Rainforest Marketing Radio: Recent Episodes
Alex Herdt
Listen as I document the growth of my affiliate marketing business and create a life of time and money freedom. Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
When I started in affiliate marketing all I thought about was paid ads. The question was always...
... "How can I liquidate my ad spend or turn a profit?"
I never even gave consideration to the idea of generating traffic for free. I guess I had a bad taste in my mouth from my experience with blogging.
Bur Russell Brunson recommended I start publishing everyday... So that's what I did.
I've published this podcast almost everyday for nearly two months, but my traffic isn't super high.
Over the past week, though, I started publishing on a new platform and the results have been astounding...
Listen on to learn what I've been up to.
Need help in affiliate marketing? Click the link below to view my suite of free and paid offers designed to build your affiliate marketing business.
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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
Is affiliate marketing a scam?
The truth is most people don’t make any money with affiliate marketing, but does that make it a pyramid scheme?
In this episode, I take a deep dive into affiliate marketing and pyramid schemes to get to the bottom of this question once and for all.
Subscribe to my newsletter to receive affiliate marketing tips, tools, and tricks and also get $100’s in free courses, resources, and giveaways.
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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
Nowadays everyone has their own way of making money online, but not all methods are created equal...
... what works today will break tomorrow, and I'm sad to know that many businesses dry up overnight because of the decisions made by big tech companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.
The solution?
Email marketing.
Email has been around even before the internet was fully formed, and people today still have massive, sustainable success simply sending emails.
The biggest issue with email marketing however is that it could take some time to actually build a consistent revenue stream with affiliate offers...
... and you may be operating in the red for months.
But there is another way to monetize your list that not a lot of people are talking about.
Want to know more about this fool-proof method to kick start your affiliate marketing business?
Listen on
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Everyone is seeking financial independence. In a capitalist society, money is the symbol of our freedom.
Many who get involved in affiliate marketing desire financial independence but make a critical error by not focusing on this traffic source.
Save yourself years of headache and thousands in wasted dollars by following what I say in this episode.
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Organic traffic is the name of the game. Paid traffic is great, but organic traffic beats paid for two reasons
- It’s FREE
- It’s high quality
The people who click through organically already know who you are and they aren’t being interrupted, which means they will concert at much higher rates.
The only problem is that organic traffic can take a ton of time to build...
.... and ain’t nobody got time for that.
The good news is there’s a new organic traffic source that is absolutely blowing up right now. Want to know what it is? Listen on
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There’s a big problem in affiliate marketing right now.
Most people know that to grow an affiliate marketing business you need to grow an email list. But in order to do that you have to either spend tons of money on paid ads or tons of time building an organic audience.
If you’re anything like me you don’t have thousands of dollars just laying around to build a list. You also don’t have the time to wait and build an organic audience.
The result is sluggish growth at best, thousands of dollars worth of credit card debt at worst.
But I’ve found a different way.
Listen on to discover what it is.
Sign up to my newsletter for free courses, giveaways, and more content geared to grow your affiliate marketing business.
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Even though most people don’t want to show their face to be successful in affiliate marketing, this business is much more like dating than you might think.
You ask for a girl’s number = asking for an email address
Going on a coffee date = making a low ticket sale
Getting married = booking a coaching call or high ticket sale.
The similarities are striking, so why do most affiliate marketers ask their prospects to buy high ticket products off the bat?
That’s basically the same as walking up to a stranger and saying, “I’d really like us to get married in the Fall, the leaves are so pretty that time of year.”
At times I forget that the people in my funnels and on my email list are real live people. Fostering and growing that relationship is really what brings in the dough, not asking for the big sale off the bat.
If you want to learn more from me and get access to exclusive resources only available to my subscribers, click the link below to sign up for my newsletter.
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Until next time.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
When I first learned about affiliate marketing the idea was simple. It made perfect sense.
Step 1: Build an email list
Step 2: Send them emails with your affiliate links
Step 3: Profit
If you’ve been in affiliate marketing for any length of time you know it’s not that simple. People aren’t just going to buy from you because you put your link in front of them.
You probably already know about optin pages and bridge pages - everyone is talking about how to get high conversions on your optin page and how to send people to your affiliate offer...
... But no one seems to be talking about this “behind the scenes” funnel that is responsible for 80% of your success or failure as an affiliate.
That ends today...
If you want to see this "hidden funnel" in action and get done-for-you landing pages, done-for-you lead magnets, free Ebooks from top producing affiliates, and free training videos, and free affiliate marketing courses, click below to sign up for my newsletter!
