Tag: gary vaynerchuk

You Think Too Big And It Is Hurting Your Business: Why Gary Vaynerchuk Was Wrong

If you never had the chance yet to read Gary V's crush it book, I definitely recommend it. In fact, if you ask me privately I have tons of copies of it and I am willing to give you one for free.

Gary took his father's liquor store and turned it from a $4 million dollar business into a $50 million dollar business.

The biggest lesson I got out of his very quick read was this: When you are a self-employed entrepreneur you are going to work harder and you are going to work more hours than someone who has a day job.  It doesn't matter, if you are going to be doing something that is fun that excites you to get out of bed in the morning.

Gary talks a lot about getting noticed by the big media companies on social media like twitter, facebook and you-tube.  I think a lot of marketers take that advice too far, especially when pursuing the getting bought out model.

In case you weren't paying attention during the first dot com boom of the late 90's and early 2000's.  The idea is that you mass tons and tons of users get tons of market penetration while breaking even or even losing money, in the hopes that some big company will buy you out for $100 million dollars.

You-tube lost money for years even after they were bought out by Google, until recently.  Facebook lost money until it partnered with Microsoft and started displaying ads.  MySpace lost money until it was bought out by Rupert Murdock, and the list goes on.

Chances Are: You Won't Get Bought Out By Someone Else!

You can't count on that payday. If you are already making millions of dollars a year and can afford to lose money for years and years, that's fine.  Ignore my advice.

If you are trying to make a living, and build a business you need to make some kind of profit.  It is NOT evil to make money! Although people like Gary V. have enough money to think big, you are still starting out and you need to think small.

When you pay $20 dollars for advertising, just try to get $20 dollars back.  On a regular basis, I will post form offers or create pay per click campaigns for load to your products to make some of the money back, and to attract affiliates, and to get a few extra leads.

If I spend $20 dollars to promote a free offer, and I get 20 opt ins out of that promotion, I know I have made my money back.  I know I get more than $1 dollar per subscriber on my list.

When I find affiliates, I have no problem giving them bulk of my profits. I pay 60% commission to my affiliates with lifetime tagging.

I know a lot of people who offer 100% commission on the front end, and 0% on the back end.  What does this mean? It means that you might have a report selling for $20 dollars that up-sells people to a certain course for $100 dollars.  You have a $20 dollar front end, $100 dollar back end.

When an affiliate promotes that $20 dollar product, if it makes a sale they get all the $20 dollars and none of the $100 dollars.  What I do instead is give 60% of both.  That means if they make a sale at $20 dollars, I will give them 60% or $12 dollars of the $20.  When somebody then buys the $100 dollar product, I will give the affiliate $60 dollars of that as well.

Again, I don't mind giving away that high commission because I would not have made that sale without that affiliate.

Affiliate Sales Are Just "Extra!"

Even if you do want to get yourself bought out some day, you need to show some kind of earnings potential.  You-tube, and facebook, and twitter can easily sell because they've massed  millions of users.  Just in case you don't make it to the millions of users, try to monetize the few number of people you have.  That way you will find it easier to devote the time to a site that is making money versus a site that might make money sometime in the future.

I do agree with most of what Gary says. I don't want you to repeat the same mistakes made during the dot com bust, which was losing money for years in exchange for users.  You don't have to give away everything for free.  Your knowledge and your services are worth something.  You are just going to have to trust me on this.

Do you agree or disagree with what I had to say today? Leave me a comment below right now giving me your quick and honest opinions.