Tag: business system

Seven Things #6: Product Funnel

December 29, 2008 • 13 Comments

In the Daily Seminar membership site Jason and I launched yesterday, we're going to be opening up parts of our business that we don't like to give away for free...

Here is my long term business plan... otherwise known as a map of all my current upsells:

It's a slightly out of date map but you get the idea.

That chart tells me exactly what I need to work on next.

I update it regularly (using Visio) but I used to do the same thing with my whiteboard.

Each of those boxes represents a sales letter. When they try to order, the arrows represent the different upsells that I present to them. So they can either: yes, I want to order this package... or say, no, I want this bigger package, and get moved to the next box.

As you can see, the PHP in a Box, Full Blast PHP, and Guerilla PHP stuff is on the bottom. Three packages around $100, upselling into a $200 bundle and then up to a $300 bundle.

I've blurred out the stuff that's not released yet (most of it is very close to being released). Obviously it all points to a giant package in the middle that I will price at $1000.

The ovals represent surprise bonuses I still need to integrate into my products. I'm applying the Ben Prater Refund Reducing Formula on those as loyalty bonuses... autoresponder follow-ups timed a week or two after a purchase. I offer that bonus in exchange for a testimonial about the orignal product.

The dotted lines represent upsells that I haven't connected yet. If I was working and was in a copywriting mood, I should probably spend 30 minutes writing the 1 page sales letter that upsells Full Blast PHP into the PHP in a Box plus Full Blast PHP bundle.

The white boxes mean they are products without video. The red boxes mean those products do have video. Common sense tells me that if I am in product creation mode, I should finish up the videos for Simple PHP 1, 2, and 3.

Because THAT means I can upsell visitors to a $100 product, upsell those to a $200 product and finally a $300 product just by writing a couple more pages of sales copy.

If a box has an "F" letter it means I am satisfied with the number of automatic followups that buyers of that product receive. When I am in followup creation mode I take one quick look at this chart and work on followups for a box missing an "F."

If a box has a "T" it means I'm satisfied with the number of testimonials for that product. If I feel a product is lacking in testimonials I can blast a quick mailing to my sublist for that product, check my old threads or blog comments to canniblalize into testimonials. Maybe even single out some of my active buyers and interview them over e-mail, and turn that into a testimonial.

I teach in Fast Food Copywriting that the only reason you are after testimonials is for proof. You don't need testimonials to sell a product, only to give proof.

Each box also has a bount of the number of scripts, price, video running time, and download size so that I can easily total them up in any bundle to give a "thud" factor -- when I say a product has 2 gigabytes of content, people say, "Wow!"

Automation

April 13, 2008 • 14 Comments

I've been in Austin at a conference for the past couple of days.

You have NO idea how it's been because I don't have access to a computer... I haven't been on one since last week!

I don't own a laptop... I spend too much time in front of a computer as it is, why would I want to bring one with me? Plus, I travel light... just one bag to avoid baggage claim. And there is all that fuss with airport security where they have to inspect the laptop separately.

How the heck am I talking to you then? Automation. I wrote this blog entry before I even got on a plane. I scheduled it to post sometime during my trip.

I scheduled a timed mailing to my opt-in list. It said to check out this blog post, so it could get traffic, comments, and sales of some of my products.

When I get a product ready for launch, I'll write the sales copy before it's even finished so I can post a WSO and get it approved... then I'll pay when it's ready to launch.

I recently launched a video series called Head First PHP. I bought up rights to an existing product and made it my own by recording daily videos.

Instead of recording long 20 to 30 minute videos, I recorded them 5 minutes of video at a time. This allowed me to space these out into "daily" videos.

The secret is... I'm not actually recording just one of these a day. I recorded them all at once, uploaded them all at once, wrote some quick autoresponder follow-ups for each day saying, "Hey... check out today's video" ... with a link to the video.

I put in an afternoon of work... and the effect is that it APPEARS I'm diligently providing updates every single day. That's pretty cool, right?

This and last month, I've been documenting my work using Camtasia videos and have been able to split up all my work into 10 minute tasks.

I'm ALMOST at the point where I can do all the work I need to do ONE day of the week (after I get home from my day job) and the everything is automated for the rest of the week.

When I first started out, I did a lot of freelance consulting and product launches. I focused very little on list building and automation. The result was that I would make $2000 one month and $200 the next. My income was very unreliable.

Now that I am writing follow-ups and blog posts weeks in advance... now that I'm following up with prospects and customers every single day automatically... I've noticed that I measure my income on a daily basis, not a monthly one. It's reliable enough that I could quit my day job if I wanted to.

Comment below and tell me: Do you have automation in your business? Timed follow-ups? Scheduled mailings? Business systems?

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