The Online Marketing Show: Recent Episodes
Joseph Bushnell
The Online Marketing Show with Joseph Bushnell. A daily show that focuses on all things related to growing your business through online marketing, traffic, conversions and "making money online".
Learn how to get more targeted traffic, increase conversion rates, raise the lifetime value of customers and how to get it all done fast.
Joey Bushnell interviews his guests on many topics including... online marketing, sales, traffic, conversions, everything that will help to grow your online business.
He also share the latest online marketing industry news.
Joe De Sena is the founder of Spartan Race, the world's leading obstacle course and endurance running event. Joe discusses his experience in building a market leading business and how he uses social media to stay on top
Chris Voss is the author of Never Split the Difference which has quickly gained a reputation as one of the most important negotiation books of last decade. Chris learned his skills whilst working as a hostage negotiator for the FBI and in this episode he shares how we too can be better negotiators.
Jason Swenk was able to build a 7 figure digital marketing agency in just 11 months and only working 100 hours per month! That's just 1,100 hours to a business turning over a million dollars. Impressive. In this episode Jason shares how he did it.
Dr. Ken Nedd is a practicing medical doctor in the field of stress and happiness in the work place. In this episode he shares practical tips to help entrepreneurs and business owners to be happier and less stressed out
In today's episode I am joined by experienced online marketing consultant, Adam Hommey who gives us tips on how we can easily increase conversions on our webpages.
In this episode I interview Hal Elrod, the author of the Miracle Morning book series. If you want to have a productive days work, it's vital to start off the day in the best way possible. Hal shares how we can do just that.
In this episode I interview Lindsey Anderson AKA One-Click Lindsey. Lindsey specializes in online traffic and lead gen and in this episode we discuss methods such as Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Instagram and SEO
Michael E. Gerber is the author of the E-Myth series which have sold millions of copies worldwide. For those who haven't read the books, if you've ever heard of "working on your business rather than in it" or "the technician vs the manager vs the entrepreneur" then you've heard some of the E-Myth concepts. In this episode, Michael describes the 8 steps of a great growing company that can take you from a company of 1 to a company of 1,000!
Ryan Daniel Moran has several online business's which are making him over 6 figures monthly. Needless to say, this kind of passive income allows him to spend his time doing whatever he wants, he has totally designed his own ideal lifestyle. In this episode he shares how he did and how we can do the same.
Ty Cohen shares his method for making $30k a month on Amazon selling books he didn't even write.
Tom Schwab shares how to have leads come to us through inbound marketing and how to delight our customers. http://inboundforecommerce.com
Mitch Russo shares how we can build cheaper, leaner and more efficient businesses by going virtual. Find out more at http://invisibleorganization.com
Jon Loomer shares advanced Facebook advertising tips and tricks using the Facebook power editor http://jonloomer.com
Today's special guest is Mitch Russo. Go to coachingsystemarchitect.com to find out more. Mitch has a system for helping coaches to scale their business and he will be sharing this system with us today. If you run a coaching practice you’ll really want to hear today's show because Mitch will be sharing how to get more coaching clients as well how to set up the foundations of your coaching business so it has the capacity for real growth and so that you can replicate yourself by bringing other coaches on board, to really take your coaching business to a different level.
Today’s special guest is business consultant and author, Pam Slim. Go to http://pamelaslim.com to find out more. In this episode Pam will be sharing what we need to know about quitting our full time job and moving into self employment, going from employee from entrepreneur if you like. This is can be a really tricky phase of life if you aren’t prepared for it and that’s why Pam has written a book on this exact topic and will giving us some tips today.
Today’s special guest is wealth creation expert Jason Hartman. Go to http://jasonhartman.com to find out more. Jason is all about finding leverage, finding ways to do more with less in every area of life and business, and in today’s episode we’ll be discussing how to find leverage in what Jason calls the 3 primary areas of life - business, biology and investing.
Today’s special guest is a previous guest of the show, Jim Palmer. Go to http://decideforsuccessbook.com to find out more. Now the reason Jim is back on the show again is because he’s just launched a new book called Decide which I’m nearly half way through and it’s incredible business advice and so I knew I had to have him come back on share this with us. In today’s call we’re going to be discussing the huge impact that being a good, strong decision maker has on our business including how to get out of “squishyville”, dealing with entrepreneurial head trash, overcoming imposter syndrome, the green light formula to use when faced with a new business decision and what to do when you make a bad decision. All this and much more on the way
Stan Dahl is the co-creator of the Simple Writing System with John Carlton. It's well known as one of the best copywriting courses ever created and in this episode Stan shares some of his copywriting wisdom
Jairek Robbins is the author of the new book "Live it". In this episode he will be sharing the principles from his book so that we can apply them in our lives and businesses so that we can become the happiest, healthiest and most fulfilled version of ourselves. He’ll also be sharing how to sell much more of your products or services by applying the “live it” philosophy, as well as how to make lasting change in your life and business. All this and much more. Go to http://jairekrobbins.com to find out more.
Eben Pagan is a Marketing, Business Growth and Productivity Expert and on this call he shares how we can double our productivity. Go to http://budurl.com/10xproductivity to find out about the 90 day wake up productive program
To kick off the new year I want to offer you a free copy of a book I’ve been involved in co-authoring with several other marketing experts. It’s called creating business growth: 21 successful marketers reveal their top business marketing secrets. It’s absolutely packed full of great marketing ideas for entrepreneurs and small/medium business owners including advice on copywriting, online advertising, referral marketing, conversion rate optimization, email marketing and pretty much every marketing topic any savvy marketer needs to be aware of.
Today’s special guest is the host of the online learning podcast John Colley, go to jbdcolley.com to find out more. Today John will be sharing his marketing strategies and tactics that are working for him right now including... The 6 steps for devising your strategic marketing plan, 2 tools to completely automate your twitter marketing, 6 ways to get more subscribers and downloads for your podcast and finally 3 books and 2 amazing places to find online courses
Today's special guest is content marketing expert Joe Pulizzi. Go to contentmarketinginstitute.com to find out more. Today Joe will be sharing with us how to create and share epic content to grow our business we�ll discussing the 8 main types of content marketing, The 3 core objectives for any content marketing program, 6 keys to creating epic content that stands head and shoulders above competing content, How to get your content in front of the right people and How to measure whether your content marketing is producing ROI or not
Today's special guest is joint venture expert Sohail Khan, go to milliondollarpartneringbook.com to find out more. In today's call Sohail is going to be sharing how we can leverage the power of joint ventures to grow our business including: Why you should be doing joint ventures especially if you don't have a huge marketing budget, 2 ways to do joint ventures online, Sohail's top 10 tips for networking and creating strong business relationships, How get in approach "hard to reach" people for joint venture partnering, How to pitch your joint venture idea so you make the deal happen and much, much more.
Today’s special guest is a very well known online marketer, Alex Mandossian. Go to marketingonline.com/event to find out more. Alex has been marketing online since the early days of the intenet back in the 90‘s, he has a lot to share about online marketing and internet business and in this episode he shares... The 3 reasons people fail in online marketing Why sloppy success is better than perfect mediocrity The secret for getting passionate about your business The 3 ways to increase engagement with your prospects and customers E=MC3 equation for marketing messages that make money
Today’s special guest is speaker trainer, Joleene Moody, go to joleenespeaks.com to find out more. Joleene teaches people how to get booked as a speaker and sell from stage which is something I think is very important for online entrepreneurs is to be seen as an authority figure who gets invited to speak in the real world. In this interview Joleene shares...
3 ways to get booked as a speaker A really simple way of putting on your own speaking events The Box of confidence method to get booked at a specific event you really want to speak at The 50/50 rule for selling from stage or from a live online event How to follow up with and sell to the prospects you acquire from speaking events And much more!
If you want to grow your business and reputation through speaking events both online and offline then this episode is for you.
Today I have a very special guest on the line his name is Ryan Levesque and he’s famous for pioneering Survey Funnels go to surveyfunnelformula.com to find out more.
In today’s call Ryan will be sharing his survey funnel formula which has helped him to generate 2.8 million leads and acquire 175,000 in the last 23 months including...
Why you need to be dumb to succeed in marketing The 3 biggest mistakes people make in their marketing funnels 3 types of survey funnels that you can use - The Micro commitment bucket survey, The do you hate me survey, The pivot survey (when Ryan uses these 3 surveys in his funnel he increases revenue by 50%) The length of a funnel should we be going for same visit sales or is it better to take time to nurture prospects?
Today’s special guest is a top internet marketer, Gary George, go to blazinmultimedia.com to find out more.
We’ll be discussing a variety of topics, Gary will be sharing...
How to come up with the right online marketing strategy His top 2 lead generation methods that are working really well right now Why having a mobile app is a huge marketing opportunity in fact Gary says he’s not been so excited about any new marketing technology since early days of Google adwords The 3 most important elements of app store optimization 2 other ways to promote and get lots of downloads for your mobile apps All that and more coming up
Today’s special guest is very well known online marketer, Terry Dean. Go to mymarketingcoach.com to find out more. Terry has been marketing online since 1996, the old days of online marketing and he’s mentored many people to online success, in this interview we discuss the corner stones of building a profitable online business...
The eliminate, automate and delegate technique so that you can earn more, work less and and enjoy your life 3 Survey questions to help you understand exactly what your audience wants 5 steps that will make any website convert better in 15 minutes or less Terry’s favourite traffic source right now The the 3 c’s of monetizing email and why Terry gets worried if he doesn’t get any complaints after sending an email to his list All that and much more!
Today’s special guest is a top copywriter his name is Chris Haddad. Chris is a well known copywriter who actually retired from copywriting and no longer teaches copy, he just writes it for himself and makes income from the amazing sales letters he writes, and this is some fake scarcity play, you’ll see at the end of the call, I try very hard to get him to give me a website and he couldn’t give me one. His copywriting skills genuinely aren’t for sale, so I’m really lucky to have landed this interview with him. For the last few years Chris has been using his copywriting skills to make money selling products in the dating and relationship industry and in this interview Chris shares with us what marketers and copywriter should know when marketing to this niche. So if you work in this niche or plan to, or if you’re clients or potential clients are in this niche and you help them with their marketing then make sure you stay tuned
Brad geddes is the author of the book Advanced Google Adwords, go to certifiedknowledge.org to find out more.
In this episode we will be discussing exactly that, advanced google adwords, we’ll covering, search theory, quality score, keyword research, ad extensions, writing ads, advanced targeting options, landing pages, remarketing and everything in between, so if you use adwords as part of your marketing or you plan on using it, you won’t want to miss this episode!
Sam Bennett is the author of Get it Done. Go to theorganizedartistcompany.com to find out more.
In today’s episode, Sam will be discussing strategies from her book so that we can be super productive in our businesses including…
Why do we put things off and often don’t get our most important projects done The easy, practical steps you can take to make sure you do complete your main projects Why you should have an idea catcher Why a could do list is better than a to do list How to pick the most important project to you right now And much more
What is being mobile responsive?
Being mobile responsive simply means making sure that your web pages are easily usable on any device whether that’s when a visitor is using a desktop, a laptop like back in the old days or whether they are visiting your site using a tablet or mobile device as is becoming an increasingly popular way to navigate the web. In 2014 you must make sure your websites are good for users of any device. The reason I say mobile responsive in particular is that because the web started on desktops and laptops pretty all websites work on those kinds of devices but not all websites have made the additional step of being responsive on a mobile or tablet device.
Why is being mobile responsive good?
In 2014, very realistically, half of your website traffic is on mobile and if your site is not mobile responsive, mobile users will find it difficult to use and most likely leave your website. You can’t convert or sell to visitor who has left your site, never to return can you? So by not having a mobile responsive website, you could literally be wasting half of the traffic that comes to your site and that’s hardly good for conversion rates. Simply by having a mobile responsive site means that mobile visitors can have a good experience on your site just as easily as they could on a desktop or laptop.
What’s bad about being mobile responsive?
Nothing is bad about being mobile responsive, your mobile visitors need to be looked after. Only not being mobile responsive is bad.
Who is being mobile responsive for?
Everyone who has a business website, of any kind, of any type should make sure that their web pages are mobile ready. If it is not currently mobile responsive then you need to make it mobile responsive, it may require a small investment to make this transition but you should make that investment because you can no longer ignore mobile traffic and in the coming years, mobile traffic will only increase, don’t get left behind.
How to be mobile responsive?
Modern day web design firms will make sure your website is responsive on all devices so if you need to update your website, there are plenty of web developers who can help you to make the transition.
If your website is a self hosted wordpress site but it is not mobile responsive it’s most likely because you have an old theme. Pretty much all modern wordpress themes will be mobile responsive so it’s just a case of finding and installing a new theme. The content on your site can stay the same but you change the theme and therefore the look of your website when doing this but that’s not always a bad thing. Most people’s website could do with a facelift anyway so take this opportunity to real make your site look amazing too. This doesn’t have to be stressful it can be fun.
For m personally, as I’ve mentioned in many places throughout my podcast or on my blog, most web pages I ever create are done using either optimizepress 2 or leadpages. Between these two tools I can create any kind of website or landing page I like and it’s always mobile responsive. I definitely recommend them both.
Steve Wilkinghoff is the author of “Found Money: Simple strategies for uncovering the hidden profit and cash flow in your business”. Go to stevewilkinghoff.com to find out more. Steve started out as an accountant before becoming entrepreneurial and so he understands the numbers and financial side of a business in a way that most business owners do not, the majority of business owners when they look at their financial statement they don’t know how to make sense of them and how they can translate that information into actionable changes that they need to make within their business to make it grow. Understanding how your business actually makes money so that you can make more of it. Maybe you’ve struggled with this? I know I have which is why I wanted to get Steve on the show today.
We’re going to be discussing these topics including...
Why it’s critical to get absolutely clear as to the reason your business exists in the first place Why you must clearly define goals so that your business can support your dream lifestyle The 3 things a business has to do to make money for its owner A quick, easy way to immediately increase cashflow How to get out of what Steve calls a death spiral, the situation where the business is really struggling financially and heading for failure, Steve’s going to share how to identify where you’re going wrong so that you can fix the problem
Today’s special guest is Barry Schwartz, go to rustybrick.com to find out more.
Barry has a lot of experience in SEO, he’s a contributor over at both search engine roundtable and search engine land and in this interview we are discussing the state of search engine optimization in 2014. SEO is a moving target, what worked a year ago, could get you penalized now so in this episode Barry will be sharing latest tips to stay in googles good books and make sure we can don’t find ourselves in any trouble with so that they continue to send us lots and lots of search traffic!
Brad Smart who is the author of Topgrading. Go to topgrading.com to find out more.Topgrading is widely considered to be the most effective methodology for hiring the best talent to work for your company and is used by fortune 500’s, small businesses and non profits alike and in this episode Brad shares how we can use the Topgrading interview process to hire only the very best people the people he calls A-players, and to get the very best out of them and to keep them doing their best work for you for long term.
NOTE: There is an echo in the middle third of the interview which reduces the quality of the audio. You can still hear what is being said but I would highly recommend reading the transcript on my blog so that you don't miss anything.
Today’s special guest is Chris Savage and he is a co-founder of Wistia. Got to wistia.com to find out more. Wistia is the video hosting platform built specifically for marketers and business people, many of the world’s best marketers swear by it, and today Chris is going to be sharing exactly how we can use Wistia to get far better results with our video marketing.
Steven Kotler is the author several books including The Rise of Superman:Decoding the science of ultimate human performance. In this book Steven explores the concept of Flow, the state we are in when we perform at our absolute best, and in this interview Steven discusses how we as entrepreneurs can get into flow so that we can perform at our maximum level.
John Buscall is the owner of jontusmedia.com, a digital marketing agency with a special talent for creativity and strategy. In this interview John shares...
Why marketing is a commitment not a campaign How to come up with creative marketing ideas that really stand out Why you don’t always need to have a totally original ideas when getting creative How to inject creativity into your brand and into your online content How to figure out what your online marketing strategy should be 2 of his favorite online marketing tools And much more
Izabela Russell works with some of the worlds top podcasters to help their podcasts sound great, in this episode Izabela shares...
Why podcasting is a great way of getting new clients How to make great intro’s, outro’s, jingles, promo’s How to prepare your own voice so that it sounds great when recording And more!
Jules watkins is the guy behind the video hero brand. He teaches business owners how to create amazing looking video that sells. In this episode Jules shares...
3 tips for getting great quality iPhone videos A cool iPhone accessory that will make your videos look super professional The easiest tools for editing your videos How to devise a video strategy so that you can build your list or sell And much more.
Gauher Chaudhry is one of the pioneers of traffic driving. In fact he so influencial, he coined the term PPV (any traffic freaks will know that's kind of a big deal!) In this episode Gauher shares some of his best traffic advice and give us 6 ways that we can get targeted traffic... PPC, media buys, PPV, PPT, native ads and mobile traffic.
Ilan & Guy Ferdman are the co-founders of Satori Prime and the Performance Enhancing Podcast. They help people to reach business success by teaching a blend of personal development as well as practical business and marketing strategies. In this episode they share how we can become a high performer and attain mastery in our field.
Steve Gordon is the author of the new book “Unstoppable Referrals”. Go to unstoppableceo.net to find out more.
In this interview we are discussing how you can get more way more referrals including...
How Steve grew his business 10x using referrals Why studies unanimously agree that referrals are the best way to get new business Why business owners find it uncomfortable to ask for referrals and how to easily overcome it How to make it easy for your happy clients to refer people to you The “reverse prospecting” technique to get inside the network of your clients or contacts The “Johnny Carson” method which will make your prospects actually look forward to your follow up messages And much more!
Mindy McHorse who is an awesome copywriter. Go to MTM copywriting to find out more about her.
In this episode we will be discussing the copywriting process and how to improve our copywriting. Mindy will be sharing…
2 ways to overcome writers block An easy method for adopting the perfect tone or voice in your writing 2 tips for editing so that you can make every single word of your copy count 9 top copywriters/copywriting organizations that you should be learning copywriting from All this and much more!
Bryan Eisenberg is the author of several marketing books including "Waiting for your cat to bark", "Call to action", Always be testing" and "Persuasive online copywriting". In this episode Bryan shares with us his famous concept of persuasion architecture and how we can increase our online sales by using it.
Travis Ketchum is the creator of Contest Domination, my personal favourite contest platform. In this episode Travis shares how we can put our list building on steroids by using contests!
Ian Brodie is the author of "Email Persuasion". In this episode Ian shares with us how to win clients through email marketing.
In this episode I want to make an announcement regarding some changes to the show format.
I recently discovered that iTunes only support podcasts which have a maximum of 300 episodes after which time, things can start to go wrong with the podcast, new episodes not updating or being listed in the iTunes directory, that kind of thing. Obviously that’s not something I want to happen. What it means is that in about 4 months time I would have to stop the show. This was definitely not in my plans and had I known about this before now I would have done a few things differently so I have a few decisions to make in the future.
However I’ve already made a couple of decisions. The first is I will be slowing the show down. As you know it’s a daily show and if I carry on at this rate the show will be over in 4 months, which I have absolutely no intention of. So instead daily episodes I will release episodes every 3 to 4 days and this way the podcast will be able to continue for at least another year. Also I know this suit many of the listeners anyway, I have had some feedback that whilst they absolutely love the show, sometimes life is busy and they just can’t keep up with every episode, and that’s more than understandable. I never imagined that anyone would listen to every episode single anyway so I didn’t think it would be an issue but some people have expressed that they would listen to every episode if they could, so hopefully this will be welcome news to many of you anyway, this will certainly make it easier to consume every episode if that is something you would like to do.
The 2nd decision I’ve made is to free up some space by taking the online marketing news episodes and putting them on a separate podcast. So if you are a fan of the online marketing news please subscribe to my spin off show The online marketing news. You can find this by searching on iTunes and it should be listed on stitcher in the very near future too. Or you can go to http://onlinemarketingnews.libsyn.com/
Oh and by the way if you do subscribe to the online marketing news and have been a big fan of it in the past then please help us launch the show by leaving a review on iTunes, the success of podcast really can sometimes depend on how successful the launch is and if you can get into the new and noteworthy section on iTunes, I’d love to make that happen and reviews will go a long way to helping us to do that.
The 3rd decision is I will be freeing up some space by deleting some old episodes, I don’t know which ones and I don’t know when I will take them down but after I give it some thought this will happen at some point. And I won’t be giving warning, this is that warning so if you are in any doubt at all if there are any previous episodes that you wanted to listen to but haven’t had the chance yet, go download them now just to be safe.
And that’s it for now, a big shake up and one that even as little as 7 days ago I had absolutely no intention of changing anything. But new information came to light and I needed to make a decision. Sometimes you have to be bold and make the choice, for better or for worse. I hope many of you will welcome the changes and I can promise you that from my end there will be no let up on the amazing quality of guests and marketing and business growth information shared for free on this podcast, that I can assure you. Thank you for your continued support of the show, it means a lot to me. Have a great day and I will catch you on the next the episode!
John Jonas is the creator of onlinejobs.ph the worlds biggest marketplace for outsourcing to the Philippines. In this episode John shares how we can get lots of work done for an amazing price by using this method so that you can work on the business whilst someone else works in the business.
In this episode I want to point you in the direction of an incredible free resource.
It’s Joost De Valk’s The definitive guide to higher rankings for wordpress sites. You can find it at https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/
If you have a wordpress site which I know many, many of my listeners do, then you owe it to yourself to read this post because if you are working hard producing content with your wordpress website then it’s a given that you want search engine traffic. You Google, bing and yahoo to pick up your content and rank for the relevant keywords so that it gets found.
This definitive guide really does give you everything you need to know about how to rank your wordpress site higher. You’re already investing time in your site so why not invest the time read this guide so that your content has the best chance of getting traffic, getting read, being monetized and getting you the ROI you want.
Once again you can find over at https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/
Jessica Rhodes is the creator of interviewconnections.com the service which helps people to find great guests for their podcast or to be featured as an expert on other peoples podcasts. In this interview Jessica shares how we can build an audience though podcast interviews.
What is urgency?
Urgency is a way of giving prospects a reason to take action now. In marketing this could apply in many situations but particularly in conjunction with an offer to buy. It’s giving a good justified reason why they must act not, not later.
Why is urgency good?
In sales and marketing delay is death. If you give prospects a chance to hesitate then they will. However if you add an element of urgency to your offer, conversions always rise. They know that at a later time this same offer will not be available so if they want it, now is the time. It’s now or never.
What’s bad about urgency?
Some people feel a little pressured by urgency but I recommend you just get over it, offending a small minority is not worth the trade off against the majority making a decision to buy.
Sometimes marketers sue false scarcity where they basically lie about their urgency, they claim that there is limited copies of their product when there is unlimited or they say this will never given at a certain price again but then 3 months down the line they offer it at that same price again. This is obviously not good and I don’t recommend it. Make sure your urgency play is genuine, keep to any promises made, 100%.
Who is urgency for?
Urgency can be used buy any business. Now let me be clear, urgency is not always appropriate in every situation. It’s not always required, sometimes your offers will be evergreen and urgency is not necessary but other times it can be used very effectively and I certainly recommend using it from to time at the very least.
How to use urgency?
Urgency can added to your offer in many ways. Perhaps you have limited stock which will not be replenished and they must be now or they will never be able to buy it. So the product is scarce, that would be an example of a scarcity play. Or perhaps there are only a limited number of seats available at your live event. 20 people can attend and that’s the limit. Perhaps you are only offering this product for a limited period of time, after which the product is taken off the market, this is something you will often see during the classic internet marketing product launches. Perhaps you are offering your product at super low, discounted rate that will never be offered again. Perhaps you are offering bonuses in addition to the original purchase for a limited time. Perhaps it’s buy one get one free for today only. Perhaps you give a coupon which is valid until the end of the month and must be used before then or it expires.
There all kinds of different creative ways to add to urgency or scarcity to your offer which for those who are seriously interested in your offer, will give them that little extra nudge they need to make the decision to buy.
Larry Winget is known as the pitbull of self development. He is the author of many books including... You're broke because you want to be, Grow a Pair, Shut up, stop whining and get a life, It's called work for a reason and many more. In this interview Larry gives some no nonsense advice to how we can can improve our business, finances and life.
Sally Hogshead is the author of Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation & the brand new follow up book How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination. In this interview Sally shares the 7 fascination triggers and also how we can discover which of those 7 triggers is strongest in ourselves so that we can use it to our advantage when marketing and communicating.
You can find out how you are most fascinating by taking this personality assessment... http://howtofascinate.com/you and use the code JBushnell. The test is usually$37 but you can take this test for free by using this code until the 25th of July.
What is proof?
Well, I’m not going to patronize you here, everyone knows what proof is but from a marketing standpoint, proof is being able to back up your marketing claims to give prospects more confidence when making their buying decision, that buying is indeed the right decision.
Why is proof good?
Proof helps you to back up your claims and prove to your prospects that your product or service can indeed get the results that you claim it can. This always increases conversions. Generally speaking the more proof you have, the stronger your proof, the higher your conversions will be.
What’s bad about proof?
Nothing is bad about proof used properly, it can only help both yourself and your prospects.
The only bad thing about proof is having a lack of proof, by not having it there, people will wonder why and it will actively work against you.
Also some shady marketers have used false proof and just used lies to back up their claims. Obviously this is not recommended, it’s wrong and it could even land you in big trouble. Don’t do it.
Who is proof for?
Every business should be using proof in their marketing as much as they possibly can.
How to show proof?
There’s many ways to show proof.
Social proof is big one, what are other people saying about you, your business, your products, your services, the spectacular results you got them?
Case studies are a great way to share a story of how someone succeeded because they bought from you.
Testimonials from happy customers are always helpful.
Perhaps you have lots of good customer reviews posted on 3rd party review websites.
Maybe you’ve been endorsed by celebrities or other influencers within your industry.
Perhaps you have been featured in the media or some other credible publications. Newspapers, TV, Radio, Magazines, Top Blogs, Top Podcasts because of the work you do.
Maybe you received an award that recognizes the work you do in your industry.
Maybe you have worked in the business for a long time or have worked with lots of clients/customers and you can demonstrate how much experience you have.
Maybe you have qualifications that prove you have studied and have knowledge in certain areas or the necessary licenses that allow you to practice in your field.
There are lots of different ways to show proof and having a mixture of all of these proof elements will help prospects to have more confidence and trust in you and that will lead to an increase in conversions.
It doesn’t matter how you are delivering your marketing message, your website, a sales letter, a VSL, a webinar, a social media update or any other place, anywhere you are making a marketing claim, make sure that the proof is present too.
Brian Kurtz is the Executive VP at BoardRoom Inc. His direct response career has spanned over 33 years during that time he is responsible for having sent over 1.3 billion pieces of direct mail that generated hundreds of millions of dollars. In this interview Brian shares how we can use direct mail and online marketing together to get new customers and sales and also tells us about his upcoming event "The Titans of Direct Response", where Brian has gathered together perhaps the best line up of direct response marketers ever assembled under the same roof.
What is a free or low cost offer?
A free or low cost offer is low risk way that you can get potential customers to try out your product or service for free or for a very low cost, so that they can make a better, more informed buying decision with more confidence. You’re showing that you can deliver upfront, before they spend the big money with you.
Why are free or low cost offers good?
The psychology behind a free or low cost offer, although they may look similar is actually quite different but done correctly, both can increase conversions.
With free offers, let’s use the example of a free trial 1 month trial for a software subscription, this is a common marketing tactic in that industry. Using this method you are letting people try your service for free. You’re showing them up front, with no risk on their part how good your software is and how much they need it. They can try before they buy. When the free trial expires, many people who used the software will now understand its value and will stay subscribed to the service when the free trial period ends. They liked the software, they now understand its value, they trust it works and they understand that it is indeed worth the monthly subscription fee. Those who don’t continue after the free trial are now on your list and you can follow up with them from now on too. This isn’t just a tactic that can be used in the software industry, that was just as an example, this method can be used effectively in many industries.
A low cost offer, is a good way for a prospect to become a customer, with far lower risk. A person who has spent money with you once before is far more likely to spend it with you again. It’s so much easier to sell to a customer than it is to an entirely new prospect. In theory, it doesn’t matter if someone has only spent a tiny amount of money with you, they are still technically a customer and they now know,like and trust you, and would be more open to buying your high end priced products or services than a cold prospect who does not yet know, like or trust you. So the idea here is to acquire lots and lots of customers at a low price point and then make the real money on the backend by using a well crafted funnel. You may hear this low cost offer concept being described as a tripwire or a welcome mat or any number of other terms that have been coined but they all pretty much mean the same thing.
What’s bad about free or low cost offers?
There may some circumstances where a free offer or low cost offer is not the best strategy so it is certainly something you will need to test if you try it.
There is also a school of thought that free or low cost offers attracts the wrong type of customer and trains people to not value your product or service, especially if you have high priced products.
The key here is making sure the strategy fits your situation. If your prices are high compared to the rest of the market then perhaps a free trial won’t be appropriate. If you offer a low cost offer to sell high priced products on the back-end, make sure that your offer is in and of itself a stand alone offer not a discounted version of your back-end offer. If you discount your main offer then you’ll have real difficulty selling that for full price later on. Instead sell a low cost offer that compliments or ties into or naturally leads into your main offer but is different from your main offer. This way you get a targeted list of paying customers, who still have a need for your main offer.
Who is free or low cost offers for?
Free trials don’t work for every type of business, not least because not all products or services can be given away for free, there’s too much of a cost involved and the economics just don’t make sense. So for a free trial to work, you need a low overhead product or service, that you can from a numbers point of view offer it for free for limited time and not lose out. Softwares, membership sites, newsletter or magazine subscriptions could all be examples of a free trial working effectively.
Low cost offers can work for a wide range of businesses just make sure your low cost offer leads into your main offer and that you have your funnel in place to sell on the back-end.
How to do a free or low cost offer?
It’s pretty easy to pull this off, if you are offering a free trial, collect payment details in advance as part of the registration process and make it very clear that they will start to be billed at the end of the free trial period if they do not cancel their subscription before the end of the trial.
If you are offering a low cost offer, make sure the price is low enough that it is an impulse buy, enough that is considered to be very low risk to the prospect. From here, you have a new customer and your funnel takes care of the rest. Some people offer their main offer immediately after purchase, other people will use a sequence of emails and a longer funnel process before making the main offer, both ways can work, test it for yourself and you’ll find out which works better for you.
Tommie Powers is known as the traffic and conversion scientist. He is also the creator of Video Ads Academy, the ultimate guide to driving traffic with video. In this interview Tommie shares how we can get cheap, targeted clicks using YouTube ads.
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell and in this episode I want to point you in the direction of an incredible free resource.
It’s Sally Hogsheads Fascination advantage assessment and it can be found and at http://howtofascinate.com/you
Sally is coming on the show in just a few days time to discuss her new book How The World Sees You. And part of the book is figuring out your personality, the ways that you are most fascinating and when armed with this knowledge you can use it to your advantage when marketing, story telling, in your branding, in your one on one conversions, your face to face interactions, everywhere.
It will show your strengths, the attributes that make you fascinating, whether it’s power, passion, mystique, prestige, alert, innovation or trust. Then it will decode that information and tell you how to use it to your advantage and become even more fascinating to your market and everyone around you.
The test usually costs $37 to take, this is something other people have paid good money for but as part of Sally’s book launch you can get it free for a limited time and only for the first 500 people. If you go to http://howtofascinate.com/you and use the code JBushnell you’ll be able to take the assessment free of charge.
Dr. Kevin Hogan is one the worlds leading teachers of influence & persuasion. He says that the difference between the impotent conversationalist and the motivating communicator is the ability to persuade people to participate in win-win relationships.
Kevin Hogan is the author of several best selling books including… The Psychology of Persuasion:How To Persuade Others To Your Way Of Thinking ,The Science of Influence: How to Get Anyone to Say “Yes” in 8 Minutes or Less!, Covert Persuasion: Psychological Tactics and Tricks to Win the Game & The Secret Language of Business: How to Read Anyone in 3 Seconds or Less
In this interview I ask Kevin all about how we can understand what motivates other people & how to influence them accordingly. You will learn cutting-edge skills in this interview that will change the way you communicate forever, including…
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How you can persuade people based on what drives them as an individual
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How to read people really quickly (You can almost read their mind meaning you know how they might respond in any given situation)
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The 16 core human drivers & desires that shape all human behavior
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How to subtly influence people using a technique called “Covert hypnosis”
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Exactly how to persuade or sell in a face to face situation, on the phone & in print
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How to tell what someone is really thinking by watching their body language
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How to persuade others by using our non-verbal communication like body language or tone of voice
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Why your appearance is essential to persuading others
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An easy method to build instant liking & rapport
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Why you should be using metaphors & stories for influence
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A technique to stop getting resistance from other people
Danny Iny is the CEO of fire pole marketing, the author of "Engagement from Scratch" and "Naked Marketing". He also runs the podcast "Connect, Engage, Inspire". In this interview Danny shares how to build an online audience and how to keep them engaged...
What is a webinar?
A webinar is an online seminar, hence the name webinar, web seminar. Some webinars are presented live and attendees have to attend at that time, others are pre-recorded and attendees can choose a time that suits them. Some webinars are delivered like a powerpoint presentation. Other webinars are delivered via live stream.
Why are webinars good?
A webinar is a good lead generator first of all. If you said to people, come to my sales pitch they would run a mile. But ask them to come to your super helpful, super informative webinar and many will want to do that. The key is you have to give them some really good valuable information during the webinar, so that even if they don’t decide to buy it was still very much worth attending. Giving great content away for free will build some “know, like and trust” with that person.
Webinars are able to keep people engaged for a significant period of time unlike many other forms of online marketing. Webinars can go on for hours sometimes. But generally people wouldn’t spend hours of time reading an emails, or hours time reading an article, or hours time doing pretty much anything, perhaps with the exception of videos and podcasts, webinars have the positioning of high value and being worthy of giving up a significant amount of time to attend and consume. Because of the sheer time spent on a webinar you are able to say all that you need to say to make the sale without having to rush yourself or skip important information.
And finally you can use webinars to sell at the end of the presentation. Once you have given great information and pre-sold people with your content, there is a natural opportunity to offer them with “what next” how you can help them to a larger degree. Because you have been so helpful already most people will be far more open to your pitch and therefore often times conversions from a webinar can be really high.
Automated webinars also allow you to automate your business, you record it once and then it can be selling for you 24/7.
What’s bad about webinars?
Some people get the pitch to content ratio of a webinar all wrong. It’s nothing more than an extended advert, very low information and just sell, sell, sell. This gets peoples backs up and makes them not want to attend webinars anymore because that’s not the reason they wanted to attend and you’ve let them down on the promise of attending.
You should pre-sell throughout your webinar but that’s different. Give excellent, high value information away that will naturally educate them as to why what you are offering will help them.
Another gripe I have about webinars now is that in some markets they have been grossly overused and abused, for this reason the people in those markets have become more sophisticated and will not attend a webinar so willingly, they’ve been on some bad ones in the past and their perceived value of webinar went down. For this reason you have to market your webinar even better to get people to attend, really offer them something special if they come to your webinar and then really deliver. You’ll gain a reputation in your market for being one of the good ones.
If using automated webinars, some people do not like to feel like they have been tricked into believing the event is happening live. If you get caught doing this you’ll certainly lose the trust of your audience. So for this reason do not make claims that your pre-recorded webinar is live.
Who is webinars for?
Everyone can try webinars, certainly some industries are more suited to webinars but you would be surprised at what weird, unexpected things can be sold via a webinar it just takes a little creativity and outside the box thinking to make it work.
That said if you sell information of some kind or have a coaching/consulting business then webinars are a natural fit. Software sells very well on webinars. And even physical products of many different kinds can be sold by webinar.
How to do a webinar?
First you need to choose how to host your webinar. If it’s a live slideshow style webinar I would recommend go to webinar. If it’s a live stream type of webinar then Google hangouts is a great option. If it’s a recorded webinar then stealth seminar is my favourite option.
Next you need to get people to attend your webinar. Use the 9 traffic methods I gave you earlier in this series to drive traffic to your webinar page. Use copywriting to give a compelling mini pitch for people to attend your webinar.
When people register use email to follow up with them and keep reminding them about the upcoming event or they may forget.
When people attend your webinar give great information away and make it really worth time having attended. Keep them engaged and attentive by asking questions and getting their responses throughout the webinar. And at the end give an incredible offer and call to action.
After the webinar remember to follow up. Follow up with those who bought, follow up with those who attended but didn’t buy and those who registered but didn’t attend in different ways so try and make more sales. For those who registered but didn’t attend, send out a time sensitive replay for them to watch.
If you would like to go deep with webinars, how to get people to register, how to get people to attend, how write a great webinar that attendees will love and how to give a great pitch that will make sales then go check out the online marketing club. It’s for you.
Neville Medhora is a master of controversial/fun copywriting and marketing. Using educational copy he is able to keep readers riveted all the way through his emails and sales letters.
In this interview I ask Neville how we can find our own voice and style of marketing that keeps our readers glued to our marketing pieces...
What is a video sales letter?
A video sales letter or VSL for short, is exactly what it sounds like, a video sales letter. Before the rise of internet videos we had the printed sales letter. A copywriter would write a sales letter in an effort to make sales. This was done purely using text and maybe the use of some imagery that the prospect would read. But fast forward to the online video age, we have a new medium of delivering a sales letter, via video. It’s a cross between a sales letter and a sales person, really because you can hear the person pitching you just like you would face to face or on the phone but it’s an online video instead. Just to be clear, this is not just any old content video or relationship building video or some other type of video, this is direct response marketing in video form, there is a clear goal and clear call to action on this video and that’s to buy.
Why are video sales letters good?
Video sales letters can sometimes give a nice little bump in conversions and outperform plain text sales letters or can be a nice support to a written sales letter. VSL’s do not always work better but it’s worth testing because when it does help to convert better it’s been worthwhile.
It’s also a good way for people to get a feel for you, get a feel for your personality which in itself can help to increase sales. This one of the closest things you can get to face to face selling without having to actually be there and it can be one to many not just one on one. There’s only one video but you could have 2, 5, 10, 50, 100, 1,000 or more people watching your VSL all over the world all at the same time which is an incredibly powerful combination of technology and direct marketing.
Also some people consume information in different ways, some people prefer to be delivered a sales pitch via a video. They wouldn’t read an entire sales letter but they would sit and watch a video. Different strokes for different folks.
What’s bad about video sales letters?
Well not much is bad about video sales letters, in my experience most of the time they work very well. They won’t always outperform written sales letter so if you find in split testing that having video somehow hurts conversions then you can you can always stop using it.
Who is video sales letters for?
Everyone who has a direct response sales letter, should test a VSL version and a VSL with text sales letter combo at some point. If you split test those 3 versions then you can leave guess work aside, you can find out exactly what works best and then use that winning version. I think with very little extra effort you can at least test it and if it works out for the better and if it does it could be worth a lot of money to you.
How to do a video sales letter?
Video sales letters do not have to be complex they can be really simple to produce. If you don’t have a script then you need to write one, treat it exactly like you would a direct response sales letter. Use the AIDA formula that I spoke of in the copywriting episode. Get their attention so they actually make a decision to stay and watch, you can’t spend time slowly getting to the point, your first sentences are your headline treat them as such. Then build interest by letting them know that you understand their problem and that you will be later revealing a solution for them, then build desire by letting them know how your product or service can help. At the end give your call to action, give a price, give a guarantee, some scarcity all the usual copywriting strategies and tell them where they can buy. Make it easy for them; there should be a buy button directly under the video.
If you already have a sales letter, just use that! It’s your script. You may want to make a few tweaks so that it makes sense when spoken aloud but the bulk of the message will remain the same.
In terms of audio production try to make sure you have a good microphone to record on and do your best to speak clearly and with enthusiasm.
In terms of visuals, the easiest way to do a VSL is to just use slides. There are other more fancy ways but this is simple and very effective. If you are a PC user that’s powerpoint, if you’re a mac user that’s Keynote. Put your main key talking points onto the slides, use images as well to keep it interesting.
Once you have done that, put the audio and visual together and make sure the timing is correct, that the correct slide shows during the corresponding part of the script. You can do this with screen capture software such as camtasia or screenflow.
And there you have it, a VSL! If you would like to learn in real detail about how to write, record and produce a high converting video sales letter then go take a look at the online marketing club, it’s for you.
Lon Safko is a Social Media Strategist who speaks and consults with Fortune 2000 companies across America. He is the author of the books "The Social Media Bible" and "The Fusion Marketing Bible".
When I read Lon's first book "The social media marketing bible" I knew I had to share his information with you because there really isn't anything this guy doesn't know about using social media for business.
In this interview Lon reveals...
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What Social Media actually is (This answer may surprise you, it's not just about Facebook and Twitter, it's far bigger than that)
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Why small businesses should be really excited about Social Media
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The 5 steps to Social Media success
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The 3 types of social media which are essential to be using and will contribute to 90% of your social media success
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How you can see an 400% increase in conversions by using Fusion Marketing
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A story about how one video with 5 million views in 24 hours, can bring even the biggest companies to their knees
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The life cycle of a Social Networking user
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2 reasons why you have to be blogging
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Why you should use live casting, vlogging and Google hangouts to connect with people on a deeper level
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Why Facebook kicked MySpace's butt
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Why Pinterest grew so fast
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The future of Google Plus?
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And more. Just click the play button below to listen in. If you enjoy it, please share it with your friends! Click Here to Visit Lon's website
Shawn Collins is the founder of the world's biggest affiliate marketing event "Affiliate Summit". In this interview he gives us tips for succeeding with affiliate marketing from the perspective of an affiliate and that of someone running an affiliate program.
What is conversion rate optimization?
Conversion rate optimization or CRO for short is a method of improving your website, your landing pages, your ads, your funnels so that you get the best possible conversion rates. You can achieve this by performing split tests and seeing which version gets the best response.
Why is conversion rate optimization good?
Conversion optimization gives you that slight edge. In some cases the difference is slight and in other cases the difference is really significant. But in my opinion, improvement is improvement, no matter how big. When you get a big improvement it can really make big differences to your business, if your funnel converts at 39% more then it’s a big difference, if your landing page converts 22% it’s a big difference, if your ads get double the click through rates, it’s a big deal. CRO can be the difference between making profit or not. It can be the difference to getting cheap paid traffic or not. It can be the difference between being able to acquire new customers at a price your competitors cannot compete with.
What’s bad about conversion rate optimization?
Conversion rate optimization is a mixed bag. Sometime what worked best in one area, doesn’t work best in another area. So it’s a bit of a moving target.
There’s also an expiry date with CRO, what worked great this year may not work great next year or even in just a few months time, as times change, people change, your market changes. Again it can be a moving target. Not always but it can be.
Also you have to run enough traffic to get significant split test results, so if you aren’t getting enough traffic to test with, CRO is pointless.
Who is conversion rate optimization for?
Pretty much advanced businesses who have cash flow, who already have a solid foundation to build upon. If you don’t have traffic or a good offer or product or some of the other basics in place then CRO is not what you should be messing around with, you can’t polish turds.
CRO is something to think about once you have the basics in place
Because it can be constant expense or investment, depending on how you look at it, often it’s big companies who can afford to do this as CRO is a constant process that will give you an edge but smaller companies may not have the budget for this.
The little guy can do CRO for sure but make sure you have the basics in place first. Then add CRO to the mix afterwards.
How to do conversion rate optimization?
An obvious option is to hire a CRO company to take care of all this for you. Depends on your budget of course.
If you’re doing it yourself
There’s many things you can split test, different headlines, price points, bullet points, body copy, images, button colors, button sizes, videos vs text only, trust signals, timers, guarantees, opt-in box position, one step or two step opt-in, how many options to offer at the point of purchase, upsell or no upsell, the list is endless, anything element on a web page or ad or within your funnel that can be changed is open to being split tested.
I would personally focus on the big things rather than the small things, your headline or hook can make big differences sometimes. Your offer can make a big difference. Your video can make a big difference. Perhaps start there and move onto the smaller variations afterwards.
When you run paid ads, make sure you test different variations of adverts to which get the best click through rate. When you run paid ads, split test different landing pages.
Split testing tools that you can use include Unbounce.com, optimizely.com, visualwebsiteoptimizer.com. Leadpages has a split testing tool built-in to it’s system. Wistia is good tool for split testing videos.
If you would like to go deep with CRO, what to test, find out how to use these tools, how to make sense of the data, then take a look at the online marketing club, it’s for you.
Hi welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell
And in this super quick episode I want to make you an offer of a free consultation with me.
Hopefully you’ve been finding The Online Marketing Show full of good information but maybe you aren’t sure which strategies and tactics are right for you and your business, you certainly can’t implement everything so often it comes down to prioritizing, choosing those one or two strategies that would really make a big difference to you.
If your online business is not quite where you wish it to be then you can use this free session with me to identify why, and what to do about it.
You see, I’ve spent the last 8 years of my life studying, testing and implementing every online marketing method I could possibly explore and in that time I’ve gone from struggling to succeeding, I’ve taken my clients from struggle to success.
In that time I’ve encountered every type of problem and obstacle you can imagine. The good news is, no matter what is holding you back right now, there’s always a way to overcome it.
I’ve found that literally no matter what your specific online business problem is, it will always fall into one of these 5 problem areas...
A traffic problem – You don’t have enough high quality leads being generated
A conversion problem – From the leads you are getting, not enough of them are making the transition from prospect to paying customer.
A profit problem – Out of the sales you are making, you are still not making enough money to make this business really take off.
A knowledge problem – In some way, you are unsure of what to do, what direction to take, what strategy to implement.
An action problem – For one reason or another you don’t have the ability to get done what you need to get done, maybe you don’t have the man power or the systems in place to get things done without hassle, instead you end up with a huge backlog of tasks and an overwhelming to-do list.
The answer you're looking for, the solution that will turn your fortunes around is sitting in one of those 5 areas, right now. All you need to do is identify it and then fix it and things will change for you.
Because if you are experiencing issues in even just one of these areas, your online business will start to show signs of failure, struggle, and the money and the results you want just won’t be showing up in the volume you would like.
In fact the likelihood is, you are experiencing a combination of these problems.
So if you want a successful business you must optimize in all 5 of these areas. If you can do that, you will have a successful, profitable online business, that gives you the freedom to live the life you want.
The best way for me to help you is for us to have a conversation. Let’s talk to each other.
When we talk I’ll be able to find out where you’re at, I’ll be able to quickly identify where you are going wrong and I’ll be able to give you an action plan to turn it around.
If you’d like to take me up on this offer, let’s book a free of charge, 30 minute strategy session together so we can turn your situation around.
Go to my homepage over at josephbushnell.com, on that page you will see this same free strategy session offer just like this one you’re listening to on the podcast, go there, enter your details and I’ll be in touch with you soon to arrange a time for us to talk
Carol Dodsley is an expert on using Google Hangouts and Google Plus for business and marketing. In this episode she shares with us how we can succeed with Google Hangouts.
An EU ruling has ordered that people should have the right to be forgotten and have unwanted search listings about them which are deemed to be irrelevant or outdated to be removed from the SERPs. This opens a can of worms because it raises lots of concerns about fraudulent requests, freedom of information, the logistics of how Google will decide which requests to accept or reject and some other issues too, this is a big story will be covered by mainstream media so I’m sure you’ll be seeing more on this as things develop.
Google rolled out their Panda 4.0 update last week, so there has been another shake up in the SERPs. Rumour has it that this is the update that Matt Cutts described as being softer and gentler and will help small businesses to still be able to compete in Google’s organic results.
Bing ads have updated their performance trends graph to give an instant snapshot of how your ads a performing over different time periods.
In Facebook news, The new Facebook Pages redesign is rolling out more widely now, I logged into my fan page the other day and I liked what I saw. Their new one column layout is much easier to look at in my opinion. They have been rolling this out slowly this last month but all pages will start to be eligible for this new page layout soon.
Facebook have also announced that automated status updates or statuses coming from 3rd party apps will get less visibility in the news feed. They say that tests have shown these types of post get less engagement and they will be responding by giving them less weight in the news feed.
Good news for restaurant owners, if you have a restaurant and facebook fan page, you can now upload a pdf of your menu and it will show as a tab on your facebook page.
In Facebook ads news, premium video ads have now gone international, as I mentioned in previous episodes these were being rolled out in the USA but they will now start be available in the UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany and Japan. However Facebook are still being selective over who can use these ads, they don’t want this new ad type to be ruined by poor quality ads so this will only be available to a limited number of advertisers.