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For at least a year after I graduated college, all while I was working in engineering, I knew I was unhappy.
I had no time to do the things I wanted, not nearly enough money, and I had no passion behind my work.
I spent most of my week days lamenting the time spent commuting to work and being at work and most of the weekend trying to forget about my job and dreading returning to work.
People would ask me what I wanted and for that whole year the best answer I could give was "Just not this."
I knew I wasn't happy doing what I was doing, but I had never given any thought to what would actually make me happy if I were to do it.
After a year of being in engineering, I finally found a better answer to that question, and everything changed.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
This one was a little hard to relive...
When I first started out in business, I had no idea what I was doing.
I only knew two things:
- I hated my job and wanted to quit
- I wanted to start an online business and make a ton of money
After spending a year in engineering after college, I read "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss and immediately started to implement what he taught in the book.
I dove head first into entrepreneurship and started my own supplement brand, but that didn't change my complete ignorance on how businesses operated or how to run a successful online campaign.
When I came back out, I found myself almost $4,000 more in debt than when I started and without a business.
This is that story.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about the shift that had to happen in my focus in order to even begin growing my affiliate marketing business.
As you probably know, email addresses and optins are the bread and butter of any affiliate marketing business...
... If you don't have email addresses, you don't have a business!
That was a huge problem for me in the beginning since I couldn't seem to get anybody's email address.
I would run split test, changing the background color, the stock image I was using, and even the font color!
But still had 0% optin rates.
I was testing! Why wasn't my funnel converting?
Finally, after about a month of zero subscribers, I got my first optin and my optin rate jumped form 0% to 15% in a matter of days.
After I figured out what I was doing wrong, I immediately switched my focus and began testing the things that REALLY made the difference in my optin rates...
... Then my conversions shot through the roof.
What changed?
Listen on to find out!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about the one thing that held me back from success in online business for over a year and what I changed to begin seeing success and progress in affiliate marketing.
I graduated in December, 2018 and immediately started working as an engineer at a large design firm in Atlanta, GA. Shortly after graduation I was earning $70,000 per year but I was completely strapped for time and somehow was still broke.
Most of my friends were the same way. We would get together, pop open some beers, and complain about how bad our jobs were and how much life sucked. Sometimes we would come up with good ideas for businesses or ways to break out of the monotony of day to day life, but we wouldn't ever do anything about it.
Then I made a decision that completely changed my life. This is that story.
In the podcast I mention OFA and the pivotal role it played in my growing expertise in online business and affiliate marketing.
To support me and support your own business, click here and grab OFA for yourself.
Thanks for listening!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about one concept that was the jumping off point for my affiliate marketing career. When I started out, I figured out very quickly that the conversion rate on my optin page would make all the difference in my return on ad spend. The only problem was I didn’t even have an opt in rate. After spending hundreds on ads and thousands of site visitors, I had nobody on my email list. That was until I took OFA with Russell Brunson and ClickFunnels. Over a period of 24 hours my optin rate went from 0% to 15% and hasn’t dipped since then. I typically average around a 40% optin rate and have had pages that convert as high as 88%! Anyone I talk to who is getting started I recommend take OFA for no other reason than the dramatic shift in results it let me experience. Grab OFA now I talk specifically about Hook, Story, Offer in the episode, but there is so much more that goes into crafting an effective marketing message. There is also way more to Hooks, Stories, and Offers than I could cover in this episode. Thousands of people have exploded their affiliate marketing results with this course, I recommend you do the same. Get OFA now!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I tell my story about how I quit my $70,000 per year job to pursue online business and affiliate marketing.
It hasn't been easy. In fact, my first year in business I hardly generated any revenue at all and spent most of my time jumping around from opportunity to opportunity, not really sticking with anything longer than a month and a half.
That changed when I found One Funnel Away and Partner With Anthony.
I learned about sales funnels and the fundamentals of online business for the first time through OFA.
I learned about the power of affiliate marketing to create time and financial freedom.
An most importantly, I found something I could stick to for longer than a month.
If I could go back and do 2020 all over again, I would immediately take OFA and follow that up with Partner With Anthony, because all of the success I have had up to this point I can directly link to those two courses. (and I've taken well over $6,000 worth of courses...)
If you want to take OFA and learn about the best and easiest way to conduct online business today, click the link below.
Register For OFA NOW!
If you want to take a deep dive into affiliate marketing and plug into an existing 8-figure affiliate marketing empire to profit for yourself, click the link below.
Register For PWA NOW!
"The greatest risk in life is to risk nothing at all"
Talk to y'all in the next one.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
When I started in online business I was working really hard to lose money...
