Four Daily Tasks
It frustrates me when people use productivity software or crazy mindmaps, grids, and schedules to complicate their lives. What ALSO frustrates me is when people say they took 3 weeks off of their business to "rest" or "clear their head." Here's an idea... take that vacation when your business is cranking out money for you!
Just complete three 45-minute tasks and one 15-minute task that moves you closer to you making more money. Multitasking is a MYTH. Checking Facebook and LinkedIn doesn't actually move your business forward, does it?
Our Platinum coaching students tell us that these two things are what revolutionized and boosted their income. If you're selling a high ticket course (over $197) then you need to deliver it as one live session per week for 4 or 8 weeks...
If you want to sell several copies of that course, run a free webinar where you teach for 45 minutes and sell for 15 minutes at the end. You're also going to need a membership site to manage all those members. After paying you, they create an account and can login forever.
Productivity Milestone #3: The Right Mindset
Zig Ziglar says, "People often say that motivation doesn't last. Neither does showing, so that's why we recommend it daily." You are going to be your own worst enemy, but if you can nip your problems in the bud you can be one of those "entrepreneur" people with a good attitude who can also think themselves out of a problem even if the deck is stacked against you (i.e. small list).
Make Some Dang Money!
Beware of comparing yourself too much to others (you don't know what goes on with that "happy family" behind closed doors), keeping up with the Joneses (i.e. too big of a house with 3 cars), or living the nomad lifestyle (visiting a new foreign country every week) -- pay off your mortgage instead.
If someone's criticizing you, it's probably because they're deeply insecure about that subject.
Be careful of the "good" and "bad" language you use. I'm not saying you need to be in denial about a problem, but minimize complaining and only complain about something if you have a way to solve that problem, because we all have problems and it's up to YOU as a PROBLEM SOLVER to decide either how the problem doesn't matter or how to break that problem down and solve it!
80% of your activities are a waste so do a bunch of different things: coaching program, membership site, low ticket product, service... and figure out which 20% makes you the most money so you can increase that. HINT: you need to actually COMPLETE these projects and websites and get TRAFFIC and BUYERS to find out what makes money and what doesn't.
Separate the forest from the trees. If you've found a way to make $1000 dollars per week, that's great. But if you're working 50 hour weeks and you're scrambling to "launch" the next money making biz-opp that doesn't really help anyone and only makes money because people can't figure out how to cancel or refund... that's not sustainable.
What IS sustainable is solving a real problem someone has, AND you can do that most effectively by figuring out what makes you the most money. What makes the most money for our business... emailing the list and running pitch webinars. Things like podcasting and blogging, or even speaking at events... makes SOME money and it's fun to do on occasion but it's not the MAIN 20 percent, you see?
Model what you see the money makers doing in your niche. That means you need to "rise above being a geek." Instead of teaching some obscure traffic loophole or even a course about how to get better grades in school (who is really going to buy something like that?), how about you sell something that people are going to use every day?
Why do you think I stopped selling "how to learn PHP programming" courses and instead focused on how to add these things to your sales letter, or a popup plugin like Action PopUp? Or plugins like Backup Creator, Paper Template, and Member Genius? (Those three all available inside Income Machine, by the way.)
Because I experimented with services, coaching, products, and software and after seeing how each one sold, I was able to figure out what the BUYERS (and not just what the complainers) wanted, and moved our business into selling items that people use in their business every day...
If you too want to discover how to create a REAL online business that lasts through age 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 for you, so you don't have to "scramble" or "reinvent yourself" every 3 months, you'll want to check out our Income Machine course right away and setup the system and funnel that all successful online businesses have:
Check out today's exciting edition of the Robert Plank Show to find out why some people seem to make all the money and others don't -- and of course quickly apply it to your own online business...
QUICK THOUGHT #1: no one wants to buy tips or tid-bits
QUICK THOUGHT #2: gang members make $3/hr (Freakonomics) -- you're not going to get just "one big break"
QUICK THOUGHT #3: You need an Income Machine (niche, website, optin page, autoresponder, blog, sales letter, membership site, traffic) -- just YouTube, Twitter, podcasting isn't going to cut it (it's just traffic that points back to your Income Machine)
Eight Components to Selling a Complete Course
Eat your own dog food (actually use what you sell, i.e. if you're selling an article marketing course, at least have a handful of articles under your name)
Magic trick -- even in the course, something cool that only takes 2 minutes (think Siri or GPS)
Urgent Warning! Don't script your podcasts, blog posts, or webinar pitches... do "THIS" instead! (explained in today's Robert Plank Show)...
How to make more sales and money and present your sales message with almost zero "prep time"
Sell the sizzle and not the steak (and NOT the big box of crap)
Exactly why our course launch about a "3 million word" transcription system flopped, but a "3 minute solution" fixed everything and more
Teach long division, sell the calculator: you don't need 5 minutes to explain your product or course... AND... you can probably make all the sales you need in about 20 minutes... tune in to find out how!