Pinterest have announced that business insights are coming so that brands can gauge which of their pins and boards are getting the most engagements, they will initially be providing this information by opening up it’s api so that 3rd party social media analytics tools will be able to tap and report back that data.
Pinterest have also announced their board widget for websites, you can paste the board into your website and people can see your latest pins and follow your boards all from your website.
Yahoo have announced they will be soon to release their own video sharing platform set to try and compete with YouTube, a big task indeed, but one carrot they will be using to lure content creators over to their platform will be far great revenue sharing, we’ll see what happens.
Mozilla firefox may soon be rolling out sponsored content in the near future, suggesting web pages or content that may be of interest based on a person’s browsing history. For us advertisers this may be a nice new shiny place to run ads, keep an eye out for that.
JV zoo have been very busy releasing lots of new updates including split tests for different variations of your sales pages, custom HTML can now be added to receipt pages and prefilled order forms to make the checkout process go quicker. If someone has bought a product from JVzoo previously, they will be cookied then the next time they buy something their details will auto populate. They also worked out a deal with paypal so that subscriptions can last longer and the order value can increase. There used to be a limit of 3 years or $3,600 whichever came first but that limitation has now been increased to 10 years or $10,000 whichever comes first.
Infusionsoft have announced some new updates including better website analytics, increased email sending speeds, a faster,speedier experience within the infusionsoft back office and all aspects of infusionsoft will now work on google chrome. they also have released 3 new widgets inside the infusionsoft back office. The contacts, email and sales widgets will give you a quick snapshot of your accounts most recent activity.
Contest domination have released a brand new page template which allows for 2 step opt-in boxes even on a mobile device, any contest domination users may want to go check that straight away. On the subject of contest domination, Travis Ketchum the founder of contest domination will be appearing on the online marketing show in the near future. Stay tuned.
Leadpages have announced a new membership level, the enterprise membership level which includes live phone support and leadpages coaching with their in-house trainers.
The chat widget Zopim has been acquired by zendesk, apparently there won’t be many changes in the coming months except for improved zopim/zendesk integration but there may be more changes in the future.
The king of the product launch Jeff Walker has recently released his new book simply titled Launch: An internet millionaires secret formula to sell almost anything online, build a business you love, and live the life of your dreams. His products are usually high ticket so this a chance to learn his product launch secrets for the price of a book.
In events...
Hubspot are hosting a global event called Inbound marketing week. Over 50 events will be held through out this week at many different locations across the globe. I can’t all the dates and locations here but if you go to inboundmarketingweek.org you can find out all the details and if any events are happening near you.
Perry Marshall is hosting the 4-man intensive, 48 hours to reinvent your business at his home in Chicago, on the 5-6th of June and September 18th and 19th.
Search marketing expo is in Seattle, Washington 11th-12th of June and Paris, France 16th-17th June.
Tanner Larrson is holding the sustainable online business summit in Orlando, Florida on the 13-14th of June.
The Social Media Strategies Summit is being held in Amsterdam, Netherlands on the 18th and 19th of June.
Michael Penland is hosting the internet marketing success seminar in Orlando, Florida on 27th – 29th of June.
Infusionsoft are holding their infusionsoft university events at several locations over the next few months. Chandler, Arizona 10th-13th of June, London England on the 24th – 27th of June and Chicago, Illinois 22nd – 25th of July. Also they are holding one of their implementation accelerator events in Chandler, Arizona on the 18th – 20th June.
Youth Marketing 2014 will be taking place in London, England on the 1st of July.
SES, Search Engine Strategies event is in Atlanta, Georgia, on the 9th of July.
Digital Exchange will be taking place in Brighton, England on the 10th of July.
Kevin Nations is hosting Big Money from small events at his home, spa nations in Las Vegas, Nevada on the 18th-20th of July. Kevin Nations and Adam Spiel will be teaming up to host another event at spa nations on the 29-31st August.
Chris Ducker is hosting the New Business mastermind in New York on July 21st.
Clickz live is going to be in Hong Kong, 5th-7th August and San Francisco, California 11th – 14th of August.
Jack Canfield is hosting Breakthrough to success in Scottsdale, Arizona 11-15th of August.
Podcast movement 2014 is being held in Dallas, Texas on the 16th – 17th of August. Speakers include Chris Brogan, Jaime Tardy, Cliff Ravenscraft, John Lee Dumas and more.
Martech the Marketing Tech conference will taking place in Boston, Massachusetts 19-20th of August.
JV Zoo will be hosting Marketing Mayhem live in Orlando, Florida on august 28th-31st. Speakers include Mike Filsaime, Joel Comm, Armand Morin, Daven Michaels as well as JVzoo.com founders E. Brian Rose and Bryan Zimmerman. Oh and Vanilla Ice will be performing at the official party too!
And last but definitely not least Brian Kurtz is hosting Titans of direct response in honour of his late business partner Marty Edelston. It’s 11th-12th September in Stamford, Connecticut. This really is going to be amazing event Gary Bencivenga who rarely ever speaks is coming out of retirement to speak at this event. The rest of the line up is incredible too, Joe Sugarman, Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, Perry Marshall, David Deutsch and many, many more will be at this conference.
Jasmine Platt helps business owners to create miracles in their business such as making more money, getting more ideal clients, getting discovered and do it all doing something they love to do. In this interview Jasmine shares how we can breakthrough the limiting beliefs around money that may be holding us back in so that we can experience massive business growth.
Jason Strachan is one of the UK's most in demand copywriters, he specializes in copywriting to the personal development space and in this interview he shares how we can succeed when marketing to this hyper competitive industry.
What is a USP?
USP stands for unique selling proposition. It’s a differentiation strategy that puts you in a category of your own. It’s a very specific promise to your customers that gives them a compelling reason to do business with you instead of your competitors.
Why is a USP good?
A USP is great because you carve out a little place within your market that is unique, even if what you do is 90% similar to your competition. By developing a USP you can take a product or service that may be common and then put your own spin on it, your own unique stamp. That 10% that makes you different could be the reason they choose over a competitor.
If you don’t have a USP, you’ll pretty much be forced to compete on price as prospects won’t have anything else to judge you by or compare you to. If you have a good USP then you don’t have to compete on price, it gives a convincing reason that someone should spend more with you based on your USP’s promise, the promise of extra value of some form or another. And your market will happily pay more for it but you need to justify it with your USP.
A USP can also serve as a good qualifier/disqualifier, people can read it and immediately understand whether they fit the criteria or not. You’ll get more of the right kind of customers.
What’s bad about USP’s?
There’s nothing bad about a good USP. The only thing that’s bad is not having a USP altogether or failing to deliver on your USP. Make sure that you don’t make any promises you can’t keep 100% of the time or you’ll run into trouble.
Who is a USP for?
Every business should have a USP. It costs nothing and it will attract you more business and more of the right kind of business too.
How to create a USP?
A USP should be short, a sentence or two in length; it’s got to be strong but to the point. No room for wastage.
Your USP should state exactly who you help so describe your ideal target customer, this is that qualifier that I spoke about earlier, help your ideal target customer to identify themselves as someone who your message is for.
Your USP should state the amazing result they get, the big benefit they get when they are a customer of yours.
Your USP should state something that differentiates you or makes you unique within your market place. This could be any number of things perhaps you guarantee a certain result or their money back, perhaps you deliver it within a certain period of time, perhaps your quality is far superior, perhaps your price is the lowest, perhaps your customer service is outstanding, perhaps you have a method of obtaining results that one else use or producing product that no one does, perhaps you source the best ingredients or materials from a certain location, there are many ways to differentiate, just make sure that it matters to your market and that it does indeed make you different and puts you in category of your own.
So to summarize... who it’s for + what amazing result they get + a differentiator that matters = an amazing USP.
Then let prospects know your USP by communicating throughout your marketing.
John Jantsch is the author of Duct tape marketing, duct tape selling, the referral engine and the commitment engine. In this episode John shares how small businesses can get themselves out there, generate leads, sell more, get more referrals and build strong, loyal customer bases.
What is a marketing funnel?
A marketing funnel is a strategic method of gathering leads and then warming those leads up so that they desire what you are selling and are ready to buy. In the online world this generally begins with getting a person’s contact details such as name and email address. Then you continue to communicate with them give them value, educate them and pre-sell them, again typically this is happening by email, and then when you decide they are ready, you sell to them, you offer them something.
Why is a marketing funnel good?
Simply put, your conversions increase. Because of all the great value, education, content they have been receiving from you, this will help them to view your offer in a different light than would have done without it. If you try to sell someone, first time, totally cold, your conversions will most likely be poor. However the exact same offer, pitched to the exact same person, only this time they have experienced your funnel, will lead to a greater chance of that person deciding to buy.
Funnels are also a great qualifying process. If you think of a funnel, wide at the top, narrow at the bottom, this is what happens with your marketing funnel, lots of people coming in at the top end, and once they have gone through your funnel, some will come out the other end as a customer. Many will not but this doesn’t matter, the ones who do make it through the funnel will be super qualified, they will the right kind of customer, this means what you offer will be right for them and will most likely get the results they were looking for and that means happy customers and less refunds for you.
So you will get more customers because of a good funnel and you’ll also get more of the right kind of customers too.
What’s bad about marketing funnels?
I suppose that creating a really good marketing funnel that converts can be difficult if you don’t know much about it or are entirely new to the concept. It’s certainly not some easy thing to do, skill is required.
Also marketing funnels can be done wrong, often people think that just following up and sending emails is “a funnel” but it isn’t a funnel is far more strategic than that, it’s not sending helpful emails for the sake of sending helpful emails, there is a goal a purpose to every step in your funnel and it should be strategically leading people towards saying yes to the offer which you are about to give them. If you’re not doing that then you are doing it wrong.
Who is a marketing funnels for?
All online businesses should have a funnel. If you have website, in 90% of cases, rather than trying to sell immediately, you are better off getting people into your funnel, warming them up and selling later. For the majority of website owners, this should be the big goal of your website, getting people into your funnel.
How to do marketing funnel?
As we’ve discussed all of this is based on your market research and copywriting. You need to understand exactly what your customers want; your whole funnel is based on this. Then using strong copywriting at each stage of the funnel you lead people through the funnel until you ask them to buy.
So your first step is to collect the persons email address. More information than this can gathered but in 99% of cases, an email address is the bare minimum. Once you have an email address for that person you can get into their inbox and continue to communicate with them but people don’t just hand over their email address to any old person willy nilly, they only want to get emails from people that they really want to hear from so you have to make yourself desirable to them right from the get go.
So the most common way that people do this is by offering a lead magnet. This could be a free report or some videos or an audio or a free trial or any numbers of things, the point is you offer something for free which is perceived as highly valuable, that people in your market will want, in exchange for contact details.
What happens next can vary, some people will try to make an offer on the thank you page after they have signed up for a lead magnet or ask them to register for a webinar on the thank you page. Others will just say thank you, deliver the lead magnet and then start to send emails. I think all these options can work, there’s no one right answer so have a think about your strategy, what makes sense for your business, in your market, but the point is after they have signed up for the lead magnet you now can continue to market to them further.
When sending emails make sure they are not only valuable, no one likes to receive some unhelpful email but in addition to that you are leading them in the direction of deciding for themselves that your product or service is right for them, this is called pre-selling. It’s a cool way to sell that doesn’t scare people off by hardcore closing them to early but also is not just wasted content or content without any purpose, it’s content they will love but will also lead them to understanding how you can help them further when they buy.
There can be other parts to a funnel, maybe you ask them to watch a video sales letter or ask them to attend a webinar or Google hangout or get on the phone and speak with you, but these things are all just tactics, you don’t have to do any of them or you can use any combination of them, it’s different for everyone.
So here’s what you need to be thinking about, what can you offer people for free that they would gladly had over their contact details for? How can you make the warming up, pre-selling process fun, informative and lead perfectly into your pitch? That can be a long process or a short one but that’s the outline you need to follow.
If you would like to find out how to create a high converting funnel that gathers in lots of leads and pumps out a load of customers at the other end then check out the online marketing club, it could be for you.
Perry Marshall - 80/20 Sales, Marketing & Business Growth. The Online Marketing Show Episode 147
Perry Marshall is one of the world's most sought-after marketing consultants and is the author of several marketing books including... 80/20 Sales and Marketing, Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords and Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising.
In this interview Perry shares how we can use the 80/20 principle to earn more money by doing less. It's not about doing more things, it's about doing the right things. The 20% of things that truly matter and discarding the other 80%. Perry reveals...
How to design a business that fits you Where to find the unexploited leverage points in your business to make exponentially more money with no or even less extra effort The “Rack the shotgun” method to qualify your clients The 5 powers disqualifiers that you should ask before even attempting to sell to anyone (or even advertising to them) How to identify your $1,000 an hour work (and completely stop doing the $10 an hour jobs) How to apply 80/20 to your Google adwords and Facebook ads The power triangle which will help you to solve any marketing problem you ever have
You can either listen to the interview or read the full transcript below...
Click here to Subscribe to this The Online Marketing Show on iTunes
Joseph Bushnell: Hello! Welcome to the online marketing show. This is Joey Bushnell. Today’s special guest really needs no introduction at all. He’s the author and creator of many marketing books and products. His name is Perry Marshall. Go to sell8020.com to find out more. Perry, thank you so much for being on the show.
Perry Marshall: Well, thank you for reaching out and getting hold of us and scheduling this. You know, I really appreciate that you are trying to scout out the best marketing that you can find and you know hopefully we won’t disappoint you today. Appreciate it.
Joseph Bushnell: Perry, how did you get into marketing?
Perry Marshall: Well, I was recruited into the world of multi-level marketing when I was in college and it happened because I had suddenly gotten fired from 3 jobs in a row. I played this prank and somebody didn’t think it was very funny and I got fired and I had to call my father-in-law because I had just been married for a year and I'm like “Hey Ron, you wouldn’t believe what just happened...”. And I felt really ashamed of myself.
I took this other job and that didn’t work out. I was just really feeling like a total misfit and I can honestly say up to that point, I had defined success equals never flunking your class and never getting fired from a job. And, actually, the whole thing of getting fired from my job and looking for new jobs, it really messed up my summer school class I was taking, you know summer school goes really fast and if you get a week behind, you are toast, right? And I fell behind on that class and I had to dropout of the class and re-take it again which for all practical purposes, I was failing that too. I was really feeling like crap.
So then my friend recruits me into Amway. Now, I’ve talked about that in other places and I’m not going on about it. I don’t recommend that people would go become Amway distributors by any means but that was my crash course in “Hey, welcome to the world of living by your wits and getting paid for what you produced and not having a security blanket and all that”. And it was a rude awakening!
You know what you have to do in a business like that, it’s really ugly. But I learned how to do it. I never made very much money at it. In fact, I spent a lot more money than I ever made. Once I kind of had the taste of freedom, even if freedom was just having the ability to get rewarded for what you do instead of working for the man. Like, I could never be permanently happy just punching the clock.
And then, a few years later I got fired again, actually I just got laid off but my wife was 3 months pregnant and I had been working in an engineering job and I couldn’t find an engineering job so I went into sales. That was the introduction to the real sales and marketing.
Well, that was 2 years of bologna sandwiches and ramen soup. Seriously, it was a major struggle. We spiraled into debt. I got this base plus commission sales job and rarely did my commission go high enough to where I was actually getting an extra commission check so we didn’t really make enough money for us to live on, on just the base. My wife, she’s quit her job to be a full time mom which I absolutely want her to do. I didn’t want to do the day care thing. It was just gut-wrenching, it’s a hard phase of life and I think frankly a lot of people in they’re like late 20’s, early 30’s, that’s the world they live in. You’re driving a 15 year old car that burns oil and your wife hasn’t had any new clothes in like 3 years and you got the baby and the diapers and all this kind of stuff.
I worked in this job for 2 years and you know the job just wasn’t exactly the right fit. There were a lot of things about it that were pretty good actually but I couldn’t sell anything to save my life. And I'm like “What is wrong with me?”, “why can’t I do this?”. And there was just so much stuff I didn’t know.
The other thing I learned is just because people are good at stuff, doesn’t mean they know how to teach you. My bosses at this company, they were really smart and they made a lot of money. They were very good at sales. The sum combination of I didn’t know what questions to ask, maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough to ask them the questions and they're like… “We don’t know how to fix Perry! I don’t know, he tries really hard and we like him, and he’s really earnest, there’s no lack of work ethic but why can’t he sell anything?”. And that’s how I got into sales and marketing!
Joseph Bushnell: So at some point along the way, Perry, you did get good at this. You now teach this to other people, you consult, you have products, you’ve written books on the subject and that’s where you are today.
Perry Marshall: Yeah and so here’s what happened that turned things around. So, things were getting really desperate and I was actually getting close to being fired. And I wandered into this seminar, at a big coliseum and one of the speakers was Dan Kennedy. And I remember seeing the description of his presentation and thinking “Now that looks pretty interesting” because it was about cold calling, or not having to cold call, it was about accountable response driven advertising and stuff like that. And so he definitely had my attention and then he goes into this talk and explains this whole thing about marketing and he says “Cold calling is the lowest form of grunt work invented by human beings, you should never do this unless you just absolutely have nothing else to do but like there’s 98% of the time there’s other things you can do”.
I had a credit card that wasn’t completely maxed out and I bought his thing. I went home and told my boss about it the next day, he looks at like I’m from Mars like “Dude get to work, somebody just sold you swamp land in Florida”. That was kind of the reaction. Well, I got fired from that job. Meanwhile, I’m in turmoil! What am I going to do? I am losing money, I’m not making enough, the credit cards are gonna completely max out pretty soon and I’m going to really be in trouble and I have to find a job. How am I going to find a job when the last 2 years of my sales job is really poor, like I kind of have to do smoke and mirrors to make it look like I ever managed to accomplish anything. It’s just awful.
So I take home this notebook of tapes and it’s like this badly photocopied thing, in fact the product that Dan sold looks so terrible I wondered if it was a scam. But I finally decided it wasn’t and I’m studying this and I started to reorient my thinking. And one of the things was, so direct marketing is selling in print. That’s one definition. That’s what copywriting is.
I started studying… "Here is how you put together a sales letter, here is how you put together a sales pitch. You need the right audience. You need a headline. You need an opening paragraph. You need to really agitate their itch so that they're conscious of the pain that you’re product sells. You need to have an offer. You need to make a guarantee. You need to justify the price". And there’s all this stuff I hadn’t been doing.
I had been going around selling this equipment, showing people interesting stuff and I was almost doing great but not quite, and all of a sudden, I can see a sales pitch on a piece of paper and it’s this linear logical process and all of a sudden I started to understand it.
I also started learning about mailing lists and all this kind of stuff and I begin, I just begin to finally understand... Who buys? What makes them buy? What are you trying to sell them? And why do they buy?
There’s another thing though that is really a big deal, especially with Amway stuff, I had been trying to be somebody I was not. Have you ever spent years of your life trying to be someone you’re not?
Joseph Bushnell: Yeah. I think everyone has at some point.
Perry Marshall: Great, I want to be like him! I want to be like her! I want to be one of them! Right? It’s like, "Yeah but you’re jamming a square peg in a round hole" and I was trying to be a classic sales guy because it’s the only thing I can see that I thought seemed to make sense. Then I started to understand “You know, you can use your writing skills, you can use your engineering degree, you can put all these stuff together in a way, for the right people, it’s actually a perfect fit”.
I guess here’s the point that I’m driving at... is that we all go through life and we go around and we try all this different stuff, OK. It’s like well, I’m going to be a lawyer. I’m going to be an accountant. I’m going to be an engineer. I’m going to be a doctor. I’m going to be this, I’m going to be that. And we try out all these things and most of the time they don’t quite fit.
Maybe what a lot of people do is they finally, they get something that fits about 75% and then they just put up with it for the rest of their life. And what I am suggesting that you can do is that you can design a world that perfectly fits you or at least fits you about 93%-98% so that you’re mostly doing things you love to do, things you’re good at, things people appreciate you for. You’re delivering the highest value to people you enjoy working with and you can feel good about and feel proud about it.
I remember one time, we went to this meeting and I was with my boss at the sales company and I introduce “Hi, I’m Perry, I'm an electrical Engineer”. And he goes “Perry is a sales guy. He’s not an electrical engineer. Sometimes he just forgets who he is”. Oh thank you very much. I really appreciate that! I was trying, when I said that, I was trying to be useful to somebody but because I knew something, and not just because I was a sales guy who knew how to knock on doors. You know that feeling?
Joseph Bushnell: Yeah.
Perry Marshall: I might as well be selling vacuum cleaners. No, I want to solve a problem. I remember having a conversation with my boss, “You know Perry, could you stop trying to solve problems and just sell something?”
Well, you know what, if you can put things together right, you will solve problems and you will sell something and you get paid really good money to do it.
So, and I did figure that out and my whole introduction to marketing and understanding what marketing really is, I think that marketing really is the art and science of helping people who need each other, find each other. That’s what I think marketing really is.
And, so, I did start to figure that out and little by little by little, I started creating a world that worked for me. And you can do that and the people listening today can do that and I hope I can give some people hope. Because if you’re just like how I was, it’s like how long is it before the credit cards max out. It’s terrifying. It’s absolutely terrifying. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not necessarily a train!
Joseph Bushnell: Yeah. So let’s talk about some of these things Perry, that ideal life that you just described sounds amazing. I’m sure that everyone listening to this would love to get there themselves. And like you said if we know how to do marketing, if we know how to grow a business, that is a vehicle that can help us to get there.
So let’s talk about some of the concepts in your books that you’ve written that can help us to do that. Last year, you released a book called 80/20 Sales & Marketing. What is the big idea behind that book?
Perry Marshall: Well, you know, that is really the book that I wished I had 20 years ago. That book would have saved me like 5 or 10 years. And, so, to try to give you an idea, I thought I understood 80/20. Most people think they understand 80/20.
I remember like 15 years ago, in a later sales job that was working pretty well, I heard about 80/20 so I printed this report and I got out my calculator and sure enough,I'm like "That’s pretty crazy! 20% of our customers is 80% of our money". It was great. It was like OK, so, yeah, that’s good and you should work hard and you should pay your taxes, you should brush your teeth and great. I didn’t see anything else really beyond that.
Well, the real epiphany didn’t come until later, I read Richard Koch's classic book The 80/20 Principle and all of a sudden, a comment that he made, made it snap in place. And I realized that 80/20 is everywhere. I mean it is everywhere. And it is a repeating micro-macro pattern. So, here’s what I mean by that...
If you hire 10 sales people, what you’re going to find out is 80% of your sales come from 2 of them and the other 20% of your sales come from the 8. Which means that the 2, man for man, are 16 times better at selling than the 8. Now, first of all, there’s nothing you can do to quote/unquote "fix" this. What an academically-minded person wants to do is figure out how to make them all equal. They’ll never do it. There is nothing wrong. The universe is working exactly how it’s supposed to work. The 2 are supposed to be selling for you, and the other 8 aren’t. That’s the truth. Let the universe tell you what it wants to tell you and that’s what it’s telling you.
But, let’s carry it forward when let’s say that you hire 1,000 people, well you know 800 of them aren’t going to be very good and 200 of them are. Well, if you just look at the 200, if you fire the bottom 800, and you just look at the 200 you got left and they’re all pretty good, 80/20 is still true. 40 will outsell the 200 by a wide margin. And then if we fire the bottom 160 and we only got the 40 left, 80/20 will still be true and the top 8 will sell more than the bottom 32 combined and when we look at our 8, the top 1 or 2 will outsell the bottom 6 or 7. And this just keeps going and going.
What does this mean? This means that you can get an extreme level of productivity from 1 person or 10 people. Extreme.
What do you do? You take the resources away from the stuff that is not working and you pour more in. So what do you do? You take your top 5, if you got a 1000 sales people or you got 200 sales people, you take your top 5, they all get a personal assistant, they all get a masseuse, they all get somebody to do their travel schedule. Give them a chauffeur if you have to, I don’t really care. Just get them to the appointment.
Well, this repeating 80/20 inside, every 80/20, there’s another one and another one and it keeps repeating until your down to 1 person, there’s a name for that, it’s called fractal. 80/20 is fractal. So it’s true of 7 billion people in the world, it’s also true of the 10 richest people in the world.
Now, when I recognized this, I am a little geeky and I am an engineer but when I saw this, I was like “Oh my goodness”. This is the mathematics of attraction.
Work and results are unequal. This is the math that tells you how unequal they are. If you can see it, if you can figure out where those little leverage points are, then you don’t have to bust your ass anymore. You can actually be sort of lazy and in fact you should be, and you should start saying no to things.
Let me tell you a story. My friend John Paul Mendocha is, he’s on my sales team and he helps us with a lot of stuff. When he was 17 years old, he dropped out of high school, hitched hiked to Las Vegas and became a professional gambler. Imagine a 17 year old kid living by his wits in Vegas, playing poker for a living.
Well, John, within a few weeks he’s like "dang, maybe I need a mentor". He finds somebody. He finds this guy that runs a little gambling ring and his name was Rob and they talk for a while and Rob was like “for a percentage of your winnings, I’ll take you under my wing, I’ll teach you what I know”. So they shake on it. Jump on the jeep John, we’re going for a ride.
So they’re going for a ride, John goes “Rob, how do I win more poker games?” And Rob goes “You have to play games you can win. You have to play people that are dumber than you. And those people are called marks." He says you always play with marks, you don’t play with other professional gamblers. And John goes “OK so how do I find the marks?”. And he goes “Here, I’ll show you”.
He pulls into a parking lot and they walk into a strip club and there’s girls dancing and there’s rock and roll and there’s people drinking and everything and Rob sits down at a table and Rob pulls a sawed-off shotgun out of his jacket and he puts it under the table and he opens the chamber and then he racks it so it goes “chi-chi”. And there’s a few people look around and like “What was that?” and the owner comes over and he goes “Hey, everything OK over here?” “Everything’s just fine, just teaching the lad a lesson. Don’t worry.” And then Rob says to John “John, did you see the people that turned around when I made that noise?” And he goes “Yeah.” And he goes “Those people are not marks. Do not play poker with them. You play with everybody else”.
Now in my little world, we call it planet Perry, we have this term, rack the shotgun. Racking shotgun is when you make a noise or you do something and there’s 50 people in the club and 10 turn their heads and 40 don’t. You just did 80/20. Now, every time you send an e-mail, you’re racking the shotgun. How many people opened it? How many people didn’t? Rack the shotgun. How many people clicked on the link? How many people didn’t? Rack the shotgun. How many people went to the webpage and did what you asked them to do? How many didn’t? Rack the shotgun. How many gave you money? How many didn’t? Rack the shotgun.
Eliminate, eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. Sales is an elimination process. It is a disqualification process. It is not a convince people process. It’s not a go talk to anybody who can fog a mirror and try to sell them something.
That’s what I learned in Amway. They literally told you that if they can fog a mirror, you should show them the plan. That is the worst advice. You know what that is designed to do? That is how you sell people tapes and books. Anybody who can fog a mirror can buy a tape or book. They tell you anybody could fog a mirror can do Amway, I promise you that's not true. There’s like a thousand people that could do it. Most of them, they can’t do it to save their life. Why can’t they? I don’t even want to get into it. It’s not what they tell you, good advice.
So John actually came up with a list and he calls it the five power disqualifiers. And here’s what they are...
Do they have the money? If the person doesn’t have the money, stop trying to sell stuff because they aren’t going to buy. End of story. Every time a sale has ever been made in the history of the earth, the person had the money.
Number 2, do they have a bleeding neck? In other words, do they have an itch that they got to scratch. "I've got to scratch this itch". If they don’t have a bleeding neck, they’re not giving you the money. Every time a sale’s been made in the history of the world, somebody at some level, they had a bleeding neck.
Number 3, do they buy into your unique selling proposition? Do they like your USP? What do you sell? What’s your value proposition? Always true, every time someone buys something or someone sells something.
Number 4, do they have the ability to say “Yes”? Now this is another one that was killing me when I was a new sales guy. I would go present to all these people, they had the ability to say no, they did not have the ability to say yes. Complete waste of time. And what they tell you is that I’m going to think it over and you’re sitting around and you’re counting your "think it overs" and somebody needs to come in and bop you on the head and say “Dude, you’re "think it overs" are never going to materialize. They’re gone. Forget them. Goodbye. Good riddance. Go do something that actually works”.
Then the last one is if fits their overall plans? Does it fit what they're doing in their life? Does it fit? Does it not?
If you approach sales like, I’m going to not even try to advertise to people unless they fit these criteria and I’m certainly not going to go see them or not going to call them on the phone and spend time with them until I disqualified the 90% or the 98% that I should never be talking to in the first place and only dealing with the right people. That’s who I’m going to sell to.
What you’ll find is that you can probably spend 10 hours a week selling and making a perfectly good living if you do all that. So that’s in the 80/20 book and when I started seeing how this was everywhere, it was like everything you do in marketing is because of 80/20. The way you write a headline is because of 80/20. Where you put the headline is because of 80/20. Buying Google ads, what’s in Google ads, what is says and what happens next is all because of 80/20. 5% of your web pages make 95% of your money. 5% makes 95%. So you know what? You don’t have to go fix your whole website and all 10,000 pages. You can solve your problem by fixing 5% of your webpages which might be 1 page or maybe 2 or 5 or 10 and it’s all fixed. People just waste so much time so I’ve been talking a lot, back to you!
Joseph Bushnell: I’m actually thinking of all the ways that it is everywhere as well Perry, I mean I’m thinking 20% of all the people competing in any given marketplace are getting all the money and all the rest of the people are fighting over the crumbs. 20% of your customers are giving you their money and are funding you and you're getting 80% of your profits from them, whereas the other 80% of customers are probably not worth as much to you, I mean it’s just fascinating to see how this is everywhere. So your advice would be to just eliminate the dross and narrow in on the good stuff?
Perry Marshall: Well, yes. First you have to be aware, the more educated people are, the more likely they are to treat everything and everybody the same and it is a huge mistake to do that because everything is not the same so 80% of your products only generate 20% of your sales. And probably your product development team is fitting all this time and money, essentially polishing turds! When they should focus on the 20%, a lot of companies can make a lot more money just by dropping the bottom 20% of their product lines that waste 80% of the resources that doesn’t actually make money.
And 80/20 applies to just about every number that you ever measure in any business. It’s just scary. I’ve got an appendix in the 80/20 book and it’s for the numbers people in the crowd and it graphs out 80/20 and it shows you, well you know, whether you are looking at the population of cities in America or the donations to a Church on a Sunday morning or the revenues of all the companies in the Fortune 500 or the output of dairy farms in Wisconsin, like it’s all 80/20. And like, once you see this, you can’t "un-see" it.
What I consider success is when people read this book and they’re like, ‘Oh my word I never saw this before and now I’m seeing it everywhere!’ I’m like, ‘OK you are the person I was trying to target when I wrote this book because you get it,’ and people are like, ‘Oh my goodness, you know I just applied 80/20 in my Google Adwords campaigns and I fixed these 3 ads and my click through rate went up 60%, oh my word, like, I told myself myself I had to do all this work".
Ari Galper, some people might know who he is, he just sent me an email this morning, he said ‘Perry you’re not going to believe this. Well actually you will, I’ve been ruthlessly applying 80/20 in the last 6 weeks and I just ran my star principle score it moved from a score of 115 and now it’s a 155,’ (I can explain that later if you want me to). And for the first time ever we generated $100,000 paid in full in one week last week. This is raising my consciousness to realize I could be generating $400,000 a month with more 80/20. So keep drilling this into our heads!".
And yeah, it never stops and it keeps going and going and going so it’s kind of like this well that never runs dry.
Joseph Bushnell: You also teach how to apply this 80/20 concept to how we spend our time and the things that we actually do within our own business. I’ve heard you call this our $1,000 an hour work, where instead of chasing our tails all the time and running around doing all of the $10 an hour jobs, we should be focusing on just the $1,000 an hour jobs. So how do we identify what our $1,000 an hour work is?
Perry Marshall: OK, 80/20 is a law of nature so it’s everywhere. So there’s some people sort of doubt me about this at first and so that’s OK so just follow me along.... So let's say that you got a receptionist or secretary and let’s say they make $15 an hour or pounds or whatever currency you want. What I insist is that even the person who makes $15 an hour actually makes $1,000 an hour at least one minute of every day. You may be thinking "Well how is that? How does a receptionist make $1,000 an hour?"
So let’s say that the phone rings and she picks it up and somebody is really angry and the person that the angry person wants to talk to is on the phone and they can’t talk and the customer is tempted to slam down the phone and like just and leave in huff and just never do business with you again.
Let’s say that she listens patiently and carefully to the customer instead of doing her nails, instead of updating her Pinterest, or instead of doing, you know, making photocopies or whatever else she might’ve been doing. Let’s say does a really good job with the angry customer and she calms him down and then, let’s say, that she makes sure, because she double checks that the other guy calls the guy back within an hour.
Now, let’s say that took 5 minutes and let’s say she saved a $10,000 account. Is that a $1,000 an hour for 5 minutes? I mean, times 5 minutes is only 80 bucks, I dunno, if she makes 500 bucks, I dunno, I can’t do math in my head, but you see what I’m saying, right?
Joseph Bushnell: Yeah
Perry Marshall: Everyday there are these short little bursts of very high leverage activity where, you know, I don’t care what you do there’s 15 minutes of your day or maybe 30 minutes of your day that is more valuable than all the other 8 hours put together. But you don’t know it until somebody points this out.
OK, so what about those of us who like aren’t receptionists but were actually founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, professional sales people? You know, if you’re a professional sales person, half of your income came from less than than 5 days of what you did last year. And when I tell this to sales people they'll think about it and ‘Yeah, that’s actually about right,’ like OK so, why aren’t you doing more of that?
Joseph Bushnell: “Yeah very true, so what’s the answer to that? Why do people find it difficult not to do that, to let go of the smaller stuff, the less valuable stuff?
Perry Marshall: “Well, I think we are all conditioned for various reasons to just be busy. I think a lot of us are actually kind of uncomfortable on our skin, we don’t really know what we want to do, we’ve never given ourselves permission to do what we want to do. And it’s actually, the only people that are really doing what they want to do in life are the eccentric ones.
If you go find a person and they went to Oxford and they got the right degree and they got all the right credentials and they climb the corporate ladder and they did everything they’re supposed to do. If you just ask these people, like, “Are you really doing what you really dreamed of doing today?” they look at you like you’re from Mars, like, ‘Boy, I didn’t want to be a legal secretary I mean, I really wanted to be a ballerina but who could do that? So I’m doing this,’ and then they just kind of resign themselves and they start sleepwalking through life.
OK, if you have an awareness like, you know what, look, if you do $1,000 an hour work for 2 hours a day then you don’t have to do anything else all day! And it is possible to do this! OK? Richard Koch, the guy who wrote The Original 80/20 Principle book, he’s worth a quarter of a billion dollars and he works an hour a day! OK? And I would contend that if he worked more he would actually make less. And he’s very disciplined about being lazy. And so yeah, his books are great.
There’s this chapter, I think it’s on page 119 of my book , I lay out, here’s examples of $10 an hour work and it’s like, running errands, changing light bulbs and making photocopies, you know. And there’s $100 an hour work and that stuff’s like, solving customers’ problems, things like that. And there’s a $1,000 an hour work, which is doing something really strategic, negotiating a contract, or rescuing an angry customer and flipping them around so they’re not angry at you, that is $1,000 an hour work and you have to become aware of it first. And some people are just, they’re not self-aware. So, you know, if I can create more self-awareness and it helps some people not suffer the way I had suffered then I guess that was a good book to write.
Joseph Bushnell: “Absolutely. So the $10 an hour work that does still need to get done, are we hiring people for that?”
Perry Marshall: Yes. Yeah, I mean, it has to get done. But not at all of it does, I mean a lot of us do stuff that we really shouldn’t be doing. But the thing is, there’s always somebody available to do it. Like look, what’s the unemployment rate? And not only that, there’s people who like to do that! They like it! Like, I would never like to be an accountant but my accountant likes to be an accountant.”
Joseph Bushnell: “You’ve also written a few other books, two of them are Ultimate Guide to Google AdWordsand Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising, how does the 80/20 principle apply in this arena?”
Perry Marshall: Well first off, my life as a sales person completely turned around when I started having lead generation bringing me customers so that I didn’t have to go pick up the phone and chase people around, OK. The customers started coming to me and that was such a relief. It was so much better, I mean,I can’t even tell it.
Well, if you’re going to generate leads, you have get traffic and where are you going to get traffic? Well, when Google started selling ads it was like the greatest invention for marketers in that last 50 years,I kid you not. It’s just amazing. And now it’s like, you can bid on a keyword and have your ad in front of people and so it has been around for a long time.
It was new when I first discovered 80/20 and I was experimenting with Google and I was doing all this stuff and one day I realized "Oh my word, everything in Google Adwords is 80/20" OK, which keywords get the traffic? How do you organize the campaigns? Which ads wins? Which ads lose? You know, the kind of changes you make, its all 80/20 and so, really, what I did to become the world’s bestselling author on the subject of Google advertising was I applied 80/20 ruthlessly.
In my book that's really what I’m teaching you whether you recognize it or not. Now, some of the chapters actually tried to explain it but pretty much everything is 80/20, the same thing with Facebook. So 5% of the keywords generate 95% of the traffic, in Facebook 80% of the traffic you could buy is a complete waste, maybe 90% and it’s all about focusing, targeting, where are the leverage points? Where are the customers who actually buy stuff? And in the last few years, maybe in the last year, in particular, Facebook has gone from being a dog to being the hottest thing on the internet for marketers because Facebook ads really do work.
Joseph Bushnell: Something else from your 80/20 Sales and Marketing book you have a concept called The Power Triangle, could you tell us a little bit of about that?
Perry Marshall: Yes, so my marketing manager Jack Born came up with that, I think it’s just like one of the most brilliant things and it’s a little triangle and it looks like this...
On the lower left, T is for traffic, on the top corner C is for conversion, and on the lower right corner, E is for economics, and then there’s a triangle inside the triangle which makes it the triangle in the middle and the middle triangle is 80/20 and the power triangle is everything you need to know about marketing: traffic, conversion, economics and 80/20.
OK so, if you are not selling enough, you either don’t have enough traffic, you're not converting the traffic you have or you are getting the conversions but the economics of what you're selling are not right, like you're not selling it for enough money or its not perceived as worth enough or whatever. Any problem you have is one of those three things and 80/20 applies to all of them,OK?
So then there's a bunch of 80/20's of where the good traffic is and where you're going to waste your money. There’s a bunch of 80/20's about here's the few things that make a person buy and here's all the other things, the many things that would screw it up. You know there’s the economics and which products you sell and how much money you get from them. So if, you know, if you recognize in any situation, is it traffic? Is it conversion? Is it economics? And where are the 80/20's of all three of these things, you can solve almost any problem.
Joseph Bushnell: And my final question, Perry, is how can we locate invisible profits centers within our business? Again this is something that you taught in 80/20 Sales and Marketing.
Perry Marshall: So there is always a top 20% that’s not being fully exploited for what is worth because you could take your top 20%, of your customers, let’s say, that your 100 best customers gave you $10,000, OK? So that’s $1,000,000. Well 80/20 says that 20% of them will spend 4 times the money so that means 20 of them will spend $40,000 but it also says 20% of them will spend 4 times the money so 4 of them will spend $160,000 which means that one of them will spend $500,000, so if you’re only getting a million, you should’ve been getting 2 or 3 million.
Almost every customer list I’ve ever seen, there is unexploited appetite for more, and a part of the minority of those customers. Most businesses drastically underestimate how much money they could actually get from a group of people and it’s usually in the high end. Now sometimes it’s on the low end, it could go both directions but usually it's in the high end. Until you at least get out a piece of paper and a pencil and kind of start sketching it out going, 'Oh, OK!?'.
You ever wore blue blocker sunglasses that makes everything kind of blue and all of a sudden you notice things that you never notice with just regular?
Joseph Bushnell: Yeah.
Perry Marshall: That’s what 80/20’s like.
If you completely understand 80/20 and you kind of immerse yourself in it for a while, all of a sudden you’ll see it everywhere. You’ll drive your wife or your spouse crazy because you’ll be talking about it all the time, it will be like you're new obsession like ‘Oh my goodness I just saw the 80/20 of the freeway traffic,’ and she’s like ‘Oh please, yeah I know, I know, 80% traffic goes on 20% of the roads and that expressway is like a top 20%, I know,’ and if that starts to happen, you know you're on the right track!
Joseph Bushnell: Perry if we’ve listened to this and we’ve really enjoyed it and we're really serious about applying 80/20 to our business and getting the results and the lifestyle that it can give us, where can we go?
Perry Marshall: So you could go to Amazon and you could buy the book for (well I don't how much it is in the UK) but there’s a better deal that we have...
You can go to sell8020.com and you can buy the book for a penny plus shipping, and you can get in the US, it’ll cost you $7 or in the UK or elsewhere in the world it’ll cost you $14. But here's why we do that, here's why we sell the book direct. And by the way, we are taping dollar bills to every book to do this.
But the reason why is, I have found that people who actually read books are very good customers. They’re good coaching students, they're good clients, so I’m acquiring clients. And if you go there what you’re going to find is an 80/20 sales funnel, which if you want to understand marketing you should study what we do because we rack the shotgun. We treat people who respond differently than we treat people who don’t. OK? You’ll see a lot of things and so you can learn as much by watching what I do as from listening to what I say or reading the book and stuff like that, if you do both it will really sink in so I want to encourage you to do that. Again it’s sell8020.com or you could go to perrymarshall.com and you’ll see the offer right there on the page and I would just encourage you, if this sounded intriguing then go down the rabbit hole and see how deep it really goes!
Joseph Bushnell: Excellent! That’s the end of today's episode. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed it, please go and leave a review on iTunes, and I also highly recommend going and getting your penny plus shipping copy of Perry’s book. It’s an incredible book, and last of all, a huge thank you to you Perry for coming on the show.
Perry Marshall: Well, thank you and you ask great questions and I really appreciate you spending the time and blessings to everybody that listened today.
What is market research?
Market research is the process of truly understanding your target market. Their needs, wants, preferences, beliefs, hopes, ways of thinking, pain points, problems and more. Anything that gives you a better insight to your target audience and why they would want to buy from you.
Why is market research good?
Quite simply you’ll sell more. If you are off target with your market research then your copywriting and marketing messages will not have the desired effect, they will be less impactful. If you get it right however, if you can understand exactly who you are selling to and preciously why they buy a product or service like yours then your conversions are sure to increase. No matter what tactic you use, sales letters, emails, adverts, webinars, videos, blog posts, or any other form of marketing, understanding your market underpins it all and your marketing will be so much more powerful and resonate so much more with your audience that response will certainly increase.
What’s bad about market research?
Market research done correctly has no draw backs, what could be bad about understanding your market better?
The only thing that’s bad is when you don’t do it, when you guess at what your market wants, needs, thinks, cares about, that’s the mistake, not doing it or giving it any considerations altogether or guessing, assuming you know what your market thinks and feels when you really don’t.
Who is market research for?
Everyone, all businesses should be engaged in conducting market research from time to time.
How to do market research?
Market research is all about talking to your target market and hearing what they have to say. So simply ask them. Ask your customers, they will usually be forthcoming with helping you out as you have a trust and relationship built with them but make sure they are not sugar coating things because they like you, ask for pure, honest feedback even if it is harsh or uncomfortable. By finding out where you can improve, you can eliminate problems you did not realize you had.
You can also ask for information from people who are not customers so long as they are part of your target market.
A great way to get information from your customers and the people in your market is to ask if you can interview them or ask them to fill out a poll. Ask the right questions, collect the results and identify the common, reoccurring themes. These are the big factors, these are the thoughts, feelings and opinions that your market as a whole share and will respond to.
That’s it for market research, this is the boring part no one wants to do but it’s so important, I can even begin to state how important. Your marketing is built on your market research.
Mike Faith is the founder of Headsets.com, a $30 million per year company built upon the principles of fun and outstanding customer service. In this interview Mike shares how he grew his company using some wacky Marketing & PR stunts, one of them to tune of $6 million. Mike is also a huge advocate of customer service and he tells us why good customer service is an asset, not a cost.
In the last episode, episode 143 I talked about copywriting and so I thought in this episode it would be fitting to point you in the direction an incredible free copywriting resource, it’s one of my own blog posts and perhaps one of my successful and controversial blog posts, it’s called the 182 greatest copywriters and copywriting resources of the internet age.
You can find it over at josephbushnell.com/greatest-copywriters-copywriting-resources
This was a list I complied of the world’s top copywriters and copywriting resources of the modern era. It’s a big list because there are a lot of very talented copywriters and places to learn copywriting. I believe in this list I have managed to pretty much include most of the super talented people who can help you to improve your copywriting. If you go check the list out, I not only just include peoples names but specifically I list all the blogs, newsletters, books, products where you can go get their copywriting information.
If you are serious about learning to write amazing copy that makes money, this list will show you who the best of the best is and the links to where you can learn from them.
Go to josephbushnell.com/greatest-copywriters-copywriting-resources
What is Copywriting?
Copywriting is the process of writing advertising promotional materials. Copywriting is the text you see on websites, in emails, banner ads, social media statuses, the scripts used for a webinar or video sales letter, if a business is saying it with some kind of intention to influence or persuade then it’s copy. It’s also everywhere in the offline world, in fact that’s where it all began, it’s the text on brochures, billboards, advertisements, catalogs, the direct mail sent through your door, it’s all over the place. This text is known as “copy.”
Unlike other forms of writing however, copy is all about getting the reader to take action. That action might be to buy, opt-in, to register for a webinar, to comment, or engage with a product, service, or company, there’s many possible outcomes that your copy could be trying to achieve but it’s your copy that will motivate the reader to do so.
That’s why copywriting is often referred to as “salesmanship in print.” It’s sole aim is to get someone to do something and often that something is to buy something.
Why is Copywriting good?
Copywriting can be the big difference as to whether you are listened to or ignored. It’s the big reason someone is interested or uninterested. It’s whether some wants or desires what you have to offer or whether it just doesn’t appeal to them. It’s whether they do as you ask or not. It’s whether they buy from you or not. It really is a huge part of online marketing. If you get it right, the potential benefits are enormous. Copywriting can be the difference between a struggling, failing business and a successful one, it’s that important.
What’s bad about Copywriting?
Well I can’t think of anything bad about copywriting, except for bad copy. Good copy has no drawbacks at all and copywriting by its very nature should be good, that’s it’s whole aim, whole reason for existing.
The only other thing perhaps is that it doesn’t always come easily or naturally so if copywriting is something you may try your hand at, be prepared to really have to work at it and be prepared for the occasional fail. Even the a-list copywriters sometimes bomb.
Who is Copywriting for?
Copywriting is for every single business on this planet, I don’t care who you are and what you sell. You need good copy.
How to do Copywriting?
There’s a lot to copywriting, it’s one of the toughest skills to acquire. It certainly comes more naturally to some than others.
If you have the resources, hire a professional copywriter.
If you do not have the resources then use the classic copywriting formula, the AIDA for formula.
AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.
First you need to grab attention, this is the headline of your sales letter, or subject line of your email, or first line of your social media update or first thing you say on your video sales letter. Whatever it is, you have to cut through the noise and give people a good reason to stop and read or stop and watch or stop and listen to you. Anything less than that will be ignored.
Then once you have their attention, you need to elaborate further on what you have just said, give them even more reason to give you their attention, get them interested.
Then when you have their full attention, their interest, you tell them how you can help them and what’s in it for them if they do the next step which is Action. You give them a call to action but they are only going to take this call to action if you grabbed their attention, got their interest and then made them desire so that they could follow your call to action to opt-in, to buy, to register, etc
Of course to do all of this you need understand who you are writing or talking to. If you want someone’s attention you need to know what holds their attention, if you want someone to desire what you have to offer you need to understand exactly what motivates them to want that.
That’s where market research comes in and we’ll be covering that in the next part of this series.
Gideon Shalwick is an expert in online video marketing and founder of splasheo. In this interview he shares how we can dominate our niche by using online video marketing.
In the previous episodes we discussed the top 9 ways to drive targeted traffic which were SEO, Search advertising, Display advertising, content marketing, organic social media traffic, social advertising, email advertising, affiliate traffic and retargeting.