... now, I think I've cracked the code to earning beaucoup bucks (heisenberg) doing NOTHING.
If you want to learn the secret, listen on!
My shameless plugs:
One Funnel Away (OFA) - Literally the best course on internet marketing I have ever taken, and I have spent well over $6,000 in courses up to this point. At the time of this writing, you can get it for $100.
Funnel Scripts - Makes writing copy for sales pages, video sales letters, emails, facebook posts, twitter posts, Google ads, Facebook ads....
... etc. etc. much MUCH easier and way faster. This definitely 10X'd my speed and quality of my copy overnight. Current price: $797.
Partner With Anthony - Probably the fastest way to make your first dollar online nowadays. Instead of spending months (or years) trying to figure out the best business model for affiliate marketing, let one of the best affiliate marketers in the world pull the curtain back from his own business and let you plug into his funnel and profit from it. Current price: $7/month
Autopilot Downline - My baby. This is my course which show network and affiliate marketers the basics of paid prospecting and how to create self liquidating offers online. The best part is after you buy, you have full license to swipe the entire funnel and sell the course as your own. Current price: $17.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
Your business ideas don't matter!
I spent so long in the beginning spending time thinking of the "perfect product" to bring to market and months creating it...
... only to lose gobs and gobs of money after making only a few (or zero) sales.
The lesson I had to learn the hard way was that ideas that came straight form my mind were generally bad, and yours probably are too.
There's a better way though, and it requires way less mental and physical effort.
If you want to know what it is, listen on!
My shameless plugs:
One Funnel Away (OFA) - Literally the best course on internet marketing I have ever taken, and I have spent well over $6,000 in courses up to this point. At the time of this writing, you can get it for $100.
Funnel Scripts - Makes writing copy for sales pages, video sales letters, emails, facebook posts, twitter posts, Google ads, Facebook ads....
... etc. etc. much MUCH easier and way faster. This definitely 10X'd my speed and quality of my copy overnight. Current price: $797.
Partner With Anthony - Probably the fastest way to make your first dollar online nowadays. Instead of spending months (or years) trying to figure out the best business model for affiliate marketing, let one of the best affiliate marketers in the world pull the curtain back from his own business and let you plug into his funnel and profit from it. Current price: $7/month
Autopilot Downline - My baby. This is my course which show network and affiliate marketers the basics of paid prospecting and how to create self liquidating offers online. The best part is after you buy, you have full license to swipe the entire funnel and sell the course as your own. Current price: $17.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
My first online business was a supplement brand that completely flopped.
I spent over $2,000 (maybe even $3,000...) creating a logo, sourcing protein powder, creating product mockups, buying images, writing sales copy...
... and when I launched, I made literally zero dollars.
I went on to create digital products that sold only marginally better. I think my ROI on my first ebook was 0.10 (yikes)
I was bleeding money and had no idea what to do. I was thinking of going back to my day job.
Then, I discovered this "secret funnel" that almost all successful online businesses use and immediately saw a drastic improvement in performance.
I've use this funnel now to improve my opt in rates from 0% to 15%, then from 15% to 40%.
Want to know what this secret funnel is? Listen on!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about a MAJOR mental flip that I had to make going from being an employee to entrepreneur...
When I worked in engineering, I always had someone else telling me how to spend my time.
"Be at work at this time,"
"You can leave at 5:00 PM,"
"I need you to work over the weekend"
I would always say I wanted to be my own boss, but I had no idea what that actually meant.
When I started in business my time became my own and I realized it was really hard to manage myself and my time...
... that was, until I learned about this little known strategy that only a small handful of people are using to maximize and multiply their effectiveness.
What to know how I get 5X more done than everyone around me? Listen on!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about my initial failures in online business because of my lack of knowledge of this one simple concept that literally all successful businesses (online and offline) run on.
In the beginning, I always thought that if people weren't converting on my sales pages from my paid advertising, either the product wasn't good, my sales page sucked, or my traffic source was bad...
... this is not the case!
I had to learn the hard way how to actually convert on landing pages.
Instead of going through the same trials as me, listen on to learn from my mistakes that cost me thousands of dollars and many tears.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In today's episode, I talk about how writing your own hooks is a bad idea and how you should model them instead.
When I first started affiliate marketing, I tried to create all of my own hooks, stories, and offers from a vacuum...
Needless to say, it didn't work out well.
Now, I simply scroll through YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook looking for other people's hooks to emulate.
MUCH easier. MUCH faster. WAY less taxing on the brain.