Welcome back to the Robert Plank Show, tune in today to discover:
What it means to "sell what you sell" (sell one thing for $97 as opposed to a maze of $17, $27, and $37 upsells), separate the "forest from the trees" (stop throwing out what's working just to build yourself back up to what you have now), and reduce that clutter (if you haven't used an item in 1-5 years, do you still need it?)
Why the knowledge taught in "Think & Grow Rich" (visualize), "4 Hour Work Week" (80/20), "Good to Great" (one thing), and "The E-Myth" (checklist) keep showing up over and over again
Why I re-did my blog post as the plain WordPress 2012 theme (and I'm happier with it than my previous "custom blog theme"
How all you need to have is an ugly website, then send traffic to it, then build a list and keep promoting to that list
Welcome our brand new sponsor Membership Cube who will show you how to get all your paid (and free) content up and running, how to get your copywriting (sales letter) done in a flash, then add all the upsells, dashboard, etc. that you want
Here are the questions I asked you in today's call -- but keep the answers to yourself!
Do you email every day?
Is all your content (i.e. podcasts or videos) "one take content?"
Do you have a payment button online where I can buy from you today?
Are you completing four daily tasks every day?
Do you publish one "piece" of content per week? (podcast, YouTube, pitch webinar, or webinar class) FACEBOOK does not count.
Listen to today's Robert Plank Show to discover the launch technique you can use whether you're making $100 per month or $100,000 per month from your online business at the moment, including:
the "fire and motion" most product launches forget about
the exact kind of pitch webinar you need to use to promote your products (teach long division and sell the calculator)
how to re-promote your existing products to pay your bills for years to come
how to avoid being stuck in "product creation" or "product launch" mode and still make money when you update your courses
And more! Please welcome our brand spanking new sponsor for this week: Membership Cube
Join us for today's exciting edition of the Robert Plank Show where we uncover AND discover:
what quickly beats stress and gets the creative juices flowing (hint: exercise)
what Napoleon Hill has to say about finding success when it comes to writer's block or anything else (hint: find people that have already done what we want to do, and copy what they did to get there.)
Forget what you learned in school about "writing" to impress your teacher
Help me in welcoming our brand new sponsor, Membership Cube (they will pay for your membership software out of their own pocket)
And our eight techniques to explode our creativity and churn out that content:
private label rights as a starting point
sales letter first -- combining things = creativity, problem/alternatives -> only solution
four milestones -- document your steps/notes
question that needs to be answered (title of this podcast) -- get angry and find a solution -- ask more than you need and cross out
WWHW each chapter (i.e. book)
RATGUM
video/audio instead of writing (you won't agonize about it)
enhancements: checklist, membership site, challenge, case study
Webinar Crusher (product creation with pitch webinars and webinar classes)
Email me at robert@robertplank.com for feedback or ideas for the next episode of the Robert Plank Show
So tune into the latest and greatest episode of the Robert Plank Show right now, and while you're at it, register for our upcoming membership training:
Membership sites! Check out the latest Robert Plank Show to discover:
the big two things our favorite Platinum student used to jump from 6 figures a year to 6 figures a month (answer: membership sites & webinars)
the exact tools to set it all up (WordPress, Wishlist Member, Video Player, WP Drip)
how to get a 4-part or 1-hour course out fast and then organize it with TablePress
how to stickify and gamify your site using WP Notepad and WP Kunaki (available inside Membership Cube)
This week's sponsor: Membership Cube (get your entire membership site online and making money) -- check out our rap about membership sites about 11 minutes 20 seconds in, you're going to love it
What services to use to ensure that membership site stays online: UptimeRobot, Plugin Dashboard, and Backup Creator
True in to this episode of the Robert Plank Show where we talk about:
how to get a flood of traffic, leads and sales into your new or existing online business
what garbage traffic to avoid (also avoid: "split testing")
How to use what I discovered from Google AdWords ads to apply to any part of your business to turn on the traffic anywhere
Why the "old way" of Facebook advertising (fan pages and inviting friends) doesn't work, plus what to do when the only people clicking on your ads seem to be competitors "checking you out" instead of buying
the three-pronged "interests, retargeting, datafile" method that finally works when combined with a conversion pixel (explained in today's show)
So tune in right now below... and while you're listening, be sure to register for our upcoming (Wednesday August 13th) free membership site training below:
Get all the latest insights with membership sites, passive income, mindset, and more.
About Robert & The Podcast
The Marketer of the Day Podcast interviews entrepreneurs who have been through “the struggle.”
They’ve experienced the headaches of repeat failure, trial-and-error, scaling, delegating, course-correcting, and getting their online businesses to succeed beyond their wildest dreams… and want to help you get to where you need to go.