In this episode we are moving on from traffic onto increasing our conversion rates.
As I’ve already explained this piece is absolutely critical because everything else depends on it. If your offers don’t convert then all your traffic driving efforts will be wasted. This is the point where you either get an ROI on your traffic or you don’t.
It’s at this point that the money is made. It’s where people say yes to you. It’s where they give you money. If you get this part wrong then nothing else matters.
The lifetime value of your customers also depends on your conversion rates. If you want to sell to your customers frequently then you require lot’s of yes’s. If you want to upsell your customers to higher price points, to get even bigger yes’s then you need to be able to convert them to that level.
All 3 of the ways to grow your online business through better marketing, driving traffic, increasing conversions and maximizing lifetime customer value are vitally important but if you put a gun to my head and forced me to pick the most important of the 3 then I’d say increasing conversion rates is the most important factor in the equation.
You could grow a business with low traffic volume so long as your conversion rates where good. I don’t recommend that but you could do it.
You could have a profitable business that drove traffic and converted well but neglected the lifetime value of a customer, again, I totally recommend against that but a business could still succeed with that element, they just wouldn’t reach their full potential.
But a business where your offers don’t convert. Where no one see the value of what you offer. Where prospects do not become paying customers. Well now you do have a really big problem. There are very few online business models where conversion rates are not a big factor.
It’s also perhaps the hardest of the 3 to get good at, to get skilled at. Anyone with money can drive traffic, maybe not in an optimal way but they could drive traffic. It’s also easier to sell to people once they are already a customer so raising lifetime customer value is not too difficult. They’ve said yes before it’s now easier for them to say yes again.
But getting someone to say yes when they have not said yes before, to take someone from prospect to customer, that’s the tough part and if you don’t know what you are doing you will struggle.
So that’s why it’s so important. I don’t know you or your business, but if you are struggling, then my best guess is that this is the first place you should look. If people are not saying yes or handing you there money very often then this is the first thing you need to fix.
The best way to do this? The most time efficient way to do this? Is to hire a copywriter or a CRO specialist (conversion rate optimization) to fix this issue for you. Assuming you have a good product, you can hire a good copywriter to come and write compelling marketing messages for you. A CRO company can make your website into a conversion machine.
But neither of these services come cheap, at least not for high quality copywriting or CRO services, you need to be prepared to invest. If you do have money to invest, I highly recommend taking this route.
If you do not have money to invest right now then you need to learn this yourself. Or someone on your team does. Either way it can’t be ignored or your low sales problems will just simply continue.
Even if you do hire a copywriter or CRO company you should know this stuff anyway or you won’t know how to judge whether the work they have done for you is likely to work, whether it’s been worth your money.
At least a basic understanding of marketing, sales and copywriting is essential for every business owner in my opinion.
So with that said here 13 ways to increase your conversion rates, to help more people to say yes to you.
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Good copywriting
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Better market research
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Niching
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Having a marketing funnel
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A strong USP
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Conversion rate optimization
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Video sales letters
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Webinars
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Free trials or low cost, low friction offers
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Proof
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Urgency
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Be mobile ready
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Have a launch
There are plenty more than these 13 factors but for me these are main ones and in the next episodes we will be discussing how these 13 things can help you to get more yes’s, to get more sales.
Rob Brown is one of the world’s leading authorities on personal marketing, networking strategies, executive presence,referrals and reputations. He is the head of the global networking council & the author of the best selling book “How to build your reputation”
In this interview I grill Rob for his very best networking tips. He reveals…
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The networking strategies he used to multiply his income by a factor of 15 in just 13 months!
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The 6 best places to find people to network with
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Where to find your ideal prospect & target exactly who you want to meet
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The secret to never getting nervous & being full of confidence when meeting new people
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How to make a great first impression
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The “Early touch of the ball” method that will get you fired up for a networking event
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The “3 to 1″ technique which will help you quickly identify if the person you are talking to is a potential client
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How to ask better questions & tell intriguing stories to make yourself unforgettable
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2 questions you can ask to really get people to open up about themselves
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The 4 P’s of opportunity
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How to end the initial conversation so you have a second meeting
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Tips for following up & landing some business
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Why the “Law of recency” means you need to use “keep in touch marketing” or your competitors will get all the business
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8 common networking blunders
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Why introverts can often be the best networkers
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How online networking has changed traditional face to face networking into a blended networking strategy
Kevin Wilke is the founder of Nitro Marketing, a training company which teaches people how to start their very own extremely profitable local marketing business.
Local marketing is in huge demand right now. Small to medium sized businesses all over the world are desperate for more leads and sales. Many of those local business owners know the huge potential of the internet in bringing them more trade but lack the knowledge and skills to tap into the online goldmine.
That problem for local business owners has presented a massive opportunity to online marketers, who can team up with local businesses to help them dominate the local online presence for their industry. In this interview Kevin reveals…
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Why local marketing is in big demand since the 2008 recession
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How you can charge premium prices of between $1,000 – $5,000 per month for just one local marketing client!
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How to find the right type of client who can realistically pay those kinds of fees
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6 types of online marketing you can do on your clients behalf so they dominate online local search
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How to pitch your services to these local business owners so it’s a simple, no-brainer proposition for them
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How to give your prospect confidence in your service by showing them results in advance (before they pay you a single penny)
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How to get a clients long term commitment without having to resort to legal contracts
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5 ways to do warm approaches when prospecting for new customers
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How to use outsourcing to make sure this business doesn’t take up all your time
In this episode I want to point you in the direction of an incredible free resource
It’s Justin Brooke’s 18 Facebook marketing courses and tools reviewed. You can find it at http://imscalable.com/blog/ultimate-facebook-review/
Facebook ads is one the best places on the entire internet to do advertising, so it’s important to get it right. The success of your facebook ads campaigns will come down to what you have learned and can put into practice, so it’s important to learn from the right source.
In this blog post Justin has bought all of the top Facebook ads courses available on the market and very kindly shares with us the courses, people and tools that you should be learning from. So you don’t have to kiss any frogs, Justin has invested in it already and shares it with you so you can just go direct to the best sources.
So if you want to learn how to get cheap facebook clicks, create amazing facebook ads, learn all the techie side of Facebook ads, get a good ROI with facebook ads then go check out this list, check out Justin’s reviews, invest in something to get trained up in FB advertising and make a ton of money from it.
Go to http://imscalable.com/blog/ultimate-facebook-review/
Shawn LeBrun has been doing health and fitness marketing and copywriting for over 11 years. He has helped fellow personal trainers sell over 10.5 million dollars worth of their fitness products and services. He helps personal trainers attract more clients, increase their training profits, and reduce their hours... turning their personal training company into a booming business just simply by improving the copy on their site.
The health and fitness market is an evergreen market in the online space. It will always be so because people who are over weight or need to be more healthy will turn to the internet for solutions and answers. Having said that, with huge demand comes huge competition. To compete in this gladiator like arena, your sales page has to do it's job. In this interview I ask Shawn how to write a sales letter to the health and fitness market that pulls in millions of dollars. Shawn reveals...
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How he sold over $2 million worth of just one of his fitness eBooks!
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What the real pain points & emotional hot buttons of the weight loss/fitness market are
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The most important part of a sales letter in the health niche (up to 90% of the success rests on this)
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The best headline Shawn ever wrote to the health market that tripled his conversion rates
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Why your proof elements in this industry must be visual to be believable
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Layout, design, graphics & color tips to use when marketing to this niche
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How to stay out of trouble and cover yourself legally by using disclaimers
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Why you should be using video in your health and fitness marketing materials
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell. And welcome to the next episode of the online marketing club mini-series.
We’re currently exploring my top 9 ways to drive traffic which are SEO, Search advertising, Display advertising, content marketing, organic social media traffic, social advertising, email advertising, affiliate traffic and retargeting. In this episode we will be looking at Retargeting.
What is Retargeting?
Retargeting is a method of getting your website visitors to come back and visit again. It’s just like display advertising, but it’s not about getting first time traffic, it’s 2nd, 3rd, 4th time traffic. So needless to say, very targeted indeed. The way it works is the ad network you use to do retargeting gives you a snippet of code that you place on your website. When someone comes to your website this code places a cookie on the browser of the person who just visited. Then when that visitor goes to other websites where your retargeting network has ad inventory, they will show them your ads and remind them to come back to your site again.
Why is Retargeting good?
You probably know that often people need to see you 7 or 8 times before they will take enough notice of you think of you as significant or want to do business with you. It’s not very often someone will land on your website and decide they instantly love you and what to give you their money. So retargeting gives you that capability, instead of letting visitors leave and forget about you forever, you remind them of why they were interested in the first place, they return and you have another bite of the cherry so to speak, to get that visitor to convert.
The other thing is you have to remember that people have busy lives and short attention spans. They could have been sold on your product already, they could have been ready to buy but they got distracted and didn’t complete the purchase or perhaps they wanted to think about it and intended to come back on their own but they forgot, that’s two examples but there could be many, many scenarios where someone left your site even though they were a potential buyer. You cannot afford to let this hot lead just disappear without giving them the opportunity to come back.
So retargeting is not just about traffic, it’s about conversion too.
What’s bad about Retargeting?
I can’t think of too much that is bad about retargeting to be honest. In my experience retargeting traffic does better than usual traffic because it’s cold traffic, it’s all warm traffic. The only thing I would say is that you need enough traffic coming from other sources first of all, if you don’t then you won’t have the ability to retarget very many people anyway.
Who is Retargeting for?
Retargeting is for everyone in my opinion, if you have a website, if you take online marketing seriously, you should be doing it even if it’s just on small scale. Why waste those visitors and part ways with them forever, it’s not the smart thing to do. Imagine you had a bucket full of water. You wouldn’t want holes in your bucket. If you had a bucket with a hole in it, you’d patch it up immediately so that it stopped leaking, so that very little was wasted, and it’s the same with your website, letting hard earned visitors leave without a trace is like having a big gaping hole in your bucket.
How to do Retargeting?
First you need to sign up to a retargeting platform. Adroll.com, perfectaudience.com, chango.com, retargeter.com are places where you could start, especially perfectaudience, they would perhaps be my number 1 recommendation. Also the Google display network allows you to do retargeting, that’s a good place to start out too.
Generally retargeting is usually done from a website that’s where people see you for the first time and you tag them but it can even be done from an email.
The places these retargeting ads get shown could be Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the google display network or the ad inventory of the retargeting platform you use which will show across banner ads on relevant websites all over the web. It just depends who you do your retargeting with, so before you sign up to a retargeting platform, read up about where you ads will be shown.
And that’s it really! The rest works just like display advertising, have a compelling attention grabbing ad that drives clicks back to your site.
So that’s my top 9 ways to drive traffic and there are more. Not just those 9. But look, if you’ve ever complained about the lack of people coming to your website I’ve just showed you a ton of ways to get traffic, traffic should not be an issue, traffic is everywhere, the web is choc full of traffic. There is no shortage. But you may have noticed that most of those traffic methods are not free. And this may put some people off. But I stand by what I said, traffic is not an issue.
Here’s the issue. Lack of conversions. Lack of sales. If you have that problem you really are screwed because if conversions are low, you can drive all the traffic you like, it won’t convert, you won’t make money. Conversely, if you have an offer that converts and you know, that it consistently, reliably converts then you can fund your traffic driving. It’s not a leap of faith anymore, you’ll have the courage to spend big on traffic because you know you’ll make your money back.
So if you feel like you have a traffic problem, you don’t.
You have a conversion problem and that’s the next part of this series, how to increase your conversions.
Michele Scism is a leading authority on social media and online marketing and the Founder of both DecisiveMinds.com and The Global Social Media Managers Association. Her clients call her “The Results Lady” because as a business strategist she uses her signature “Take Action Get Profits” system to help entrepreneurs turn their passion into expert status and then profits. Michele’s knowledge in the areas of online marketing and social media marketing have been recognized during recent interviews on several web TV shows, including being interviewed by Kristi Frank from Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, as well as multiple Talk Radio shows and tele-classes. Whether you want freedom and flexibility, more time to be with your family, more money, more blog traffic or the feeling of satisfaction you get from creating a successful business, Michele is there with her expert business knowledge, strategies and accountability skills to help you get the results of your dreams.
In this interview I ask Michele how she is able to get so much blog traffic & she reveals…
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How Michele used social media & blogging to build a 6 figure business in less than two years
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The most fatal mistake bloggers make
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The best ways to monetize your blog
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How to easily add an opt-in box to your blog sidebar so you can gather leads
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3 blogging secrets to double your blog traffic & visibility
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How to sync your blog to automatically update your social media accounts so you don’t waste loads of time promoting
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How to drive traffic to your blog just by engaging with others in your community
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An easy way siphon traffic from other peoples blogs
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How to encourage others to share your blog post
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How Michele doubled her blog traffic by participating in blog contests
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How to get other people to write your posts for you & then have them promote it to their own audience!
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How regularly you should be posting new blog posts
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A super stealth method to get into the inbox of people who aren’t even on your list without spamming (Trust me this one method alone will make it worth your time to listen to this interview)
David is a very talented copywriter and email marketing expert. He has generated over 25 million dollars for his clients and supported the growth of their business using email lists and collecting opt-in emails for his clients. He has also worked with some very high profile people and companies including; Stomper Net, Brendan Burchard, David wolfe and Loral Langemeier and many other top experts in the industry.
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell and in this episode I want to point you towards an incredible free resource.
It’s called the ultimate list of the best marketing books ever and it’s by me! You can find it over at josephbushnell.com/marketing-books
It’s a huge list of what are in my opinion the best marketing books of all time, this is a treasure trove of the best marketing books ever written so go over there and pick out some books that you would like to read.
There’s some of the old classics by the early pioneers of marketing like Claude Hopkins, Eugene Schwartz, John Caples and David Ogilvy.
There’s modern day copywriting and direct marketing bestsellers from Joe Sugarman, Boy Bly, Dan Kennedy and Drayton Bird.
There’s the persuasion and influence section featuring the likes of Robert Cialdini, Sally Hogshead Seth Godin and Kevin Hogan.
Marketing Strategy books from Al Ries, Jack Trout, Jay Abraham and Jay Conrad Levinson.
As well as some recent online marketing and social media books too.
These are in my opinion the best marketing books available anywhere in the world so give yourself the unfair advantage, go pick a few to add to your reading list and if you read them and apply them you pretty much can’t help but improve your bank account.
Go to josephbushnell.com/marketing-books
Alan Forrest Smith has spent over 27 years studying business from the front lines & has used story selling in some form or another from a very young age. At the age of 10, Alan started his first business painting old bikes for friends on the housing estate where he lived. By the age of 11 he had bought an old sewing machine and created his second business tailoring trousers for prison wardens and school friends. By 15, Alan had started another money making scheme cutting hair and charging his friends and family for the service. At the age of 16, Alan got his first full-time job as a Landscape Gardener. By the age of 20, Alan then became a hairdresser and by 1989 Alan opened his first hairdressing salon.
This is where Alan's marketing & story selling skills were discovered and honed enabling him to take his salon from new start-up to number one in a town of 35 salons in less than 18 months using low cost- high return very clever marketing strategies.
Around the year 1999 a handful of salon clients began to ask Alan who was creating his marketing materials. This was Alan's first opening into creating marketing materials for others willing to actually pay him for the service.
His first marketing client campaign brought a result of 47% response rate from a direct mailer which led to sales of over £800,000 within a 12 month period. The client had previously lost tens of thousands in trying and having a go at marketing. Alan cut costs, created ultra effective direct marketing campaign that resulted in sales and made his first marketing client very happy.
This led to more and more clients asking Alan for his newly discovered marketing services.
By 2004 word had spread via the web, this led to Alan training others in places as far as Australia, New Zealand, USA and many other locations all over the Earth. By 2010 Alan has spoken to well over 25,000 people all over the World and held his own weekend marketing intensives annually to huge acclaim.
Alan is a master of weaving stories into copywriting & marketing materials that the reader can relate to & then buy because of the story. In this interview I ask Alan how we can also use story selling to sell more of our own products or services. Alan reveals…
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How he was able to use story copy to sell millions of dollars worth of products & services for his clients
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Why stories work better than anything else in copywriting
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How stories are built into the human psyche from a very young age making us more likely to listen & buy when we hear one
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The fascinating story behind a sales letter that consistently pulled £250,000 per month for a TV crew company
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What reading bedtime stories to his children taught Alan about story selling
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How to make your sure your copy gets read the entire way through, from start to finish
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3 ways to keep your story believable
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What to do if you don't think you have a compelling story to tell
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How we can use questions to lead people seamlessly through the story all the way to your offer
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell. And welcome to the next episode of the online marketing club mini-series.
We’re currently exploring my top 9 ways to drive traffic which are SEO, Search advertising, Display advertising, content marketing, organic social media traffic, social advertising, email advertising, affiliate traffic and retargeting. In this episode we will be looking at Affiliate traffic.
What is Affiliate traffic?
Affiliate traffic is where you set up an affiliate program which rewards people for driving traffic for you. Your affiliate program will track the traffic that your affiliates send and if the traffic they drove results in a sale for you, you share some of that sale with the affiliate.
Why is Affiliate traffic good?
Affiliate traffic is pretty much risk free, you only have to pay out if the affiliate makes you a sale, any traffic that does not result in a sale is not paid for by you, it’s paid for by the affiliate, so much of the risk is actually on their shoulders not yours. This guaranteed ROI for you.
Affiliate traffic allows you to quickly multiply your traffic, if you have 100 affiliates then you no longer have just your own email list to send to but 100 emails to tap into. It’s no longer own advertising budget to use but 100 advertising budgets to use. It’s not just a banner ad on your own website, it’s banner ads on 100 websites.
Affiliate traffic is also nice because the affiliate sending the traffic is endorsing you. If they are sending an email to their list about your product then they already have the know, like and trust factor with their list and you benefit from that endorsement, they’ll be more likely to buy and with less scepticism.
What’s bad about Affiliate traffic?
Running an affiliate program can be a little complicated and also it can be a bit of a job recruiting affiliates who will actually do any serious promotion for you. It’s not like you lost out on anything but to really make it work requires some work.
Who is Affiliate traffic for?
Affiliate traffic is certainly not for every business type or every product. What you are selling would need to have a decent enough margin that you can give away enough of the sale to make it worth the affiliates effort but also still make good enough money for you.
A natural fit is the information space or software space as the margins are typically high, however many other business types can use affiliate marketing too.
How to get Affiliate traffic?
First find an affiliate platform to use. I like infusionsoft as that’s my CRM tool and it has an affiliate program built right into the system. In the past I’ve also used iDevaffiliate which is a very robust, reliable yet very affordable option to run an affiliate program.
Then there’s also clickbank or JVzoo, these platforms will not only help you run an affiliate program but they also have a ready made base of affiliates that you can tap into. Professional affiliate marketers who make their full time or part time living just by promoting affiliate offers are already members of clickbank and jvzoo are ready and waiting to promote the best offers to their lists. So this takes some of the work out of the recruiting process but you’ve got to have a proven high converting product or they won’t be likely to promote.
I find that customers are some your best affiliates, they’ve used the service and they now are your evangelists and you can pay them, reward them for telling their friends. So make sure you offer your affiliate program to your happy customers.
You can also approach people by networking, going to seminars and events are a great way to form business relationships and find people who have lists or access to traffic that you would like to get in front of. Build the relationship first and then once a relationship is established, approach them with your affiliate offer and how they can make some good money from it if they will promote it.
Make sure you give good support for your affiliate program. Tell affiliates all they need to know, you should have an affiliate sign up page which pitches affiliates as to why they should promote your program and how it will likely make them money. Then inside your affiliate program, when affiliates login you should provide them with everything they need to make their promotion a success, give them their links, give them banner ads to use, tested swipe copy that converts, even go as far as to give training and ideas so that newbie affiliates know exactly what to do, make your affiliates decision to promote your offer as frictionless as possible.
Above all, have a killer product. Incredible products attract affiliates on their own like moths to flame. Like I mentioned before some people do this full time and they know that the best products are where the money is.
If you would like to learn how to set up an affiliate program and get people to promote your products to their lists then take a look at the online marketing club, you’ll get detailed step by step training of how to do that in inside the members area.
Facebook have been busy...
Facebook ads are about to get more targeted than ever, with Facebooks new audience insights. You can now get deep demographic and behavioural data of the people who like your pages or events, a custom audience or even everyone on facebook in general. This will give you additional insights the lists demographics, page likes, location, language, facebook usage and even purchase activity.
Facebook are also improving their video ad reporting and will give insights on video views, unique video views, average duration of video views and audience retention.
Facebook have announced the launch of a mobile ad network called Audience network. They are bringing all their targeting data and bring it to 3rd party apps. Obviously this will be especially helpful for those looking to promote apps, on mobiles and tablets. Facebook says that you’ll now be able to target in app ads based on who the user actually is, not just who you think the user is.
Facebook have also announced that their Business Manager tool will be more widely available. Previously only big brands and big advertisers with big budgets could get access to this tool which allows you manage facebook pages, applications and ad accounts all from a single interface. It’s still not for everyone and you still need a dedicated facebook rep to get access but it’s not just the multi-million dollar companies that can only get it now, if you’re interested in the tool contact your FB rep if you have one already or apply to be given a rep. It’s also only previously been given to US companies but will be rolling out internationally over the next few weeks.
Twitter have announced that promoted tweet and promoted account ads will now be available in up to 20 languages so that users across the world can read your ads in their own language.
Similarly LinkedIn have announced language targeting and personalized page feeds for their company pages and showcase pages. Your update can show in a users selected language or you can personalize your feed and show different updates to different people based on who they are based on language, location, company size, industry and some other filters. People see what you want them to see if you decide it’s relevant to them.
Instagram have announced they will be rolling out video ads very soon “carefully and methodically” I guess meaning there will be beta phase before its available to everyone but certainly for us online marketers, this could be an exciting new place to play with video ads.
Stumble upon ads have improved with brand new targeting and delivery options now available including simpler geotargeting options and a similar audience tool to targeted like minded people.
YouTube have added a new intros feature which allows video creators to automatically add a 3 second branding intro to their videos. It can’t be used as a direct advertisement but it is a nice time saver if you want to upload fast without messing around with editing first.
The dating app tinder have announced they will be allowing native advertising very soon. I’m sure we’ll hear on that in the coming weeks or months.
The popular app vine which allows users to share 6 second video clips is now available on desktop, go to vine.co
Optimizepress have followed in the footsteps of leadpages and opened up their very own marketplace where developers can sell their templates, plug-ins, icons, graphics packs, custom code snippets and more.
The popular automation tool IFTTT, aka if this then that, is now available as an app on android as well as IOS where it has been available for a long time now.
The all new visual website optimizer has been announced, if you are a current user you can apply for early bird access to get new features such as new split test reports, zero coding a/b split testing for native mobile apps and more.
Amazon cart has just been announced by amazon and it allows your twitter follows to easily buy from you on without leaving twitter. Now when you tweet an Amazon.com product link with your Store ID, Twitter users, who have connected their accounts to Amazon, can add the item directly to their Carts by replying to your tweet with '#AmazonCart'. Later on they can finalize their purchase, your product will be waiting for them in their shopping cart.
Infusionsoft have announced that they will be improving their paypal options including a new shortened paypal checkout process and easier paypal/infusionsoft setup.
Microsoft office for mobile is now free on iPhone, iPad, windows phone and android. Using onedrive you can now open and edit all of your word, powerpoint and excel documents on the go.
For the listeners in Europe the EU Consumer Rights Directive comes into force on June 13th 2014. This is legal stuff so it’s very important and I’m not going to land myself in trouble by trying to describe the coming changes myself, suffice to say if you’re doing business in Europe you need to look this up, EU consumer rights directive.
The winners of the webby awards, the Oscars or grammies of the internet were announced on April 28th. Crowdfunding site Kickstarter, ad agency Ogilvy paris, tech news site mashable, google, tumblr, vine, airbnb, squarespace, instagram, Netflix and ted talks all amongst the winners, go to webbyawards.com to see all the winners and why they won, it’s a good insight into what innovations are happening and what direction the web is going in the future.
In events...
AJ Silvers is holding a workshop called “what if you could double your business in a one day hands on workshop”. It’s being held in Chiang Mai in Thailand on May 14th.
Older, Richer, Wiser, the conference about marketing to the over 50s is being held in London, England on the 22nd of May.
For all you network marketing peeps out there, DS Domination LIFE is being held in Las Vegas, Nevada on 30th May to the 1st of June.
The association of professional coaches, trainers and consultants super conference 2014 is being held in London, England on the 7th and 8th of June. Speakers include Andy Harrington, Matthew Kimberley, Mindy Gibbins Klien and Simon Coulson.
Jamie Smart is holding “making a living from the inside out” in London, England, 7th & 8th of June
The PR Summit Conference Series is being held in San Francisco, California on June 17th.
Financial services social media conference is being held in London, England on June 17th.
Infusionsoft university is in London, England on the 24th – 27th of June.
Facebook is hosting a 5 date roadshow for small businesses across the USA, it’s called Facebook Fit. The dates are New York, 3rd of June, Miami, Florida, June 19th, Chicago, Illinois, July 10th, Austin, Texas, July 24th and Menlo Park, California, August 5th.
And last but certainly not least, husband and wife duo, Izabela and Mike Russell are hosting the UK Podcasters Conference 2014 on august the 16th in Birmingham, England. Speakers so far include Jason Van Orden, Jon Buscall and yours truly, I’ll be speaking too so if you are thinking about running a podcast anytime, you’ll need to be there, it’s the podcasting event of the year. More speakers to be announced soon.
Erik Qualman is the author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business which made Amazon’s #1 Best Selling List for the US, Japan, UK, Canada, Portugal, Italy, China, Korea and Germany. He is also the author of Digital Leader: 5 Simple Keys to Success and Influence and What Happens in Vegas, Stays on Youtube.
Erik produced “Social Media Revolution” which is the most watched social media video in the world.
Erik is in high demand as a speaker and has given keynotes/advised companies such as Facebook, Starbucks, M&M/Mars, Montblanc, TEDx, Polo, Nokia, Google, and more
In this interview I ask Erik for tips on how we gain the edge in business, in this new digital age. Erik reveals…
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How the social media revolution has permanently changed our lives and our businesses
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The 4 steps to selling on social media
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The critical part most companies get wrong when it comes to social media marketing
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How to carry out market research and competitive research on social media
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Why you should consider using a weekly listening report
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Why you have no choice but to make your business very transparent (your customers can now hold you accountable in a very public forum!)
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How one social media user brought a major airline company to its knees after they gave him poor customer service
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Why you should aim to get people participating with your company online
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How to use big data to spot trends and turn it into actionable data
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Why social media equals braggadocian behavior and how you can capitalize
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell and today I just wanted to share an incredible free resource with you.
It’s called the ultimate list of blog post ideas written by Russ Henneberry the editorial director at digital marketer. You can find it at digitalmarketer.com/blog-post-ideas
It’s a big list of blog post ideas and once you’ve read it, you should never be stuck for a blog post idea ever again, there are loads of different kinds of blog posts and this is a fantastic summary that you can refer back to time and time again.
The list includes many of my personal favourites... the list post, the interview post, the how to post, the review post, news post and the series post.
It reminded me of some successful posts I’ve had in the past that I really need to start doing again such as the ultimate guide post, the checklist, the rant post and the story post.
And it also gave me ideas for totally new blog posts I’ve never tried before... the question post, the prediction post, the survey post, the case study post, the satire or parody post for some humor and also the crowd sourced post which I’ve been meaning to do for a very long time but never got around to it.
There’s plenty more ideas where that came from, if you have a blog but need some creative inspiration I guarantee this post will get your brain into gear. Go to digitalmarketer.com/blog-post-ideas
Yaro Starak is recognized worldwide as a leading authority on Blogging & Membership sites. During this interview he reveals how you can create a semi-passive income by building a membership site or even multiple websites of your own! Take your passion & turn it into massive profits!
Don’t forget to checkout Yaro’s blog because it’s one of the best on the internet www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
If you would like more information from Yaro about Membership sites go to www.membershipsitemastermind.com
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell. And welcome to the next episode of the online marketing club mini-series.
We’re currently exploring my top 9 ways to drive traffic which are SEO, Search advertising, Display advertising, content marketing, organic social media traffic, social advertising, email advertising, affiliate traffic and retargeting. In this episode we will be looking at Email Advertising.
What is Email Advertising?
Email advertising is tapping into someone else’s email database. They have a list and you can pay them to send an email either entirely dedicated to you or partly about you. If you want to pay someone for the entire email to be about you, it’s called a dedicated email or a solo ad. That’s the best kind of email ad because the sole focus is on you and the return is usually far higher. Another way to do email advertising is to buy ad space within an email, just like buying banner ads on someone’s website you could have a banner ad showing in their email newsletter. The whole email isn’t dedicated just to you but do have a mention and people who read the email may see it and click it.
Why is Email Advertising good?
Email advertising can be incredible. You should be doing everything you can to build your own email list, it’s one of your biggest online assets, right up there with your website, in some cases it is the most valuable asset of an online business. When you have an email list you can do frequent email marketing where you can build the relationship you have with prospects and customers and occasionally send them offers to monetize your database. We will be talking more about email lists and funnels in future episodes but the reason I mention it is this...
If this is a super important part of online your online business perhaps the most important part, then imagine the power of being able to have access into other peoples email list, their biggest asset. What if you could do this with unlimited people, unlimited email lists?
That’s essentially what you are getting with this, you get access to peoples inbox instantly, you are being endorsed by the sender of the email who they already know, like and trust and you didn’t have to spend time building that list, you get access to it immediately.
What’s bad about Email Advertising?
There’s not too much to dislike about email advertising, the only thing is I would ask the person you are buying an email from about their engagement rates and ask to see proof of them. You don’t want to buy an email from someone who has a poor relationship with their list, or get terrible open rates, that kind of thing. So to save the heartache of an email ad gone wrong, ask about this at the inquiry stage, you’d certainly want to know metrics of how many opens they are likely to get when they send your email before ever coming to an agreement on price.
Who is Email Advertising for?
This is for everyone, getting into the inbox of a relevant audience works for everyone.
How to do Email Advertising?
I like to buy email ads privately. Find similar but not competing businesses to yours, its fine if you can get a direct competitor to mail for you but that’s going to be rare! Instead find someone who sells a different product but has a similar audience. For example an SEO company could team up with a web development company, the web developers have a list of people who they have built websites for and then they send out an email recommending their favourite SEO company who can help their clients sites to get found in the search engines. Or maybe a hair salon could send out an email on behalf of the tanning salon down the road. There’s literally thousands of possibilities, find out who has a list that you would love to get in front of and then contact them.
Some will be used to doing this and will already have a process to deal with your inquiry, others may not be used to doing this but will be open to the opportunity and others will say no. Don’t worry about that, that business and that’s life, suck it up and don’t let fear of rejection stop you.
Remember a dedicated email is the best option and you’ll pay more for it but response rate is typically so much higher. If you buy ad space within a newsletter that’s fine but don’t pay anywhere near what you would with a dedicated email and don’t expect as good results.
Ask about their list size, who the typical person on the list is, open numbers, previous mailing results for other people who bought an ad, if they have done any, just fact find to make sure this is a good opportunity for you and likely to get a good ROI.
Make it worth their time, they don’t have to send an email for you, after all it’s their list and it’s sacred to them, most people would not want to ruin any relationship with their list for any price. You need to sell yourself. Show them exactly why you can help their customers, why them mailing out for you will make their customers love them and be grateful towards them even more. If you can don’t sell, try to go in with a lead magnet, a webinar invite, a free offer or discounted offer of some kind. The web development company may offer a free SEO consultation on behalf of the SEO company. The hair salon may offer a 50% spray tan coupon, whatever it is make it really cool and super easy for people to happy about getting such an email.
Last of all come to an agreement on price, I always to try to haggle for the best rates and I often test first. Send an email to a random sample of their list and see how it goes before committing to buying an ad to be sent to the entire list.
If you would like to learn about how to find the people with the best lists, how to pitch them your idea of an email ad, how to write a winning email that gets opened and clicked then check out the online marketing club, it’s all in there.
Jan Zimmerman is the author of Web Marketing for Dummies and co-author of Social Media Marketing All-in-One for Dummies, as well as Marketing on the Internet and a range of other books too.
She is the owner of Watermelon Mountain Web Marketing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which provides marketing consulting, web site management, content development, social media marketing and strategic web promotion to businesses of all sizes and types since 1998.
In this interview I question Jan on how we can grow our business using social media marketing and web marketing as outlined in her books. Jan reveals...
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The number one reason every business must be using social media for marketing
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The 3 step plan to form a social media strategy that is cost and time effective
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Why you should prioritize what social media you use rather than try to use them all (and 3 tips on how to decide which social networks are right for your type of business)
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The rule of thumb on how many hours you should be spending on each social media channel per week to get the best ROI
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The story of a man who runs his entire business using Twitter alone?
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A really cool social media analytic tool which is free
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3 social media dashboards which will save you time
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6 non-social media essentials for your overall web marketing plan
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The easiest way to determine if your paid online advertising is working
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How to track if inbound phone inquiries or visitors to your store were the result of your web marketing
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell. And welcome to the next episode of the online marketing club mini-series.
We’re currently exploring my top 9 ways to drive traffic which are SEO, Search advertising, Display advertising, content marketing, organic social media traffic, social advertising, email advertising, affiliate traffic and retargeting. In this episode we will be looking at Social Advertising.
What is Social Advertising?
Social advertising is paying to get your social media messages seen, organic traffic is great but newsfeeds are noisy and competitive. Using social ads, you far more likely to get seen. It’s display advertising and native advertising meets social media. You can buy traditional display type adverts on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, these are the ads which are clearly ads and look like ads. The main social networks to buy native ads on would include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instragram, these are the ads where your ad doesn’t necessarily look like an ad, it blends in with the other social posts.
Why is Social Media Advertising good?
Well like I explained in the last episode social media is where everyone is. Social media is a great way to connect with your target audience where they hang out most. People are spending insane amounts of time there. If you want to get in front of your target audience, then you need to go where they hangout every day.
It’s fast, just like display ads and search ads, this is instant traffic and it’s super targeted, it’s based on location, interests, behaviour, age, device, gender, language and there are load of other targeting filters too.
What’s bad about Social Advertising?
The biggest complaint I hear is that some people resent having to pay for social media traffic, they think it should be free. I love free traffic too but look nothing should be free, you’ve got no divine right, the social networks don’t charge us to use their sites and they need to monetize somehow, they don’t owe anyone free traffic. The way I look at it is it comes down to ROI and nothing else, did it make more money than you spent or not? If it’s positive ROI then why would you care whether it was free or not?
So yes, it’s not free but that doesn’t make it bad, if you think that makes it bad, and you also run a business, I highly suggest you change that mindset. If it gives you a positive return then you should be willing to invest.
Who is Social Advertising for?
Social advertising suits a diverse range of businesses, there are not many business types that are not suited to social advertising in my opinion.
How to do Social Advertising?
First, set up your advertising accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram or Pinterest, wherever you plan on advertising.
For me the real biggy is Facebook, almost everyone should try Facebook ads. They will let you do traditional display ads shown in the right hand side of their site in the column which shows adverts or they will let you do native ads which show in the newsfeeds. Remember if you do a display kind of advert then you can and should make it look like a blatant ad. Newsfeed ads can be look like an blatant ads, those definitely work too or you can go a bit more native, a bit more subtle, it really depends on the context of what your trying to achieve with your ad and where you are sending the traffic to. You want to make sure your image and headline captures attention. You want to make sure you get your targeting right, that’s crucial, narrow down on your target audience and you’re ready to go. You can even target your own email list using their custom audience tool, so that the people who know, like and trust you already see you on their social feeds as well as in their inboxes. Or use look a like audiences to show ads to people similar to the people on your list. There are lots, lot’s more to Facebook ads, so many options that like I said most business have something to gain.
Twitter is fast becoming a favourite of mine, they used to be quite high barrier to entry and only for big businesses with huge budgets but over the last year or so they’ve opened it right up to the small business too and they keep on producing new advertising products all the time. You can pay for promoted accounts so people follow you, you can pay for promoted tweets so that people read your tweets and click your links, you can pay for promoted trends so your brand appears popular and relevant and shown in peoples trending topics. Again you target by geography, gender, interest, device, or show ads to people similar to those who follow you, a bit like Facebooks like a like audiences as well as the ability to show ads to your email list like Facebooks custom audiences but over at Twitter they are called tailored audiences.
Then we have LinkedIn, with LinkedIn you can do traditional adverts which show on their site and are blatant ads but you can also now do newsfeed type ads, these are called sponsored updates. You can do text/image ads or even just video ads. You’ve got all the usual targeting parameters as well as some new business related ones like positions within a company, job title, company size, making it great for business types including B2B. The only drawback is clicks aren’t cheap, $2 minimum but remember it’s all about ROI.
Ads which show on YouTube are bought through your Google adwords account. Again there’s a whole load of different ad types here, the main ones would include the display network type ads which show banner ads on their site and in some videos. You can also promote your YouTube account or get your YouTube videos featured in the related videos section. Then there’s trueview ads, a short video message which shows before the intended video, people can skip these ads if they don’t want to watch them but plenty of people will watch them and respond.
In fact, on the topic of social media and google adwords there’s even an ad type which relates to google plus. You can turn your Google plus updates into adverts which show on google display network so these ads do not show on Google Plus itself but it’s a way of building your audience on Google plus by advertising to people using the wider web.
Then there’s Instagram where you can do native style sponsored photos and videos and there’s even Pinterest ads that are on the cusp of being released to the public where you can again buy native ads called promoted pins. That’s literally right around the corner at the time of recording this in May, 2014, if you’re listening to this much after that time then chances are they are already here.
There’s so many options and opportunities to get in front of our target audiences when they are using social media. If you would like to learn how to create adverts that get clicked, how to target your exact audience, how to bid for cheaper clicks to give you the best chance of ROI, then take a look into the online marketing club, it will show you all those things.
David Meerman Scott is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and the author of seven books published in more than 30 languages.
David’s book “The new rules of Marketing & PR” opened people’s eyes to the new realities of marketing and public relations on the Web. Six months on the BusinessWeek bestseller list and published in more than 25 different languages from Bulgarian to Vietnamese, New Rules is now a modern business classic.
He is a recovering VP of marketing for two publicly traded technology companies. Today, besides speaking and writing, he is an advisor to marketing technology companies and nonprofits.
In this interview I ask David how the marketing game has changed & exactly what the “New rules” of marketing & PR are. He reveals…
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Why David got sacked from his job because he didn’t want to market the old way any more
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How to create content that will appeal to the people who want to buy your stuff
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The 3 ways businesses can generate attention using the old methods of marketing (They do still work!)
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How you can use the new rules of marketing to get massive visibility on the web
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Why you must think like a journalist to succeed online
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The 3 step process to making sales online
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Why people are more inclined to buy if educate them first
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Why one way interruption marketing is dead
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2 big reasons your website needs to be mobile ready
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3 mobile marketing strategies for small businesses
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The “Newsjacking” method to drive huge traffic by simply piggy backing off breaking news stories!
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How Richard Branson’s mother & Kate Winslet helped the London fire brigade to get mentioned over 2,000 times in the media
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell. And welcome to the next episode of the online marketing club mini-series.
We’re currently exploring my top 9 ways to drive traffic which are SEO, Search advertising, Display advertising, content marketing, organic social media traffic, social advertising, email advertising, affiliate traffic and retargeting. In this episode we will be looking at Organic social media traffic.
What is Organic Social Media Traffic?
Organic social media traffic is natural traffic acquired from social media and social networking sites for free. You can pay for social media traffic but we’ll talk about that in the next episode, in this episode we are talking about free social media traffic. The main social networks would include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, YouTube, Pinterest and Instragram, there are countless others too but they would be what I consider to be the main ones at this moment in time, in May 2014.
Why is Social Media Traffic good?
Well first of all it’s where everyone is. Social media is a great way to connect with your target audience where they hang out most. People are spending anywhere between half an hour to an hour on social media each day, for some people it’s replacing real life interaction altogether, it’s where everyone is, I don’t care what tiny little niche you may be in, I guarantee the people of your niche are using social networks. If you want to get in front of them, where they look everyday then you’ve got be there.
It’s free traffic and it’s repeat traffic. Once you are connected with someone via social media you have the chance to connect with them frequently, not just the once but all the time, daily or even multiple times a day if want. They can see your updates time and time again and therefore may click your links many times over the course of some time.
It’s good for both front end lead capture as well as back end, stay in touch, top of mind type marketing too.
What’s bad about Social Media Traffic?
Done incorrectly it could backfire and not impress your audience, the main way to turn people off is to be too pitchy all the time, people are there for social interaction not to be sold to, so keep it light, be fun, be chatty, be social, use it for lead gen or if you need to be more salesy then lead people off of social media over to your site where you can control the environment better.
Who is Social Media for?
For me, any business can use social media marketing to some degree or another. Sure some businesses are far more naturally suited than others but I believe you should be using it anyway. For starters you want to claim the real estate if someone types your name or company name into Google they should be finding your website and your social media properties and people can connect with you in their preferred way.
Social media is definitely well suited to those who use content marketing, it ties in very naturally. Interest or enthusiast markets are naturally suited.
Those who may find it more of a struggle could be local businesses, now don’t get me wrong, I know some local businesses who crush it with social media but I know that others do struggle, sometimes their target audience is just destined to be small because there are not many people in their town or local area that they serve but that’s fine, social media success doesn’t mean huge numbers, if you have small band of loyal followers then that’s still success.
Other businesses that may struggle are B2B’s or businesses where people are in and out of the market very quickly, again this is not always the case but can sometimes be harder or may need a little more thought to figure how best to make it work.
How to get Social Media Traffic?
Set up accounts on the social sites where your audience hang out most. There’s no harm in joining many, just make sure it doesn’t require too much of your time keeping it maintained, remember this can be outsourced too, you don’t have to be the one in your company doing the social media marketing.
Then you need to connect with the people in your market on social media, build up your following, the best way to do this is with content marketing, make sure that all social media accounts are showing on your blog so that once a visitor has visited they can simply go and connect with you at their favourite social networks. Make sure your list and your previous/current customers know you are on social media too.
You can’t connect with everyone all at once, building your social media audience will take time, years even, it doesn’t stop it just keeps happening for as long as your business has an online presence and you continue to serve your market, people will continue to find you. What may start off as a slow trickle can really turn into a big snowball effect if your market is big enough and you do a good enough job of marketing. And if your market is small that’s fine too, just do the best you can.
To speed the audience building process you can buy an audience using social ads, more on that in the next episode.
Once you have audience, you interact with them. It’s all about having meaningful conversations with them and giving them good content, this will keep them engaged and is what will make them repeat, loyal followers who will comment, like, share, click your links and buy your stuff.
If you would like to learn how to build your social media following and keep them engaged then check out the online marketing club where you can learn the details of how to do just that.
Glenn Livingston is the marketing psychologist many companies brought in to crawl deep inside their prospects’ minds to uncover exactly what they were desperate to buy, to improve profits on existing product lines, AND to minimize advertising risk in new market.
Glenn’s marketing consulting companies have serviced literally dozens of Fortune 500 companies like AT&T, American Express, Astra Zeneca, Bausch & Lomb, Burger King, Chase Bank, Citibank, Colgate-Palmolive, Grey Advertising, Hallmark, Hunt Wesson, J & J Whirlpool, Exxon, Flagship Banks, Ford Motor Company, General Mills, Gore,J Walter Thompson, Kodak, Kraft, Lipton, M & M Mars, Master Card, Merck, Panasonic, ovartis, Ortho McNeil, P & G, Pfizer, Pharmacia, Pillsbury, Roche, Sara Lee, Unilever, Warner Lambert, Nextel, JJill, and many more.
In this interview Glenn tells us how we can make our website visitors become hyper responsive buyers.
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell. And welcome to the next episode of the online marketing club mini-series.
We’re currently exploring my top 9 ways to drive traffic which are SEO, Search advertising, Display advertising, content marketing, organic social media traffic, social advertising, email advertising, affiliate traffic and retargeting. In this episode we will be looking at Content Marketing.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a way of reaching your target audience by providing information they find valuable, with no cost to them, it’s a successful first interaction with your brand. From there people can find their way into your funnel, get in contact with you, look around your website and buy something, there’s many possibilities, but the idea is you help them up initially with the content you give, and after that they may become a customer because they realize that you can help them even further.
Why is Content Marketing good?
Content marketing is a great way to establish credibility and expertise. The person consuming the content can get a feel for whether they think you’re knowledgeable or not. Because you’re putting yourself out there in this way the majority of people will just assume you are an expert or you wouldn’t or couldn’t be doing content marketing.
Content marketing is a great way to build trust and rapport. If someone reading your post or watching your video likes your style, what you’re saying, the way you’re saying it, it can be a unique selling factor which no else in the world can replicate, there’s only one you. So their question becomes not just is this person knowledgeable but do I like them?
It’s inbound marketing, it draws people to you. Because people often resist selling, content marketing is a great way to take someone from being a cold lead to a warm lead without hard selling. They can see how you can help them and you’re not annoying them or frightening them you’re doing the exact opposite, you’re attracting them to you, making them want to hear from you rather than turn and run in the opposite direction.
Another cool thing about content marketing is that it get’s shared because people love to share good content so you get even more exposure to your market for free.
What’s bad about Content Marketing?
Content marketing if not done correctly can be time consuming. If you do even just 2 blog posts or videos a week, that’s going to take up quite a bit of time, coming up with the content, creating it, publishing it and marketing it, this all takes up your time and on this show we aren’t fans of that are we? This isn’t about doing more. So if you do content marketing make sure you have a team to help, ideally all you would be doing is creating the content and the rest is done by your team. Even some content like writing can be outsourced. The only thing that can’t be outsourced is you appearing on a video or talking on a podcast but that doesn’t have to take too long and can actually be quite fun anyway.
Another potentially bad thing about content marketing is that some aspects of it are long term and the ROI isn’t immediate. It’s a strategy where you need to be patient. Just because you wrote great blog post or video, even if it got a great reaction, it doesn’t always mean it blows the doors off your sales sales figures that same day. Content marketing strategy varies and sometimes it leads to an immediate boost in profits and sometimes patience is required, you need to be in it for the long game. Not necessarily a bad thing anyway but some people want instant results. If you want instant results, there are other traffic methods like search ads, display ads or social ads which would likely lead to profits quicker.
Who is Content Marketing for?
For me, any business can use content marketing to some degree or another. Sure some businesses are far more naturally suited than others but I believe any business has a level of expertise that their customers do not have and therefore can use content to educate them about how they can help them. Businesses that are in the expert space or in an interest or long term problem market are the most natural fit. But even businesses where content marketing may not be quite so obvious you can always base content around the frequently asked questions that your customers have.
How to do Content Marketing?
Content marketing comes in many shapes and sizes.
There’s blogging, a part of your website where you can regularly publish new content. I love using wordpress for this. I publish helpful content and then give calls to action to sign up to my list.
In fact even the lead magnet to sign up to my list is content marketing, the free report, ebook, videos or email newsletter I give away is content. The content in your funnel should be pre-selling content, it’s leading to the sale but in a very helpful, informative way.
Video marketing is a great way to give content and people love to consume content. Create a video then publish it to Youtube, your blog and other social media and video sharing sites. Again give a call to action within the video itself or in the description underneath the video.
When people do product launches it’s based around content, usually 3, 4 or 5 videos in a series which give great info away and then pre-sell you on the offer.
Podcasting just like I’m doing now is a great way to give away good information that helps people to see that you can help them.
That’s just some of the ways, it doesn’t matter if your content is audio, video, text, email, in a book, the main thing is, you should be giving away good content that leads towards someone knowing how you can help them better, like I said before this is called pre-selling. The best thing to do is answer the common questions that the people in your market have, find out what those questions are and then answer them, that’s your content. Then use your channels, email, social media, video sites, your blog, a podcast, to get your content into the hands of as many people in your market as you can.
If you would like to learn how to produce content that sells, how to make a podcast, create amazing videos, run a blog or surround yourself with the right people on your team who can help you with your content marketing so it gets done quickly and effortlessly then check out the online marketing club, it’s for you.
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell and welcome to the online marketing news.
First off, retargeting platform Perfect Audience announced perfect audience connect this week. This is where you can team up with other marketers and cross promote to each other’s visitors, not only can you retarget your own website visitors but now you can show ads to the visitors of your partners websites so now you reach new people not just the same ones over and over again.