It's actually how I got the hook for this episode... (thanks Alex Becker,,,)
Anyway, hope y'all enjoy!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about my trip back to engineering after I quit my first job, then how I make an irrevocable decision to leave engineering for good and pursue online business full time.
Note: I am not recommending you take the same route as me, this is just what I felt like I needed to do in order to find success in my online business.
Thanks for listening!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
Warning: mindset episode...
In this episode I talk about belief and how powerful it can be in changing behavior and attitude. I have personally found Bob Proctor's material to be a great source of motivation and belief for me.
Hopefully this episode doesn't go too deep...
Thanks for listening!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about modeling offers to convert more people while selling your affiliate products. I used to believe it was enough to just send people straight through a bridge page to an affiliate offer and expected sales using this tactic.
It never worked...
Now, I use a new method to create attractive offers for any product I am promoting.
I also talked a little bit about PWA, which is by far the best affiliate marketing offer I have seen for people just starting out. If you want to learn more about PWA and consider joining, click here.
Thanks for listening!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about how to use the hook, story, offer structure to sell online. Since I started to use this structure, I went from converting literally zero people on my opt in pages to converting at around 15% on cold traffic with a $2.30 CPA.
I learned this concept while taking the OFA Challenge, and I definitely recommend anyone serious about internet marketing take that course by clicking here.
Thanks for listening!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about what I believe is the best type of sales script you can possibly use for your sales messaging: the epiphany bridge script. I focus mostly on how this concept can be used to generate virtually endless amounts of content, and the origin of this type of script. Also, enjoy my rambling about the dawn of a new internet era: The Age Of Attention...
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about two tactics I learned from the OFA Challenge and PWA that have been instrumental to my success so far in affiliate marketing. In fact, I use these two concepts every time I create a new sales message, record a new YouTube video, or record a new podcast.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about some of the skills I am working on right now to grow my affiliate marketing business. In Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich, his fourth principle for success is specialized knowledge. I realized I had no specialized knowledge in online business, so now I've set out to change that.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about how downloading one app cost me $6,000 and how I made the shift to investing in myself and in my business instead of wasting money on superficial pleasures.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about the different kinds of traffic and new strategies I'm using to warm up my traffic and generate more conversions on my squeeze pages. Most of what I'm learning as far as traffic is concerned comes from Russell Brunson's newest book Traffic Secrets, which you can get for free (plus shipping) if you click here.
I will receive an affiliate commission if you click on the link, so if you want to learn and support me at the same time, head over and get your copy now!
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about how I become one of the top students in my school unconsciously and developed unwavering discipline in the process. I also share some exercises I have found useful in creating new habits and breaking old ones.
No affiliate marketing strategies in this one, just some good ol' fashioned mindset training.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I tell the story of how I wasted over $5,000 on these types of courses and what I've learned about learning in the process.
If you've listened to the episode and want to try OFA or Partner With Anthony (PWA), you can click the affiliate links below to try them out and help me at the same time.
Thanks!
One Funnel Away (OFA)
Partner With Anthony (PWA)
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about how one simple sentence increased my opt-in rates from less than 1% to over 15% overnight. My list is now steadily growing and I'm improving various aspects of my business on a daily basis.
I've committed myself to publishing an episode of Rainforest Marketing Radio every day for the next year. Listen on to learn from my mistakes as I grow my affiliate marketing business to create complete time and money freedom.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
In this episode, I talk about leaving my web design client to focus on email marketing and creating passive and semi-passive streams of income.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
This is the story of how I made my first dollar online. Are you expecting a massive success story with lambos and mansions? Well, don't because my first dollar online was a total disaster.
In the end though, I gained some valuable experience and learned a lot. Even today, some 6 months later, I'm still falling back on some of the lessons I learned from that time in my business.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
When I started my online business, one of my primary goals was to achieve time freedom. My only problem was that I never asked myself the question of what I would do with that time once I got it.
Here's my experience and the truth that I discovered about time freedom.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
After 9 months of being in online business, I had only generated about $500 dollars in revenue. I was broke and realized my mindset was all kinds of messed up. I knew something had to change, so I stopped everything and looked at what I had been doing over the past 9 months.
This is my experience with "Shiny Object Syndrome"
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
When I first started in business, I had no idea what an email list was, much less its importance in creating a stable business online. In this episode, I talk a little bit about how I came to discover email marketing and the current state of my email list.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support
This is how I got started in online marketing and entrepreneurship. Over the past year, I've from working 9-5 as a corporate transportation engineer to now working almost full-time on my online affiliate marketing business.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alex-herdt/support