AOL have released a new native ads for mobile unit. It will be exclusively for mobile sites and apps and the ads will be shown on AOL owned properties, places you probably didn’t know AOL even owned like techcrunch and the huffington post. If you’re into media buying it could be worth testing out.
LinkedIn is launching two new partner programs... Sponsored updates partners and content partners. The sponsored updates program is designed to help you reach a your target audience on LinkedIn better and the content partners program aims to help companies find good original content producers to create content for them.
Twitter has rolled out a new web profile which is now available to everyone. It has a new best tweet section, a pinned tweet feature and a filtered tweet feature. Your tweets that attracted the most engagement will appear larger than normal. It also has space for a larger profile picture and cover photo.
Twitter has also released a new ad unit called website cards. It shows an image, some text, a call to action and a when users click they will land on a page on your website. This is a good thing for us advertisers, it means more real estate to play with, we aren’t limited to boring plain text, 140 characters tweets with this kind of ad.
And for UK Twitter advertisers, Twitter have improved their Geo Targeting options adding 9 regions in the UK... North West England, Yorkshire and The Humber, East England, West Midlands, South East England, South West England, North East England and the East Midlands. And they have still kept all the old ones too... London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool-Manchester.
Pinterest have announced guided search will help mobile app users find what they are looking for faster by adding relevant sub categories to the search results. This is just another reason for us marketers to make sure our pins and boards are all tagged and formatted correctly or they won’t be found.
Google have added 3 new features for app advertisers. In-app install ads can now target users on the display network based on previous apps they have installed and their usage of those apps. YouTube trueview companion for apps allows advertisers to show a video with a clickable call to action to download their app directly underneath and app deep linking for both search and display networks allows users of an app to open the app up to most relevant page within the app and start using it, a little bit like retargeting for apps.
A few weeks back Leadpages announced the launch of their Marketplace and they officially opened the doors this week with their first template available for sale – The affiliate mini site, where you can pitch affiliates to promote for you and give them their links, banners and swipes.
Perhaps the biggest online marketing launch coming up in the near future is Donald Wilsons FB ads cracked reloaded, where he teaches how to get cheap clicks on facebook ads, his last launch was a massive success and no doubt this one will be big too.
In events...
Copyblogger are hosting Authority Intensive in Denver, Colorado on the 7th – 9th of May. Speakers include Seth Godin, Darren Rowse, Brian eisenberg, Joanna Wiebe and many more.
Chris Howard is hosting Wake Up Rich Live Weekend in Los Angeles, California on the 9th-11th of May.
The business show 2014 is taking place in London, England on the 15th and 16th of May. This one is a massive event, over 250 seminars taking place, speed networking events, the angels den where you can pitch your business idea to angel investors and much more.
American sales summit 2014 is being held in Las Vegas, Nevada on the May 15th – 19th. Speakers include loral langemeier, marshall slyver, Kevin Harrington, Daven Michaels, alex mandossian and Raymond aaron.
David Neagle is hosting the breaking free live experience in Las Vegas, Nevada on the 15th -18th of May.
O2 are holding a workshop called 11 ways to find new customers on LinkedIn. It’s in London, England on the 22nd of May.
Dov Gordon is holding a live event “one day jumpstart to a consistent flow of clients” in Washington DC on the 29th of May.
James Malinchak is holding the Big Money Speaker Bootcamp in Los Angeles, California on the 29th of May to the 1st of June.
The vocus marketing and PR conference called Demand success 2014 is being held in Washington DC on June the 5th and 6th. Speakers include Randi Zuckerberg and Avinash Kaushik, Chris Brogan and Laura Ries.
Patrick Powers is holding a live workshop in London, England called the Irresistible Pitch on the 14th of June.
Affiliate Summit East, New York, 10-12th of August. Huge line up of speakers and even the rapper Juicy J will be performing during the affiliate’s ball, the official party of the affiliate summit.
John Lee Dumas is the founder and host of “Entrepreneur on Fire” a top ranked podcast named “best in iTunes 2013”. John interviews today’s most inspiring and successful entrepreneurs 7 days a week and has been featured in both Time and Inc magazine. He is the founder of “Podcasters Paradise” a community where podcasters can create, grow and monetize their podcast. “Entrepreneur on Fire” generates over 450,000 unique downloads a month with past guests such as Seth Godin, Tim Ferris, Barbara Corcoran, Gary Vaynerchuck and Guy Kawasaki. Recaps of the 500 plus episodes and much more can be found over at eofire.com. John is currently generating over $100,000 each month because of his podcast and in this episode he shares with us how does it.
Today I want to point you in the direction of an incredible free resource.
It’s James Schramko’s free mini course, called own the racecourse. James is one of the best content marketers in the world, his blog is great, his podcasts are great, all his content is amazing it’s worth modelling. James calls his content marketing system, owning the racecourse.
If you go this his superfastbusiness blog you’ll find the mini course there. http://www.superfastbusiness.com/traffic/own-the-racecourse-training-introduction/
This is the first page of 14 pages on his blog where he delivers the course. Start on this page then at the bottom of every page there will be a link to the next part of the course.
He’ll show you how to assemble your dream team who will help you do your content marketing so you’re not having to do this all yourself, how to come up with great content ideas that your audience will love, how to create, produce, publish and syndicate your content all over the web, how to measure the success of your content marketing and also a complete checklist of tools needed to make this all work. There’s also some bonus sections as well as James update own the racecourse reloaded.
The entire course would take less than a couple of hours to complete but by the end of it you’ll know exactly how to have a content marketing machine, cranking out new content on very regular schedule which get’s the attention of your market, with minimal effort on your part.
So take the time to go through it. Also you can check out my interview with James, episode 12 where we discuss his owning the racecourse method.
My recommendation would be to go through the course starting at http://www.superfastbusiness.com/traffic/own-the-racecourse-training-introduction/ and then listen to the podcast and see if you gain any extra insights
Viv Craske is the owner over at Digital Marketing Blueprint – a Facebook Marketing agency specializing in helping Digital and technology companies , B2B Professional services, Internet marketers and Personality brands with Facebook marketing strategies, advertising, branding, list building and engagement.
He helps cutting edge companies on the interface of technology and helps people build a community of addicted fans from Facebook that are changing their businesses & increasing their profits.
In this interview I ask Viv how to really make money using Facebook, Viv reveals…
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Why traditional marketing methods & print publications just aren’t as effective since the rise of social media
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Why Viv believes Facebook is currently the best social network to make money with & will be for a long time to come
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Why 80% of all time spent on Facebook marketing strategies is wasted & doesn’t bring returns
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How to use Facebook to grow your email marketing list
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Why Viv believes you don’t even need a website anymore because of Facebook
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How to cut the costs of your Facebook adverts by almost half
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Why Viv thinks you shouldn’t go for the “Like” (And what you should be doing instead)
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The 6 steps of a Facebook marketing funnel
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How to find super targeted prospects using Facebook
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7 ways to get free traffic to your Facebook page
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The 1 big difference between those who succeed & fail with Facebook marketing
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell. And welcome to the next episode of the online marketing club mini-series.
We’re currently exploring my top 9 ways to drive traffic which are SEO, Search advertising, Display advertising, content marketing, organic social media traffic, social advertising, email advertising, affiliate traffic and retargeting. In this episode we will be looking at Display Advertising.
What is Display Advertising?
Display advertising is where we buy space to advertise ourselves on somebody else’s website that has already attracted a relevant audience. You may also hear this kind of advert being referred to as banner ads or media buys and there are different many ways to do display advertising. Pay per click is perhaps one of the most common forms, you display your ad and pay a small sum of money each time they send you a targeted visitor. You could pay for your ad to be shown a certain number of times, you pay for impressions as opposed to clicks. Or you could negotiate with a website owner directly and ask to pay a fixed rate for your ad to be shown as a banner advertisement on their website for fixed period of time.
Display ads generally have images or an image/text combination but they can be text only too.
The details don’t really matter; there are different ways to buy ad space. What matters is that you get targeted traffic so this comes down to placement selection so that you then have a good chance to convert that traffic once you get it.
Why is Display Advertising good?
Display ads are great way of tapping into a relevant audience immediately. You didn’t have to spend the time and effort creating the relevant audience, the website which you advertise on took care of that themselves, all you have to do is run your ads and get targeted traffic.
What’s bad about Display Advertising?
Sometimes you can’t entirely control the audience because at the end of the day not every visitor of the website you are advertising on will be relevant to you. This is more likely to be a problem when you buy ad space from a website directly. For example perhaps the website you advertise on has a global audience but your business only serves people in the United States then there could be a lot of wastage there. This won’t always be a problem, it depends on the website you buy from, so when buying space, ask them what targeting options they have.
If you buy ad space via an ad network then you are much less likely to face this problem because all the best ad networks do have targeting options.
Who is Display Advertising for?
Display ads can work for most businesses that have a target market based around an interest or a long term problem. So weight loss, sports, music, hobbies, film and tv could all be examples of markets that could work. Markets where people are only in it for the short term or generally have no interest in until they face the problem will not work so well, for example locksmiths, plumbers, airport transfer, if I need one of those services I turn to a search engine and once the problem is solved, I’m no longer in that market until the next time I may need it, but in the meantime I don’t go browsing locksmith related websites and content. However, Football, weight lifting, rock and roll music, comedy films and marketing software, well I’m interested in those kinds of things all of the time, there’s a good chance I could visit a related website at any given time and you could serve me a related advert that may be of interest to me at anytime if it was coming from one of those niches. So decide if this fits your business. Are your market always interested in this topic? Do read content and visit websites to consume information about this topic? If the answer to both those questions is yes then display advertising is a good option for you.
How to do Display Advertising?
Display advertising comes in many forms. Most the social networks offer display advertising Facbook, linkedin, youtube all offer traditional display type ads and they all have good targeting options based on the behaviour and demographic data that they have on their users. But we’ll cover that in more detail in a future episode when we get to social ads.
Google have something called the display network and bing have their content network. I use Google’s display network a lot because they have a lot of inventory and I think it’s a good place for most people to start. The way it works is you upload your pictures, these will be your banner ads, so make sure they grab attention and aim to get clicks, then you pick what websites you would like your ads to be shown on, remember to choose wisely because the success of your campaigns rests largely upon where you place your ads, so pick relevant websites that will have the kind of audience you yourself would like to get in front of. There’s also plenty of other targeting options to refine your audience selection even further but placement is the big one that you’ve simply got to get right.
These aren’t the only ad networks by the way there’s hundreds, sitescout.com, adready.com and advertising.com would be some others I think are worth mentioning.
There’s also native advertising, this is a form of display advertising which assumes the form of the content the reader is already using, so it doesn’t look like a display ad but it is a display ad, it’s just in disguise! This won’t work when sending traffic to a blatantly commercial landing page but it’s great if you have a piece of content that you would like to drive traffic to. You can buy these kinds of ads from outbrain.com, taboola.com or respondhq.com. You can also get native ads from most social media sites, facebook, twitter, linkedin, pinterest all offer sponsored content which is shown in users newsfeeds, again we’ll cover this in more depth in the episode about social ads.
Then there’s retargeting, retargeting is a form of display advertising with a twist, this is where you can show display ads to people who have already visited your website, so they already know your brand and this is another opportunity to entice them to come back again. Again, this is one of our 9 traffic methods so we will talk about retargeting in more detail in future episode.
And then there’s direct. This is where you can approach a website owner or marketing department directly and negotiate privately without the use of going through a network. If a site you would like to advertise on has ad space showing on their site, send them an email to inquire. Do your best to negotiate a good price based on how much traffic they think you would be likely to receive and your you’re ready to go!
Like I said, display ads cover a multitude of areas and there’s a lot to know, how to create winning banner ad that attracts clicks, how to get the targeting right, how to get good cost per click prices, how to negotiate with sales reps when going direct, all sorts, so if this is an area of online marketing you’d like to master then check out the online marketing club, it might be up your street!
In the next episode we’ll be discussing, content marketing, see you then!
Brad Gosse has over 15 years experience of marketing online in many different niches. He is the author of the popular new book “Chronic Marketer: Confessions Of A Half-Baked (But Highly Paid) Internet Marketer”. He is also the creator of many top selling info products in this interview we are talking all about how you can create info products & then sell them by the bucket load.
Info products come in all different shapes & sizes. You just take your knowledge & package it a way that others can learn & benefit from. They include books, ebooks, podcasts or video training which can sell for hundreds of dollars. Then there is the stuff you can charge thousands of dollars for like done for you services & high end consultancy. If you would like to know how to make a lot of money simply by selling what you already know then you have to listen to this interview.
In this Interview Brad reveals…
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How to add far more increased value to your info products so people will happily pay you more for them
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Why there will always be huge need for you to create info products regardless of how much info is already out there on the internet for free
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How to create info products easily & quickly
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How to sell low priced products online in large quantities
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3 places you can get cheap targeted traffic to sell your products
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The formula to using webinars to sell your info products (And the best type of product to sell on webinars)
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How Brad sells high ticket items of up to $30,000
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The exact process to turn your self published book in an amazon bestseller
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A sneaky trick to make your book go viral on FaceBook
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell. And welcome to the next episode of the online marketing club mini-series.
We’re currently exploring my top 9 ways to drive traffic which are SEO, Search advertising, Display advertising, content marketing, organic social media traffic, social advertising, email advertising, affiliate traffic and retargeting. In this episode we will be looking at Search Advertising.
What is Search Advertising?
Search advertising is paying for your advert to be shown in the search engine results. Much like SEO, when someone is looking for your product or service or related information, they turn to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. There are more search engines but these are the main 3 and the biggest by far out of the 3 is Google. Google’s search ads are called Adwords.
Why is Search Advertising good?
Well as I explained in the last episode, Search engine traffic is buyer seeking traffic so it’s top quality traffic. You get in front of the people in your market when they are at the height of their need to buy, they are deep into the buying cycle, they know they have a problem and they are looking for options to solve it or they know what solution they are looking already and they are looking for someone who can offer that solution. A disadvantage of SEO is that it’s slightly unpredictable, your rankings can drop off the map anytime but search ads gives you more stability, if you’ll bid the right amount of money, your ads will be shown and you will receive targeted traffic. Search advertising is also good because you are not limited to a low number of keywords like you are with SEO, with search ads you can bid for as many relevant keywords as you like.
It’s also a form of pay per click or pay per impressions advertising so you only pay for views and clicks, this is guaranteed, it’s not like yellow pages or a magazine or newspaper ad where you’ll pay regardless. If you pay per click and you get no clicks, you pay nothing. If you pay for impressions, and you get no impressions, you pay nothing. So you are guaranteed to the traffic. You aren’t guaranteed ROI, your landing page still has that job to do, but the search engine will send you the targeted traffic and that’s what you pay for. If they can’t deliver the traffic, you don’t pay.
Also search ads are very flexible, you can run your ads as and when you want. You can pause your ads anytime you want. You can even run your ads during certain times of the day and pause them during other times, all on autopilot. You can set maximum daily budgets so you never overspend. There’s a lot of good things about search ads, I can’t list every single thing but they would be the highlights.
What’s bad about Search Advertising?
There’s not too much to dislike about search ads to be honest. Maybe a few minor points, because it’s an ad there may be a slightly lower trust factor from the searchers point of view, studies have shown that searchers tend to give the organic search results more attention than the ads so perhaps SEO wins in that respect but for me, there’s still plenty of traffic to come by using search ads, so I don’t mind if the organic listings get more clicks than the adverts do, there’s still lots of traffic to be had from the ads. There also used to be some horror stories about click fraud, where your competitors come and click your ads all the time and waste your advertising budget, however this practice is largely gone because Google has ways of detecting fraudulent activity and will ban any ip addresses caught violating the rules and will refund advertisers who have fallen victim to this. So don’t worry, I’ve used search ads for years now and I’ve never experienced a problem.
The only people who may find search ads difficult and in particular Google adwords are those in markets that Google isn’t so fond of. Internet marketing for example! Weight loss. MLM. Forex. Stock trading. Advertisers in those kinds of niches can easily get there account permanently banned for the tiniest breach of the rules. It’s unfortunate for us but Google has the power to do what they want. So if you are in one of those niches or a niche that maybe is perceived as having unproven claims, you need to be extra careful or find an agency to take care of your account for you and use their experience to make sure you aren’t breaking any rules.
Who is Search Advertising for?
Search ads work for most business types except for the ones Google frowns upon so go check out their terms and conditions. I have found bing/yahoo to be more lenient but they still have rules too, check out their T&Cs as well.
How to do Search Advertising?
Succeeding with search advertising is all about relevancy. The advert you show must be highly relevant to the keyword someone types and the landing page they arrive at must be highly relevant to the advert they just clicked on. It needs to be consistent each stage from keyword to ad to landing page page.
If you have different products or services you should create different campaigns that have a different set of keywords and different ads and lead to different landing pages. The better you segment this, the higher your conversions will be as searchers will find exactly what they are looking for and the cheaper your clicks will be because Google grades this relevancy using something called quality score. I can’t describe the entire concept of quality score on a short podcast like this but think of it like this, if you have relevant keywords, ads and landing pages Google will give you a good quality score and will reward you with cheaper clicks. If your keywords, ads and landing pages do not match one another closely then Google will give you bad quality score and will charge you more to advertise on their search engine. So my advice, if you want an ROI be relevant and you’ll do fine.
That’s a brief description of search ads, of course in reality there’s plenty more to know, bidding strategies, ad creative techniques, landing page best practices, and so much more, if search ads is something you would like to become expert at, take a look at the online marketing club, it might just be for you.
In the next episode we’ll be discussing, display advertising, see you then!
Joanna Wiebe is a great copywriter who blogs over at copyhackers.com. She is the author of several copywriting and conversion eBooks and courses too.
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell and this is today’s online marketing news.
As you may have heard already, there is a major security issue called Heartbleed which has affected some huge websites and it means you need to go and change your passwords. So many sites have been affected so there’s no point trying to list them here, if I were you, just to be safe, change your passwords for all your most important websites that you use most regularly, or contains sensitive information such as online banking.
Twitter has released app-install ads which will help advertisers to promote apps so that mobile users can directly download on their mobile device.
Twitter UK have also launched their real time own the moment calendar for advertisers which will help them to tie their ads with events such as seasonal events, Christmas, easter, Halloween, TV events, the season finale of game of thrones, sporting events, the world cup final, cultural events, such as international pillow fight day, business events like the The business show and even Twitter events based around the live webinar trainings that Twitter hold regularly.
Facebook have declared war on like and share baiting posts. If you use the word “like” or the word “share” or “comment” then their edge rank algorithm will give you less exposure in peoples newsfeeds.
Great news for Facebook advertisers though, the facebook ads being shown in the right hand column on desktops and laptop users are going to be made bigger, more real estate to play with.
Google have announced the full rollout of +post ads where your Google + posts can be turned into adverts on Google’s display network. In previous shows I’ve mentioned this was in testing but now Google are rolling this out to all brands so go give it a try!
LinkedIn has a new feature in their inbox, you now have the ability to write a note or set a reminder, if you do not have time to respond right away. This makes their inbox much more like a CRM tool, very handy.
Klout have released their mobile app for IOS and say they will be releasing an Android version in the near future too.
Groupon have announced in-store coupons to freebie offers. Major retailers can get floods of new traffic and custom by offering the coupon code over at groupon, which can be used on their own website. This is for big brands for the time being but groupon have said they plan to expand this to small businesses later this year.
After recent updates from clickbank and JVzoo, the affiliate platform Deal Guardian have raised their game too by now offering custom affiliate commissions for specific affiliates and customized, branded checkout pages.
Perhaps the most popular internet marketing forum on the web, The Warrior Forum has been sold to freelancer.com for 3.2 million dollars. This will hopefully lead to improvements and innovations over at warriorforum.com, let’s wait and see.
Wordpress 3.9 has just been released, if you have a wordpress site make sure you go and upgrade to the latest version asap.
In events...
The PR Summit is taking place in London, England the 29th of April.
Mobile Marketing 2014 is taking place on the 30th of April in London, England.
Brand us social are holding an online marketing event for those in the fashion and beauty industry, in London, England on the 1st of May
The Data Summit, the data management and big data conference will be held in New York on the 12-14th of May.
Clickz live in Toronto, Canada May 14th – 16th and in Shanghai, China 27th-29th May.
For those of you in the network marketing industry Matt Lloyd is hosting The Home Business Summit in Seattle, Washington on the 30th May through to the 1st of June. Ray and Jessica Higdon will be holding Top Earner Academy 2 in Orlando, Florida on the 12th-15th of June.
The Performance Marketing Summit is being held in Denver, Colorado, on June 17th. Jeremy Shoemaker will be amongst those speaking.
Daven Michaels is the COO of 123 employee, an outsourcing centre over in the Philippines that has over 350 virtual agents & they are currently building another centre which will which bring their entire number of virtual assistants to over 700! He speaks all over the World on the topic of outsourcing overseas & is the Author of the book ‘Outsource This’ “Your Complete Resource to the World of Global Outsourcing”.
He has become an advocate for the Small Business owner by helping them be able to claim back their valuable time & help them cut down on costs
In this Interview I ask him my most burning questions about outsourcing & raise a few objections too. Listen to the interview to see how he responded & why he believes outsourcing is the best thing you can possibly do to take your business to the next level.
Here is the link to the free bonuses which Daven talked about at the end of the call, where you can grab his 5 Part List Building Video Series, the Outsource This Audio CD & The Outsourcing Blueprint
get123uk.com
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell. And welcome to the next episode of the online marketing club mini-series.
In the last episode I gave my top 9 ways to drive traffic which are SEO, Search advertising, Display advertising, content marketing, organic social media traffic, social advertising, email advertising, affiliate traffic and retargeting. In the upcoming episodes we are going to be exploring these 9 traffic methods in more detail and today we are starting off with SEO.
What is SEO?
SEO also known as search engine optimization is a method to get into the organic rankings of the search engines for the keywords that are relevant to your business. When someone is looking for your product or service or related information, they turn to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. There are more search engines but these are the main 3 and the biggest by far out of the 3 is Google. Often when people are talking about SEO methods they are in fact referring specifically to getting ranked in Google.
Why is SEO good?
SEO traffic is buyer seeking traffic so it’s doesn’t get any better. You get in front of the people in your market when they are at the height of their need to buy, they are deep into the buying cycle, they know they have a problem and they are looking for options to solve it or they know what solution they are looking already and they are looking for someone who can offer that solution. For example if someone types in the search query, cosmetic dentist in London, there’s a very high chance this person is looking for a cosmetic dentist in London and are ready to spend money with a London based cosmetic dentist who can fix their smile. If you were a London based cosmetic dentist, you’d to be on the first page for that term. Now apply this to your niche, no matter what your niche is there will be some super hot keywords that would be incredible if you were able to get first page rankings for.
Another cool thing about SEO, is that when a search engine is ranking your website at that top of their search rankings for that solution, it’s a good trust factor too, a nice little seal of approval if you will, so traffic does not come much better than SEO traffic.
What’s bad about SEO?
Well SEO is not straight forward to it mildly. There are no guarantees. It’s Google search results, it’s bing’s own search results, it’s yahoos own search results and at the end of the day what they say, goes. They don’t owe you anything. They don’t have to rank your site even if you think they should. They can change their algorithm anytime. They can penalize you and rank you lower, if they think you’re trying to game their system. Another important factor is, there’s only 10 spots on the first page and 98% of searchers will never look beyond page one so only a small percentage of businesses will reap the benefits of organic search traffic. You have to have a decent position on the first page or this traffic will be sent to your competitors websites instead. It really is all or nothing, being on page 2 might seem great compared to page 10 but really it’s not going to make a big enough dent to be significant. There’s no halfway house with SEO, it’s first page or nothing and guess what, you aren’t the only business in your market who want to first page. It’s a long term strategy too, that’s necessarily bad but having been in SEO myself, I know firsthand that generally people want results fast and that’s not always possible. SEO can be expensive, either if you do it yourself which I don’t recommend, you will be required to spend a significant amount of time to get results, if you hire an SEO company who are good at what they do then you will need to pay them accordingly and it’s not cheap. However, price is relative it’s all about ROI so provided you do pick a good SEO company and your website does a good job of converting visitors, you should easily see ROI.
Who is SEO for?
SEO fit’s pretty much every business. The kind of business is that is not for are fly by businesses that come and go in a short space of time, with SEO being a longer term traffic strategy there’s no point bothering with it on a short term project. Other than that if you are expecting to be in business for the long term, if you’re expecting your website to be around for years to come you’re going to want to have an SEO strategy.
How to do SEO?
SEO is a huge subject, we could literally spend days going through all there is to know, so if that doesn’t sound like much fun to you but you do still want the benefits that SEO gives then find a good SEO company. If you’d like to learn SEO yourself, you can get complete training in the online marketing club. In the meantime, here’s the extremely shortened down, extremely simplified summary version.
First of all you need to do your keyword research, you want to find keywords which are relevant to your business, that have a decent amount of traffic and if possible, low competition. You can do this by using the Google adwords keyword tool or buy a tool, my keyword tool of choice is Market Samurai.
Once you have your keywords, there’s 2 parts to SEO called on page and off page factors.
On page factors are the ranking factors that are found on a web page itself. You control these elements and you can design your web page in such a way that you essentially tell search engines what your page is about. These on page factors include having enough text on your page, having outbound links on your page, having your keyword phrase appear in your title tag, meta description, header tags, alt tags, url and first paragraph. Also make sure your keyword phrase density is right, you want to include the keyword phrase several times but you don’t want to overdo it either, Google calls over doing it, keyword stuffing and they will penalize you for it. There’s more to on page optimization but that’s the basics.
The next part is off page factors, you have less control over this. Once Google understands what your page is about via your on page optimization, they will then look for signals to see if your page is relevant and popular. They look for signals such as how long people spend on your site and your bounce rate, which is whether they browse around your website or leave immediately. They look to see if your page has been shared on social media sites. They look to see if people are linking to your web page from their own web page. Again there’s tons more to off page SEO, lots, lots more but that’s a brief summary.
Traditionally people have tried to use trickery to game the system but Google and the other search engines are fight back against this as hard as possible to make sure they maintain the integrity of their search results so be very careful with the SEO advice you follow. Things that worked a treat a couple of years ago, no longer work and will get you penalized.
Look Google knows everything so don’t try and outsmart them, go with them, do as they want you to do and what is that exactly? Google wants a good experience for their users, they want their users to find precisely what they are looking for. So if someone is looking for your product or service, provide clear, helpful, useful pages which will help that person find it. If they are looking for information then provide content that gives them the information they are looking for. If people find what they are looking for they will spend time on your web page, they will be less likely to bounce. They’ll be more likely to share on social media or give you a back link. That’s the way for natural SEO and it’s the safest way to do it, sure there’s other ways speeding it up and helping that ranking to happen quicker but it’s got to built on that foundation, work with Google not against them.
So that’s SEO, if you want to get real good at SEO and really experience the traffic surge SEO can bring check out the online marketing club, it may well be for you.
In the next episode we’ll be discussing, search advertising, see you then!
Ryan Holiday is a marketing, media, PR and advertising expert and the author of 3 books... Trust me I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, Growth Hacker Marketing and The Obstacle is the Way.
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell. And welcome to the next episode of the online marketing club mini series.
In previous episodes, I revealed to you the 3 ways to get more money from your online business using marketing which were driving more qualified traffic, increasing your conversion rates and raising your lifetime customer value. And also the 4th way to grow your business which is to get more of the right things done, fast. In the upcoming episodes we are going to cover these 4 areas in more detail, starting with driving more traffic.
For simplicity, I’m going to cover the 3 areas of marketing in chronological order in terms of someone entering your marketing funnel and coming out the other end as a paying customer.
However, the reality is you actually need to have your conversion rates working and some backend marketing in place to increase your customer lifetime value in before you ever really start to crank up the traffic! This will give you the best possible chance of your traffic spend getting a positive ROI. So keep that in mind, you don’t want to spend time or money on serious traffic driving until you have those factors in place.
If your conversion rates suck and your customer value is low, sort those areas out first of all before driving traffic. I’ll be showing you exactly how you can do that in upcoming videos.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at traffic.
Traffic is the prospecting phase of your online business. You can’t sell anything to anyone unless you can somehow find the people who are potentially interested in buying what you sell.
Pre-internet, people would do things like knock door to door, cold call or other forms of sales and marketing that included a lot of wastage, partly because there were less filters in place to qualify prospects.
The internet has made things much easier, you don’t have to work so hard to find qualified prospects anymore because people use the internet to search for things they need at that moment in time. It’s inbound marketing. People will come looking for you. The questions is when they do, do they find you or your competitors?
People also gather in communities online when they are part of a market for the long term. The people in your market will have created entire websites, forums and social groups based around the topic. Are you part of the online community?
You can drive traffic to different places - a sales page, an opt-in page, a social media profile, a blog post just to name some of the possibilities but no matter where you drive the traffic to, you should always have the goal of getting someone into your funnel so you can capture their contact information and then market to them afterwards.
There are so many different ways to drive traffic I couldn’t possibly hope to cover them all in one short recording like this, but here are 9 of my favourite traffic methods which can be used for the majority of businesses, these 9 methods are a good place to start when it comes to targeted traffic getting...
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SEO also known as search optimisation.
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Search advertising
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Display Advertising
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Content Marketing
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Organic Social Media traffic
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Social Media Advertising
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Email Advertising
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Affiliate Traffic
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Retargeting
There you have it, my top 9 ways to drive traffic. If you have been struggling to get website visitors, then I’m guessing you currently don’t get traffic from all 9 of those areas. Maybe you casually use 1 or 2 of them.
But if you use a few more or if possible, all of these methods and use them at a serious level then your traffic problems will soon come to an end. You can’t just rely on one or two traffic sources and you definitely have to be serious and consistent, it can’t be something you just fool about with and quit because you don’t see immediate results. Getting good at traffic driving takes practice.
Either learn these methods yourself or even better, pay someone else who is good at it to do it for you. Remember what I said in the last episode, you want these things to be done but ideally not by you. Either way you need it, you can’t ignore it, you need traffic
If you were to implement several or even all 9 of these traffic driving methods in your online business, how much more traffic would you drive? Double? Triple? Maybe more?
In the next episodes I’m going to be describing these traffic methods in more detail, starting with SEO.
Matthew Peters is the creator of the “SmartPhone Video Producer” and "Expert Video Empire" programs.
He helps people to record pro looking video using nothing but their iPhone or Android phone. In this interview he reveals…
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The must have iPhone apps & tools to create amazing looking videos
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The equipment you need to create your own film studio at home
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How to save hours of time editing & uploading your videos
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How to get crystal clear sound quality
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How to present so your video flows perfectly without having to shell out for an expensive teleprompter
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And much more.
In this episode I’m continuing with The Online Marketing Club mini series.
In the last episode of this series, I explained the 3 ways to grow your online business through better marketing – driving more traffic, increasing conversions and maximizing lifetime customer value.
In this episode I’m going to share with you the 4th key area of business growth and that’s getting more of the right things done, faster.
This is not to do with marketing, this is to do with you and your business itself. Your relationship with your own business. Your ability to get things done quickly. Your ability to get lot’s of things done. Your ability to get the right things done.
This 4th and final piece of the puzzle effects everything in the 1st 3 pieces.
Get this piece of the puzzle wrong and you’ll struggle in all these 3 areas anyway.
For your business to grow, your relationship with your business has got to be good.
You see the thing holding lot’s of businesses back is the business owner themselves.
I know this because I’ve been there myself. Trying to do everything myself and basically just getting in my own way. I had no systems in place and this was stopping me from making money. I knew in my heart and my gut that I could make money but it just was not showing up in my financial statements. I thought that by doing more and more work that I would solve this problem but actually I was wrong, I shouldn’t have been trying to do more and I certainly have been trying do it all myself. I had become a slave in my own business
Doing it all yourself will kill your business, you just can’t do it. And it’s not always about doing more, in fact often it’s about doing less.
When I got out of my own way, I saw dramatic changes in my business and my ability to make money.
So for me there are 6 ways to improve the relationship you have with your business.
And I call this the core 6
3 of the components have to do with increasing your knowledge
3 of the components have to do with increasing action and productivity
Knowledge and action
Knowing what needs to be done and then getting it done
So I’ll start with the action components first because for me imperfect action beats knowledge. Knowledge is necessary but knowledge that is not applied is totally impotent and makes no difference in your business at all.
So let’s start with action, getting more done in your business.
- Outsourcing and delegation
You should never be trying to get it all done yourself.
You may have been watching my videos or my podcasts and thinking “Wow this stuff is incredible, but when would I ever find the time to do all of this?”
The answer is... You shouldn’t
You should never try to run a business totally alone. Even if you do not have members of staff, you can use independent contractors or interns. You need the help of other people
Any task that is not absolutely 100% necessary for you to do personally should be given to someone else.
A lot of business owners would love to do this but feel they can’t afford to do it. I would argue that you can’t afford not to.
Because when you try to do everything you get overwhelmed, you procrastinate, you burn out, you get stressed, you get ill, you wonder what on earth you’ve gotten yourself into.
You bottleneck. You have too much to do and not enough time to do it.
It’s a horrible place to be and it’s literally chokes your business and cripples the ability your business has to grow.
Get out of your own way and start getting assistance from other people
In the internet age, this is totally possible. Even on a shoestring budget, there are people all over the planet who are happy and grateful to perform those tasks for far less money than you ever imagined. Believe me it is more than affordable.
- Technology and automation
Some things should not be done by humans. Technology can help you get things done more efficiently and faster than ever before. With technology comes automation.
Technology can take a lot of the grunt work off of your shoulders.
Investing in tools and software that will help you to do more, in less time, is a smart move.
- Time management and personal productivity
Your time should be spent doing the most important things only. The things that only you can do.
This means guarding your time ruthlessly and never getting involved with trivial tasks.
When you do this, you can leverage your time. Getting the important stuff done while the less important stuff get’s done by someone else.
Having a personal time management regime is also key. When you stop allowing yourself to get distracted, when you eliminate all time vampires and learn to stay on task, you can actually accomplish more in a day than you ever thought possible
Getting these 3 action components into place in your business will allow you to get more done with less effort and time spent on your part. Giving you the ability to take time off, relax and recharge should you wish to do so. You don’t have to feel guilty that your to-do-list is not getting done.
Rather than being a slave in your own business. You can go where you want to go and spend time doing what you want to do, more often.
Let’s move onto the next 3 components, the knowledge components.
These 3 factors are crucial too because whilst taking action and even imperfect action is necessary, your actions have to be centred around doing the right things or your simply fooling yourself. Being busy or feeling busy, isn’t the game here. Everything you do and everything your team does needs to be the right things to do at that given moment.
I’m not saying this will be perfect, you won’t always do things the perfect way but your overall direction and strategy has to be right or all that time spent taking action on the wrong things, will be a total waste of time.
So how do you know the right action to take?
- Get a mentor
Trying to figure it all out on your own is a risky strategy because you don’t have hindsight. Essentially you are walking the path alone and in the dark, hoping to figure things out along the way
When you get a mentor, you acquire a whole new perspective. You tap into the knowledge and experience of someone who had already been there and done it and succeeded. They know what it takes and they can share those secrets with you, you fast track to the right knowledge quickly, the whole point of a mentor is that they show you the right actions to take based on their valuable knowledge and experience, and then you get to work on the right things.
- Join a mastermind
Magic happens when you collaborate with other people. When you discuss business ideas and strategies with your peers, you access a huge vault of knowledge and imagination that you did not have before.
When ideas, strategies and plans are bounced around and discussed in a group situation, ideas, insights, feedback, knowledge, experience, all combine to help you get the right answers and ideas much quicker.
I’ve found that by even discussing my ideas with just one other person, I can get so much more clarity than I ever can on my own. Sometimes you’ll get a sudden stroke of genius, the way suddenly appears and becomes clear to you, I’ve had many of these moments when I’m deep in discussion with my mastermind.
- Self improvement
It’s important to always invest in your own knowledge. You can’t learn everything and you don’t need to. Sometimes you can surround yourself with other people who have the specialised knowledge that you yourself do not have. And that is smart.
But it’s also smart to have knowledge yourself. The more knowledge and understanding you have in your own field of expertise the better. I’m not saying to overload yourself with new information all the time because that can cause overwhelm and inertia.
However, I do strongly believe that you should spend time in your life to read books, go to seminars, complete courses, meditate and ponder, whatever it takes to keep raising your own level of knowledge in the areas that you feel you need to.
When you implement these 3 knowledge components you get answers, clarity and direction about what you should do next, so that you can take the correct steps to help your business to grow.
If you were to implement the core 6 in your business what difference would that make to you? How much more could you get done? How much quicker could you get things done? How much quicker could you reach your goals? How much quicker would you obtain your dream lifestyle?
If you were to reach your goals, how much extra money and time freedom could you enjoy?
In the next episodes in this series I’m diving one level deeper. I’ve told you the 4 areas of growth, I’ve given you a birds eye view but let’s talk specifics now, how can you drive more traffic? How can you increase conversions? How can you maximize lifetime customer value? And how can you get more of the right things done, faster?
It’s all coming up in future episodes, stay tuned.
Don Mahoney is one of the co-founders of AWAI, the worlds leading copywriting training company. In this interview Don tells us what it takes to be a successful copywriter.
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell.
In this episode I’m going to be continuing The Online Marketing Club Mini Series. In the last episode I shared the only 4 ways to grow your online business “driving more traffic, improving conversion rates, increasing customer value and getting things done, fast.” And as promised in this episode I’ll be explaining these 4 key areas in more detail and explaining why they can lead to massive business growth. If you can start improving your business in all these areas, your growth will not simply be slow, linear growth, it will be fast, exponential growth.
Let’s look at the first 3 areas, these first 3 areas all have to do with better marketing...
The first way to grow your online business is to drive more qualified traffic. Every business needs prospects, people who are potentially in the market for what you sell.
If you aren’t currently getting enough traffic to your offers, it’s killing any chance you have of success online
Traffic driving is simply attracting someone from wherever they happen to be surfing on the internet to your web properties. It could be to your website, your youtube channel, facebook page, a squeeze page, a sales page or anywhere that you want the people in your market place to come and visit
There’s two parts to maximising traffic...
Getting more qualified, targeted traffic. You don’t want to waste time or money on getting visitors to your web properties who are not qualified to do business with you because they will never spend money with you, no matter how hard you try. They just aren’t ready. When they come to your page, they will soon exit. Instead you want to focus on getting laser targeted traffic, attracting the right people, people who have a desire for what you sell
Drive more traffic. When you learn how to get targeted traffic, you then want to get as much of it as you can. More qualified prospects, equals more sales and more money.
The second way to get more money from your online business is to increase your conversion rates. When you drive that traffic, what happens next? Do they buy? Do they spend money with you? If they don’t then any time or money spent driving that traffic was a waste.
You drove the traffic but you didn’t make any money. You lost money
So you need to make sure that you are optimising conversions and giving yourself every possible advantage to make sure that those visitors are actually becoming paying customers
And the third way to make more money from your online business is to make sure that you maximise the amount of money every single customer spends with you. We want to increase the Lifetime Value of our customers.
It’s far easier to sell to someone who has already bought from you before, than to get a new customer
So when you have worked hard to get a customer, are you making the most out of it? Are you delivering huge value and are you getting every last penny possible from your customers? If not, then you should be, you’re running a business after all. By not doing this, you are leaving money on the table
So there you have it, those are the 3 ways to grow your online business through online marketing. This might be simple, common sense advice but overlook it at your peril. When ignored, businesses go out of business.
No matter where in the world you live the economic climate is turbulent to say the least, times are tougher than ever right now. As the owner of your business you need to be constantly working on improving these 3 areas or you may as well pack up and go home. Because your competition will do this and they will beat you.
Before I wrap things up, let’s run some numbers so you can see how powerful this actually is. Remember I said putting this into practice will not just help you grow in a linear way but in an exponential way?
Well here’s why...
Let’s say Johnny owns a website selling guitars. At the moment he get’s...
1,000 visitors a month. He sells to 1% of them (so that’s ten people from that 1,000) and makes $150 per paying client = $1,500 in profit generated from his website
So let’s say that he changes nothing else but he doubles his traffic from 1,000 to 2,000 monthly visits. He still gets a 1% conversion rate so now he has 20 customers a month paying $150 each and now he gets$3,000 that month.
Now let’s say he does nothing else but double his conversion rate. So he has the exact same amount of traffic as before, 1,000 visitors but this time he converts at 2% so that’s 20 paying customers, all paying $150 each so in this example he generates $3,000
Then let’s say he get’s the same traffic as before, 1,000 visitors, and converts at 1% like he always did but this time he doubles what the customers spend with him. Now he get’s 10 paying customers at $300 each. Again he get’s $3,000
All of those examples are quite cool right? $3,000 is twice as good as $1,500
But what if Johnny improved in all 3 areas? This is where the magic happens
This time Johnny get’s 2,000 visitors and converts them at 2%, so 40 new paying customers all paying $300 each. This time Johnny earns $12,000 in a month. 8x what his website was earning before
By doubling in the 3 areas he is stacking up, creating a compound effect if you like that shoots revenue through the roof
Little hinges that swing big doors
Imagine if Johnny were to triple in each area?
3,000 visitors, converting at 3% and spending $450 each? That’s $40,500 dollars in one month. 27 times better than before.
This isn’t a real example, your mileage will vary but it’s just some basic maths to show what’s possible, that small gains in each of these areas will have a huge effect on your online revenue.
And hopefully now you’re starting to see the power in this?
So how does this apply to you?
Are you sitting on a goldmine?
Could you potentially double or triple the traffic you currently get?
Could you potentially double or triple the amount of sales you make?
Could you potentially double or triple the amount of money customers spend with you?
If you answered yes to any of those questions then get excited because that’s exactly what I teach you how to do in the online marketing club.
If you don’t believe that you could improve in any of those 3 areas then there’s very little I can do to help you but thanks for stopping by, I hope there was some value in this for you even if it’s not the perfect fit.
However, if you believe that there is room for improvement in those areas, the online marketing club is for you.
In future episodes I will be going deeper into how to improve in all these 3 areas. How to increase your traffic, how to increase your online sales and how to increase your customer value
But in the next episode I want to share with you more detail about the 4th key area of business growth and that’s getting more of the right things done, faster.
See you next time
Hi, welcome to the online marketing show, this is Joey Bushnell.
In today’s episode I want to begin a new series which relates to the content in my soon to be released premium training The Online Marketing Club.
The basis of all my trainings and consulting revolve around the idea that there’s only 4 ways to grow your online business, 3 key areas of marketing that you need to optimize to bring more money in, to generate more money than you are currently generating. And then there’s a 4th area which is key too. This is less about marketing but it’s certainly crucial if you want to grow your business faster, in fact if you neglect this fourth area then your business will certainly reach a ceiling which you can’t grow beyond.
So what are these 4 areas to grow your business?
Well if you just listened to the introduction of this podcast I said there. “Helping you to grow your online business by driving more traffic, improving conversion rates, increasing customer value and getting things done, fast.”
This is the foundation of all that I teach and all the guest of this podcast, and all of the resources I point you towards on this podcast will tie into one of these key 4 areas.
If someone comes to me for help to grow their business, this is where I’m looking, it’s these areas where we need to improve and if we can succeed in improving, will lead to more profits for that person.
I want to bring this knowledge to as many business owners as possible and make a big difference in the lives and businesses of those people, helping them to create enough money to support their dream lifestyle and give their family the life they deserve.
That’s the point of this podcast.
And with the imminent release of The online marketing club, I’m going to be able to take this to the next level, I’m going to be able to connect with people in an even more meaningful way, give them more one-to-one help and get them better results and faster.
I’d like that to be you. I’d like to help you get massive results in your business, faster.
So sprinkled throughout the upcoming coming episodes we will be diving deeper into each of these 4 areas.
So stay tuned
In this episode I share some of my favourite nuggets of wisdom from our guests during the first 100 episodes. Enjoy!
John cheekily refers to himself as “the most ripped-off writer on the Web”, and no one on the inside of the online business world disagrees. Other marketers also call John Carlton “the most respected writing teacher alive”. Some of the best ever internet marketers such as… Frank Kern, Eben Pagan, Rich Schefren and Mike Filsaime say that John is their primary copywriting mentor. They learn and swipe from him because his marketing works.
In this interview John gives tips on how to write great copy as well as advice for rookie copywriters looking to get into the business.
Sanyika Calloway Boyce helps people to get on TV so they can get massive awareness and exposure for their business as well as increased credibility and authority.
Drayton Bird has been named by the chartered institute of marketing as one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing. Other names included Philip Kotler, Tom Peters and Theodore Levitt.
Drayton is best-known as a direct marketing expert but has also worked in Advertising, Public Relations, Research and Telemarketing, Franchising and Experiential Marketing.
Advertising legend David Ogilvy said he “knows more about direct marketing than anyone else in the world” and that his speeches are “both educational and hilariously funny.”
Since he entered advertising in 1958, Drayton Bird has worked in 51 countries with many great brands. These include American Express, for whom he created a special marketing course for senior executives, British Airways, Cisco, Deutsche Post, Ford, Hargreaves Lansdown, IBM, McKinsey, Microsoft, Nestle, The Prudential, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Virgin and Visa.
His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has written 4 other marketing books, including How to write a sales letter that sells, now in its 3rd edition, and well over 1,000 columns for publications around the world.
Drayton says a good copywriter has a license to print money, so in this interview I ask him for tips on how to write great copy & succeed in direct marketing. He reveals…
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How branding differs from direct marketing
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Why even smalls businesses should build a brand
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Where to find mailing lists to rent
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Why you must have your own database or go broke
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How often we should be communicating with our database
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How long your copy should be
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The key to getting people reading & responding to your offer
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Why writing adverts in an editorial style can increase sales by up to 125%
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The style of copy that works better than anything else
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The reason why most people fail at marketing
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Why you need to give people the time & money to get results
Patrick Powers is one of Europe’s most prolific authors and trainers on the subjects of marketing, entrepreneurship and success. He is the author of Turn Your Contacts into Cash and Only Suckers Settle for Less than Rich. He runs the Entrepreneurs in London meet up group, the largest of it's kind in Europe. In this interview Patrick gives some fantastic advice for new entrepreneurs.
Optimizepress have added a new feature called the Overlay Optimizer, it’s similar to the 2-step opt-in process that leadpages and leadboxes use, Clay Collins has said that according to the data, this 2-step opt-in process increases conversions as they have made a mini commitment first and then they feel more inclined to complete the process due to that initial mini commitment. Well OptimizePress are taking this to the next level, they are adding it to their system so essentially we now have leadboxes in optimizepress but they haven’t just limited this to opt-in boxes only, you can make your overlay include images, videos or custom html so there is a lot of flexibility with this new feature. By drawing commitment from the original click they are more likely in theory to watch your video or look at your infographic or read your content or opt-in or whatever it might be, the great thing is, because of the option to add custom code, it opens up a lot of new possibilities, great stuff from James Dyson and the team over at op2.
Clickbank have announced the launch of the new clickbank 3.0. Having been so dominant within the info publishing space a few years back, they’ve lost some market share to JVzoo, udemy and some other platforms. I know many people also got quite disillusioned with them for various reasons too. I think a revamp was needed and they obviously thought so too. They listened to what their users wanted and have responded so here’s what’s new.
Well first off they have totally changed the website but in addition to that they’ve announced 9 new features...
Advanced custom order forms is great new feature, it means you can have brand continuity through the sales process instead of someone buying from your sales page but then suddenly finding themselves on a clickbank order form page.
An affiliate finder to help the best suited affiliates to find your products and start promoting them.
Express checkout will detect return customers and pre-populate the order form for less friction and higher conversions.
Dynamic billing descriptors to control what your customers see on their credit card statements giving you increased brand awareness and lower refund rates and chargebacks due to customers not recognising something on their statement.
Pytch a new ad inventory to advertise your products on mobile apps around the world.
If you have a member’s site or other continuity program, there’s Subscription Management which allows for the ability to upgrade or downgrade, suspend, extend and reactivate subscriptions.
Automatic upsells on your order confirmation pages for other clickbank products that are complimentary to yours and you as the vendor will be given the affiliate commission for that sale.
Clickbank university to train people on how to get the best out of clickbank and clickbank platinum to give extra support and rewards to the top clickbank earners.
They have also said that more is on the way in the near future.
Google plus has added a views counter to your profile page, this may be a good social proof metric or maybe not, it depends on your number. If your numbers aren’t good then you do have an option to switch this feature off.
Libsyn the podcasting platform has added a bunch of new features including customised stats exports sent to you by email and new file upload options including the ability to upload directly from google drive or dropbox.
Mike Hill of internet marketing super friends has announced they will be lkaunching an internet marketing super friend’s podcast and I just know it’s going to be good, that should be out any day now so keep an eye out.
In events, what do we have coming up?
On the 8th of April we have Daniel Priestley’s Pitchfest event in London and his Key Person of Influence event, entrepreneur brand accelerator coming up on the 23rd of May, in London and the 5th of June in Orlando, florida.
Mario Brown will be hosting online marketing mastery on the 2nd-4th of May in Los Angeles, California.
Sales Guru Live will be held in 3 locations in south Africa this summer, Johannesburg on the 11th of June, Durban on the 12th of June and Cape Town on the 13th of June.
I announced my own event “Identifying your fastest route to online profits” in lasts week news and I’m pleased to announce a 2nd date in Guildford, Surrey, England Wednesday the 21st of May, if you live local and would like to come check out my website for details.
Tina Forsyth is a business leverage expert, the author of The Entrepreneurs Trap and creator of the Automate Your Growth Formula. Tina helps entrepreneurs to leverage revenue streams, establish key systems and build virtual teams to help your business thrive and that's the topic of this episode. Get Tina's free gift "How to cut your to-do-list in half" here http://www.automateyourgrowth.com/bushnell
In this episode I want to point you in the direction of an incredible free resource.
It’s by Neil Patel and Joseph Putnam, and it’s called The Definitive Guide to Copywriting. You can find it on Neil’s quicksprout blog by going to quicksprout.com/the-definitive-guide-to-copywriting/
So what is it?
It is my in opinion the best attempt at explaining the huge subject that is copywriting, in the most concise way possible.
It’s just 10 pages long, it’s in infographic form, so it’s very light and quick to read. It does a really good job of giving a quick overview of the most important areas of copywriting, in a very succinct way.
Look you can’t learn the entire art and science of copywriting in just 10 pages but this post is incredibly useful because it’s so quick and easy to read, you could go from knowing nothing at all to knowing the raw basics of copywriting in less than an hour.
Go check it out.
And don’t be surprised to see more of Neil’s stuff in future on incredible free resource episodes, he really the king of content marketing.
Once again it’s http://www.quicksprout.com/the-definitive-guide-to-copywriting/ go read it and benefit from it.
According to the average number of Google searches, Michael Port is the 5th most popular business coach in the world. This is because his mission is to rally you to think bigger about who you are & what you offer the world. He is the guy you call when you are tired of thinking small!
Michael is the author of 4 books – Book Yourself Solid, Beyond Booked Solid, The Contrarian Effect and The Think Big Manifesto.
In this interview I ask Michael about his first book, Book yourself solid. This is the first of his books that I read & it made a huge difference in my business. I wanted to share this with my readers so they too can know how to “Get booked Solid” & in this interview Michael tells us how.
You can find out more about Michael over at his website http://www.michaelport.com I highly recommend that you check it out, Michael is very generous with the info he gives & there is a boatload of useful content on his website.
Viveka Von Rosen is a top expert on the subject of LinkedIn. She has well over 11,000 contacts on her personal LinkedIn account, which in terms of LinkedIn is just huge! She trains others on how to get a big, responsive LinkedIn network too. Listen to this interview where she reveals some of her best strategies for using LinkedIn to grow your business!
Dale Beaumont is widely known as the “Go-to-Guy” for those that want to “build profile” quickly & earn more money. With a self evident track-record of personal success, Dale is now a sought-after speaker & he teaches others how to quickly become a mini-celebrity in their niche.
Dale is also the author of 16 best-selling books, which have collectively sold over 250,000 copies. Incredibly, 11 of those books were published in just one year, a feat that earned him the title ‘Australia’s Most Prolific Author’. In this Interview I ask Dale how we too can get published so that we can earn credibility & be perceived as an expert in our field.
Go check out Dale’s free CD & Report “The 7 Different ways to get published” at – getpublishedsecrets.com
The Online Marketing News 29th March 2014 - JVzoo Custom Pages, Twitter Views, LinkedIn trends, Facebook Lookalike Audiences, Gmail Images, Pinterest Gifts Feed and LeadPages Market Place
Paul Lemberg helps business owners become wealthy. No joke, he’s done it hundreds of times: his private clients have collectively pocketed a whopping $360 million in profits. He’s also worked with Fortune 500’s like Cisco, Goldman Sachs and IBM, but his real love is showing entrepreneurs how to multiply their sales and profits and do it easier and faster than ever before.
He’s been at it for a long time. Paul started his first software company with a partner and $3,000 of credit card debt, selling it three years later for millions. He then launched a second company, which ultimately sold to a large international bank.
After a few years as a market strategist for giants like AT&T, HP and Dell, he found his true passion working directly with business owners creating wealth. There wasn’t a name for what he was doing so he coined the term “business coaching” to describe it.
Paul is the author of the business best seller, “Be Unreasonable,” and has created a series of powerful business growth training courses. His latest programs are “Blueprints to Profits” and the brand-new “Getting Started in Business.”
In this Interview I ask ask Paul how we can grow our businesses faster & more consistently than we currently are. His content is rock solid, so grab some paper & a pen, some of the gems in this audio could really help you take your business to the next level. Enjoy
Tom Trush is a direct-response copywriter, marketing strategist and founder of Write Way Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona. Tom Trush has helped business owners in 126 industries develop marketing materials that attract attention and create customers.
Tom is also the author of “The Reluctant Writer’s Guide to Creating Powerful Marketing Materials: 61 Easy Ideas to Attract Prospects and Get More Customers” and “The ‘You’ Effect: How to Transform Ego-Based Marketing Into Captivating Messages That Create Customers.”
In addition to working with clients across the globe, Tom shares his educational approach to marketing at seminars and workshops, as well as in his own information products. He firmly believes you can’t go wrong in your marketing when you show compassion and a desire for helping people.
In this interview Tom reveals…
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How to avoid “Ego-based Marketing” which will kill any chance you have of making a sale
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How to sell without pitching!
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The “Genie in a bottle” method to create attention grabbing headlines on demand
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The copywriting formula for gathering leads & email addresses on your website
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Why it’s easier to make sales without any face to face interaction
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How the “Little guy” can compete with the big companies that have huge budgets
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Two magic words that will increase your conversions instantly
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How write persuasive emails that get opened, clicked & responded to
*An easy trick to get your list to spread the word so their friends sign up to your list too
- Why you should be using snail mail to build your list too
Dave Dee is one of the world’s leading information publishers and also works at GKIC. In this interview he discusses his unique launch model which has earned his clients hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Mo Mastafa is an internet marketing consultant from Cardiff, Wales and the author of the book "Getting found Fast". He specializes in SEO and helps business owners and web masters to get to the top of Google.
In this interview Mo reveals step by step how we can can climb the rankings and make our way to the top of Google, Bing, Yahoo or another search engine for our chosen keywords so that we can get huge amounts of qualified traffic
Click the play button below to listen to the "How to get to the top of Google" interview... Click here to get your hands on Mo's Free SEO report "The 7 Deadly SEO Mistakes"
Below is a little taste of what was covered in our "How to get to the top of Google" interview. For the full interview, click the play button above right now...
Q. What is SEO and why is so important?
A. SEO is the process of optimising your pages to help them get found in the major search engines, it's how to get to the top of Google, Yahoo & Bing.
SEO also involves things that take place off your website, such as building quality backlinks that will further push your web pages up in the rankings and allow you to get free search engine traffic.
Q. How do we go about finding the right keywords to use?
A. This process is known as keyword research.
To get to the top of Google, you have to decide which keywords you want to get to the top of Google for, right? There are a range of tools that you can use to help find great keywords for your website. One such tool is the Google Keyword Tool. It’s a free tool and it’ll show you exactly how many people search for a particular keyword to do with your business each month.
A more advanced SEO tool that you can use is Market Samurai.
This is a paid tool that will let you see a lot more data relating to your keywords, such as how many competitors they have. This is really important because one of the biggest reasons businesses fail to get traffic from the search engines is that they optimise their web sites for keywords that are just too competitive.
Market Samurai will also allow you to track your rankings in the search results, which is another reason why you may want to invest in a paid SEO tool.
Q. How do we optimise our web pages for a particular keyword?
There are many places that search engines will look, when they try to figure out what keyword you are trying to rank for. One of the most important places to put your keyword is your page title. This is what shows up in the search engine results and is also the part that shows up at the top of your website browser window.
Another great place to put your keyword is in your page URL. For example, if you are looking to rank for the keyword “internet marketing consultant”, you may want to name your page www.yourwebsite.com/internet-marketing-consultant.html
Also try to use LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing). LSI basically means keywords that relate to your main keyword, such as “internet marketing expert” or “online mentor”.
A great way to find LSI keywords is to do a search in Google for your main keyword, and then scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for “related keywords”. You’ll find them there.
Using LSI keywords as part of your page content will also allow you to get to the top of Google for keywords besides your main keyword meaning even more traffic. And you’ll be able to see this happening when you look at your Google Analytics stats.
Also, getting other people to put your keyword in the link text (aka anchor text) back to your website can improve your rankings.
Q. What are long tail keywords?
Most people think long tail means the length of the keyword phrase, when in reality it has a lot more to do with the volume of searches a keyword gets.
Basically, long tail keywords are keywords that get very low search volumes, but they are often a lot easier to rank for in the search engines simply because there aren’t as many people trying to optimise their websites for them.
If you want to learn more about the long tail, I recommend you read the book “The long Tail” by Chris Anderson.
Q. How do we optimise our website without needing technical skills?
There are many ways to optimise your website.
If you’ve had your website built by a third party, you can usually ask your web designer to do the SEO changes for you. Alternatively you can outsource it to a web developer or programmer on websites like elance.com or freelancer.com.
If you have a CMS (Content Management System) built into your website, you should be able to optimise your web pages yourself, simply by filling in the SEO related tabs.
And if you happen to be using a Wordpress.org blog, there are many great free plug-ins that you can use to help you get to the top of Google by optimising your pages, such as the “All in One SEO” plug-in or the “Yoast SEO” plug-in.
What else Do We Discuss?
There’s lots more that we discuss in our content packed "How to get to the top of Google" interview...
We also talk about importance of backlinks and whether quality or quantity is more important.
We also discuss a ton of different ways for you to get backlinks from different websites, and even how to get others to build backlinks for you!
You’ll also learn the difference of nofollow & dofollow backlinks, what they mean and how they work. Mo Mastafa will also give you a simplified definition of what PageRank is and how to go about getting backlinks from high PageRank websites. He also shares a simple, but clever little backlink strategy to get links from websites that will likely have high PageRank in the future!
He also gives his take on bounce rates and how they affect your website... especially your conversions rates. Finally we give our take on what Google thinks about “the bounce” and some simple ways to lower your bounce rates and increase conversions!
There’s over 30 minutes of SEO goodness packed into this interview, so to hear the full interview and learn lots of cools SEO strategies to help boost your search engine rankings fast, I recommend you listen to the interview now by pressing the play button.
Ben Settle is one of the most famous copywriters in world. He is considered one of the best in the world right now, if you don’t believe me then just check out his testimonials page on his website, the copywriting elite rate him very highly.
In this interview he reveals…
*Why copywriting is even more important to online business owners than to full time freelance copywriters
*How to quickly get your reader to identify that your message is for them & actually welcome your sales pitch
*He deconstructs his two best headlines which converted like crazy & why they worked so well
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How to uncover your products/services unique selling proposition even if you feel it doesn’t have one
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How to avoid sounding hypey in your copy & build rapport fast
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The 3 biggest mistakes all copywriting novices make & how to avoid them
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His 3 top tips on how you can improve your copy as of now
How to listen to podcasts faster
In this post I just want to give you a quick tip on how you can listen to all the great content of the online marketing show or any other podcast for that matter, even quicker, because I know you’re busy and you can’t spend all day listening to stuff, but what if...
You could listen to an hour long episode in just half an hour? Or a half an hour episode in just 15 mins? Or ten minute episode in just 5 minutes?
It would be useful right?
So there’s several ways you can do this.
If you listen to this podcast on your iPhone or iPad the best app to use is the podcasts app. When you are listening to an episode you can speed it up to either 1.5 times the usual speed or even 2 times the usual speed, therefore listening to it in just half the usual time. Just go to the episode you want to listen to and in the top left you’ll see the options for faster playback.
You can do the same thing using an iPod touch if that’s the way you prefer to listen.
If you have an iPod that uses a click wheel, you can speed it up slightly too, I don’t think it does double speed but it goes faster, perhaps 1.5 times faster. When listening to the track, press down the button in the centre of the click wheel and then choose the option that says faster.
But remember, this will not work on music tracks, it has to be an audiobook file type, so if you need to change this you can. Go to the iTunes desktop app on your computer. Right click on the file and choose get info. Then under the options tab you can change the file type from music to audiobook and then just sync the changed file to you iPod again.
If you listen on your PC or Mac, then there are lots of media players which will play at faster speeds. I often use VLC media player or windows media player.
If using VLC media player (for either Mac or PC), go to playback in the top left hand menu, then choose your speed in the drop down menu. You can actually listen even faster than double speed using VLC.
If using windows media player (best used on a PC), right click on the file you are playing then choose enhancements and then go to play speed settings.
If you listen to podcasts on android there is an app called Presto Sound Library which allows for faster playback. I personally have no experience with this, I’m not an android user but I know some people who are and they tell me it works great.
So, no matter what device you are using, you can listen to your favourite podcasts at double speed and it’s a tremendous time saver. You can save half the time you currently spend listening to podcasts or maybe you could learn twice as much in the same amount of time. It’s up to you!
Either way there are very few drawbacks.
Don’t worry about comprehension, I promise you your brain will get used to it. At first it may be difficult, so maybe start off at 1.5 speed and get used to it, make it 2nd nature and then step it up a gear to twice speed. After a while you’ll get used to this too. It might not seem like it at the start but stick with it, it will come.
Also if there’s ever a certain bit on the audio that you really have to listen to at normal speed then you can slow it back down anytime you like.
Try it, I’m sure you’ll love it.
Kate Buck Jr is the Founder and CEO of KJB Online, a social media management and consulting agency in Austin, Texas. Kate has worked with some of the top names in Digital Marketing as well as consulted with dozens of entrepreneurs, businesses and non-profits. She is the creator of the Let's Get Social in which more than 10,000 social media managers have participated including myself!
Many of Kate’s student are earning $4,000-$5,000 per month or more with their Social Media Management businesses. In this interview I grill Kate on how to get started as a Social Media Manager. Kate reveals…
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How she got her very first client
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Why Social Media Management is one of the most in demand businesses right now
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What specific tasks people will pay a Social Media Manager to take care of
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How to position yourself so that clients are coming to you instead of having to chase them
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The most important piece of proof for any Social Media Manager
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2 super easy ways to get your first client
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The best place to find new clients without having to spend any money for expensive marketing methods
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3 ways to build credibility and a reputation as one of the best social media managers around
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How to delight your customers so that they send new business your way!
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How to grow and scale the business as you get lot’s of work in
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How to project manage yourself or your team to make sure all the work gets done
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What kind of money it’s possible for a social media manager to make
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Why Social media management makes for the perfect part time job
Geoff Ronning is a co-creator of Stealth Seminar, one of the most popular automated webinar tools. In this interview Geoff weighs up the pro's and con's of both live and automated webinars as well as hybrid webinars. He also shares how stealth seminar can help us to automate our business and make more profits.
Donnie Bryant is a copywriter who helps his clients produce edgy marketing messages, direct response and editorial copy that generates measurable, profitable results.
In this interview I ask Donnie why businesses are failing with their marketing efforts & how they can do it better. Donnie reveals…
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The 4 ways businesses are sabotaging their own marketing & killing their chances of getting new customers
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A simple but important to lesson to be learned from “Old Spice” commercials
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The number 1 writing mistake that will make people stop reading your marketing messages
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The “knock them off balance” technique to keep peoples attention squarely on your marketing message
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3 devastating effects that the recession is having on businesses (Plus how to safeguard & recession proof your own business)
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Why cutting your marketing budget is the most stupid thing you can do in a down economy
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Why some businesses outgrow other businesses by 250% during a recession
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Why you can’t persuade anybody or change their mind
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How to earn a place of trust & importance in your readers mind
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Why you should forget about using a USP (unique selling proposition) & use a UVP instead
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Why neglecting 80% of your market is good for business
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The “40-40-20″ rule which determines how successful your ad will be
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How to craft a mouth watering offer
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How to give a strong call to action that people respond to right away
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Why psychologically you wouldn’t want to buy a Rolex for $10 even though that might sound like an amazing deal
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A great way to reverse all the risk so the buyer feels super comfortable when ordering
In this episode I want to point you in the direction of an incredible free resource. This is where I make you aware of incredible marketing info that I would happily pay, yet it is free for you to go take advantage of.
It was written top copywriter Rick Duris and it’s called 21 incredible copywriting formulas I use. You can find it on his blog at copyranger.com/21-incredible-copywriting-formulas-i-use
The post is exactly as it sounds Rick lists over 21 classic copywriting formulas so next time you come to write some copy you won’t be stuck for ideas.
Perhaps the most famous copywriting formula ever is AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action but this post gives a whole bunch of alternatives and it’s really worth checking out. One of these formulas may suit you better or make more sense to you than AIDA.
It includes a personal favourite of mine the Problem, aggravate, solve formula which is another very famous copy formula but it also includes formulas you are more unlikely to have heard of like the copywriting formulas used by old school copywriters such as Victor Schwab, Robert Collier as well as those of modern day copywriters Perry Belcher, Bob Serling, Lisa Manyon, Bob Stone, Craig Clemens and Brian McLeod.
Any one of these formulas could be used to write a winning sales letter.
I really recommend going and checking it out, it pure copywriting gold yet it’s free.
In fact I enjoyed it so much it’s inspired me to create a similar post of my own listing some of my favourite copywriting and marketing formulas.
Once again go check it out at copyranger.com/21-incredible-copywriting-formulas-i-use
Thanks Rick for publishing such a cool post and by the way, Rick is an upcoming guest on the online marketing show, he’s super smart so stay tuned for that one
Kyle Lacy is the author of Twitter Marketing for Dummies, Social Media CRM for Dummies and Brand Yourself. In this episode Kyle shares how we can use Twitter for business.
Chad Hamzeh is the creator of The Traffic Black Book, one of the most popular traffic getting courses in the world. In this interview Chad shares where to get traffic from, how to scale up your traffic and how to get an ROI.
For close to three decades, Kenrick Cleveland has dedicated himself to perfecting the techniques, the skill, the “art” of influence. He is known worldwide for his charismatic teachings in sales and conversational persuasion.
Drawing from a diversified career base that includes an extensive sales background coupled with experience in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and hypnosis, Kenrick Cleveland created a model of persuasion that is so effective that it remains the benchmark of excellence in this field. Getting Yes more often
We would all benefit in life if we could communicate in a way that gained more compliance from the person we are communicating with. In business & sales it is especially nice when people say “Yes” to us, rather than getting a “No”. Too many “No’s” and you’re out of business altogether. In this interview I ask Kenrick all about how we can get people to say “Yes” to us much more frequently, and he reveals…
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Why we need to stop thinking logically if we want to become “Yes Strategists”
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How to get people to say yes to you all the time & in any situation
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The reason why you currently struggle to get people to say yes to you
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5 steps to hooking your prospect on an emotional level
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Why Kenrick forgets all about using features & benefits when selling
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How to build instant rapport & likeability
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The secret to never getting objections
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How to crack the belief that is causing the objection (We do a role play & Kenrick cracks me straight away!)
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How to persuade using the written word
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The 4 biggest mistakes that ruin all chances of you getting a yes from someone
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An easy 2 minute process to really uncover what drives your prospects & would make them want to buy from you
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And more! Just click on the play button below to listen to the interview…
Kenneth Yu is the creator of The Email Salvation System, The Twitter Salvation System and The Branding Salvation System. In this episode Kenneth share his email marketing secrets.
John was named AWAI copywriter of the year in 2008 and regularly writes for Agora. In this episode John defines the 6 types of lead we might encounter and how to market to each.
Hi welcome to The Online Marketing Show
Today I want to address a question I get really often and that question is... Should I buy LeadPages or OptimizePress 2.0?
When I’m asked this question, the person asking is usually looking it at it from a lead generation point of view and building building opt-in pages easily.
However these two tools are very different in many ways. Some of the differences between the two tools are so fundamental that in many ways we are comparing apples to oranges, despite their many similarities.
Yes they are both great for lead generation. Yes the are both quick and easy to use. But their are still lots of differences so I quickly want to summarize how they are similar and how they are different.
As you can probably tell, I'm a big fan of both tools and they are both good for different purposes and reasons. The good thing is between both tools you should be pretty much 100% covered. Where one is weak the other is usually strong and so I have found that between the two of them, even a technical dunce like me can create any kind of page I want.
A quick summary of each would be...
Leadpages
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Huge variety of page types - Sales pages, squeeze pages, launch funnel pages, google hangout pages, webinar registration pages, webinar replay pages, autoresponder content pages, video background pages, one time offer pages, upsell pages, podcast pages, youtube pages, thank you pages, coming soon pages, sold out pages, 404 pages, live streaming pages and a bunch more! They update with new ones all the time too
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Leadpages integrates with all the big autoresponders as does OptimizePress.
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All pages can be used as a Facebook tab (and also a new feature allows you to collect the opt-in using Facebook connect, and Facebook users emails generally tend to be their best email)
OptimizePress does not allow you to publish to a facebook tab
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Leadpages can be published on your wordpress blog using their simple to use plugin or you can even host your pages on your own server.
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If you do not have hosting you can even host your pages on LeadPages own servers! You don’t even need your own website. They simply provide you with a URL and the page is ready. OptimizePress does not offer this.
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All pages are mobile responsive
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They have a feature called "leadboxes" which can make clickable links turn into opt-in forms
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They have a new feature called “leadlinks” which allows people to join a list simply by clicking a link. Good for joint ventures or affiliate stuff
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They have a new "auto-fill" fill feature for their opt-in forms which pre-populate the users information so that they don't have to keep it filling their details in time and time again. Their info is already in the opt-in form and they just click submit, it’s very frictionless.
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Pages can be duplicated
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LeadPages also has analytics and split testing built in, OptimizePress does not, however you can always use 3rd party tools to accomplish that but it isn’t built in.
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They also have a digital asset delivery feature which let’s you give away your lead magnet whether its a video, PDF or MP3 and that can be put on your thank you page and then downloaded by your new subscriber and they will also be added to the email list of your choice.
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I have not yet come across any bugs or technical issues with LeadPages. I know that they have had a few issues but I never been personally affected by any of them and they a very quick to hold up their hands and admit there’s a fault and warn all users about it on their main dashboard page when you login.
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With Leadpages you can pay monthly or get up to 40% off by paying annually. It’s recurring billing but still such good value for money.
Disadvantage - My only wish for lead pages is that some of the templates were a bit more flexible in regards to adding new elements and allow for complete customization.
OptimizePress 2.0
OptimizePress has a variety of pages - sales pages, squeeze pages, webinar registration pages and launch funnel pages. Lot's of page templates but no where near as many as leadpages
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OptimizePress can be used to create entire websites (Leadpages is not really designed or suited for this purpose IMO)
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All pages are mobile ready
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Has membership site plug-in and can create password protected members sites. LeadPages does not offer this.
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Can be used to make blogs, again LeadPages is not really designed for this purpose but OptimizePress let’s you do it.
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One really great thing is that every single page and element is totally customizable (which as I mentioned is not the case with leadpages) They do have templates but those templates can be used as a main framework but then changed as much as you like or you can even start with a blank page and make your page from scratch
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There are over 40 elements in OptimizePress and can be used in any combination on any page - columns, rows, dividers, navigation menus, progress bars, tour elements, arrows, bullets, buttons, calendars, count down timers, johnson boxes, testimonial boxes, guarantee boxes, search boxes, opt-in boxes, order boxes, Q&A boxes, pricing tables, headlines, audio players, video players, images, comment sections and more.
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Pages can be cloned
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Elements and rows within pages can also be cloned and then used on other pages
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OptimizePress is a one time fee, you can get unlimited licenses for personal use for under $300, it’s incredible.
*
*Major disadvantage - OptimizePress 2.0 had a slow start. When they first launched they had some bugs and this led to lot’s of people have had issues with support taking a long time to answer my tickets because they got swamped with support tickets. I was personally affected by this as were many other people and it’s been quite well documented all over the forums and social media. However I still love optimizepress 2.0, why? Because they seem to have fixed most of these issues now, ironed out all the bugs and I have been using the tools for months without any problems at all. Also because of less issues with the software, the volume of support tickets is lower meaning that their response time is now dramatically faster. So ignore what you read on the internet about optimize press 2.0, it was true when they first launched but it isn’t true now, they’ve solved the issues and they continue to make big strides forward.
In summary, I would say that you should have both tools because between the two of them you will be covering all bases. Between the two of them there aren’t many lead capturing pages or websites that you can’t create.
If you are choosing between one or the other, decide what features are most important to your project and then see which tool ticks the most boxes or ticks the really crucial boxes for your project. And don’t hesitate to invest. Both of these tools have paid for themselves many times over for me, many, many times over. A high converting sales page, a high converting squeeze page, a high converting funnel, a high converting webinar, a good blog, a good facebook page, any one of those things can transform a business and make a lot of money for you.
It has for me, it has for my clients. I love both tools and I use them every single day.
I’ll see you next time
Miguel Hernandez is the founder of Grumo Media, the world's best product demo video companies. In this episode Miguel shares how we can get amazing quality videos that massively boost conversions
Hi, welcome to the online marketing news on the 11th March 2014.
1.I mentioned last that Infusionsoft had announced they were releasing an app for IOS and android. Well today they’ve announced it’s here. So Infusion users go and download that today and get access to your CRM via your mobile.
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Fiverr have just updated their IOS App. In version 1.34 they have made a lot of improvements to the collection and search features making using Fiverr on your iPhone even easier.
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For those of you in the UK, you may be aware of the website, Skill Pages. An online marketing job posting site where you can post the online marketing job you need help with and willing candidates can apply. Skill Pages have just announced their upgraded service, Skill pages Gold which is a little bit like LinkedIn premium. You can see who’s viewed your profile, you can reach people with an extra messaging allowance and you get enhanced search and save features too.
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Getty images the internets biggest stock images giant, who are famous for suing anyone and everyone who illegally uses their images, so much so that some people accuse them of that being their business model, have done a u-turn. It seems that seeing as they can’t sue everyone that they have been forced to think of other ways to monetize.
Now you can use their Embed code and iframe to use their images on your site for free and with no watermark. They will be making over 35 million of these images available.
Good news, right? Well yes, depending on your view point. Because with their iframe installed on your site they can collect data and rumour has it, that’s what they plan on selling in order to monetize. So there are privacy concerns. From my point of view, I’m happy to see them making this move, stock images don’t come cheap and this can be a good option for those who perhaps can’t afford to buy them and it means they can do this legally, without running the risk of getting a cease and desist letter from Getty.
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Speakpipe, the website widget that allows people to leave you a voicemail via your website has improved their software by adding their inline widget to their offering. Previously, there was a dialog or pop-up window which asked visitors to leave a voice message but now you can add it to blog posts and give some more context to why someone should leave you a message. It’s more flexible and there’s more options than before.
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Leadpages have designed a new lead gen page with an emphasis on Social Proof. The social proof opt-in page has a space at the top for you to show any media publications you have been featured in as well as a testimonials section at the bottom.
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Wistia now have Ontraport Integration, if you use Ontraport as your autoresponder then you can now build your list using Wistia’s video marketing software.
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Last week I mentioned that Todd Brown is launching his 6 Figure Funnel Formula Training Program and that is out on sale as of today. If you don’t know already, Todd is the best in the world when it comes to teaching how to make a profitable marketing funnel, he’s a previous guest on the show, he really knows his stuff. The training is just $297 which is ridiculously low! He should be charging several thousand for it so I suggest you take him up on his offer before it goes away.
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Frank Kern has released a new book called Convert. You can get a physical copy sent to you in the post for free, all you pay is shipping and handling charge but the book itself is free. You may want to go and take him up on that offer.
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In Facebook news, Facebook fan pages are about to change their layout and will be given a new streamlined look, it’s cleaner and less messy looking, I think it’s a good thing.
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Along with this change will come the new “pages to watch" feature. It allows you to keep an eye on your competitors fan pages and see some basic analytics of how they are performing.
In my opinion I can only think Facebook are using this to pressurize people into spending more money with them. If you feel like people are watching your pages analytics then maybe will you feel like you need to try and boost your stats and the only way to do that is with their advertising. I love Facebook ads and think everyone should be using them, however this approach, pressuring people to start using them, in my opinion isn’t cool.
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In Twitter news, Twitter have announced that they will be testing click to call technology in their twitter ads meaning someone who reads your tweet, can call you right there and then with the click of a button.
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Instagram have struck a big advertising deal with Omnicom worth up to $100 million. It doesn’t change instagram ads themselves but allow them to be sold via Omnicom’s advertising agencies and therefore will be more likely to be used by more brands and companies that perhaps aren’t already.
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In LinkedIn news, LinkedIn are extending their sponsored InMail capabilities to mobile meaning you can pay to reach people in their linkedin inbox which has been possible since last year but now you can reach them on mobile too where they are perhaps even more likely to read your message.
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A few new podcasts which have come to my attention.
The Doberman Dan show, Dan is a previous guest on the show and he’s a top marketer and copywriter and I’ve loved it so far.
Ben Settle has a new show called Anti-Preneur, Ben is a top, top copywriter and I’m glued to his emails and now I’ll be glued to his podcast. Ben is lined up to be a guest on the online marketing show so stay tuned.
And finally Brendon Burchard has a new podcast called The Charged Life. This podcast has a mindset, personal development aspect to it as well as all the usual business and marketing stuff too. Go subscribe.
- There’s some cool events coming up which I haven’t previously mentioned...
UK Marketing Summit 2 is taking place in Manchester, England this weekend, the 15th and 16th of March hosted by Simon Warner and Richard Fairbairn. Speakers include Alex Jeffreys, Mark Lyford and Soren Jordansen.
James Schramko is holding Superfast Business Live in Sydney, Australia on the 20th and 21st of March. In addition to James himself, speakers include Ezra Firstone, Keith Kranc, Taki Moore, Justin Brooke, Dan Dobos and Andre Chaperon, just to name a few!
Icon14 – The annual event held by Infusionsoft is on April 23rd – 25th in Phoenix, Arizona. Top speakers include the CEO of Infusionsoft Clate Mask as well as Seth Godin, Jay Baer, Danny Iny and automation experts Jermaine Griggs and Brad Martineau.
Wistia are holding a video marketing workshop and seminar called Wistiafest, taking place in Cambridge, Maine on the 20th – 22nd May. The top speakers include Wistia co-founder Chris Savage and Rand Fishkin of Moz.
Digital Marketing conference, Clickz Live is taking place in New York on the 31st of March – 3rd April. This is such a big conference I can’t begin to name the speakers but two of the Keynote speakers are Andy Beal and Randi Zuckerberg.
Mark Anastasi is holding The Laptop Millionaire Leadership Training in several locations around the world. 12th-13th of April in London,England, 21st-22nd of June in Sydney, Australia and the 5th-6th of July in Los Angeles, California.
Daven Michaels and Beejal Parmar are hosting Beyond Business Live at several different cities across the US. Las Vegas, Nevada, 14th -16th of March, San Jose, California, 21st-23rd March, Los Angeles, California, 28th-30th March, Altanta, Georgia, 4th-6th of April, Dallas, Texas, 11th-13th April and East Rutherford, New Jersey on the 2nd – 4th of May.
Search Marketing Expo or SMX have several events lined up around the world before or in the summer. Munich, Germany March 25th-26th, London, England, May 13th-14th, Sydney Australia, May 27th and 28th, Seattle, Washington, June 11-12th and Paris, France, June 16th-17th.
Mo Mastafa is holding his SEO Profits Workshop in Cardiff, Wales on the 24th of April. I’ll be at that event, anyone listening in Wales or South West England, I’d love to see you there.
And last but not least I am going to be running several online marketing seminars for local businesses across the south of England. The first one is being held in Farnborough, Hampshire and several more in London, Guildford, Reading and Bournemouth, so if you live in this part of the world please stay tuned for confirmation of venues and dates which I will announce on the podcast and on my website.
That’s all for the online marketing news this time, until next time, take care
This is an interview with Bob Burg who is the Co-Author of the Go-Giver book series. Bob’s books have sold all over the world & is one of Americas most sought after speakers. In this recording he provides us entrepreneurs with motivation & encouragement. His philosophy is quite literally – The more you, the more receive. Check it out…
An interview with one of the world’s best copywriters & direct response marketers. He is the author of “How to make maximum money with minimum customers – 21 proven Direct-Marketing strategies anyone can use”. We talk info products, funnels, continuity, pricing, copywriting and more.
Daniel Levis is a top marketer/copywriter. He the creator of The Persuasion Marketing Club, Info-Marketing Academy, Master of Copywriting, The 5R Conversion System, Effortless Influence and Email Alchemy.
In this episode I just want to point you in the direction of an awesome free resource. I've decided that every time I stumble across some incredible content that is a cut above the rest then I'm going to share it with you and point you in the direction where you can go consume it for yourself.
If you have found or have written some incredible content that you think should be featured then please feel free to reach out to me with your suggestions.
So today's incredible free resource is by Kim Roach of Buzzblogger.com. Kim consistently produces top content and this week she published her list of "The Top 60 WordPress Plugins of 2014".
I highly recommend you go check it out over at buzzblogger.com/top-wordpress-plugins
It includes a few of the usual suspects as well a bunch of less well known but very cool plugins.
The list included a few of my personal favourites which I frequently recommend...
Wordpress SEO by Yoast - The best plug-in for doing the on-page SEO of your posts.
Disqus - The best commenting plugin that integrates with the commenters social media accounts.
Leadpages - The easiest way to create opt-in pages and collect leads
BluBrry PowerPress - The best tool for hosting your podcast within a blog post. (If your listening to this podcast on my blog then your using this plugin right now!)
The list also had many plugins which I wasn't aware of. Some that really caught my eye that I want to try out include...
BackWPup - This tool will back up your site on a regular basis so that you can restore any previous version if you ever needed to. In the past I've used backup buddy for this but that tool isn't free so I'm going to compare the two and see how this compares. W3 Total Cache - Quite simply this plugin helps your site to load up quicker. This is important for your website visitors to have a good experience when they come to your site. WP Smush It - This plugin reduces the file size of your images without affecting how they look and that helps for site load time as well. I'll definitely be installing that one. One Press Social Locker - This allows you to lock content on your site and unlock it in return for a facebook share or retweet or plus one. I've used tools like this before but not a free one and this will come in handy for several of my sites. Welcome Gate - A plugin by LeadBrite who brought us LeadPages and LeadPlayer that allows you to put a welcome gate pop-up on the home page of your website. Although I previously knew of this plugin, they used to charge for it and I had not purchased it. However they are now giving it away free of charge so grab it while you still can. Google Analytics for Wordpress - This will be a game changer for me. I don't use my Google analytics nearly enough, the main reason being that I rarely think to go login and check things. I do it but not as often as I should. This plugin brings that data right into the Wordpress dashboard of your site and personally I login to this often, so that's very convenient for me. Hotspots Analytics - This is an analytics and heatmapping tool for WordPress. Heatmaps can be very useful in determining how visitors use your site but tools I've used in the past like clicktale and crazyegg can have a significant price tag depending on the complexity of your monthly plan. Seeing as this tool is free, I'll reserve judgement of how good it will prove to be until after I've tried it for myself. However, a free heatmapping tool could prove to be very useful for those on a budget. WP Affiliate Surge - This is a very affordable tool which let's the owners of affiliate programs add a promotional tools page where your affiliates can get their links, banners, email swipes and other things to help them make more sales of your products. Broken Link Checker - This does exactly what it says on the tin. It will check your site for broken links and notify you of any new ones, which is great because manually checking every single link on your site to make sure that the link is still good would be extremely tedious to say the least. Theme Test Drive - This plugin allows you to test out a different wordpress theme on your site in a way that doesn't affect what your visitors currently see. Meaning you can test a new theme out and perfect it before making the changes go live on your site. I'm in the process of doing this right now, so this is very timely for me.
That's what caught my eye but my needs and your needs may be different so I really recommend you do go to buzzblogger.com/top-wordpress-plugins to view the entire list
Ari Galper is the world’s #1 trust-based sales expert with over 45,000 clients, members and subscribers
Ari’s deep understanding of human communication and how it can be maximized in the sales process has lead him to discover the solution to the most dreaded selling experience of all: personal rejection.”How to ELIMINATE Personal Sales Rejection Forever… And Make More Sales!”
The sales techniques that we were taught by the “sales gurus” contradict everything we know about what it takes to build real relationships. But isn’t selling just another human relationship – a business relationship? No one likes to be pushed and no one wants to talk to someone who is only out to get what they want.
If you flick through most of the sales books and training manuals today, you’ll find a constant flow of messages like, ‘Focus only on closing the sale’; ‘Be relentless’; ‘Accept rejection as a normal part of selling’; ‘Chase the sale’.
In short, get the sale at the expense of the human relationship.
Chasing the sale makes selling a gut-wrenching and painful process both for you the seller, and your buyer.
Ari Galper, the founder of the best-selling sales program Unlock The Game®, has “cracked the code” on how tomake the shift from chasing the sale to building authentic relationships based on trust, authenticity and integrity — creating more sales than you could ever have imagined!
Unlock The Game® has helped thousands of business owners break free from sales rejection along with substantially increasing sales results.
1.Eliminate pressure and tension from the sales process
2.Rip up your sales scripts and easily get your message across
3.Stop chasing prospects and gain the respect you deserve
4.Get rid of your “fear of phone” once and for all
5.Stop “pitching” and start problem solving
During the call Ari mentions that you can get a free test drive of 10 email lessons of audio seminars over at his website which you can get at unlockthegame.com
Brian Carter is respected as one of the elite internet marketing experts in the world. He has 12 years experience with Google, Twitter and Facebook marketing, both as a consultant and marketing agency director. He develops strategies, builds search visibility and social marketing fan bases for companies of all sizes, including well known entities such as Universal Studios, The U.S. Army, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.
Brian is the author of The Like Economy, LinkedIn for Business: How Advertisers, Marketers and Salespeople Get Leads, Sales and Profits, and co-author of Facebook Marketing. He also writes for two of the most popular marketing blogs, Search Engine Journal and AllFacebook. He occasionally writes for Mashable.com. In this interview I ask Brian how we can get more leads and make more sales through Facebook Marketing. Brian reveals…
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3 main reasons why businesses have to be using Facebook
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The 5 ways to profit using Facebook
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How one of Brian’s clients got an extra $65,000 in one month, all thanks to an under used Facebook marketing tactic
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The best way to collect prospects emails and phone numbers on Facebook
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4 services which will allow you to easily create your own customized Facebook fan page tabs
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2 reasons why using contests may not be the best way to do Facebook marketing
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The “Sell the dream” method which will help your status updates get more likes and comments
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4 ways to determine if your Facebook marketing is working or not
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An awesome tool which will help you track what sales resulted directly from your Facebook marketing efforts
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4 costly Facebook marketing mistakes that people make
Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero was pretty much the first woman to make her mark in the male dominated industry of copywriting (Up until then freelance copywriting had been somewhat of a boy’s club) Today there are many female copywriters all over the globe & Lorrie was a big inspiration & pioneer for many of the worlds top female copywriters.
In this interview Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero shares her story & some of her best copywriting tips including…. * Lorries step by step formula for getting more sales than you can handle
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How to ensure what you write actually gets read
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How to build super quick trust & rapport to deepen the relationship between you & your target audience
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Why the made up word “Tarket” will be the difference between a high converting sales letter or one that totally flops
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Her method to easily produce copy even if you hate writing
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Where to swipe (for free) your markets best headlines that other people spent millions of dollars to test & refine
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Lorries weird order of events when it comes to writing copy (It’s so counter intuitive it’s seems back to front)
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The best way to answer the readers objections so their barriers of resistance dissolve immediately
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How to wrap up & close your sales letter so the reader almost can’t help but click the order button
James Malinchak is America’s foremost authority on public speaking & selling from the stage. He has trained and helped some of the worlds best speakers to learn their craft.
Personally he charges between $20,000 – $100,000 as a speaking fee. He also sells his products and services from the stage. His personal best is selling over $1m in back of the room sales from just one event
He has won several awards and has also been featured on ABC’s TV show “Secret Millionaire”
In this interview I ask James how we can become a highly paid and in demand public speaker. James reveals…
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How he was able to go from being a complete novice speaker to earning millions of dollars selling his products from the stage
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4 reasons why at the beginning of your speaking career you should speak for free
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Why anyone can learn to become a speaker
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How to get your first “big pay day”
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3 steps to getting started as a highly paid speaker
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2 methods to build your email list by speaking
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The easiest way to gain credibility as an industry leader who gets invited to speak
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3 types of coaching programs that you can sell from the stage
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The number 1 way to kill your chances of making sales from the stage (this is one is shocking & counter intuitive)
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The formula which will help you avoid over teaching
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The “soap opera technique” to make your audience want to buy
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How much of your best content you should be giving away during a free presentation
Welcome to the Online Marketing News, it's the 2nd of March of and here is my round of digital marketing news that has caught my eye during the month of February.
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I got a very promising email the other day from Infusionsoft saying they are soon to release an app so we can use InfusionSoft on mobile, which is obviously excellent news for InfusionSoft users. I believe it will be free for current users and available on both IOS and Android.
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OP2 released their copy and paste a row feature. This was previously enabled within the same page but now you can take a row from one OptimzePress page and put it into another. A handy time saver and more definitely brownie points earned, they are getting into a lot of peoples good books again!
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Leadpages as always have been innovating. In my opinion their most exciting update is automatic pre-population, so when someone lands on your page and decides to opt-in, this new feature will automatically have the opt-in form filled out with their details! Making the opt-in process even more frictionless. They also recently added the ability to split test & add images to leadboxes.
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The big news over at Facebook last month was of course Facebooks $19 billion dollar acquisition of What's App. This was worldwide news so I'm sure you already saw this. Early rumours that the monetization strategy for What's App would be advertising like they did with Instagram were quickly downplayed however, Mark Zuckerberg himself announcing that their initial focus would be on growth rather than monetization. When the time comes for monetization it may or may not present a new opportunity for us online marketing folk, we'll have to wait and see on that one.
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In other Facebook news, Facebook have announced that they are discontinuing sponsored stories. These are the ads that page owners can use to show a users that one of their connections has liked their page or checked-in, in the hope that they might do the same. As of April 9th however, this kind of ad will be gone.
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Facebook ads have a new update coming on the 4th of March will be to add another level within their ad structure. They used to have 2 levels which was campaigns and ads but this made for a quite messy and unorganized way to keep track of your ads. The new level they are adding inbetween campaigns and ads is, ad groups. This means you can group certain types of ads together within your campaigns and will make it much more organized. Welcome news for FB advertisers.
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Facebook will also be rolling out new targeting features available thanks to their 3rd party partner categories, this data will now be available in the regular FB ad platform giving better location,interest, behavior and demographic targeting.
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In more excellent FB ads news, Facebook announced they will be adding job titles to their ads targeting. LinkedIn ads have given this option for years and now Facebook wants a piece of it too, I can't wait for that to happen.
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Finally on Facebook, Facebook page tagging just got a little more interesting too. When you tag another page in a status update from your fan page, their fans may see your update in their newsfeed meaning you can tap into almost any other fan pages audience by using tagging. I think this could be easy to abuse but done correctly it could help you grow your fan page audience for free.
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LinkedIn has opened up their publishing platform, where you can publish long-form content to the site. This used to be a feature only available to top influencers like Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk and other high level people but now all users will be able to use this tool.
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LinkedIn has also recently added a block feature just like Facebook has. It means you and the other person will no longer be able to see each others accounts on the site. So don't go spamming people or using any weird black hat marketing tactics, you'll simply be blocked!
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Google has added usage rights to it's image search tools. This has been around a while but wasn't included as an option in it's main menu. You still need to be careful when using it though, it's not 100% accurate. So you could use an image thinking you have permission when you do not. My advice is where possible create your own images or purchase stock images.
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Twitter advertising took another big step forward by introducing the ability to target ads based on email addresses and user ID's. This is similar to custom audiences on Facebook and it means you can retarget your email list through Twitter or even have the ability to avoid those users, depending on your marketing goals. Great option to have. Twitter ads continue to rise in my estimations.
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Adroll has just beta launched mobile retargeting for cross device campaigns. Meaning desktops users can now also be followed up on the mobiles and tablets too. For example someone who enters your website on their desktop, may then see your retargeting ads whilst using FB or Twitter using their mobile phone.
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A few big upcoming events that have caught my eye...
On the 11th of March, Marketing Land's Digital Marketing Summit will be held in San Jose, California. Top speakers include Googles Search Chief, Amit Singhal, Copybloggers Brian Clark and Rand Fishkin of Moz.
Also on the 11th -13th of March, The Joint Venture Summit is being held in Atlanta, Georgia. Speakers taking the stage include Robert Allen, Alex Mandossian, Joel Comm, Spike Humer, Mike Filsaime, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, Daven Michaels and whole list of other excellent speakers too.
On the 22nd and 23rd of March, Brian McLeod and Sam England are hosting the Spring 2014 Warrior Networking Event in Raleigh, North Carolina. Joel Comm, Matt Bacak, E Brian Rose and a whole line up of top speakers will be sharing their best stuff.
Social Media Examiner are hosting the Social Media Marketing World event in San Diego, California on the 26th -28th of March. They have a huge list of amazing speakers, Chris Brogan, Mari Smith, Patt Flynn, Michael Hyatt, Michael Stelzner, John Jantsch, Amy Porterfield, Joel Comm, Brian Clark, Cliff Ravenscraft and bunch more.
If you're listening to this on the podcast, you can get links to these events over at my blog.
- A few new podcasts that I'm excited about have been announced Jon Benson the king of VSL's has just recently started his podcast called The Sales Copy Samurai. Colin Theriot of the cult of copy has also he will be starting a new podcast sharing his copywriting wisdom so keep an eye out for that one, and last but not least Clay Collins and the team over at LeadPages announced that their new podcast called conversion cast will start soon and they will be diving deep into split testing and what's working now in online marketing. You won't want to miss that either.
Both Colin and Clay have been on previous episodes of the online marketing show are always good value. Jon is set to come on the show in a few weeks time too so stay tuned for that.
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Tim Castleman has released his Traffic and Conversion Summit 2014 notes. I attended this event and it was brilliant. His notes have all the golden nuggets from the presentations for just a fraction of the cost of going to the event. Grab a copy, it's well worth it.
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Todd Brown is launching his latest product this week, it's called Six Figure Funnel Formula. Todd has been on the podcast before and he is my recommended go to guy when it comes to marketing funnels. His last flagship program has been locked down for quite some time so you'll want to jump on this if you want to learn how to convert leads into paying customers. There will be a lot of buzz over the next week or so and Todd will be releasing a ton of free premium content during the launch. Again if you're listening to this on the podcast, head over to my blog you can get the link for Todd's free videos there.
And that's the online marketing news, 2nd of March 2014.
Lisa Manyon is an Award Winning Author, Marketing and Copywriting Strategist. She is the co-author of the #1 Best Selling book Success Rituals 2.O –Winning Habits of High-Achieving Women: How she does it and you can too! She is also the recipient of the Charles Schwab Financial Literacy Award in The Hot Mommas 2011 Competition. She has featured in the world’s largest women’s digital library of role models & mentors and the Write On Creative Blog received a 2011 APEX award for publication excellence. Lisa offers a complimentary Copywriting Action Plan and publishes Manyon’s Musings a free monthly ezine . For more information visit her website www.WriteOnCreative.com
In this interview Lisa discusses a new copywriting formula that she has created, tried and tested herself. It not only challenges some old copywriting beliefs but could revolutionize the way that people write copy as well. Lisa reveals…
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Why the old saying “Copy is King” is not true anymore
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The copywriting formula that works far better when writing to women than men (Women make 85% of all buying decisions BTW)
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Why the “Problem, Agitate, Solve” formula doesn’t work quite as well as it used to
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What the CSI formula is & why it converts better
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How to close without the “Hard sell”
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The 3 biggest mistakes Lisa sees when people write copy & how to easily avoid them
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3 shortcuts that will make the copywriting process at least twice as fast
Brian Bagnall is an in-demand author, speaker and consultant. He is the “the go-to-guy” for Facebook Social Ads. He has shared the stage with marketing legends like Mike Filsaime, Chris Farrell, Mark Anastasi and Rich Schefren just to name a few. He is an advisor to Fortune 500 and major brand-name corporations as well as thousands of entrepreneurs and small business owners worldwide. He has personally crafted and written ads, direct-mail campaigns, and has created online marketing that has sold billions of dollars of goods and services.
Brian Bagnall has worked hands-on with over 500 clients in 79 different business categories, and has helped hundreds of his private clients become millionaires and multimillionaires in a relatively short space of time
His digital products include “Lost” Recession Proof Marketing Secrets and 80/20 Rule on Steroids
In this interview he reveals his secrets for making money with Facebook adverts such as…
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The big differences between FaceBook PPC & Google PPC (If you don’t know this you will waste a ton of money with FB ads)
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Whether to use CPC or CPM bidding?
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How to create compelling ads that get clicked on
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The single most important part of a FaceBook ad
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The 70-20-10 formula for FB ads
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1 type of headline that always attracts people to click on your ad
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The key metric to determine if your ad is successful or not
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The secrets of making money with sponsored stories & premium ads
Jock Purtle of Digital Exits, helps people to sell their website/online business for the most profit possible. In this episode he shares how to value your website and sell it to hungry buyers.
James Wedmore is one of the USA’s best Video Marketing experts.He is the creator of several online training programs including Video Traffic Academy and 6 Figure Outsourcing secrets
He helps small business owners drive traffic, give great content, gather leads and make sales using online video
In this video interview he reveals…
Why every online business has to be using video in 2012 How to create high quality video even on a budget How to get your videos ranked highly in both YouTube & Google How to do great lighting & audio which will give your videos the edge Video alternatives for the camera shy (You don’t have to get in front of the camera to do video) James Wedmore’s “Hierarchy of video needs” The 3 step structure of a perfect video from beginning to end How to get more comments, likes & subscribes on YouTube
Chris Lomas is the senior copywriter at Clear Comms, a UK based copywriting agency that specializes in producing marketing communication that is crystal clear. Chris writes copy in plain English, he leaves buzzwords & fluff to one side. There are many different channels through which you can market your business & Chris has experience with all of them.
Most businesses have a website. Many will do email marketing. But the vast majority of small businesses just leave it there. They don’t tap into the huge potential of the other marketing methods at their disposal (And if they do, it’s often using poorly written copy)
In this interview I ask Chris what these forgotten marketing channels are & how we can use them successfully in our business. Chris reveals…
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The 5 keys to becoming a successful copywriter
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Why most copywriting pieces fail
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How to avoid saying too much in your copy & risk taking away from the message
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3 steps to writing a first-class product description
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How to write very a concise story in just a paragraph or two
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The big secret to writing a company profile that oozes with personality
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How to collect lot’s of high quality case studies from your clients
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The type of case study that works best & will give you massive credibility & proof
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2 major differences when writing editorial articles for magazines & newsletters
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When to use press releases
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3 situations that make for a newsworthy story that the media will love
David Allen is the author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity which is one of the worlds most popular time management/productivity books. He is also the author of 2 follow up books Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done and Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life.
In this interview he shares his "Getting things done" methodology so that we can accomplish what we want to with minimum stress.
David shares...
The key to getting lots of things done without stress or anxiety 3 steps to make sure you don’t break commitments with yourself or others The 5 stages of mastering workflow The 6 level model for reviewing your own work How to choose which task to be working on in any given moment The 5 step natural planning model
And much more! Just click the play button to listen to the interview or read the full transcript below...
Joey Bushnell: Hey, welcome to the online marketing show. This is Joey Bushnell. I am very excited to introduce today’s special guest, his name is David Allen and he is the author of Getting Things Done, one of the worlds most famous time management and productivity books. Go to Davidco.com to find out more.
David thank you so much for joining me today.
David Allen: My pleasure Joey
Joey Bushnell: David how did you come to write the book “Getting Things Done”
David Allen: I spent about 20 - 25 years doing the work which is the foundation for the methodology that I put together. So it really was writing a manual after all of those years. It took me 25 years, as I said, to figure out what I figured out and that it actually was unique and no one else had quite done it that way.
It also took that long for me to feel really comfortable that it was bullet proof. I tested it across culture, I tested it with all kinds of people from CEO’s of fortune 50 corporations, to kids, to everybody! And basically couldn’t punch a hole in it.
So once I trusted that it really, really did work and that people still needed it, I said in case I get run over by a bus I better put it in writing because somebody might figure it out at some point. So that was really the prime driver.
Joey Bushnell: You’ve also written several other books since then based on the core ideas in “Getting Things Done” as well?
David Allen: Yeah, what is fascinating to me Joey is I could still make a living and still keep doing what I’m doing for 30 plus years, with the 12 things that I know! How may ways can you spin it?
But I’m sure the same is true for the core elements to good marketing or anything else. It’s really how many ways you can spin it and how deep you can go with it. It is, as simple as the model is, it really is a lifestyle and a lifetime craft to get really good at how you manage your work and life in that way.
Joey Bushnell: The book changed my life David. I used to find myself getting very stressed, overwhelmed and not getting enough done each day, that I would have liked to have got done. I know having spoken to friends who are business owners as well, they find themselves in a similar position too. So I think this is something that is universal and a lot of people struggle with this.
In your opinion why do you think business owners tend to find themselves getting stressed and getting overwhelmed?
David Allen: Well, first of all you’re not going to get rid of challenges and you’re not going to get rid of stress in the positive way. If you didn’t have challenges you would never grow, expand or express and also your competition would have it just as easy as you. So I don’t kid anybody you don’t get rid of the kind of challenges that a business owner or entrepreneur have to deal with in terms of making it in the world. That is going to be a challenge.
What you want is to be able to be in the drivers seat about it.
It’s like you might be out in a sail boat in stormy weather so it is a challenge but you want to make sure you don’t let go of the helm. In other words you need to stay in control and in the drivers seat of what you are doing.
So a lot of my methodology was... how do you get on top of that game so you are appropriately focused and appropriately in the drivers seat with your hand on the helm? I think that is the big key and in a way the issue for business owners and entrepreneurs is no different than the issue for most everybody on the planet, certainly who are trying to get things done, and that is most people are trying to use their psyche as their system. Your psyche, your head, is a terrible office, it really is!
So a lot of my message, I don’t know how long I’m going to keep preaching this is “Guys, you’ve got to get it out of your head, it’s a really crappy office”. If you are just trying to use your head for strategy and for thinking about what you need to do and to try and get rid of the pressures, that won’t work. It’s not designed like that, your head is designed for handling ideas not for holding them.
The cognitive scientists in the last 10 years have done all kinds of research to validate what GPD and the Getting Things Done methodology really figured out from the street, which is to get it out of your head. I’ve never seen anybody and I’ve dealt one on one and spent thousands of hours with business owners literally sitting desk side with them and having them just dump their head...
"Hey, what do you have your attention on?"
"Well I have the bank thing, and this thing, and the competition, and we have the product, and this launch, and the advertising and I have this staff thing".
"Great get it all out!"
Once they get it out, they feel both relief and angst because they are looking at it feeling "Oh my, look at how many things I have my attention on and have commitments about".
Yeah no kidding! People get mad at me about their list! sorry it’s not my list it’s yours. Your choice is what you do with those commitments. Most people have internalized those instead of externalized those and you need to build an external brain.
Joey Bushnell: So it’s having all of those things stored up in your head that is creating the overwhelm, you just feel like you got a never ending to do list.
David Allen: Yeah, here is the problem, if you are just trying to keep track of something in your head, that part of you that is hanging onto that, is hanging onto it and taking up space that is not available for other things. There really is limited psychic space or psychic RAM which can fill up and choke the system if you do that. That place also seems to have no sense of past or future.
So if you tell yourself you need to hire somebody and you keep saying in your head "I need to hire somebody" but that’s the only place you keep track of that and reviewing it, there is a part of you that thinks you should be hiring somebody 24/7, all the time.
As soon as you file 2 things in your head that are unfinished and you have your attention on and it’s the only place you are tracking it, you’ve created instant failure and stress because you can’t do them both at the same time and there is a part of you psychologically that is trying to.
Joey Bushnell: You mention in the book that there is a power in not breaking internal commitments and agreements that we make with ourselves. So what are the emotional benefits of not breaking those commitments and how can we prevent ourselves from doing it?
David Allen: Well the main down side to breaking an agreement is the disintegration of trust. That is an automatic price you pay when you tell yourself to do something and you don’t do it, you automatically lose your own self trust. If you tell other people you are going to do something and you don’t do it you automatically lose their trust. There are people I love dearly but I wouldn’t trust further than I could spit. They show up when they tell me they are going to show up based upon data. But they didn’t keep that agreement, OK then, I don't trust them. Doesn’t mean I don’t love them anymore but it means I lack trust.
So the self trust is the price you pay when you break an agreement with yourself. If that is true, and all of these agreements, most people haven’t a clue of how many things they have agreed with themselves about. It’s all of their would’s, should’s, could’s, need to’s, ought to’s and that is what I have spent thousands of hours, and my coaching staff have as well, literally getting people to just objectify all of the things they’ve told themselves they ought to, need to or could do, everything they have their attention on about that. Most people are blown away by how much that’s really there.
Now those agreements, you obviously can’t go and finish those 150 things or those 25 big projects all at once. The best things to do is, if you don’t want to break an agreement you have 3 options...
The first option is don’t make the agreement in the first place. A lot of times people dump stuff out of their head and they go “That’s a dumb idea when I look at all of the other stuff I’m going to do, I’m not going to do that at all.” Which is great just take it off your list. Most people are a bit spoiled thinking they can do everything. Like I say, you can do anything but not everything. So just being aware and being more mature about what your inventory is and what you can handle that is a smart thing to do. So option one is don’t make the agreement or unhook from it.
Another option is go and finish your agreement, go and do the stuff you tell yourself you are going to do. You need cat food? Go and buy cat food! You want to hire somebody? Hire someone. Those are your better days when you actually finish a lot of things you told yourself you want to do. So completing things is another way you will complete the agreement.
The third one, which is the most critical one to be aware of, which is, if I agree with you Joey, I’m going to call you at 9am and something comes up in my world and I can’t keep that agreement, obviously the thing for me to do is contact you and rearrange that agreement “Hey Joey, can we make it some other time? Something else has come up”. If we renegotiate the agreement then it’s not broken. All of that big thing I just said, is why you need to write it down, look at it and go "Not now". You can only feel good about what you are not doing when you know what you’re not doing.
So it’s not really about getting things done believe it or not. Here is a big secret and I’ll only tell you and of course the smart, savvy listeners to your program but getting things done is really about getting appropriately engaged with everything in your work and your life so you can become present with everything that you are doing. Which is really the optimal way to do anything, is presence, when you are fully there and you are in your flow. Being appropriately engaged. How many things are you not doing right now because you are talking to me?
Joey Bushnell: Lot’s of things!
David Allen: Yeah me too! So the only way we can be present here in this conversation, is if some part of us has looked at all the rest of it and said “No, that can wait. Talking to Joey is the best thing for me to do in my life right now”. Now, I need to know what that is, if I hadn’t kept everything out of my head and looked at it every few days in some detail then there is a part of me that is going to walk around with this angst, that I won’t even know what the source of it is, I’ll just feel uncomfortable.
So shutting that up really is a master key to how you start to get control and to be able to be in control and appropriately focused on whatever it is you are doing, whether it is playing golf, writing a business plan or doing a marketing plan. You want to be able to be there fully. So that doesn’t solve the problem of what do I put in the marketing plan or business plan but it allows you to be fully available so you can access your intelligence and not be distracted.
I think that is the master key to productivity and it also means appropriate engagement with all of those things. You just need to look at them on some regular basis and go “OK, that’s OK, oh that reminds me and oh I ought to...” It’s that kind of thinking and everybody does that intuitively and instinctively but you usually do that when the pressure gets really bad. But I’ve never had anybody in the 30 plus years I’ve been doing this who started to write it all down take a look at it and didn't feel slightly more in control and more focused.
Joey Bushnell: I guess the great thing is when you get into the habit of this and you are consistently getting things done, like you said before, if you break commitments you lose trust in yourself but I guess after practicing this for a while, you will get a positive reinforcement that you are the kind of person who is reliable and gets things done, and surely that has got to do wonders for the psyche.
David Allen: Oh it’s huge, yeah, and that takes a lot of forms. I usually respond to every email within 24 hours, sometimes 48 or 72, if I’m on a real roll doing something else but my backlog starts at zero and I get it back to zero pretty fast. People then pretty much don’t send me trash because I respond, I’m a responder, they get feedback right away from that.
So it not only builds trust, there is something recently which is called psychological capital and that means I’m feeling optimistic, I’m in control of my life, I have hope, I have direction. That is a very very powerful state to be in. When people see that you have that, your equity goes up in terms of their perception of value to you, their interest in communicating with you and all of that good stuff.
Joey Bushnell: One of the main concepts in the book is something you call “Mastering the 5 stages of work flow” is it OK to go through that please?
David Allen: Sure, first thing you have to do is capture anything that might potentially be work. The first stage is collective capture and that I like writing it down. You can’t just leave one stage otherwise it will back up on you like bad plumbing.
Once you write it down, you then need to go through each one of those things that has your attention and then clarify what you are going to do about it, what the outcome is and the action step is if there is any. So that is the executive thinking about the notes you took in the meeting or the things you wrote down on your list. You wrote down bank, well what is that what is the outcome you are after? Well I need to see if I can extend my credit line. Great what is your next action? I think I should call Bill Smith and see what he did with his bank. Good, now you have an outcome and you have an action but those things don’t show up by themselves you actually have to think through the stuff that you have captured.
So stage 2 is a clarification or processing. Essentially it’s emptying your in basket. Not by finishing the work that is in there but by defining what the work is specifically in there. Is this trash? Is this reference? Is it something I need to review later? Is it actionable? If so, what are the outcomes and what are the action steps? Those are the basic executive decisions you would make about what does this stuff actually mean that I have now captured.
Stage 3 would then be to organize that. By the way between stage 2 and 3, that is where the little magic 2 minute rule sits. That is, once you figure out what action step it is, if you can take it in 2 minutes or less you ought to do it right then and there because it would take you longer to stack it, track it and review than it would be to finish it the first time it’s in your face. So just cleaning up your in baskets, your email in basket and your physical in basket, if you hold the 2 minute rule you will actually get a lot of stuff done and make a lot of progress on a lot of things. You’ll be amazed how many things with the action step could be finished in less than 2 minutes, assuming you have decent keyboard skills.
That is also where you delegate. So once I pick something up and say "This is going to take me longer than 2 minutes to do", great, can you give this off to somebody else? That is also where you want to hand it off in some sort of systematic way.
So going through from stage 2 to 3, what you then organize is, what is left. What I need to organize are the things that I need to keep track of, the projects I’ve got, the action steps I need to take that I can’t hand off or finish in the moment and that’s where I need to organize that. Basically you need to organize everything that you need to keep around you or has value to you. So your reference stuff goes where that goes, trash obviously goes in the recycle bin or shredder. Actionable things then need to be parked somewhere where they remind you appropriately.
So where do I put a list of projects that I’ve got? Where do I put the reminders of phone calls I need to make? Where do I put the reminders about the things I want to talk to my banker about when I see him or her? Now that I'm defining what moves the needle on all of the actionable things I’m committed to, then I need to make sure they are parked appropriately in the right place so my head doesn’t lose them and my head doesn’t have to take them back. That is the organize stage that is stage 3. So now I’m organized, I’ve captured everything out of my head, I’ve decided what it means, I’ve parked it in appropriate places.
Then stage 4 is I need to the engage with the material, I need to look at my list, I need to look at my categories for things that I’ve held on some regular basis so I keep it current and I keep the larger perspective. So that is the review stage that is stage 4.
Review takes on lots of different levels, you obviously need to review your diary or your calendar before you start your day or the night before. On your phone if you have some spare time, say you’re at a Starbucks and you have some time, you can review your phone call list so you can be productive while you are waiting for someone to show up. So that is the review phase and it takes on a lot of different levels as I say.
But then after all of that you have to be engaged, stage 5 is basically how do I now allocate resources? Do I go have a beer? Do I go to my computer to draft a document? Or do I go to sleep? So that is where to engage once you’ve done all that.
So the best practice of all of those is, as I said, to have captured everything, make sure it’s not banging around in your head. If you decided what those things mean, once you decide what they mean, park them where those things go. Then make sure you engage in some regular review process with all of it so you feel comfortable with what you are doing and what you are not doing.
Joey Bushnell: OK, David in the second stage, the processing stage what options do we have there? In the book you have a nice diagram which makes it very visual, so could you try to describe for those listening, what are the main options we have when it comes to stage two?
David Allen: Well your first question is, is this actionable yes or no? That is the first thing to decide. Are you actually going to do something about what it is that you wrote down or this email? So that is the first distinction you need to make, that is the first decision.
Well actually, the first decision is what the hell is this?! What is this email? Why does it have 14 attachments to it and why did they send this to me? is it CC’d to me, what is this? So believe it or not that is something you need to clarify. So the first thing is what the heck is it that I have captured, collected or that has come to me in my in basket. Then the critical decision is is it an actionable item yes or no?
If it is a no and there is no action on it, now you now have three options of no’s. First of all is it’s trash I don’t need it or now I’ve seen it I don’t need it. So that is one option.
Another option is there’s no action on it now but there might be later. There are other things pending, I can’t make the decision about this right now, let me see it in a week, two days, two months or the beginning of next quarter. That would be the incubate. It could be something that you decide could have potential action but not now, then you need to make sure you revisit it on some recursion, so that’s number two of the non-action options.
The third thing is reference material. There is no action on it but it is information I need to keep it because I made need access to it for some reason.
So if it’s non actionable it’s either trash, incubate or reference.
Now if it is actionable than you have those 2 key questions to answer about it. Essentially the zero’s and ones of productive work, are what is the outcome I’m committed to, if any? And what is the next action required? So outcome and action become the core elements of productive engagement. What am I moving toward as some final outcome IE Is there a project here? If it’s more than one step, we call that a project because you might do the one step and then get distracted or go onto other things and you’ve still got an open loop.
So defining the project of actionable things, if you have one and most people have between 30 and 100 projects. If you consider that simple definition of more than one step things that you are committed to finish in the next few weeks or months and include personal as well as professional. So that includes your next holiday, it’s getting tires on your car, launching the ad campaign, hire a new assistant, research the new mobile phone app. I would consider all of those projects and most people have 40, 60, 70 of those.
So defining those things, if it’s actionable, is there an outcome I need to capture? When getting things done you need to define what does “done” mean? That is the outcome.
Then what does doing look like? In other words, where does doing happen? What’s the very next physical, visible action you would need to take to start to move the needle on that? Is it a phone call you need to make? Is it an email you need to send? A document you need to draft? A website you need to surf? A conversation you need to have with your life partner, banker or assistant? And defining that, "OK, I’ve got an outcome and I’ve got a next action".
Those are the real key distinctions about actionable things, then you wind up with projects and actions. Most people have 150, 180 or 200 next actions if you really did this inventory completely. Those are all the executive decisions and then that starts to define for you how you organize that. Organization just simply means that where something is, matches what it means to you.
Which begs the question what does it mean to me? So I just answered that... "It’s an incubate", OK so I need to put it where incubate things go. "There is a project embedded in this", great I need to capture that where I’ve got a list of projects. "There is a phone call I need to make about this", great I’ll park that where I see a list of phone calls to make.
Joey Bushnell: And are you doing this digitally or do you like doing it on paper?
David Allen: I do them both, if you can’t do it low tech you’re going to have a hard time doing it high tech because you are going to need to understand what the functions are. Once you understand the function you can do it low tech, mid tech or high tech.
The truth is I do a lot of pen and paper in capture because the batteries in pen and paper last a long time, you don’t need to plug them in and they are pretty ubiquitous. Good thoughts occur in the strangest places! So a lot of my capturing in stage one is done on pen and paper just because it’s so ubiquitous and so easy.
Though you could call your own answering machine, voicemail or you could Siri yourself a note into your email. There are a lot of ways you could capture with the technology now. It ranges but mostly I use pen and paper for that piece. But obviously a lot of it is being digitally collected through social media or email. If your email is getting LinkedIn notices or Facebook requests all of that is coming in, in digital form just by it's very nature.
But usually the question comes down to how do I organize that? And to a large degree, most of these categories are lists and that is how I keep track of those?
Right now I’m keeping track of that, we use lotus notes in my company so within the lists or task function are all of those notes. But then also replicas are synced with my iPhone. But I’ve done all of that, I’ve carried an elegant danish loose leaf planner for 20 years. But I’ve got a lot of high tech people going back to planners right now because they have found that paper is a lot more obvious and fits the way your mind likes to see larger contexts of things and relationships of things computers are kind of tricky about that.
Joey Bushnell: I guess the key thing is just making sure you do it, whether you prefer digital, paper or whiteboard, it’s just making sure you do that processing stage.
David Allen: Sure and then you need to, obviously once you’ve organized this, it needs to accessible somewhere where it is easy for you to have it accessible. So technology has certainly made that easier on your smart phone to be able to keep lists and things like that so you can then synchronize those in different places. If you don’t need to see a reminder of something other than where you have a white board then white board is fine. But again there is a big difference between capturing ideas and deciding what they mean and organizing the results of that.
Joey Bushnell: So onto stage 4 reviewing. In the book you talk about a 6 level model for reviewing your own work, could you explain a little bit about that please?
David Allen: Yeah I couldn’t get it any simpler than 6. If you think about the, I call them, different horizons of your commitments or horizons of focus.
You have a commitment Joey to be a good human being or to be some sort of human being or to do something on the planet. So that is the big commitment, why do you exist? What is your purpose?
Or you could do it for your company, what is the purpose of your company or your organization? The big “why?”. Why do I exist? What is my ultimate intentionality? That is one level, that is kind of a top level of your priorities. You wouldn’t want to be off purpose in terms of being a human being or your company.
Then you have more operational levels of that too. If you were fulfilling your purpose wildly successfully what would that look like? And that comes down to what I call horizon 4. I’ve labelled these horizon 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and ground level in the new vocabulary, it’s a bit more global. So if you think about levels in a building, there is a ground floor then floor 1, next floor up is 2, 3, 4 and 5.
So the top floor is the top level which would be purpose.
The 4th floor is... what would the vision look like if you were fulfilling your purpose? Your long term goal, in other words. What is the picture 5 years from now? When you grow up what do you want to be doing? So that would be another level of commitment is to be fulfilling that commitment.
Then more operational at level 3 if you come down to that, is what do you need to in the next 3-12-24 months? What are the objectives you have or goals you have that you need to achieve that you think will move you toward your vision, it’s another level of commitment. Level 3 is often times what you see in company plans. Their strategic or operational plan that they have been looking at a year or 2 and what they want to accomplish.
Then you need to come down to level 2 and say "Yeah but we have to make sure this enterprise is healthy and balanced and maintains itself so we can move forward". That is the level of maintenance. What are the things you need to maintain?
In a company you need to maintain public relations, marketing, sales, operations, finance, admin and executive functions. These are things that you need to make sure that you maintain at a certain level of standards. So level 2 is a lot about what is your job description? What are all the hats you wear? What are all of your areas of focus and responsibility or accountability?
Personally that would be how is your health and vitality? Your relationships? Your household? How’s your creative expression? Your career? Or any of those types of things. So level 2 is what drives you a lot and why you have a lot of projects and why you do a lot of actions is because you have a lot of areas of accountability and focus.
Then you come down to level 1 and say what do you need to finish about all of that and that is projects. Level 1 would be all of your commitments you had, as I mentioned most people have 40, 50, 60 or 70 of those.
Then what are all the things you need to do about those projects? That is when you get down to the ground floor and all the actions you need to take... the phone calls, emails, talk to’s etc and most people have a couple of hundred of those. I couldn’t get it any simpler than that.
Those are 6 very different levels of conversation with yourself and they’re 6 very different levels of content. Your strategic plan looks very different than your job description. Is one better than the other? No, they are kind of equal. But you can only do things on the ground floor. All of those other levels help to give you direction and help you set priorities.
Joey Bushnell: And do you work top down when you are doing this or bottom up?
David Allen: I personally focus on whatever I need to focus on to get it off my mind. In other words when I'm playing with my dog, I don’t want to be thinking of my strategic plan, I need to have already thought about it. There is no really better or worse but there is a hierarchy that my actions should be fulfilling my finishing projects which should be maintaining areas of focus which is also moving me toward my goals which is going to help me fulfill my vision which is going to be ultimately aligned with my purpose. Ideally all of these things will be aligned up toward the top level.
The truth is that you can’t do anything except on the ground level. No matter how important your strategic plan is you still have to bring it down to “So what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do against all the other things you have to do?”.
Ultimately I’ve never seen anybody be able to create a formula other than trusting their gut, the seat of their pants, their liver, their spirit, their heart or whatever it may be, that still, small voice that you trust when you are making a judgement call based upon that. Ideally you want to have had all of those conversations. You and your life partner talk about where you want to be 4 years from now, you and your company have talked about your strategic plan and your own performance goals.
All of that tied back to what’s really important to you, you don’t care where you live or work as long as what’s true. You kind of bounce all around those things, there is not necessarily a linear sequence of how to think through those. As I say, it’s often times easier to start getting control on the ground level and the first floor. In other words if your projects and your action level is out of control, don’t even try to be thinking that you can be doing much thinking or good work on any of the other levels.
So you need to feel confident that you can execute on direction. So as I say, how long does it take for you to change a goal? Oh about half a second. How long does it take for you to learn to execute seamlessly? It takes about 2 years to get really good at the GTD methodology, if you are really good.
That’s why we teach, train and coach a lot, in a way it looks like we start bottom up. "Hi, what is that piece of paper on your desk? Hi, what is that email sitting on your computer right now, why is it there? What is your next action?" Once you start to do that and start to get control there it becomes a lot easier to allow your thinking and it will automatically start to elevate to some other levels once you get that under control.
Joey Bushnell: You mentioned that you can only ever do things on the ground level, let’s explore that further if we can. How do you decide which actions to take when it comes to the “in the moment, daily level, near term” kind of tasks?
David Allen: Well the daily dance is between 3 things...
There is all the predefined actions. Here is all the phone calls and computer actions, things like that I have already defined that I need to do and those are on my lists.
Then there is all the stuff that is unplanned or unexpected. Like I get a phone call I didn’t expect or I got an email by surprise which has now put a spin on my day. For either good or challenging reasons, whatever the reason, it was unexpected. Now you are dancing between those but the unexpected stuff if that comes in, in order for me to feel comfortable I need to say "Hey I now need to focus on that instead of all the rest" I just need to know what all the rest is. In other words, I need to make sure my list of defined work is complete so I can assess the new stuff against that.
That is why the 3rd things I might be doing is cleaning up my back log and zeroing out my in basket and my email. Why? So I can trust that I don’t have a bunch of stuff lurking in there that I don’t know. The bigger your backlog the more interruptions will bother you. I’ve got 3,000 emails and this bunch of stuff I have to do inside all of that but I don’t know how exactly what it is, oh damn someone just walked in to my office. But if you have a zero backlog and someone walks into your office you say "Hi, what do you want? What can I do for you? How can you influence my world?" That is why when I'm not doing anything else, I’m cleaning up backlog but that takes 30-90 minutes a day just to do that and make sure that back log is cleaned up.
Now a lot of work get’s done there and a lot of executive thinking happens while I’m cleaning up that. I’m not just sitting there like some dumb robot cleaning up my in basket, there is a lot going on while I’m doing that but it’s still just part of your work. A lot of people complain about email, "I have to stay after hours dealing with the email", I'm like "Dealing email is your work". If you shouldn’t be getting it you shouldn’t get it, stop it. If you should then you should. That is how the world works these days.
Joey Bushnell: In the book you talk about something called the natural planning model, what is that and why do you recommend it?
David Allen: Years ago I spent some time thinking about what is the best planning model? And there seemed to be a lot of different ways that people tried to manage projects and planning. I don’t know whether it took me hours or days, I don’t really remember but I sat down and said "Wait a minute, we are planning all the time. We planned this call, we plan when we get dressed, we plan what we eat, where we go, we are planning all of the time". The most brilliant planner in the universe is your mind. You couldn’t stop planning. If I asked you to stop planning you would plan how to do that! The mind is planning all of the time.
So I sat back and sort of unpacked it... "OK, how do we actually plan?" I discovered this little 5 phase model that the mind uses in order to go to dinner or do anything.
First of all it has some sort of intention or purpose. Like I’m hungry, I need to eat or sign a business deal over dinner or romance. There is some sort of intention that drives it, that's the first thing.
Then it creates a vision, it’s going to look like this, here is what dinner looks like. But then if you are not at dinner, your vision does not match your current reality then it creates the need to brainstorm, which is stage 3. Is it raining outside? Shall we invite people round for dinner? Where are we going to go? What time? Then whereas stage 1 was the why, stage 2 is the what, what it will look like. Then stage 3 is how but the how comes in part A and part B.
How part A is the brain storming meaning your mind just starts to pre-associate ideas that are potentially relevant and meaningful to this outcome. Then stage 4 your mind goes "OK, let me organize those things". So stage 4 is organizing that thinking into sequences or components or priorities in terms of the project.
Then stage 5 says "Let’s pick up the phone and see if we can get a reservation", is the action, "OK, now I take action based upon that".
So if you think about how you think that is how people are planning all the time. The problem is that is not the way a lot of people are approaching planning when they plan bigger things. Or they’re trying to explicitly plan, they usually sit down and say "Who has got a good idea?" or "How should we organize this?" and that is stage 4, that’s not stage 1.
The first question is "Why are we doing this software? What is the purpose of the software?" Stage 2 is "What would the wild success of the software allow somebody to be able to do?". Then stage 3 is "Let’s get every single potentially wild, crazy, good, bad idea on the planet about this and throw it at the wall". Then stage 4 says "OK, let’s find some of the components" then stage 5 "Hey, bill you’re going to handle that load of research". That’s nice if people would do that but mostly people tend not to pay attention to the why question or wild success question or even to the brainstorming question. They just try to get organized and get moving on things and often times that doesn’t work.
Joey Bushnell: David thank you so much for answering my questions today. If someone follows the Getting Things Done methodology as a business owner, what do you think the result for them will be?
David Allen: A clear head, space to think and optimal energy to be able to put your focus where it needs to be with absolutely minimal distraction. It really allows people to flourish. It creates a condition that people flourish whether you are a musician, a CEO of a company, a baker or chef, it can help all of those people or a clergyman. It allows people to do what they love to do, what they want to do, what they find meaningful, to be able to really focus on that and to spend most of their time doing those things and get the world off their back.
Joey Bushnell: Brilliant. You’ve shared so much during this interview and talked about a lot of different things but I think for anyone to get the maximum benefit they need to go out and buy the book and read it.
David Allen: Even if you have the book and have read it, you need to read it again! About the 5th time you read it, you’ll start to really catch it. Believe me, it’s a different book every time you read it, for anybody who has gone back and read it again. But yes, it is a manual it is easy to get into as you know it’s a fairly simple model and it’s quite specific instructions.
Joey Bushnell: So where can we go to get the book?
David Allen: Well in the UK, Little Brown is the publisher, so you can get that at any online book stores, amazon so forth, they should have all 3 of my books.
Getting Things Done is probably the most tactical kind of manual for it. The last book Making it all work is a little wider and deeper about the same topics and my second book was just a collection of essays, it’s kind of fun a little more of the "zen of Getting Things Done" in that one. Any way that’s the place to go.
Joey Bushnell: Great and where can we go to find out more about you David? Do you have a website where people can read about you and your story?
David Allen: It’s davidco.com, yeah a lot of cool stuff there.
Joey Bushnell: Great. David thank you so much for coming on the show.
David Allen: My pleasure Joey
Ted Nicholas is without question one of the worlds greatest copywriters & marketers. He has sold over $8 Billion worth of products and services during his illustrious career.He is the author of many copywriting and marketing books including Magic words that bring you riches, The Golden Mailbox: How to Get Rich Direct Marketing Your Product, How to turn words into money and How to Publish a Book & Sell a Million Copies just to name a few
He is quite simply the best of the best & in this exclusive interview he spills the beans on some of his most closely guarded money making secrets which will help you get more customers.
In this short interview Ted reveals…
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The “Hidden Benefit” technique Ted uses to write multimillion dollar headlines
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1 powerful word which can make people willingly pay more money for your product (Clue: It begins with “D”)
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How to use transition phrases so your copy flows smoothly from one idea to the next
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A surprising method to test the readability of your copy
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2 words you must never include on your order form or you will lose many would-be sales
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How to construct the perfect order form
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An easy tactic to make people hurry to buy your product right now
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How to use discounts & bonuses to push hesitant readers into action
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The 2 typefaces you should use in your marketing materials for maximum results
Dawn McGruer M IDM AIBA has over 10 years experience in Digital & Social Media Marketing and has built her company, Business Consort – The Premier Networking Forum which hosts over 100 corporate networking events & training courses a year across the UK up to a subscribership of 2 million – Check out Dawn’s recent interview about Social Media For Business Profits filmed by The Telegraph Business Club at www.businessconsort.com.
In addition, Dawn’s courses are all accredited by The Chartered Institute of Marketing plus she also trains ‘The Digital Marketing Diploma’. As well as hosting a variety of speaking engagements in the business world and is regularly sought for comment on social media news stories by the press.”
In this short interview Dawn reveals…
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Why you can compete with the big companies because of Social Media
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How to never cold call again, by using Social Media to warm up your prospects before calling them
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3 reasons why every business must have a Social presence in 2014
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How to keep your audience totally glued to your updates
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The importance of starting off on the right foot when it comes to relationship marketing
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The formula to calculate how often you should be posting on your social networks
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Dawn’s recommended tool that will help you schedule your posts in advance & measure how engaged your audience truly are
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3 ninja tips for Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn
Richard Armstrong won the AWAI copywriter of the year award in 2012. He's been freelance copywriting for over 40 years so he knows a thing or two. In this interview Richard shares his copywriting and direct mail wisdom that he has gathered over the years.
Gillian Fox AKA The Copywriting Fox is one of the UK’s most sought after copywriters. She writes the copy for some the UK’s leading Gurus & her copy has been directly responsible for many hundreds of units sold & thousands of pounds generated for her clients.
In this interview I grill Gillian for all her best copywriting secrets including…
The 3 types of readers of your copy & how to sell to all of them The 6 types of bullet points that guarenteed to push your readers emotional hot buttons Her 10 power words which are proven to convert time & time again The easiest way to conquer “Blank page syndrome” The 1 secret which will massively increase your chances of converting someone into a buyer by preparing them before they even read your copy And much more!
Conversion optimization expert D Bnonn Tennant share 11 ways that you can maximize conversions on your website including colors, fonts, images, videos and more.
Infusionsoft expert Micah Mitchell has spent years training small businesses how to get super advanced automation and customization going within their business using Infusionsoft. In this episode he shares how to get the most from infusionsoft using tags, action sets, follow up sequences, plug-ins and more.
On this episode I share my biggest takeaways from the Traffic and Conversion Summit 2014, which was held last month in San Diego.
Online Marketing News 18th Dec - FB Video Ads, T&C Summit 2-for-1 Tickets, OptimizePress & LeadPages Updates, Gmail Image Serving, YouTube Live Events, Google + Ads, Twitter Promoted Accounts and Odesk/Elance Merger (and More)
David Deutsch is frequently referred to as one of the top direct response marketing consultants and copywriters in the USA. His copywriting has sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of his clients’ products and services.
David Deutsch is also the author of “Million Dollar Marketing Secrets” and “Think Inside the Box!” which isa critically acclaimed business creativity book that reveals a revolutionary new way to generate ideas
And that’s the topic of today’s interview. I discuss with David the creativity aspect of copywriting. If you have ever sat down to write copy, you will know that sometimes you don’t know where to begin, what angle to take or how to say it.
Luckily David has created an entire system that can help you come up with ideas “on tap”, just use the system and you’ll come up with fresh ideas.
In this interview we discuss this as it relates to copywriting and marketing although the system can be used in any aspect of your business or even your life
Sally Ormond is a freelance copywriter who helps businesses by producing copy that people want to read and also makes them want to buy. She does this by offering a whole range of copywriting services that include… SEO copywriting, web copy, brochures, emails, newsletters, blogs, reports, white papers, articles, case studies, press releases, scripts and more!
Using these methods she is able to help businesses sell much more than they would otherwise
In this interview I ask Sally for tips on how we can write in a more persuasive way as well going deep into the specific mediums such as web copy, press releases, newsletters, etc.
Traffic expert Jonathan Mizel reveals his top tips for traffic including PPC, PPV, Retargeting and more
Ray Edwards is a self confessed, direct mail junkie. The top gurus (and I do mean the top gurus) have turned to him to write some of their direct marketing pieces. These people include Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Robert Allen, Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, Rich Schefren, Mark Joyner and a whole bunch of other really huge names in the marketing and personal development fields.
Ray is also a talented speaker and the author of one of my favorite copywriting books “Writing Riches: Learn How to Boost Profits, Drive Sales and Master Your Financial Destiny With Results-Based Web Copy”
In my experience one of the biggest problems struggling internet marketers face is...
Trying to do it all alone.
It’s pretty much impossible for your business to grow past a certain point without getting some help, quite simply because you do not have enough hours in the day to do it all yourself.
You probably don’t have all the required skill sets either.
I know why people fall into this trap. Often people turn to internet marketing as a way to earn more money. Why? Because their broke and they want to learn how to make extra income, nothing wrong with that.
But this is where it starts to go wrong. During their search of trying to find a way to make money online, people will often fall for the lies of one of the gurus, who tell them it’s going to be easy. Because the guru knows their market is broke and desperate for money at that particular time in their life, they fail to mention the realistic costs involved of running a profitable, systematized business.
They forget to mention the work involved. Creating websites, learning marketing principles and actually getting good at it, driving traffic, getting leads, writing content, creating excellent products, split testing, running social media accounts, setting up tracking and analytics, creating funnels, webinars, emails, podcasts, guest blogs, videos, making sales, customer service... The list could go on and on.
My point is this. Online business is not some lazy way to make money, it’s a real business that requires time, expertise and effort, there are lot’s of moving parts if you really want to make it work.
With each new idea and project, the “to do list” gets bigger and bigger, and so does the overwhelm, stress and inevitably the disappointment. Most people give up.
It’s a sad tale but totally avoidable.
I promise you, that you can’t do it alone, unless you’re god or superman or you can somehow do amazing things that the rest of us can’t.
Take a look at any successful online marketer, they have help and support, a team of people behind them doing the work that needs to be done. They have webmasters, SEO people, personal assistants, graphic designers, you name it, they have it done by someone else, they aren’t the ones doing it. Many don’t even answer their own emails.
This of course is not feasible for the start up business, funds and resources are limited. I totally get that. So don’t go crazy with it, be smart.
My advice is to do the most affordable and highly leveraged thing...
Outsource overseas to skilled workers in the Philippines or India.
Take your most mundane, repetitive, time sucking tasks and give them to someone else. You would be surprised by how much work will taken off of your shoulders, giving you more time to do the most important, highly leveraged tasks only. If you live in the western world it’s cheap for you but it’s good money for people in developing countries who are ready, willing and waiting to work for you. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
I’m such a big believer in this that when consulting with clients, I make it part of my terms of working with them that they must be willing to get extra help because one man bands and solopreneurs take forever to see results, if they even make it that far. I know they will reach their goals 4 to 5 times faster doing it this way.
If you have been stuck in a rut and have been making very little progress, ask yourself, what daily tasks are you doing that you shouldn’t be? If there are some (and I bet there probably is) then do yourself the biggest favor ever and get some help, you won’t regret it.
Bob Bly is a freelance copywriter who has written copy for hundreds of clients including Network Solutions, ITT Fluid Technology, Medical Economics, Intuit, Business & Legal Reports, and Brooklyn Union Gas. Awards include a Gold Echo from the Direct Marketing Association, an IMMY from the Information Industry Association, two Southstar Awards, an American Corporate Identity Award of Excellence, the Standard of Excellence award from the Web Marketing Association, AWAI’s Copywriter of the Year, and ETR’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Marketing. He was voted one of the 50 most influential people in sales lead management by the Sales Lead Management Association.
Bob Bly is the author of more than 70 books including The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Direct Marketing (Alpha Books) and The Copywriter’s Handbook (Henry Holt & Co.)
Business growth and copywriting expert Robert Stover shares his "reverse engineer" formula for having exponential business growth, even if you have been struggling for a long time, there are hidden levers in your business that could lead to a massive breakthrough
Some of the worlds best copywriters are singing the praises of this guy, Kevin Rogers. Kevin went from stand up comic to copywriter, quickly building an esteemed reputation in the copywriting industry. In fact “John Carlton” says he is one of just a tiny handful of people that he would trust enough to write for him.
Kevin is behind some of Clickbanks (and the internet marketing worlds) biggest launches. And the reason they sold like crazy was because Kevin knows exactly how write sales letters, launch sequences and emails that make people want to buy
In this interview I ask Kevin for his best tips on how to write great copy as well as how to avoid some of the biggest mistakes that rookie copywriters make
Mitch Joel is the President of Twist Image, one of Canada’s leading digital marketing agencies. He is the author of “The six pixels of separation” which has become one of the most influential books on digital marketing strategy. He is also the author of the soon to be released “Control alt delete“.
Marketing Magazine dubbed Mitch Joel the “Rock Star of Digital Marketing” and called him, “one of North America’s leading digital visionaries.” He was awarded the highly prestigious Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, and most recently, Mitch was named one of iMedia’s 25 Internet Marketing Leaders and Innovators in the world.
In this interview I ask Mitch about some of the concepts in his book “The six pixels of separation” which can help us execute a digital marketing strategy that get’s results
Vin Montello is a TV script writer turned copywriter. He used to write for the hit kids show “The Rugrats” & many other popular shows. A few years ago Vin left Hollywood behind to go into marketing but he took his writing skills with him to create his own unique style of copywriting & emotional marketing that sells like crazy.
In this interview we dive deep into the human psyche. We discuss how selling to peoples emotions & to their human nature can help us make far more sales
There is no trickery or anything unethical involved. This is about connecting with your reader in a way that resonates with them.
Richard Bayan is the author of the hugely popular books copywriting and marketing reference books “Words that sell” and “More words that sell”. Copywriting legend Dan S. Kennedy has said that the book “Words that sell” is the most important, frequently used reference book a copywriter will ever own.
In this interview I ask Richard for specific examples of how to find the most suitable words that will have the most impact when someone reads our sales message.
Eileen Brown is the CEO at Amastra and Author of “Working The Crowd: Social Media Marketing for Business”. She also writes the Social Business column for ZDNet. She helps companies of many different sizes understand social media for business and develop a successful social media strategy that connects you with your customers, identify influencers, gain advocates and improve the overall perception of your brand online.
Today I thought I’d give a quick online marketing news round up, 5 things have caught my eye...
Firstly... LeadPages have announced today their latest product development which is LeadBoxes!
LeadBoxes allow you to create a clickable link that brings up a pop-up opt-in box. This link can be posted anywhere on the web so that someone can get on your list without even visiting a squeeze page or similar page, they can just opt-in where ever on the internet they happen to be. You could put this link within blog posts, the sidebar of your blog, on a guest blog that you wrote for someone else's blog, anywhere at all where you have the ability to paste HTML code. Pretty cool new feature, I’m certainly going to be testing it out over the coming weeks.
Second on my list... Today Twitter announced they are adding retargeting to their ad platform called Tailored Audiences.
Similar to Facebook retargeting which you can buy through the Facebook exchange, you can now buy this new type of ad through one of their 10 ad partners including adroll, chango and quantcast. This means that you’ll now be able to show promoted tweets to people who have previously visited your website or even reach new but targeted audiences using 3rd party data. For any media buyers listening, it’s definitely something you will want to check out.
Third... LinkedIn has in the last couple of days introduced Top Contributors for LinkedIn groups.
What this means is, any LinkedIn groups that you are a member of, you will be scored based on how much you contribute to the group with useful posts and comments. Everyone else in the group will be able to see how much you contribute to the group.
Many LinkedIn users already use interacting within LinkedIn groups as a strategy to get visibility and make an impact within their niche, I believe this new feature will assist in that strategy and encourage people to go check out the LinkedIn profile of that user. I think this will also stimulate activity and reactivate defunct groups as people try to gain that top contributor title. It will be interesting to see if Facebook deploy a feature like this in the future?
Fourth... A couple of weeks ago YouTube changed it’s commenting platform, now if you want to make a comment on YouTube you must sign up for a Google plus account. This isn’t optional, it’s forced and it’s upset a lot of people, who basically don’t want to join Google plus.
Personally, I think integration of YouTube and Google plus is a good thing but I do understand peoples frustrations that they have no choice over the matter, there is a huge petition to reverse the decision currently doing the rounds on the internet and we’ll have to wait and see if that makes any difference but for now, if you want to make comments on YouTube and interact with YouTube fully you need to go create your Google plus account if you haven’t done so already.
And finally... a big update was rolled on Pinterest over the last couple of weeks, place pins which means that you can now create pinterest boards using a map to integrate with your photos.
This is quite exciting for any marketers working in the travel industry, tourism, leisure or even just local businesses, basically any business that has relevancy to physical locations so if that’s you then get your creative ideas flowing and figure out how you tie in photos and images with place pins.
Oh and as a Pinterest side note, this is actually quite old news now, nearly two months old but I only just heard about it, Pinterest are soon to be rolling out promoted pins where advertisers can pay to have their pins have greater visibility in the Pinterest newsfeed. This is currently in beta and you can apply to be a beta tester over at business.pinterest.com/promoting-pins
That’s the end of today’s news round up, thanks for listening, I’ll catch you soon
Joe Sugarman is one of the all time greats of Marketing and advertising. Once named the “Mail Order Maverick” by The New York Times, Joe is a ground breaker in every sense of the word. His achievements in marketing innovation alone give him the right to be called a legend. He is the owner JS&A Group, Inc which is behind some of the biggest marketing campaigns in recent history.
He is also the author of many best selling books on the topic of direct marketing including Triggers: 30 Sales Tools you can use to Control the Mind of your Prospect to Motivate, Influence and Persuade, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters and Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write Powerful Advertising Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters and Mail Order Entrepreneurs to name just a few
Dave Kerpen is the co-founder and CEO of Likeable Media, an award-winning social media and word-of-mouth marketing firm.Dave is also the author of a New York Times Best Seller, is “Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook and other social networks.”
Dave’s company have managed over 250 accounts on Facebook and other social networks, for brands such as Verizon FiOS, 1-800 Flowers.com, Neutrogena, Uno Chicago Grill, The Pampered Chef, and Heineken.
Dave is also the author of a New York Times Best Seller, is “Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook and other social networks.”
He is also the author Likeable Business and Likeable Leadership.
Michel Fortin is the “Roger Bannister” of web copywriting. He wrote the copy for a John Reese product that was the first to sell 1 million dollars worth in one day. Not a bad accomplishment for any copywriters CV.
In this interview Michel reveals…
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The 3 laws of human nature and the 3 P’s of copywriting
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The OATH formula that will tell you exactly what your market thinks about your product (and therefore how to sell to them)
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The UPWORDS formula that will help you to connect with your reader
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The FORCEPS formula that will help you demonstrate overwhelming proof to your reader (even the most hard-nosed skeptic will have no choice but to believe you)
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The 3 deadly C’s of copywriting. You want to avoid these 3 mistakes at all costs
And more!
Jack Trout is the founder of Trout and Partners Ltd, one of the worlds leading marketing consulting firms. Jack is regarded as one of marketing’s foremost authors and thought leaders too.
He is the author and co-author of many popular books including… Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!, REPOSITIONING: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis, The Power Of Simplicity: A Management Guide to Cutting Through the Nonsense and Doing Things Right, Jack Trout on Strategy, Marketing Warfare, In Search of the Obvious: The Antidote for Today’s Marketing Mess, Big Brands Big Trouble: Lessons Learned the Hard Way, Bottom-up Marketing, A Genie’s Wisdom: A Fable of How a CEO Learned to Be a Marketing Genius, Stop the Presses: The Crisis and Litigation PR Desk Reference, The New Positioning: The Latest on the World’s #1 Business Strategy & Horse Sense: How to Pull Ahead on the Business Track
In this interview I question Jack on marketing strategy concepts such as positioning and differentiation
Trevor Crook (AKA Trevor “ToeCracker” Crook) is one of Australia’s top copywriters. He works with businesses all over the globe, writing them sales copy that pulls in millions of dollars.
In this interview Trevor tells me how he does it.
Yanik Silver is a serial entrepreneur who has built multiple successful online businesses and has bootstrapped 8 different product and service ideas hitting the million-dollar sales mark from scratch without funding, taking on debt or even having a real business plan.
He is the author of several best-selling marketing books and tools including “Moonlighting on the Internet“, “Maverick Startup”, “34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs” and “Instant Sales Letters“. Yanik is also the founder of the Underground Online Seminar and Maverick1000, a private group of top level, game-changing entrepreneurs.
As a self-described “adventure junkie,” Yanik Silver has found that his own life-changing experiences such as running with the bulls, bungee jumping, HALO skydiving, exotic car rallies and Zero-Gravity flights have not only expanded his limits but also led to breakthroughs in ideas, focus and business thinking.
In this interview I ask Yanik all about how we can also become adventurous, maverick business owners ourselves as well asking him for some of his best copywriting and marketing advice
Jonah Berger is the author of Contagious, a book that explores the phenomenon of going viral on the internet, in this interview Jonah shares the key elements to getting your content to get shared all over the web.
Dan Gallapoo (AKA Doberman Dan) is a direct response entrepreneur and copywriter. He is famous for his “Doberman Dan Letter“, an offline newsletter which is highly praised within copywriting/marketing circles. He’s also written hundreds of successful ads, sales letters, direct mail packages, websites, e-mail marketing campaigns, feature articles, press releases, and newsletters for his own businesses and his clients. In this interview Dan reveals his freelance copywriting wisdom such as how to charge high fees and select only the best copywriting clients
Dianna Huff is a B2B marketing consultant who has been helping B2B companies market themselves since 1986. Since then she has specialized in web based marketing tactics for business to business companies. Not only does she know the proven B2B marketing tactics that work, but she also has the real world knowledge and expertise to help you grow your business.
Dianna is an in demand speaker and trainer as well as being the recipient of many prestigious industry awards. She is also the author of several popular eBook publications.
In this interview I ask Dianna how B2B companies can use the internet to get themselves out there and land more business.
Bret Thomson is one of Australia’s highest paid/in demand copywriters & conversion strategists. Mal emery, Ari Galper, Spike Hummer, Jennie Armato and Jamie McIntyre are just a few of his big name copy clients.
He’s also a coach, speaker and bestselling author of “Client Rush:37 Proven Marketing Breakthroughs for Attracting More Clients Fast”
Bret is also well known as “The Big Idea Guy” because his ability to nail the big idea is admired by even the most seasoned marketers.
In this interview Bret reveals how he is able to conjure up incredible marketing ideas as well a ton of other tips which will help you increase your conversions
Robert Greene is the author of several books on pyscology and strategy including “The 48 Laws of Power”, “Mastery”, “The 50th Law”, “The Art of Seduction” and “The 33 Strategies of War”. In this interview I ask Robert how we can apply some of these strategies in business, marketing and our personal life too.
Neil Patel is exceptionally good at creating incredible content that goes viral all over the internet, drawing in massive traffic and getting ranked high in the search engines as a consequence. In this interview he shares his secrets.
Herschell Gordon Lewis is internationally recognized as a major authority in advertising and direct marketing. In fact his accomplishments have earned him recognition by being honored in the Direct Marketing Associations Hall of Fame. He is the author of over 31 books on the topic of direct marketing and copywriting. In this episode Herschell give some of best tips for writing outstanding copy.
Selling physical products online can often be overlooked by the online marketing gurus who teach nothing but info products. In this episode eCommerce expert Ezra Firestone shows us why selling "real" products can be one of the most profitable online business models.
Writing for the web is indeed a different beast to writing offline. Top web copywriter Nick Usborne shows us how to write powerful web copy and create a website that sells.
Colin is the leader of facebooks most popular copywriting group... The Cult of Copy. In this episode colin give us tips on how we can write better copy
Position yourself as the expert within your industry and you'll make far more money, Kane Minkus shares how
Andy Maslen is the managing director at the highly acclaimed, copywriting agency “Sunfish” and CEO of The Copywriting Academy. He is the author of 4 books… Write to Sell: The Ultimate Guide to Great Copywriting, The Copywriting Sourcebook: How to write better copy, faster – for everything from ads to websites, Write Copy Make Money, 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas). In this interview Andy talks with me about some of the copywriting strategies from "Write to sell"
Leadpages is an incredible software which will help you to create pages that will collect opt-ins and make sales like crazy. The software is so simple to use, no techie skills necessary. In this interview I interview Leadpages creator Clay Collins about how you can use this incredible tool to grow your online business. Go to http://leadpages.net/joseph to purchase leadpages
The Boron Letters is rated as one of the best direct marketing texts of recent history. It was written by direct response legend Gary Halbert to his son Bond. In this episode I interview Bond Halbert about marketing strategies from The Boron Letters
Owning the racecourse is an online marketing method perfected by James Schramko. He uses it to get 50 hot opt-ins per day and it's something anyone can do. It's traffic, content marketing and conversion all rolled into one.
Joe Vitale teaches us how we can write copy so powerful the reader is almost hypnotized by it by tuning in to the subconscious mind of your readers.
Persuasion is essential for marketing and sales. In this interview persuasion expert and author of the "Persuasion Skills Black Book" Rintu Basu shares his secrets
The online marketing related news - This week we'll be discussing 2 New LeadPages, Google Plus URLs & Help Outs, Skype API,Twitter on the Stock Market and Traffic & Conversion Summit
If you don't drive qualified traffic to your website, you'll make no sales. Traffic expert Justin Brooke shares how we can drive laser targeted visitors to our site (and lot's of them!)
Newsletter marketing is one of the best possible ways to increase the life time value of a customer. Many online marketers ignore it because it's not "online" but you should still have "offline newsletters" as part of your overall marketing mix, to assist your online stuff. In this episode I interview Jim Palmer (The Newsletter Guru) on how we can profit with newsletter marketing.
Charlie McDermott is the founder of the Business & Entrepreneur Network (BEN), helping small business owners put automated systems in place so that their businesses don't rule them, they rule their business
In this interview Charlie reveals the 7 stages of the perfect customer lifecycle so that we can increase sales, get more testimonials and build a huge legion of satisfied customers who refer us to their friends
Joey Bushnell: Hey everyone, this is Joey Bushnell, today I have with me a special guest Charlie Mcdermott. Charlie, thank you very much for being with me today.
Charlie McDermott: Absolutely, thank you for the invite.
Joey Bushnell: Let me tell you a little bit about Charlie and what he has done in the marketing world...
Speaker, author, and founder of the Business & Entrepreneur Network, Charlie McDermott helps small business owners clear the path to building valuable, scalable and… saleable businesses via automation and the creation of direct response marketing assets.
Charlie started his first business as a college student at West Chester University located in Pennsylvania, and grew it into an 8-figure health club empire. Twenty-two years later he sold that business to focus his marketing expertise on Hollywood where he used over twenty different forms of media to breakthrough the clutter and land his son acting roles in feature films and television shows including, The Office, Private Practice, Medium, and a full-time gig as Axl Heck on the hit ABC comedy, “The Middle”.
Today, Charlie works with hundreds of entrepreneurs every month online from as far away as Australia and via live events held in the Philadelphia, PA and Wilmington, DE areas.
Charlie, thank you for being on the call with me today.
Charlie McDermott: Thank you I’m excited.
Joey Bushnell: Today we’re going to be talking about how sometimes business owners are working too hard. We are going to be talking about how people can increase sales with automation.
My first question is... Why is automation critical to business growth, success and financial independence?
Charlie McDermott: Great question. I started this business and entrepreneur group “The Business Entrepreneur network”. I created a monster because I taught our students, about 200 small business owners and we do live events and other things too, but the problem is I taught them how to be great marketers.
You would think how that would be an awesome thing, however when you get really good at marketing, you build your business, get a lot of customers and if you aren’t set up properly you can get very busy.
For many business owners it becomes a vicious cycle of marketing the way the business comes in. It’s like go,go,go and serve,serve,serve then you’re absolutely exhausted and they wake up the next day and say “Oh my goodness sales are down” do it again, market go,go,go and it ends up burning these guys out in many cases. Even in the best case it’s just not a fun way to live because they end up working 7 days a week and missing out on family events.
So about 6 months into the start of this group a light bulb hit us and what enabled me to sell my health club business and spend 2 years with my son out in Hollywood and help him in his acting career was that I was able to build systems in my business and sell.
If you have a choice of owning Joe’s pizza shop or Joe’s in the shop flipping the dough and is at the cash register with the white powder on his hair and on his fingers. He’s serving up your pizza slice and locking up at night and the morning and even cleaning the floors.
Or would you rather have a McDonalds? I have yet to go to into a McDonalds and have the honor of finding Mr Donald in a McDonalds. They don’t need to be there. Those businesses are set up with systems, as we know, that frees the business owner up to do other things to enjoy life and have a predictable cash flow versus Joe’s pizza shop, it’s all in Joe’s head. When Joe decides to retire or move on or take his son to Hollywood, Joe is screwed because it’s all in his head.
Bringing back our Business and Entrepreneur network, marketing is very important and certainly you need to have a good product or service. But if don’t have good systems in place so you aren’t doing the same thing over and over again, spending way to much time doing manual stuff, stuff that costs in our area $10-$12 an hour, when you are worth $500 or more an hour, you are not going to be able to grow your business.
Joey Bushnell: You talk a lot about building a valuable business versus what you call an ABCYT business. Can you give our audience some direction on how to build a valuable business?
Charlie McDermott: For our members from the start, everything we do should be based on selling our business at some point. It’s OK if you don’t want to but sometimes things change. When I got my Health club business I was a college student and 23 years later my kids are teenagers and I wanted to do some things and it just made sense for me to sell my business at that point.
Without those systems in place you don't have a valuable business.
So Joe’s pizza shop is worth maybe $50,000, if he's got a good location or special recipe versus the McDonalds which is worth millions. The only difference is McDonalds has the systems in place, therefore that’s what you want to build a business that has the turn key operation possibilities.
The last thing you want to do is wake up in the middle of the night and say “Oh my goodness, if Joe gets hit by a bus or if Mary decides to leave or take maternity leave” all of a sudden as a business owner, many times our support people end up dumping their work on you. It traps you again from growing your business and that is not a valuable business.
The ABCYT is the “Always be chasing your tail” phenomenon that business owners do pretty much every day of the week. We get caught up in the fires, we end up doing things ourselves, no one else can do it as good as we can versus spending their time building the systems so the same thing happens over again consistently and you take as much of the human factor out of the equation as possible.
Joey Bushnell: What are the 3 gaping holes in the sales funnel?
Charlie McDermott: This starts evolving to taking the human piece out of the equation and especially in the areas where it is critical that we eliminate as much error as possible. When I say error it’s not that staff are screwing up, it’s that many times they forget, they get busy and stuff doesn’t happen when it should.
So when you look at a typical sales funnel you have your big top where people come on board. For an internet business they come in through the website, a retail store they are coming through the door and for other businesses they are coming through the phones. For many businesses they are coming through all of those areas and others.
Question number 1 is... Are we capitalizing on that traffic? Are folks coming to our websites, shopping, picking tyres and then leaving without giving information?
In my health club business, this goes back 8 years since I sold it, back then it cost us $350 to bring in a new sale. We had an army of sales folks and it would drive me crazy if I saw a prospect come through our doors and then 5 minutes later leave and then find out that they didn’t get their information. We have no way to follow up with that person and we either have to do expensive advertising to maybe get them back or just sit and wait. I didn’t like those options. So we made darn sure we had a system in place that captured that information.
The problem with most businesses and the difference between now and then is websites really weren’t that critical back then. Today a lot of folks start there. Especially in the bricks and mortar retail service businesses. They kind of get a feel for things then if they choose to visit, they’ll head to the store.
So if you are not capturing information on the website at the beginning of that funnel that is one of the 3 areas where you are missing the boat. That is a huge gaping hole. If you have 100 people at your website today and none of them give you information you’ve lost that big time. If people stop in the store and we’re not capturing information. Have something in place even if it’s only 10% or 5%, over the course of a year that’s a huge amount of dollars that could flow to your bottom line.
Then when we get those votes, who give us that information then what happens? If you are fortunate to have a sales staff, great, even if it’s yourself doing the sales you all probably have busy seasons. In my health club our busy season was January through to March/ April. People after the new years wanted to lose weight and had their goals and it was lousy weather so why not join a health club, it’s something to do. Then a few months later we slow down a bit.
What would happen with our sales staff during those months is they would become order takers instead of sales people. The difference between an order taker and a sales person is the order takers are sitting there waiting for the business to come in and hand them a check versus a sales person who is working their leads and prospecting.
What would happen in the first quarter of our business is a lot of the warm to cold leads wouldn’t get followed up on because my sales team was just living off the cream. People just walking in the door saying “Hey, sign me up, here’s my money”. The question there is, if I had to do it all over again, and we had 8-9 full time sales people, what if we could have automated all those warm to cold leads?
So there would have been follow up happening every single day or so many times a week and it didn’t involve our sales people, it was consistent and at the end of the week, 2 weeks, whatever the buying cycle is, we could bring them in as a sale and it wouldn’t cost us a nickel. Wouldn’t that be a great system?
I probably could have cut my sales staff in half or better yet keep them at 8 and let them do what they are good at which is sell. They spent probably 80-90% of their time on the phones and a lot of it was voicemail versus if we could free them up just to sell, our sales would have gone through the roof.
The businesses out there have the ability now where software is available to automate their sales and marketing so that they capture information when folks come on to the website. Then those prospects get what is called “Nurtured” along the way so you can identify those who are hot and want to buy today and we are going to pull them in as quickly as possible.
But it’s that bulk of folks who won’t buy for upwards of maybe a year or two. There are some statistics out there, Gartner research says 67% of prospective buyers that tell you no today, will be ready to buy in the next year. Unfortunately most businesses give up after a few days or weeks so they miss out on 67%. SiriusDecisions says 80% of leads you consider to be dead, will buy within the next 2 years. These are flat out dead leads that businesses give up on and 80% of those could become buyers. So another huge, huge hole there.
Joey Bushnell: Wow, definitely some food for thought there.
How can a business owner plug the holes that they currently have in their bucket and instead increase the sales, referrals and testimonials automatically?
Charlie McDermott: The best thing is to get us imperfect humans out of the equation as much as possible. One way is to have the systems in place obviously, and to have a program that leads a bread trail so you can lead your prospect from the beginning point to the end point, obviously being sales transaction.
The challenge is, where is the end point for a lot of businesses? If your buying cycle is a week, we’d all like it to be in 7 days but as we just heard in those statistics, it may take up to 2 years. So what if we had a system in place that went 2 years and beyond? You can do that, you can put that in place so you don’t miss sales.
Not to go crazy with statistics but here is one that will just blow everyone away. It was a question with my sales team because no one wants to be that stereotype pushy sales person who is trying to high pressure me, we have a lot of that in the health business industry.
Unfortunately that hurts businesses, they give up too soon and they miss out on the bulk of sales. 48% of businesses quit after the first call that’s almost half, 24% after the second and 90% quit after the 4th. So only 10% of businesses keep it going for 5 or more contacts. That is important because when you look at when these deals close 81% on or after the 5th contact. So 10% are tapping into the 81% that close.
The challenge is for business owners to stay front of mind, continually have a message and have those contacts without it costing them an arm and a leg. By doing things such as sending out emails but in an automated way so that you as an example have a “Thank you card” for some businesses as a way to say thanks for visiting. Then a series of emails that go out over weeks and months that continue to nurture that prospect and let them know that you are still there.
Occasionally give them an offer to bring them back in to see if you can close the sale. But to do it in a way that doesn’t involve a whole lot of time and energy is a huge advantage you have over your competition.
Joey Bushnell: I understand that one of the major services your company provides is business automation based on the 7 stages of the perfect customer lifestyle. Could you tell us about these 7 stages please?
Charlie McDermott: This is a way of looking at your business differently than most. The typical business is all about prospecting, bringing the traffic in, capturing that information, nurturing those prospects, converting them to print then what happens is they start all over again. They go back to generating traffic, bringing them in, negotiating, whatever that process is to closing the sales and starting over again.
The opportunity there, let me jump back to my health business again, 60-70% of our members, when I sold it we had about 12,000 members at the time, were referring new members to us. So most businesses have the ability to control that rather than just relying on “I give you a good job or product, you’ll tell your friends and family”. Unfortunately in this day an age with so much clutter and so much distraction that isn’t necessarily true.
What you want to do is put a system in place that reminds folks that you are there and you can help their friends and families and basically build referrals.
Going back to generating more traffic and closing more sales right after the last sale, the next step in the perfect customer life cycle is what we call the “Deliver and Wow” stage.
The wow stage is all about delivering the unexpected. So under promising and over delivering we’ve all heard that before. What if after someone purchases your product or service they got something in the mail or via email that was a digital download that didn’t cost you anything but was an extra added bonus that made them think “Wow these guys are really special”.
Every business out there battles with buyers remorse. I don’t care what product or service you are selling and certainly the more high end it is the more you are battling. This is also a great strategy to reduce that or eliminate that because now you are making these folks who were maybe thinking “Umm I don’t know if I made the right decision” then in the next day or the next hour there is something they get which was totally unexpected and totally takes their mind off “Did I make the right decision” to “Wow this is the right decision for me”.
So the wow sequence is exactly what is sounds like. It's all about wowing your customer and it’s an automated sequence that starts form the moment they purchase. As an example when someone purchases something on a website or in your store the actual purchase would trigger a thank you card or email that says “Hey, thanks for purchasing”. Then a series of events could happen over the next few days, weeks, months or even years to make them feel great abut their purchase.
Here is what happens in most businesses, that I just had an experience with last year, we decided to get our house painted. Joey have you ever had a house painted?
Joey Bushnell: I haven’t had one painted but I painted one before.
Charlie McDermott: Right so after you painted you know it’s good for life. That is what my painting contractor thought too. However 3-4 years into it I noticed the paint was peeling. Did you ever see that on a paint job?
Joey Bushnell: Yes
Charlie McDermott: You would think that these guys would contact their customers after a period of time and say “Hey your house may be in need of more paint, or if it’s not maybe you want to change the color of it”. So last year I decided it was time and I liked the guys who did our house last time, fair price, did a great job. I didn’t even want to shop I just wanted to get them here. Do you think I could remember who they were?
Joey Bushnell: Probably not, no.
Charlie McDermott: No I couldn’t, I looked, I couldn’t remember. They sent us nothing, no phone calls, emails, nothing. So I end up shopping around and finding another painting contractor and it’s a shame because I lost out, they certainly lost out on about a $3,000-$5,000 gig there.
That is the way it is with a lot of businesses they assume they’ll remember us, we did such a great job and sold such a great product. I don’t care if it’s 3 years, 3 months or 3 weeks even, folks today have a short memory because there is too much stuff going on.
The wow sequence should happen and continue for a long long time. Especially if you are in a business like the car, real estate or things of that nature, you are dependent on them coming back 5-7 years down the road, you don’t want them to forget about you.
Then there is the point where after the sale, folks are either happy or not happy. Wouldn’t you want to know if someone wasn’t satisfied with your product or service?
In most businesses the only time we find out is if they are really ticked off and you get a nasty letter phone call or whatever it is. Thank goodness so we can fix it but it’s probably the 80-20 rule there. 80% of folks who weren’t satisfied never tell us but they are telling their friends and everyone else and maybe even going on social media and so forth.
Today more than ever it's important to have a sequence in place even a simple email that goes out on an automated basis, let’s say 30 days after the purchase that says “We love having you as a customer, hopefully your product is going great for you doing everything it says and then some. By the way can you let us know if you are happy or not happy? Just click a yes or no button right here.”
The "yes button" saying they are happy, goes into a separate sequence and when I say sequence I mean a series of emails or it could be postcards, voicemail blasts or anything you can think of. The next email that comes out at a certain point in time could be “Now that we know you are happy maybe it's a good time to ask for a testimonial, or tell you about our referral program".
It would be kind of awkward to ask for a testimonial if they weren’t happy with the product or joining the referral program so they can blast it out to the whole universe. That is obviously important and good to know who is going to support you.
But more importantly it's the folks who aren’t happy. The second they click that no button, you could trigger an email that goes out to your PA or receptionist to make a call right away and connect with that person. Have an email that goes out at the same time saying “we are sorry we are going to do everything we can to fix it...”
I did this back in the day with my health club business but we didn’t have email, we found that our unhappy customers end up being our best supporters because we were able to fix things and listen to them which no other business was doing. So when we got them back to being happy they were the happiest customers ever.
So there’s a huge opportunity to have something in place not just for the obvious, you don’t want someone negatively talking about your business but the extreme positive that those guys and gals are going to be with you for life because you are one of the only businesses that listens to them.
So to summarize the 7 stages in this perfect customer lifecycle are...
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We want to attract the traffic
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We want to capture them as leads in our business whether it's with web forms on the website, phone calls and have those systems in place or if they come in to our business.
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We want to nurture them in the 3rd stage. Whether they are ready to buy today or 2 years from now there is some kind of a system in place that keeps my business front of mind.
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Then there is the convert the sales point, which is important. At some point we want to generate dollars from this group.
These next few stages are really critical and the ones that most businesses leave out.
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The deliver and wow
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The up sell customers stage there is huge opportunity there that most business forget to up sell and cross sell. Once a customer has bought your product, 30 days later they may be ideal candidate for your next product or service.
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Then the final stage number 7 is focusing on getting referrals. Referrals whether you have 60-70% like I did in my business or 10-20% you can still build that business and that’s the best kind of business you can get. One because it doesn’t cost you an extra nickel and we tend to listen to our friends and family members when purchasing something than an ad in the newspaper.
Joey Bushnell: Brilliant, Charlie that is some great information and thank you for letting us know the 7 stages that was very cool and I was taking a lot of notes while you were talking there.
Charlie, where can we get more of this stuff from you and how can we learn more about you and your programs?
Charlie McDermott: Yes there are 2 places... The business and entrepreneur network you can find at www.benresults.com Ben is the acronym for business and entrepreneur network and we branded it after Philadelphia's best known entrepreneur. You may know this guy, Benjamin is his first name and he is a big time inventor
Joey Bushnell: Benjamin Franklin?
Charlie McDermott: Yes you got it. In the states Ben is a $100 so we give away Ben’s at all of our events and have some fun there.
But our automation you is www.automationyou.com is our automation services where we help businesses automate their sales and marketing. We get them from working so hard, back to some sanity where their profits are significantly more then they were and they can maybe go on a vacation now and then.
Joey Bushnell: Charlie, we’ll put both of those links where people are watching it. I’d just like to say thank you for your time today and the great information that you have shared with us.
Charlie McDermott: Thank you for the offer Joey
Alexis Neely is known as "The Truth Telling Lawyer". She helps business owners grow their business by building on the correct foundations, which then allows them to grow the business as big as they like
In this interview I ask Alexis, how the typical online marketer can make sure they protect themselves when doing business online
If you are an online business owner but have never given a second thought to the legal side of things, make sure you listen to this interview as it could help you to stay out of trouble.
Alexis reveals...
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The legal agreements and advisers you should have in place to stay protected
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The disclaimers and policies you need to have present on your website
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How to make sure you don't break any spam laws when email marketing
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What you need to know about running an affiliate program and paying your affiliates
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What you should know about running contests and sweepstakes
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And more. Just listen to the interview or you can read the entire transcript below...
Joey Bushnell: Hi everyone, this is Joey Bushnell. Today I have with me a fantastic guest, her name is Alexis Neely.
Hi Alexis, thank you for being on the call with me today!
Alexis Neely: Hi Joey, it’s great to be here! Thanks for having me
Joey Bushnell: Alexis is a business and entrepreneurial strategist. Some people call her “The truth telling lawyer”.
We are going to be talking about how as online marketers, we can make sure that we have the legal side of our business prepared and everything in place and in order. So Alexis could you tell uslittle bit about how you got started in this industry?
Alexis Neely: This all really started for me when I went out on my own as a lawyer. I had graduated 1st in my class from Georgetown Law and started my career at one of the big law firms in the US it’s called Munger, Tolles and Olson. It was started by Charlie Munger who if you know Warren Buffet, he is Warren’s number 1 business adviser.
I went to that law firm because I thought that I would get to practice law in an advisory kind of way. However I quickly found out it wasn’t like that. Everything was about forms, documents and transactions. So I went out on my own knowing nothing about business. My husband was a stay at home dad taking care of our kids and I was the bread winner so I really had to make it work from the beginning.
I focused all my effort and energy on learning how to make money doing business like an entrepreneur. I became very successful, very quickly at that. I built my practice into a million dollar per year revenue generating business.
That was great except I didn’t know anything about legal, insurance, financial and tax parts of my business. Even though I was a lawyer. They didn’t teach us that in law school, they taught us about legal things from the perspective of big corporations. But I didn’t really think that applied to me as the owner of a practice. Ultimately what happened was, that lack of knowledge cost me more than $1million.
Joey Bushnell: Oh no, what happened?
Alexis Neely: A lot of things, I’ll just give you some of them. Starting with an unexpected 6 figure tax bill in the first year that I hit $1million of revenue. It really just came from not knowing the right questions to ask my CPA. I just didn’t know what I didn’t know. Even though I had a CPA and a book keeper, I wasn’t interacting with them in a way that could really help me and my business. Turns out, I could have cut that tax bill in half, if I had known the right questions to ask.
It just proceeded on from there. I ended up getting sued by an employee. I didn’t have the right insurance in place to fight the law suit. Even though I thought I was the best employer ever! I was so nice, caring, I didn’t make my employees keep track of any time or hours, just come in and leave when you want, just get the work done. I really thought I was the best but ultimately it turned out that employee was stealing from me so I fired her and she sued me.
I didn’t have the right insurance in place to fight that law suit nor did I have the right documentation in place and had to settle that law suit for a 5 figure settlement. I had to pay an attorney more than $10,000 to work with me on that. That was a big ugly investment.
It just went on from there. There were all sorts of things that happened in my business from not having the right financial systems, not having the right legal agreements in place.
Finally I sold my law practice in 2008 because I started on online training company, training lawyers on this new law business model that I had created. What I saw was, I very quickly grew that business into a million and a half dollars a year business. But once again I was making the exact same mistakes with the foundation. I didn’t have the right business model in place so the business was really dependent on me to work an excessive number of hours. I didn’t have the right agreements or financial system. So I was repeating the same mistakes again and I set out to learn everything I could about legal insurance, financial intact and business models for the micro business owner. For people like me and you who are not the big companies but are the small guys.
Once I did that, and I did about more than 100 hours of interviews with legal, insurance, financial and tax professionals. Once I did that, I knew I had to teach it to other people. I should say that I really didn’t want to, I was really resistant because I thought these things were boring and they were the things that no one wanted to focus on.
But I was part of a mastermind group with a whole bunch of women and they were all 7 figure business owners. What they said to me was “Alexis we need you to teach this to us. We are stuck in our businesses because we don’t have the right foundations in place.” Many of them didn’t even know what kind of insurance they should have.
So with their encouragement I created a program called “LIFT” and it stands for Legal, Insurance, Financial and Tax.
It teaches the micro business owner entrepreneur exactly what you need to have in place to have a foundation in your business that will allow your business to grow to wherever you want it to be.
I’ve been sharing that system with folks for the past few years now and people are benefiting from it hugely. Many of them say that it’s really better than an MBA. Especially if you have this kind of business, that is not a huge big business to business, it serves people, helps people and you want to make a difference in the world. There are certain things that you need to now for your type and size of business.
Joey Bushnell: Do you find that people have these things in place or is it a case of when trouble arises then suddenly they scramble around and try to get it sorted out but it’s too late?
Alexis Neely: Yes, it’s a combination. There are some people that just want to keep their heads buried in the sand and that was me. I wanted to keep my head buried in the sand, I didn’t want to think about any of this. In fact I thought thinking about it, would attract bad things to me.
If I asked for legal agreements or talked about legal agreements people wouldn’t like me or think I didn’t trust them and they wouldn’t want to do business with me. Then I thought If I got insurance I would be attracting bad things to me under the law of attraction.
Then with the financial systems I thought “I’ll just make more money. I don’t have to keep track of my money because very quickly, I’ll just make more. I’m really good at making money”. So there is a group of people like that who figure “Well, if something happens I’ll just make more money”.
Then there is a group of people who are very proactive, who want to take care of things upfront and make sure they’ve got the business foundation to support the size of the business that they are growing and to support the clients they have and work they are doing.
So it’s really a mix and I’m willing to meet people wherever they are. I had a friend come to me for help the other day, he actually had got himself in big trouble because he didn’t classify the people working for him properly. He called them independent contractors even though they were employees. Therefore he didn’t have workers comp insurance and he got charged with workers comp fraud. He had a $150,000 fine and he was facing criminal charges, misdemeanor and felony charges in California.
He called me and said “Alexis what do I do? How do I get out of this? Can you help me out?” and the answer was “No”. It was too late now, he had to face the consequences. No matter when you come to me, I’ll help you face what you have to face. But I can tell you this... it’s a lot easier to face it when you are not forced to face it. It's easier to face it when you do it by choice. When you do, those big crazy things like that don’t tend to happen.
Joey Bushnell: Absolutely, I totally agree Alexis. I got into business very young and I never thought about these things. To be honest with you it’s been a bit of an after thought. Luckily and fingers crossed I’ve not had anything too bad happen. But little things have happened here and there that have made me think.
Which is one of the reasons why I wanted to get in touch with you to do this interview because I think that possibly I’m not alone there. My audience perhaps maybe have the same feeling, it’s not something they’ve not really thought about too much.
I agree it's something that is much nicer to get it in place so we don’t find ourselves, like your friend did, where it it just too late for us. So a lot of the questions today are to do with internet marketing and online marketing.
The first things I wanted to ask you was for those of us doing business online, what are some ways that we might find ourselves getting in trouble with the law if we are over looking these types of things?
Alexis Neely: If you do business online you absolutely need to realize that you have a real business. Just saying “business online” doesn’t mean that you don’t need legal agreements in place. It also doesn’t mean that you need insurance and financial systems.
If your business is not incorporated, in the UK that will be different than the US, you don’t have a real business. Period. If you want a real business you incorporate your business. Once you incorporate it, you make sure you have a separate bank account, make sure you have a tax ID number, make sure you have legal agreements in place with everyone. That is really your biggest risk.
Your biggest risk right now is that you don’t have legal agreements in place with the people you are doing business with. I know people who don’t have legal agreements in place with their partners. You don’t have legal agreements in place with the people who are working for you. Most people will have legal agreements in place with people who are hiring them. That is the bare minimum that I do see. If you don’t have that you need that as well. That is not going to get you in trouble with the law per sé.
Your biggest risk with getting in trouble with the law is not characterizing your employees properly. You’re treating them as contractors when they are employees that is probably your biggest risk. In fact the cost of employing people generally whether as independent contractors or employees is your biggest risk overall. Especially when you don’t have legal agreements in place. That’s really what you need to be the most aware of because something is going to go wrong with those people. You think they are your friends and they like you and chances are that it’s not the case. You are only going to find that out when they are on their way out and now you’ve got a law suit against you.
Joey Bushnell: Sure so we need to make sure we have those legal agreements, just a quick one Alexis, in that situation when does an independent contractor become an employee? I know that might be a bit of a silly question but I know a lot of online marketers outsource to places like India and the Philippines, all of that still counts as independent contractors right?
Alexis Neely: That’s right yes, so when you are outsourcing overseas to India or Philippines you don’t have to worry about it. It’s when you’re hiring in the United states and you think because someone is working from home that they are not an employee.
In fact we are dealing with this right now ourselves, now we have people working for us full time from home and we are looking at turning them into employees because they are full time for us and that is exactly what makes them employees.
So what you need to be looking at is... Do you have someone who is really working for you full time, under your control? In which case, they are an employee not an independent contractor.
Joey Bushnell: And obviously an independent contractor would have their own business and they would deal with their own tax, is that right?
Alexis Neely: Exactly right. That is one way you can make sure someone is an independent contractor is by having an independent contractor agreement in place with them. That is really important if you do have independent contractors you need to have an independent contractor agreement in place. Ideally you pay them through their own business instead of paying them as an individual.
Joey Bushnell: My next question was to do with websites. Is there anything we need to have on our website to be complaint with the law? Things like disclaimers, privacy policies etc?
Alexis Neely: Yes absolutely, you need to have terms of service, a privacy policy, disclaimers, especially if you are a lawyer like me.
For example I can give you a disclaimer right now... Even though we are talking about legal things, I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice, it is for informational and educational purposes only and you should definitely seek the counsel of your own attorney to advise you on the specifics of your business.
That is a disclaimer.
If you are providing any legal or medical advice or anything that could be construed like that, you need to have the disclaimers.
Also if you are selling anything that has to do with making money then you need to have the earnings disclaimer on your website.
If you are selling anything as an affiliate you need to disclose that and make sure that it is indicated you are selling products as an affiliate and you are being compensated for your recommendations.
Joey Bushnell: How about email marketing is there anything that we should know about there?
Alexis Neely: The best thing you could know from an email marketing perspective is you could really understand the laws, it's the spam laws. So you know when are you spamming someone and when are you not.
They key of course is to make sure everyone that you are emailing opted in to your email list, that you have an unsubscribe link in all of your emails so they can easily unsubscribe if they want to.
One of the things that we are learning is to make it really easy to unsubscribe it really helps. Not just from a legal perspective, it’s just good business, it actually gets your emails more easily delivered. If people can’t easily unsubscribe and they report you to their ISP as a spammer that hurts your sender report, it makes it less likely that your emails will get delivered to the inbox of the people who really want it.
Joey Bushnell: So even from a marketing point of view, if you want to get good deliver-ability then you should be adhering to that, but also from a legal perspective as well. So a lot of reasons to stay on the right track with that one.
How about running an affiliate program? Lots of internet marketers have their own products and they have affiliates who help them make sales. Are there things we should know about that from a legal point of view?
Alexis Neely: I think the big thing for you to know, is you should customize your affiliate agreement. You need to stay in good communication with your affiliates you need to let them know how and when they are going to get paid.
Here’s a trick as a matter of fact, because you are going to need to 1099 all of your affiliates that make over $600 dollars with you in the US. That's big huge pain at the end of the year if you have not collected W9’s throughout the year.
So what you want to do is not send out any check to an affiliate that you do not have a W9 for. Get them to do their W9 at the time you send their check. Send them an email that says "Hey I have a check for you but I need you to do this W9" attach it, have it set up an echo sign or one of the online signing services so they can sign it and get it back to you very quickly.
Joey Bushnell: Brilliant thank you for that, that’s great. What about running contests or sweepstakes? From a legal stand point is there anything we should know there?
Alexis Neely: What I would do if you run contests or sweepstakes is I would look at a trusted site that run contests or sweepstake and see exactly what they are doing in terms of their disclaimers. This is if you don’t want to hire a lawyer to help you do it.
Now you are taking a risk there, that they didn’t do it right but if it is a really trusted, reputable company and you know they spent a lot of money hiring a lawyer and you want to run a contest or sweepstake and you want to see what they are doing take a look at their disclaimers and know that you are going to need something just like that.
Then of course if you are running it on something like Facebook there are going to be Facebook's own rules you have to comply with or your contest will be taken down. Which is different from the law. You have the law and then there’s Facebook. Facebook isn’t the law but if you are trying to run something on their platform then what they say goes even if it’s not what the law requires. So you really need to be aware of that, whatever it is.
Joey Bushnell: So if you do it on Facebook, you maybe won’t get in trouble with the law but you could get banned from Facebook which isn’t very nice either.
Does it matter what country we are in Alexis? For example I live in the UK and let’s say I violate one of the FTC’s laws, and the FTC is based in America, can they still take me to court? Can I still get in trouble?
Alexis Neely: You can still get in trouble, whether or not they can bring you here to enforce the trouble that you got in is a whole different question. But I don’t think you want to do something that keeps you coming to the US.
It’s not worth it to think “I’m over here, I’m just going to violate the laws of the FTC then I just won’t go to the US" because you might want to come to the US at some point. They could certainly seize bank accounts if you have any US bank accounts, it is possible they could even seize bank accounts overseas if there is a treaty with the place that you are in. If you got convicted of something here, they could seize your bank account wherever you are.
If you get sued civilly or criminally and you get charged with that and the jurisdiction is here in the US because you are doing business here you could potentially have to come here to fight that. They could put that judgement against you and you are going to have to deal with that if you ever want to come to the states.
Joey Bushnell: Yes, I don’t want any problems, I like coming to the states! But that was a very specific example of the UK and the USA.
Because all the countries have different laws around the world, do you see that one day there may be some kind of international law that applies to the internet or is that just not the case right now?
Alexis Neely: I don’t know, I don’t have the answer to that question, but I think a lot of it depends on where we go with all of the globalization. I imagine that there certainly will be as we become more global and we are all working with each other in various places and there is no barriers to us connecting, communicating, exchanging money and doing things. I would imagine it would become even more international.
Joey Bushnell: Yes, sorry to ask you an awkward question and I know that you wouldn’t have known the exact answer to that but it’s interesting to think about because I’ve always wondered how does it work, if I do something in the UK, do America's rules still apply. I guess it's best to adhere to everyone's rules to stay out of trouble!
Alexis Neely: Especially when it comes to money. That is really what we are talking about here. So lets say you are from some small town in the Ukraine and you have a website that you are selling something on and you violate the FTC rules, like you don’t have an earnings disclaimer for example. Is it ever going to be a problem for you? Possibly not, probably not, unless you get big enough in which case it could.
You don’t want to be banned from selling in the US. So why take that risk? Maybe you say “Well, I don’t care, if I do maybe I’ll just open up another ISP account and do it another way.” That’s fine, that’s not really the businesses that I work with.
The businesses I work with are the businesses that are focused on helping people making a difference in the world and doing what I call “The great work” and aren't just in it for the money. I find that someone who is just in it for the money maybe doesn’t care so much about having the right foundation in place because maybe for them it doesn’t matter as much.
Joey Bushnell: Is there anywhere we can go to read up about these laws, FTC guidelines and these types of things, do you have any recommended reading?
Alexis Neely: One of the places you can go is on our website eyeswideopenlife.com, you can get our recommended advisers guide if you are looking for help with some of these issues from advisers, through to those who specifically work in serving entrepreneurs with online businesses.
You can also get 3 free legal agreements on that site, one for affiliates, one for independent contractors and one as a non disclosure agreement.
Joey Bushnell: You mentioned there about advisers. What sort of advisers and professional services should we make sure we look into? Things such as lawyers, accountants etc where should we be looking to get things covered?
Alexis Neely: You are definitely going to want to have a lawyer that you trust working at your side if you are growing your business. That is going to be a lawyer who you can look to as more of a business adviser rather than just a document drafter.
You are also going to want to have an insurance adviser, someone who is helping you make sure you have the right insurance in place. You need business insurance, personal insurance and any life insurance. I go through all of that in my LIFT foundation system program.
You are also going to want to have a book keeper and possibly an outsourced CFO and definitely a tax adviser.
Your book keeper needs to be someone who’s not just entering data but is actually helping you create the reports that are necessary for you to analyze either by yourself or by your CFO to determine whether your business is on track to be able to grow to the degree you want it to be able to.
Then your tax adviser is someone you want to meet with a couple of times a year to be able to strategize on your taxes. That is going to save you a huge amount of taxes over the lifetime of your company if you strategize with the tax advisor twice a year.
Joey Bushnell: Cost wise is this something that small business owners will find affordable? Or is it something they are going to have to be expecting to pay a little bit out for?
Alexis Neely: You will have to expect to pay a little bit out but the way I look at it is, you always want to build your business to where you want to be, rather than from where you are now.
If you want a multimillion dollar business then you are going to be investing some money in setting up financial systems and getting business structures in place.
If you want one to just make a couple hundred dollars a year you could probably just do it yourself. The key is you want to make sure you know what you can do yourself, you get educated even if you will hire people to do it and know that you hire the right people.
I put together a system that makes all of that really easy. Number 1 getting educated so you get the know about what you don’t know. Some people have said my program is better than an MBA for the micro business owners like us because it’s very applicable to us.
Once you have been educated about what you need and don’t need, what you can do yourself and hire out, then we have created hiring guides. So when you are ready to hire people, you hire the right people who can do what you need.
We are giving you questions to ask those people before you hire them. So you’re not just calling them up and saying “Hi, how much do you cost?” Which is what a lot of people actually ask. But we give you questions to ask them that are going to really help you know is this person really the right one for you?
Then we have created implementation maps that guide you step by step through making the right decisions for and implementing the strategy whether you do it yourself or hire someone to do it.
Then we also have legal agreements, more than 20, so you don’t have to go out and hire an attorney every time you want to put in place a legal agreement, you can just use the template agreement to do it and learn how to go through the legal agreement process so you can do it yourself as well.
We have put all that into our system and that is one way you can learn how to do it and get it in place for less than a couple thousand dollars. Or you could invest tens of thousands of dollars hiring someone to do it or millions of dollars learning it the trial and error way, like I did.
Joey Bushnell: Yes, ultimately it will cost but it could cost you far more if you don’t do it, that is a good incentive for anyone.
I just want to thank you Alexis for doing this interview with me today. Can you tell us where we can get the LIFT program and where is your website where people can find out more about you and maybe stay in touch via social media or on your newsletter?
Alexis Neely: I would start with eyeswideopenlife.com that is where you will get legal agreements, resource advisers guide.
Then the other place to check us out where you can see a whole talk I did on this topic is at myliftfoundation.com. When you opt in I have a 60 minute talk I did that goes through everything about getting your lift foundation set up and will tell you more about where you can get the lift foundation system.
Joey Bushnell: Great, I encourage everyone to take advantage of that. Thank you so much for this interview and the offer that you have just given us to all of those great free templates and guides, it’s very useful indeed so thank you once again.
Alexis Neely: Of course! Thank you Joey
Disclaimer: This interview is not legal advice, it is for informational and educational purposes only and you should seek the counsel of your own attorney to advise you on the specifics of your business.
Continuity or recurring revenue is a great way to add predictable monthly income to your bottom line. In this episode Joseph Bushnell talks to the king of continuity Ryan Lee with membership sites, coaching programs, newsletters and other recurring revenue models.
Ryan Lee is an internet entrepreneur and the creator of some of internet marketing's most famous training programs and live events.
One of his hugely popular live events is... The Continuity Summit
In this interview Ryan shows how you can add continuity income (AKA recurring revenue) to your business model so that once you make a sale, you then get paid over and over again, with no extra work involved.
You can listen to the interview or you can read the entire transcript. Enjoy...
Joey Bushnell: Hey everyone, this is Joey Bushnell, today I have with me one of the worlds top online marketers, his name is Ryan Lee. Ryan thank you so much for being on the call with me today.
Ryan Lee: Joey it is my pleasure and I’m excited.
Joey Bushnell: Thank you! Ryan how did you get into online marketing?
Ryan Lee: That is a great question and the answer is I don’t really remember! It was back in 1998/1999 and at that time I was working in a children’s rehab hospital doing all the recreational therapy, aquatics and fitness programs. I had a personal training business on the side.
The internet was starting to become popular and I thought it would be good if I had a website to promote my personal training business. So I hired my 12 year old neighbor Jonathan and paid him $20-$25 and he helped me put my page up. I was using front page 98 at the time. That was it, that’s how it got started.
I was living at home in my parents basement and I started the site with just a bunch of training articles. I would train a lot of young athletes, I worked with hockey players, figure skaters, baseball players and soccer players. It was just a place for me to put articles for myself and my friends who were trying to get to see coaches and that was the beginning, that’s where it all started.
Joey Bushnell: Brilliant! So Ryan, as an internet entrepreneur, I know that you cover a lot of different topics of online marketing. One of those is continuity, I know you have a very famous event "The Continuity Summit" which you hold every so often. I’d like the focus of the call to be on continuity, is that alright?
Ryan Lee: Joey it is my pleasure.
Joey Bushnell: Great, so my first question is... If someone hasn’t heard the term "continuity" before, what is continuity and why is it a good idea?
Ryan Lee: Continuity in layman's terms is recurring revenue. Some people say annuity income, reoccurring revenue. Essentially it’s just money that comes in every month.
Now traditionally in the marketing world we do monthly billing so it’s like a membership site that charges $10, $20 a month or your shopping cart that you pay $20-$30 a year for, or your phone bill is continuity, your cable bill, electrical bill, gym memberships and health clubs that’s been really popular forever. For $10, $50 or $80 a month you can come to the gym as often as you want.
However continuity can be quarterly billing, every 6 months or yearly billing. There is a lot of ways you do could do continuity billing but that’s pretty much what it is. If you think about it, it really is the holy grail.
So Joey, name any topic, any niche or market anything, let’s see how nimble we can be on our feet?
Joey Bushnell: OK, Testosterone or how to increase your testosterone
Ryan Lee: Testosterone. So there’s two ways we can do it.
We can either do a physical product like a testosterone boosting supplement or we can do an information product teaching them how to naturally improve their testosterone.
You pick one, let’s see which way we are going to go with this.
Joey Bushnell: Let’s go with an info product.
Ryan Lee: So, 2 ways you can do it...
You can say... "I have this great system, I’m a personal trainer or a 60 year old male and I learned how to increase my own testosterone by doing this method".
You can either sell it as a one-time digital product. Let’s say it’s an eBook and you sell it for $20. You work really hard and follow all of the marketing strategies that I teach and all the people you interview teach, whether it’s facebook, pay-per-click ads, media buys or whatever and you sell 100 a month.
So month 1, you have $20 a sale X $100 sales, that's $2,000 gross. I’m not going to say net because I don’t know what you’d spend but let’s just use that number. It’s $2,000 you’ve made which is great. So you had a good month but now, come the first of the next month you’re back at zero and you have to repeat the process and work just as hard to get another 100 people. That is model 1 and that’s what a lot of people do.
However if you say, "I’m not going to create just one info product, I’m going to create the testosterone boosting inner circle. Where every month I’m going to interview a different expert about different ways to increase your testosterone". Maybe this months it’s a nutritionist and next month it’s a personal trainer and the month after that it’s a doctor. There’s different content and now you’re talking $20 a month.
If you’ve got those same 100 people, you got $2,000 for the first month but for the next month you’re still at $2,000. Whereas with option A, you’re at zero, now you’re at $2,000.
Let’s say you work as hard again and you get another 100 people and you’re now at $4,000 for the month. You get $2,000 from your existing customers and another $2,000 from you’re new subscribers versus the other way, if you worked as hard you have $2,000.
So with the same amount of effort your income can rise exponentially.
I’m not even talking about retention and all the other things that can happen along the way but that is really a general idea of the income potential. I personally won't touch a business now unless there is some kind of recurring revenue on the back end.
Here’s the thing too, psychologically it’s a shift, so if you are doing a content based continuity like a membership site, you get away from “I got to get more customers, more, more!” and you shift to “OK, now I have 200 people, I’m going to take care of them. Now I’m going to deliver incredible content and connect with them.” It’s a subtle shift but it’s so much better to do business that way, at least I feel it is.
I’m a huge fan and plus there is a saleability factor. Down the road if you want to exit, it’s a lot easier to sell a business saying “We have $30,000 in recurring revenue each month, are you interested in buying the business?” versus “Well, we had a good month last month but now we are back at zero.”
Joey Bushnell: So specifically Ryan, for online marketers, what types of products and services lend themselves well to the continuity model? We’ve already mentioned membership sites, are there any other options where we can get recurring income from it?
Ryan Lee: Absolutely, well there is the other side, if we want Testosterone the supplements, so there is physical products delivered every month. Now there are a couple of ways to do that.
Let’s say it’s a supplement, and again using testosterone, every month they are going to get a new supply and they will never run out and they don’t have to worry about going out to the store. Every month they are going to receive this same thing. Supplements lend themselves well to that. Or there is a popular site now called the dollar shave club so every month they are getting the same thing, they are getting more razors, so that is one model.
Another model which is becoming really popular now is more like a surprise when you don’t know what you’re going to get. Birch box is a great example of this. They have about 200,000 people paying $10 a month. Every month they get samples of health and beauty supplies. So there could be a sample of lipstick, moisturizing lotion and eyeliner. So it’s like a little surprise every month.
These used to be popular, the book of the month club, my friend signed me up for a beer of the month club or the wine of the month club. Then there is other physical stuff where it’s similar like DVD of the month. So you don’t know what the content is going to be but it’s the same format. Every month they get a new DVD with new trainings, or maybe it’s an audio CD or in a print newsletter. Those are more continuity models to look at.
There is software, the App on tap type thing, where it’s a service. Maybe it’s a web based shopping cart solution or an email auto responder solution. Or a software that let’s you do keyword search to see what other people have been using. There are so many opportunities in the software space. I’ve had one for over 10 years that helps personal trainers to create online fitness programs. Those tend to be the best.
Then like I said, there is a membership site and you take it to the next level, it’s higher priced coaching. I have a program now where it’s $5,000 and people have access to me through a private Facebook group. That is how it is delivered through Facebook.
There are lots and lots of options to create recurring revenue but I do believe that every business should have some kind of continuity program.
Joey Bushnell: Sure, I think you may have already answered my next question Ryan, I was going to ask what is the best way to offer high ticket continuity is. Would you say that the coaching and mastermind model is a good option for that?
Ryan Lee: Bigger ticket in general doesn’t necessarily mean more content. That is where people make a mistake. They assume “I’m going to charge them $200 a month so I have to give them 100 articles”. Which, it’s actually the opposite. Often, the more you charge the less you give.
I don’t mean less in terms of quality, you want to give higher quality but they usually pay for access to a person, coach, guru, an expert or something. So the higher up you go it tends to be less content but higher quality and better access to whoever this person is, that is the figure head of the company.
Joey Bushnell: My next question was around membership sites. Do you have any good tips for running a really good membership site, that is ideally, making us a lot of money?
Ryan Lee: Here is the overall thing, it’ a question you are going to have to ask yourself at the beginning and it’s a bit of a mind shift. This is what a lot of people do but instead of saying “What is the least amount of work and effort I have to do to create a $97 a month program?” That is the idea they come in with “How do I put it on auto pilot, how do I set it and forget it?”, “What is the least amount I have to give to charge $97?”
That’s one way but here’s what I recommend instead of saying that, you say to yourself “You know what I have this program that is $97 a month, how can I deliver so much value that my members feel like it’s worth $,1,000 a month and they become my biggest marketing source because they can’t wait to tell everybody.” That is the shift.
Now when you start thinking like that in terms of the latter, in terms of how much more can I deliver to them in terms of value, connecting and showing how much I care about them and their success. That is when people have real businesses not just a product at $17 a month and then it fades away after 3 months and then they have to start something new.
Everything has to be run through that filter so whether it’s going to be a surprise bonus webinar, an in person meet up, a free coaching call for everyone, or you just got a discount on this software so they only have to pay this much for it. Things such as that which people don’t expect that you are going above and beyond.
It’s the old saying, people don’t care how much you yell until they know how much you care. That is the key and if you truly treat them like your family and friends and show them that we are here for you, they’re not just there for you to fill your wallets with more cash, they’re going to be there in the long run. I’ve had people who have been paying members with me for over a decade because they know I care about them.
That is really the key, it doesn’t have to do with technology and upsells and look at this cool plugin. All of those bells and whistles are cool and they are great to add on but unless you have that base and you are building that real solid business, everything else doesn’t matter. Everyone gets it wrong and they focus on the bells and whistles, a cool button and all that crap that doesn’t matter unless you get the core right. That has been my mission to show that “Hey idiots, you’re focusing on the wrong stuff!”
When I first started in the fitness industry all my trainers who were the most successful now in the industry they get it. The ones who struggle are the ones who don’t get it.
Joey Bushnell: In terms of front end offers for things like membership sites and software Ryan, I’ve seen different ways to get people in the door.
Some people offer a free trial, some offer a dollar trial so it’s low price but they have given their credit card details. Some just offer the full price from the beginning.
Do you test different things or do you find that one of these approaches works better?
Ryan Lee: Yeah I’m always trying different things. It depends on your goal.
In general what I’ve seen across different markets is that if you are offering a trial, let’s say a dollar trial for 14 days which seems to work pretty well, again depending on how much content you have and what the model is you are going to get more people in to try. You are going to get some tyre-kickers but at the end of the day you’re going to get more people in. It’s always good if you can offer some type of trial.
What I’ve been doing lately is offering one year memberships to show that people come in and they’re committed as opposed to just monthly.
Those are two things but what I’ve done which doesn’t work quite as well is charge a sign up fee and then a monthly fee. Those tend not to work as well people don’t ant to have to pay more upfront, they want to try something and if they don’t like it after a couple of weeks they are out and they only lost a buck so it’s not a big deal.
Joey Bushnell: What’s your opinion of forced continuity? Is that fair game or slightly unethical in your book, Ryan?
Ryan Lee: It used to be the big thing then what happened was people became really sleazy with it. This was maybe 2 or 3 years ago, all the credit card processors started black listing all the marketers because they would sneak it in.
They would say “You’re going to get this free CD and your bonus number 1 is this info product, bonus number 2 is a coaching call and then in really small letters, bonus number 3 you’re going to get a free membership to my newsletter and then in small print, after the first month it’s only $97” and the people don’t even know that is the only time they mention it so people don’t know they are going in for recurring billing. That is bad.
If you are completely upfront about it and say “You can try this free CD because I’m offering it to you as an ethical bribe for you to try my $97 a month program.” If you are completely upfront about it then it’s fine. But you have to say it 3 or 4 times, put it near the checkout button, on the email and everything.
But I don’t like the term forced. If you think about it words mean a lot, so if someone forces you to do something how do you feel about that transaction? Not very good. “Join this program, Joey is going to force you in to pay” who the heck wants to do business with that guy?
I’ve done optional, I had one big launch where you were able to do a dollar to download this whole program and it would give you for $97 my newsletter however on the checkout you were able to remove that $97 a month. I had about 20% of the people just do the dollar for all the videos and then remove the $97 a month, which was fine because they were going to cancel anyway. Less customer support and less headaches. If you are going to go that route be completely upfront or at least make it an option.
Joey Bushnell: So how do we retain people for as long as possible?
Ryan Lee: That is really the big question. How do you? Because if you don’t have good retention, you don’t have a continuity program. If everyone stays for one month you basically just did a one-time deal, it’s not recurring revenue.
What I found that works well is curiosity, peaking their curiosity and teasing. The two most powerful words in recurring revenue and continuity income are “Coming Soon”. Telling them what is coming.
Using that testosterone example if someone is in a Testosterone boosting club and you say “Coming next week or next month we are going to do an interview with a doctor whose patient gained 17lbs of muscle in 3 days by eating this natural supplement. Stay tuned that is coming next month.” If you were thinking of canceling now you’re thinking "I’ve got to stay for another month I have to see what this is".
All the other things like using points, values and contests, all of that stuff helps a little bit. But I like to focus on the big stuff which is curiosity and getting them excited by what’s coming next.
Joey Bushnell: So in a membership site Ryan, do you like the model where people put all the information in there and anyone can access it at anytime or do you prefer the route of drip feeding the content with a set timer and whenever people enter no matter when they enter, it’s drip fed. Do you know what’s the best option there?
Ryan Lee: There are two things you are talking about because it depends if you are talking about evergreen content or content that is always updated. So when I say evergreen content and then is it a fixed term, so give me another topic Joey.
Joey Bushnell: OK let's go with what we know, let’s go with marketing funnels.
Ryan Lee: Let’s say it’s "how to get more traffic to your website" and let’s say it’s an evergreen topic that has an end date. So it’s a six month program and every week the are going to get a different video lesson. It’s $29.95 a month for 6 months so the first day they come in everyone is getting that first video I don’t care if you come today or 2 months from now everyone is getting video 1. So that is ever green and that is fixed content and that’s fine.
If you give it to them all at once they might get overwhelmed, however if it’s new stuff that’s coming on, let’s go a little bit deeper and say it’s all about "social media traffic". You know how it is, everyday something is changing. Everyday there’s a new rule on Facebook, Youtube or LinkedIn so it's always changing. You can’t have that same content, it’s got to always change.
So if someone comes in are they going to have access to everything that you’ve done in the past and now? Or are you just going to give them all of the latest stuff?
There are some people on one side who say just give them the new stuff and others who say give them everything. I still go back and forth. I see the value in giving them everything.
I like to put myself in my members shoes so let me ask you Joey, if there were 2 memberships about social media traffic and they were both $29.95 a month. One of them says come in and you don’t only get access to the latest stuff but you’ll get access to every single thing we’ve done in the past, that is option A.
Option B is it’s $29.95 a month and you get this newsletter, this update and all the latest ones but you don’t have access to the archives. Same price which one are you going to take?
Joey Bushnell: I’d take the first one.
Ryan Lee: So that’s the big thing we all struggle with. There is what’s best for the members and the member experience and what would you want? Then there is the business sense if you give it to them all at once are they going to get overwhelmed. Is it going to lead to more cancellations because they have access to 50 hours of training video and you add a new one and they just can’t keep up so they cancel.
It depends on where you want to go with it. I still don’t know the answer. Personally I like to put myself in the shoes of the clients and give more and if it’s too much, it’s too much, but I try not to overwhelm them I try to make it simple to consume.
Joey Bushnell: For membership sites do you have a membership site software that you recommend?
Ryan Lee: I’ve used member gate for a long time. I’ve been using wishlist lately and I’ve literally just signed up with a new software program 2 days ago but I don’t want to mention it yet because I want to test it before I fully recommend it. But it looks really cool and I literally was on the phone last night with the tech person going through it and there’s some really cool things. But I don’t want to say it yet until I’m fully in and decide if it’s really good or crap. So stay tuned.
Joey Bushnell: I know what you're referring to Ryan I bought it as well and I’m hoping it's going to be as good as it looks as well! (Sidenote: I can't speak for Ryan but I was referring to OptimizePress 2)
My final question was how can we make money on the back end? Assuming someone has been a customer of ours for a set period of time how can we monetize them further? Upsell them perhaps, maybe get them into a different program, do you have any tips for that?
Ryan Lee: There really is no specific tips it’s making sure you are delivering on the first things they buy. If you’re into memberships or you have some type of program to buy you have to make sure it’s a great experience for them because if not I don’t care how good your sales process is you are not going to sell them again. It’s like fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
You need to make sure, again without the risk of sounding repetitive, you’re now in it from the start. But with that being said, let’s assume you do and you are doing a good job, the beauty of that is you’ve already built trust and a relationship. It’s much easier to sell on the back end.
I did a video recently for selling an event, it was me sitting by the pool then 2 of my kids came into the middle of it during the video. They were playing ball and said “Oh Daddy what are you doing?” It almost doesn’t matter but I will say the big money will happen and the way you get to the next level is by creating more and more products and by being more prolific.
I’ve made the mistake in the past saying "I don’t want to offer too many products or feel like I’m always selling stuff" but if you are just giving them options by offering this program and that program then give people more chances to buy. They will buy what they want and they won’t buy what they don’t want and that’s fine. That was a little internal barrier I had to get over.
But the bottom line is create sales processes for the buyers that are honest and full of integrity. It could be as simple as you saying in a video “Hey it’s Joey, thanks for being one of my loyal members. It’s a great new program and it’s going to help you with this, this and this. If you are interested click the button below and if not that’s fine too". That’s it. You’ve already built trust, you've shown that you are here to help them and then the back end sales is easy but again be prolific and create a lot. That is my advice create a lot.
Joey Bushnell: Would you have a range of prices in there as well? Maybe someone comes in at low ticket, you deliver on that first thing. Then you try selling them to a medium ticket then a big ticket?
Ryan Lee: Yeah but it doesn’t have to be so linear, in other words I’ve had people come into my funnel at a free email, at $100 product, a $500 product and people come in at $2,000. They come to a $2,000 workshop and say this is the first time I’ve ever bought any of your products and it's a big investment right from the beginning.
That is why you have to be prolific and create a lot of different stuff because you just don’t know what is going to work. Something you might think of as a throw away program might fly off the shelves. Something you put 2 months into might just bomb. You can’t be afraid to fail, you have to put yourself out there.
Joey Bushnell: Brilliant, well thank you Ryan for taking time with me today and giving us some really great information. Hopefully everyone is really excited, if they have not tried it already to get some continuity going in their business. If they are already doing it then they have some tips to improve and make it better. Thank you so much for your time. Where can people find out more about you and get more of your great information?
Ryan Lee: The best way is probably my site Ryanlee.com, I have a free newsletter I put out, blog posts and content almost every day. Quality stuff I hope, I think a couple 100,000 people would agree!
Joey Bushnell: Great, I’ll put a link for everyone to go and check that out, Ryan thank you once again for taking this time out with me today.
Ryan Lee: My pleasure, thank you for having me.
Sam Carpenter is the author of the book Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less which outlines his simple methodology of making your life and business run smoothly and efficiently by getting systems in place.
If you are feeling trapped or overwhelmed inside of your own business, listen to this interview because it will change your life.
It will help you to stop procrastinating and instead get things get done quicker and with ruthless efficiency
You set up the system...
Then you work less, you make more money, you spend time doing what you want to do, not what you have to do.
You can listen to the interview or you can read the full transcript below...
Joey Bushnell: Hi everyone, this is Joey Bushnell, today I have with me a fantastic guest. He is the author of the world famous book “Work the System” his name is Sam Carpenter. Sam, thank you so much for being with me today.
Sam Carpenter: Glad to be here Joey, thanks.
Joey Bushnell: Sam, what is your book “Work the System” all about?
Sam Carpenter: Well, it’s about taking a business that is chaotic and turning it into a calm, peaceful and profitable organism. It is an organism one way or the other, there are systems working and processes happening.
The question is... Are those processes and systems being managed?
This is for the small to mid-sized business owner and they can take the book and it’s actually a step beyond Michael Gerber’s book “The E-Myth” in that it shows you just what to do. It’s not at all a copy of his book in the first instance but it does share the commonality of working on your business rather than in your business.
Any business owner without exception, unless they are crazy, would like their business to be independent of them so they can go on vacations, get sick and still be profitable and pretty much a money machine and a place you can go because you love to do, what you do and you love the people you work with, and it doesn’t demand that you be there 80 hours a week. So the book is about fixing that problem.
Joey Bushnell: How was it you came to write this book Sam? Where were you in your life, that prompted you that you had to write this book?
Sam Carpenter: I talk about it in the book, that my life history is one of chaos up to the age of 50 and I’m 63 now.
But at 50 I’d had this call center business. Just a regular nuts and bolts business where we take incoming emergency calls for doctors, funeral homes and half a dozen different vertical markets of business where you want a human being to answer the phone. We take the emergency call and pass them on to the appropriate emergency personnel for that particular business.
We have about 1,000 accounts and I have been running it since the age of 35, so for a decade and a half I have been running this business which is so error prone. Just here in the United States not to mention the UK and the rest of the world but here in the US we have about 2,000 competitors. Everyone of them is chaotic because every account is different, there is so much that can go wrong. It’s what I call a “Cauldron for chaos.”
At 15 years I was going to finally, absolutely, without question, miss a payroll. If I missed a payroll everyone would walk out. Despite myself, that business had then grown over that decade and a half about 6 times over. I think we were doing about $5,000 per month and we were up to $30,000-$35,000 a month. We had grown but it was killing me physically, financially. I was a single parent of 2 kids with just barely enough to survive. My physical health and mental health was going down hill and I was going to miss this payroll.
There is a chapter in my book called “Gun to the head enlightenment”, so I lay in bed one night and realized that I was going to absolutely lose the business and why don’t I just ask myself the question... "What did I do wrong in all this time?" I don't get an answer, I lay in bed awake I think, or sleeping, maybe half way in between and I got a vision of a table in front of me. All of the pieces of my business were laid out in front of me on top of the table.
There were two very important insights I got from that vision that night...
One was... The pieces were separate from each other, they were not connected. Even though I had this business called Centratel. Centratel is a collection of things that go on. These things that went on were separate from each other and they weren’t just objects in my dream, there were objects as processes.
What I realized that night was my business and my entire life, of course, we’re getting down to real mechanical reality, if my business is a certain way, probably my life is that way too. Every part of my life and business was not a big conglomeration of sights, sounds and events. But was actually a collection of independent systems and processes.
That was 13 years ago and that night I realized that my business was a collection of independent processes and the logical thing to do would be to pick the process out of the business that was the most problematic and fix it. Fix it with the documentation which came to me instantaneously, if I’m going to get them help me do things the right way, have them help me create the perfect way to do those things. I talk about this extensively in the book but what happened was, I went down to the office the next day and found a way to make the payroll.
Then we fixed the biggest problem first. Documented it, sorry, boring but true, on planet earth you have to document your processes if you ever want your business to grow and get out from being in the middle of it. Then we did the next process and the next then the next.
The key here was that I saw my business was not something that could be fixed by another loan, a consultant or the hand of God or I could take some magic pill that would get me to do everything right all of a sudden. What I needed to do was just take my business apart because mechanically that’s what it is, just a collection of parts. It’s a primary system that is a collection of sub-systems. Then take each sub-system apart, fix it and document it.
Most of our businesses are the same thing happening over and over again. What I call recurring systems and recurring processes. What we wanted was for every process to be executed perfectly or as close to perfect 100% of the time.
I asked myself that night, I can still feel my insecurity in this question... "What would happen if I could get all the pieces of my business to execute perfectly 100% of the time? Would I have a perfect business?" I honestly 13 years ago on that night didn’t know the answer to that question.
I’m here to tell you, if you have all the components of your business working perfectly and you have a direction, and that’s easy to establish if you have some goals, you will have a perfect business.
I was working 80-100 hours a week, now I work 2 hours a week. My gross and my net income is approximately 30 times what it use to be. So it's a great way to go and I highly recommend that everyone take a look at their lives and their business and see that they are truly a collection of separate processes.
Let me finish up by saying, when you see your business as a collection of separate processes, it get’s real easy to fix things if you are willing to fix the pieces one at a time. That is where I spend all of my time and the people we consult too. I have an international consulting operation, coaching, the book and an online product, it all goes back to being able to see the world as a collection of processes and then going after them one after the other. It’s not rocket science it’s just simple methodology that you do over and over again, and it works.
Joey Bushnell: Brilliant, we can see that it works Sam but for people who are small business owners like myself, what are the consequences of failing to get systems in place? What is likely to happen?
Sam Carpenter: What is absolutely likely to happen if you don’t get documents and systems in place, is you will never grow past a certain point. You can’t.
Now you’re an artist in a sense Joey, and I am too to a degree, and everyone reading this has a special talent that they do. But you’ve got to find a way to extricate yourself from the machinery of the every day world if you want to grow.
The way you do that, is work with your people, document things and train other people to do what you do. Now you need to do these interviews Joey and I have to do my writing and so forth but 99% of what everybody out there does, can be done by other people, even very creative things. So you’re going to limit your growth, you’re going to be in the middle of things all of the time, you’re going to go crazy, not have a personal life and ultimately you are not going to have much money because there’s a million other people out there doing the same things.
This is a bold thing to say but I’m confident that 9 out of 10 people reading this are in a little bit of chaos with what they do or a lot of chaos. 9 out of 10 small businesses are mismanaged in the sense that the owner is doing everything because they somehow think they have magical powers and they are the only one who can do it. They are not thinking about the processes.
Let me do one thing, if this was a video I would show this but I’ll try to illustrate it in everyone's head...
Imagine a flip chart as I’m talking and I’m going to write this on top of the flip chart. The number 1 on the left side with an arrow going over to the right to the number 2. Then an arrow going over to the number 3 and an arrow going over to the number 4. Then an equals sign on the right side and out of that the word “Result”. I’m only doing 4 steps but there could be 10,000 or only 2 steps. Usually there’s 10-50 steps in a typical business process.
Most people don’t realize the results over on the right hand side don’t have anything to do with their IQ, wonderful personality, their heroic willingness to work 80 hours a week, their smile, good looks or whatever. It has to do with the process.
That’s why people we know just aren’t that smart can have a lot of money and a lot of freedom. Or someone with a terrible personality has a lot of time, a lot of freedom and a lot of money. They are spending their time over in the 1-2-3-4 part working on the systems that equal the results.
Most people are over at the right hand side next to results. They are shuffling around the bad results of unmanaged systems, in other words the 1-2-3-4 part over on the left side of the equation.
So my insight that night and what I tell everybody no matter what forum I’m using, is you need to spend your time working the processes hence the title of the book. Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less. You need to spend your whole day over on the left side of the equation making the systems better and better.
If you do that, again there is a little bit of documentation at the beginning about direction, goals and how you make decisions and so forth, as long as you do that then you spend all of your time over working on the systems, the results will take care of themselves. Does that make sense?
Joey Bushnell: Makes absolute sense, I guess what you are saying there is there’s no respecter of persons here. Doesn’t matter if you’re clever with a lovely personality, basically if you are not getting these systems in place you're going to have a really hard time.
Sam Carpenter: If you don’t spend your time working the systems you’re never going to get the results you want. I’ll tell you what, Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey some of the big names everyone knows out there, that is what they are good at. They naturally know how to work their systems. They have other people do the documentation and so forth but they are finger pointers and implementers and they see precisely that they need to work on the processes and the systems of their lives to get the results they want. Then the results just come spontaneously.
I’m not a big one to measure "we want to do these many dollars next year in sales". I hear that all the time. You need a plan for how much you are going to make and where you’re going to be. That is nonsense. What you have to do is find the way to spend your time working on the processes, and those numbers will be there whatever they are. I’m not a big balance sheet kind of guy, I’m an income statement kind of a guy. As far as financials go I spend very little time looking at numbers. All I do is work on the processes.
At my call center here in Oregon USA, my processes have to do with people. Having short meetings with them, them coming to me and using me as a resource. My people create all of the processes, I don’t have to do any documentation anymore, I just make sure the machine is headed in the right direction and it doesn’t get off track, that is my job. So I spend 2 hours a week down here. I spend more than that in my office here but it’s just hanging out and bothering people most likely. Or doing an interview like this with you which has nothing to do with my call center.
Then I have 6 other businesses that are related to the book and I do a lot of creative stuff. I never do the same thing twice Joey. The closest thing I come to doing the same thing twice is an interview. As we talked about before the interview, I decline most of them and don’t do a lot of speaking engagements. I have other things I want to do that I’ve never done before that I want to do in a creative way. My whole day is one creative day and the people who work with me are that way too.
In fact let me interject a little advertisement, if people go to workthesystem.com down in the lower right hand corner on that front page is a little icon that says "Work The System Testimonials". Click on that, I’ve had some fun with that with my IT guy, I put it to music. But that will give you an idea in the change in life that a person can have if they start living in the processes rather than shuffling around the bad results of unseen processes. There’s hundreds of testimonials and they’ll all go down the same road I’ve been going down so far. This changes lives and gives a life a whole new trajectory upward of freedom and money.
Joey Bushnell: Brilliant, I’ll put mine on there as well Sam! I didn’t know that was there but I can say for myself that my life changed after reading the book as well. I used to get things outsourced but on a small scale. I’d try but was just in this small mindset of “I can’t afford to do it at that level and employ someone full time.” Thinking very small basically.
But I realized after reading the book what I needed to do and things really picked up when I started getting help and getting systems in place. Like you said, I think it's impossible to grow when you are trying to do it all on your own, it just can’t happen.
So my next question Sam was, in the book you talk about 3 stages of the “Work the system” method. Could you let us know what those 3 stages are please?
Sam Carpenter: Sure let me put those into a configuration that’s a little different then I’ve done before...
The first stage would be documentation. We have 3 documents one is a strategic objective, it’s all explained in the book, but that is what you do, how you do it and generally how you are going to get where you want to go, what you don’t want to get involved with and what your strengths are. That is a single type written page.
Then the second document is a series of items and at Centratel ours is called “The 30 principles” another term for that is guidelines for decision making. In other words when you are faced with what I call a grey area decision, you don’t really have a definite answer for it, how do you decide?
Well, these principles that I came up with and all these documents came to my head that night. These principles are how I believe the world mechanically works and what works best. I always use this illustration, one of the principles is to do it now, well a new employee comes in here and says “Why? I can do it next Thursday” we say “No, if you can do it now or next Thursday, do it now.” They ask “Why” and I say “That’s how we do things round here and I’m giving you money to do things the way we do them. But more importantly that is what works best.” Sam Carpenter believes that doing things now is a better way to go 9 out of 10 times.
We have another one which is “In the office no rats nests, literally or figuratively.” So no one has a cluttered desk and it’s clean. These things I believe that I have written down and have incorporated in here. So people who come to work here look at those and I ask “Do you agree with those pretty much?” If they do, great, we are good to go. I always say if you want to adjust any of these or add some talk to me, even with a strategic objective. So we have a directional document, we have guide lines for decision making and that’s were we spend most of our time with a consulting account for example.
We are working with a $50 million company right now and we are just finishing up our 6 month gig, we are done they are now on their own. What we have helped them with most of the time we were there, was this 3rd set of documents called working procedures. Most people call them SOPs, standard operation procedures, written documentation of the various processes, so everyone is on board. Guess what? In this very intensive documentation of working procedures we use a bottom up philosophy where the people who actually do the procedures and execute the procedures are the ones writing them up and making them work. Then you have total buy in.
Let me back up a bit, the first stage is really about getting this mindset. The second stage would then be about the documentation. The third stage would be about maintenance. So you get this tweak in your head that your life is a collection of systems then number 2 you do the documentation and then number 3 you maintain the processes and you spend all of your time in the processes. Those would be the 3 steps in the work the system process.
Joey Bushnell: Is it enough Sam to just have these in your head? Or what is the power of documenting these things?
Sam Carpenter: First of all there is the bottom up thing with your front line people and presuming you have a business with 2-4 people in it or more of course, is that you have your people completely bought in, it’s not a military top down like ”You are going to do these 10 steps on this process no matter what.” Guess what they’re not going to. They just won’t in most cases. But if they create those 10 steps then the manager authorizes them as being OK and everyone agrees they are going to be brutal about making sure those steps are followed.
I haven’t said this yet but always remember, that if someone is executing a documented process and they see a better way of doing step 5, for example, out of a 10 step process they can go back to the manager and the manager will immediately make that tweak. So the working procedure, the SLP is a living thing. It changes day to day, it’s not a military top down type thing.
So you’ve got your total buy in by your people and the other thing, you’ve got is everyone is doing things the same way. I go back to my little narration of my life's story, and that is, you want every process in your business executed perfectly 100% of the time.
I use the example of the front desk, so somebody is at the front desk answering incoming calls. A possible new clients calls in and asks to speak to the sales person about the service. Mary might answer the phone one way and if Mary is busy, John will answer the phone and he’ll answer it a different way. Maybe John’s got a hang over and when he answers it, he won’t answer it very well.
So what if you could get the phone answering at the front desk with potential clients, and our potential clients is a $16,000-$20,000 sale here, over a period of 6 years. What if you could have it answered perfectly every time a new person called in for a service? Do you think we would end up closing more deals? Oh yes we would! Then you do that through all of your business.
Centratel has about 400 different processes. We execute those processes as near perfectly as we can 100% of the time. That is why we have a huge margin, that’s why I can run 7 businesses instead of just this one. On this primary business, the one I wrote the book about I work 2 hours a week. It runs itself and everybody in here gets it.
So step one of getting it, is critical for the owner and the staff. There will be staff turnover as a company grows to find the correct people who do see things see things as separate systems. I’m a little bit nit picky about details and aren’t afraid of doing documentation, you’ve got to get the right people.
We do drug testing, we are ruthless with our drug testing. I get all kinds of arguments about that like “Well. it’s my life I’ll smoke dope if I want” Well, no you are part of the process here and we need you to be clear thinking. If you want to smoke dope go up to the sandwich shop up here and earn $7 an hour and make sandwiches. Or you can come here and earn $20 an hour and not smoke dope. Every element of our business has to do with perfecting our processes including everybody’s ability to think.
The result is we don’t have any turnover here, everyone is paid highly, we are just examining the processes all the time. It might sound militaristic but it’s not that at all, if you walk in my office it’s quite a fun place to be. Everybody likes being here, people have their ups and downs of course but there is very little turnover, there is no stress in the office and nobody works over 40 hours. We don’t have any of our middle managers working 80 hours a week no one works over 80 hours a week.
35-40 hours a week is the number one answering service in the United States with 2,000 competitors measured on a variety of very objective scales including profitability.It makes for a beautiful synchronized swing machine of a business and the owner doesn’t have to be there. What more could you want as a business owner?
Joey Bushnell: Absolutely. My next question was, why is delegation so important and do you have any advice to us for efficiently delegating tasks?
Sam Carpenter: The owner or manager of the business should think 3 words on every decision that is made as they convert their business to a work the system business to an efficient business. Can I with this task... automate it, delegate it or discard it all together?
Most tasks you can’t automate, some tasks you can discard so that leaves most of the tasks to be delegated to other people. I’ve already gone through how to make that happen efficiently, you need to document. For inventory you need to document your processes and delegate stuff away. That is what I have managed to do enough of. Looking down from 40,000 feet if I had to really summarize things, I have found a way to delegate my expertise downward so other people can do it so I don’t have to do it anymore.
Joey Bushnell: How can we make the most out of our own personal time?
Sam Carpenter: Let’s go back to step one of getting it. My book is three parts, coincidentally, the first part is “Getting it”. So what the readers can do right now is look around the room, the car or wherever they are and see the separate systems. That is the thing to do with your personal time right now, right this minute.
I’m looking around my room... there is a copier here, there is a monitor, a chair over there, there is a light switch on a wall and those are all separate from each other, they have nothing to do with each other. If someone walks in the front door here, it has nothing to do with someone answering the phone in the back room, they are separate.
Walking down the street there’s a tree, there is a fire hydrant, (if that is what they call them in the UK, you used to have phone booths the red metal and glass phone booths) but there are cars, a dog, power lines over the street. All of those things have nothing to do with each other. They exist in your world as separate. They’re all connected because you are seeing them at the same time but they are separate.
You go into your business and as soon as you can see the separate processes of your business the rest of it comes naturally. So if you are asking me what’s the best use of my time right now, that is what you can do. Download the book, read part 1, get the separateness and then it will all make sense, you almost don’t need the rest of my book once you get the separateness of your business and of your life.
That is a mechanical fact, we want to think we are all one and everything is connected. I’m sure on an atomic level we are but that is useless information. Once you can start segregating your life into the separate components that it is, you can start to fix them one after the other.
Ultimately your time will be spent working on those separate processes 100% percent of the time. Except for the fun part, Joey I know you like to interview people and I like to give interviews and I like to write. We do certain recurring things but 95% of our time should be on one time, creative system improvement tasks and system improvement is a great phrase to carry around. 12 inches in front of your face all day long. System improvement, system improvement that is where we should be spending our time.
Joey Bushnell: If we are doing this right Sam, like you said, you have a 2 hour work week which is the dream for most people. I guess the rest of the time you are enjoying yourself?
Sam Carpenter: I am. I have a friend who I am going to do some climbing with this afternoon. I had the decision this morning to drive my new car or my old beater, climber car as I call it. I took my climber car went out and had some coffee with another friend, now I’m doing this interview with you and remember you asked when I could fit this in and I said I don’t care, anytime with me and you picked the time, it didn’t matter to me. I saw a movie last night and I’ve got a date Friday, I can do whatever I want with my time and the things I want to do.
Here’s something, let me just mention it quickly because people find this interesting. So I’m a mountain climber and I have friends who want to be mountain guides. I have a friend who has climbed Mount Rainier, up here it’s a pretty tall peak in the cascades, 300 times because he loves to climb. I have to ask him, do you really enjoy this? Has it really got you anywhere? And there are amateur bicycle racers who say “I want to go to Tour De France. Maybe someday they’ll go but probably not. But then what? People have these things they love to do and they think they need to make it a vocation and that is a big mistake.
I love to mountain climb but I realized I can set up a machine to provide me all the time and money I want to go anywhere in the world and mountain climb on my own time and not drag somebody up there who has never been up the mountain before, that is not fun! It's not fun to work 6 hours a day on a bicycle saddle because you like to race bicycles. So I really caution people about narrowing their scope of what they can do with their lives to what they like to do.
There’s all kinds of interesting businesses out there and not just internet businesses, not just online stuff but all kinds of crazy little businesses, an answering service or even a restaurant that can be automated and made to be run their own. Then they become an ATM or a money machine then go ride your bike and climb your mountains or go watch movies all the time if that's what you want.
I really caution to people not to go down that road that seems to be in our culture, we should be able to do in our life what we love to do, you are just narrowing your prospects. There is all kinds of opportunity out there in business that can be fixed. I go back to what I said at the beginning, 9 out of 10 businesses are mismanaged.
9 out of 10 businesses have no bottom line and can be picked up for a song and a dance that is how I bought this call center for nothing at all. I think I paid $21,000 for it and $5,000 down back in late 1984. It’s a $5million business, it’s worth $5million and it has no debt, and I love it for that reason and I love it because I only work 2 hours a week, it's a money machine. There is all kinds of opportunity out there.
Joey Bushnell: And it’s all thanks to getting your systems in place. The first 50 Years of your life Sam, the freedom you now have, just wasn’t there. But now that you have the systems in place, you have the time and freedom to do what you want with your life, which is like I said for most people, it’s almost a paradigm shift that most people don’t think is possible but actually it can be when the systems are in place.
Sam Carpenter: There are a lot of people out there who are doing this and it has a lot to do with mechanics. It has nothing to do with emotion, your IQ, how good looking you are it has nothing to do with any of that, it has to do with the machinery which has no emotion or expectations, is it running efficiently or not? That is the question and it has nothing to do with if you are a good person, if you go to church everyday or anything like that. It has to do with... Is the machinery operating properly?
This comes down to our readers looking at their lives and saying "what mechanically works in your life and what mechanically happens?". If I go down to my car right now and turn the key will the motor of the car start? In all probability, it will. If I skip dinner tonight will I be hungry at 10pm, yes I will. There are certain things we know absolutely about our mechanical lives and that is what we go back to.
Emotion is fine but not in what I’m talking about, this all boils down to let’s get the mechanics correct in our lives and what we will find is the happiness and emotionally satisfying part will come along naturally afterwards.
You mentioned the word paradigm and the paradigm most people have is, "I have to do the right things, work hard, get the right education, have the right smile on my face and then all the good things will come". No, actually you have to get the machine fixed and operating properly.
It's amazing when you have a lot of time and money and you get to do creative stuff all day long and you get to do the stuff you want to all day long, guess what? You become a happier person.
You are helping the people around you, so I have this non profit in Pakistan in all places, that I just sent $1,000 over to the small school yesterday. I get huge satisfaction out of that and I’m able to help the people, the people who work here get double what they make anywhere else. That is the supreme satisfaction. I’ve got more money in the bank than I need honestly for my lifestyle. The satisfaction comes after fixing the machine.
Joey Bushnell: Brilliant. My next question is, sometimes as a small business owner we suffer from, or we do it to ourselves, procrastination. How can we beat procrastination?
Sam Carpenter: Let’s go through a typical scenario, the testimonials on the website. What those people did was they read a book, they got the concept of separate systems and then they applied it, and I try to be very careful about recommending this but if you are going to apply this methodology to your business, find a process that can be easily fixed and you can see results with straight away.
In a perfect place, say you have a business with 10 people in it, I know a lot of people out there are internet people and may only have one or two people but understand what I’m trying to say, if you had a business of 10 people, 3 people are answering the phone put them together and find out among you as the leader and the 3 people, the best way to answer the phone.
Write it down maybe in seven steps, step one pick up the phone, step two say "ABC company this is Janice" on to 3,4,5 through the whole process. Get everyone to do that every single time and you will notice an improvement in how your incoming people and their comportment will be happier.Then you take a little bigger process and maybe now you’re going after one that is really problematic.
I talk about very specifically in the book about one, how we went through and there were 53 steps. I never had to do the process again, my first 15 years I was spending 2 hours a week doing this process and I haven’t done it in 13 years. So I saved 2 hours a week for the last 13 years, do the math, it’s about a year of 40 hour work weeks. Now that process has been performed perfectly for 13 years as we tweak it and make it a little better every day.
So what you want to do in summary is find a couple of little processes that you can improve relatively quickly. This one process that I haven’t done in 13 years took us 8 hours of time fix. 8 hours of my time, maybe an hour of two other peoples time to help me put the process together.
You find something that is relatively easy to fix that will have some what of a dramatic impact and now you will not procrastinate. You will not procrastinate because the results are so awesome. Usually what procrastination is “No I can’t do this now, I don’t want to do this now because I have this fire to kill over here” that is really what people are saying. Or “I’ve got to recover from my 16 hour day yesterday.”
Pretty soon your hours of the day shorten up and procrastination disappears because you are not living a life of fire killing, there aren’t anymore fires to kill and you are down to a minimal amount of work per week and you are making a lot of money, you get excited and procrastination is just gone.
Joey Bushnell: I like the analogy in your book Sam of Whack-a-mole.
Sam Carpenter: Yeah, go to Google if you don’t know what whack-a-mole is and they’ll see it's just getting better and better at killing fires, but they will get you in the end.
Joey Bushnell: Yeah, a game you can’t win! So my last question is, should we be aiming for perfection or does that just hold us back?
Sam Carpenter: Yes we should be aiming for perfection however let me redefine perfection. Let’s say we are trying to create a process which has a lot of steps in it and it's 98% perfect, well subjectively what we call 95%-98% perfect. In order to get 100% perfect we are going to spend a huge amount of time to get that extra 5% or 2% to make it absolutely perfect, in this very subjective world so I would question if you could make any process working.
Perfect is getting it just about, almost perfect without wasting time making it too perfect. In a way I could answer your question by saying strive for perfection but know that if you get to 100% perfection in the colloquial sense or in a classical sense, you have probably spent too much time doing it and that in itself is imperfection.
We allow for mistakes around here, mistakes happen but we don’t get all bogged down in bureaucracy and going crazy with these processes trying to get them just perfect. That goes with everything, how you ride your bike, your marriage, how you take care of your dog. You need to be consistent and congruent but it doesn’t have to be perfect every minute or you turn in to this person we call a control freak. You don’t want to be that.
Joey Bushnell: So you apply a 98% rule to that Sam?
Sam Carpenter: I like 98% it feels about right to me. If you are in high school or college and you get 98% on an exam, you now you did damn well. You didn’t get it perfect but it was certainly well enough. Maybe getting 100% on every exam would make you a little weird.
Joey Bushnell: Sam, thank you so much for doing this interview with me today it’s been absolutely fantastic. For those who haven't read this and currently do not have the books, where can they get it because they need it, there is a lot more than just what we have spoken about.
Sam Carpenter: Workthesystem.com is the place to start. There is all kinds of resources take a look at the testimonials. Read the front page, there is a little video I do there, be sure to look at the FAQ’s. The FAQ’s sum up all that we have talked about today and I’m quite proud of those. I have tweaked those over several years and I think they are really good.
That website will lead over to the work the system academy website where we have an online program and then we do one on one consulting. We have some very large international clients and we have some very small clients we do a coaching to. So under the products and services tab people can look at that.
The second most important thing would be to follow directions. You can download the entire PDF of the book and the audio of the entire book as reported by me. I own the manuscript so that’s different from 99% of publishing deals I do have a legitimate publisher, it’s not self published. So we are able to do with it what we want. Interestingly I got a wire from a publishing company in china yesterday and it looks like we are going into china with the book now which is pretty cool.
Joey Bushnell: So people can go straight there and download the full version for free in either PDF or Audio?
Sam Carpenter: Yes, it is available in various companies in hard copy and it’s on amazon as hard copy and the website you can buy it as hard copy too. As a hard copy book it's a very nice book, it makes a great gift for someone who is working more than 80 hours a week.
Joey Bushnell: I’ll put links for everyone to click them and go download it, thank you that's an incredible offer. If applied it will change lives. Thank you once again Sam for spending time with me today and sharing this great information with us all.
Sam Carpenter: No problem Joey my pleasure, we love you Brits! Keep up the good work over there. Thanks Joey, take care.
Joey Bushnell: Thank you take care.
Glenn Bridges is one of the UK's leading experts on webinar marketing. In this interview Glenn shows us how we can make more sales using webinars including...
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Why Webinars can be used for any business type (even clothing, mattresses and cars have been sold via webinars, nothing is too obscure!)
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The best tool for running live webinars
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The best tool for running automated webinars
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5 tactics that can help double the amount of people who attend your webinar
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The 4 types of webinar follow up that can increase your webinar profits by 45%
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And much more! Just listen to interview or you can read the entire transcript below...
Joey Bushnell: Hello, welcome to The Online Marketing Show! I'm your host Joey Bushnell. Today's special guest is Glenn Bridges...
Glenn teaches direct response webinar and video marketing strategies. You can check him out over at videovanguards.com
Glenn, thank you for being on the show.
Glenn Bridges: Thank you for inviting me on Joey, it's a pleasure for us to speak. I've been following your interviews and the fantastic work you've been getting up to for a while now so I'm feeling very fortunate to be on the end of the phone this time and share some great stuff with your audience.
Joey Bushnell: Brilliant! It's a pleasure to have you on. You're into online marketing, webinar marketing, video marketing, please tell us how did you get into this industry?
Glenn Bridges: It's a good question, I'll give you the short version. It all started when I left college and decided I had two options... I could pursue a job or I could set up my own thing. The idea of the job seemed the most least appealing thing I could do. For my craziness, I ended up setting up a charity that works with young people and helping them get through challenges that I had growing up. I had a tough time in my childhood with a lot of problems that I'm sure people can relate to.
Along the way I realized that you can have the best product or service in the world, that changes lives in the most sincerest and powerful sense but if you don't have fantastic communication to communicate with people, what you can do for them, how you can help them and over come all their fears and concerns, then it doesn't matter how good what you do is, you're not going to get any real results for them because you're never going to do any work with them.
So I started to learn about marketing. I very naively believed in the beginning that I didn't need marketing and marketing was something that was not essential but I quickly turned my thinking round on that. Over the following years I became very interested in it, pursuing it and learning more about it and I realized how essential it was.
Since then I've just been on this quest to learn as much as I can do and to implement as much as I can and get better at what I think is one of the most important skills that anyone with a message needs to learn.
I ended up doing a variety of things... worked in a software company and had a big stake in that company and I stumbled across this amazing thing called webinars. We used that tool as a way to demonstrate and communicate our value with a specific target customer and ended up doing at one point, £1.5 million worth of sales just using webinars during the course of just over a year. It really started to get my attention and it made me think this is something that I need to connect to and learn more from.
Since then I've been in this mad pursuit of learning more, implementing more and helping more people with it. Specifically, one of the biggest transformations I've had happen using webinars is something I'm sure everyone can relate to. After leaving the company and leaving the business, after the way it was being run, I naively thought that "Hey I will go and do this myself. I'm sure I'll be successful at it because I'm doing well here, making sales and customers are happy". Only to have the shocking crash down of reality fall down right in front of me and realize it's actually a lot harder than that.
I spent a long time going through what I think most people are caught in, that trap of generating interest, nurturing that interest in prospects and finally getting them to sign up for my stuff and take me up on offers then deliver the work only to go through that pain of doing that again and again.
So going back to what I know worked really well, I started to implement webinars into what I was doing. That is when things really took off and my business transformed over night in a one 2 hour webinar that I ran to my audience, it really changed things. So that is how I got into it and I'm sure people listening will be able to relate to some elements of that story.
Joey Bushnell: OK, so why would you recommend that we would use webinars, what is so good about them?
Glenn Bridges: One of the things that I think is most important about webinars is, actually what I'll encourage you to do is to think very differently, let's not talk about webinars for a second, lets just talk about the idea of how you can communicate your message, offer, what it is you do and your value to many. Instead of going one to one, how you can do one to many?
Now, if you really want to be able to build a significant business that is scaleable and something you can grow predictably, you are going to need to have the systems and processes, if you're into marketing it's what we call marketing funnels, for a way that you can duplicate yourself and you can talk not one to one but one to many with a lot of people in one go.
Now it turns out for my business and for a lot of people listening to this, if you are a service based business, if you are in the information and advice business whether it's coaching, training or consulting, there is an immediate fit for you to use webinars. I've worked with people who have physical products, digital products a whole bunch of stuff in business to business, business to consumer who have got great results from webinars.
However the webinar is just one tool you can use to communicate your value to a group of many people all in one go. I want people to think "How can I accomplish the same thing if I don't have that?" Some people use that through events, some people use that through really good direct response marketing, you can use it through video or a bunch of other stuff.
The reason I love webinars particularly, so much, is I really love the power of them because how you can build a relationship with people in 90 minutes and do that on mass with a big group of people.
The typical style of webinar is, it is very much based on content and giving really good information. I'm a pretty generous guy, if you bumped into me in Starbucks and had some questions for me, if I had the time I would stop and give you the time of day and the information you were after. I really like the fact that I can be that generous with a big group of people and I've got the conversion model locked into my business, where I can pretty much guarantee the more information I give away, the more I'm going to sell. So for me that is one of the most powerful methods.
Most people have heard that webinars are a really powerful way of getting conversions because if you compared the conversions you can get on a webinar versus selling over the phone, writing to people via direct mail or all the different methods you could use, webinars is going to be one of those powerful tools you can use.
But for me personally it's a great way that I can sincerely connect with people,give away great information and for the people that want to work with me I can also offer that service. So there's loads of benefits but that for me is one reason why I love it and why I encourage more people to take them up and do something with them.
Joey Bushnell: You mentioned digital products and physical products, typically, specifically, what sort of stuff have you sold on webinars and what type of businesses do webinars work for?
Glenn Bridges: That's a really great question and the answer is... you can pretty much sell anything on a webinar.
I encourage you to be very careful with this. I was with a clothing company, one of my business partners has a clothing company and you can use a webinar for something even as standard as every day as clothing. How would you do that? It's about finding the right content angle.
So let's go with this as an extreme example to show you... Let's say someone says "I can't do a webinar because I'm not selling a digital product, information or advice." What I have just set out for a particular company is how they can use a series of webinars focused on talking to men about how they can improve their style. So it's going to be about how you can work out what your colors are, how to style yourself properly to "woo" the opposite sex. They have a whole series of webinars, a campaign of webinars all focused on different areas of men's style and men's grooming.
Now for their particular type of customer and their target market that is something that is really relevant to their audience, so you just need to find a content angle. That's an extreme example, I'm just using to get you thinking differently about webinars and not just think it's a certain type of people.
However, typically the people who it is easiest to work with is like I said, if you are a service based business where you offer any type of service where you can educate people about what it is you do, working with you and if you have a particular result they are looking to achieve, how you can do that. So service based businesses like a trainer, anything like that or if you have digital products or software.
But again it's not just limited to that. We did a webinar campaign for a luxury car company, you might be familiar with them, Aston Martin. We did it as a live stream so they showed a car in action then they invited people on that webinar to attend a race track day where you would get to drive it and find out more about it. They sent that out to their 100 best customers and they used that as a way to funnel people to that event then at the event of course you could have the opportunity to buy that car. So you can use it for absolutely anything you just need to find the content angle.
Being honest with you, there are certain businesses that are easier to do and others you need to be a bit more creativity but it can be used for any business and I'm still stretching those boundaries.
The most obscure, I've seen a webinar done which has worked, is with a mattress company! The webinar was called "How to make the best of a third of your life" because we spend a third of our lives sleeping so they give some advice on that. Then said part of that was having a good mattress, we've got a great mattress so off you go.
So if you have a really obscure business and are looking to do it, let's have a conversation and let's see how we can really stretch the boundaries of webinars.
Joey Bushnell: That is awesome man, I've never ever heard of someone selling Aston Martins and mattresses via a webinar so that's really outside the box stuff. So Glenn you've convinced me that I should be using webinars, so what sort of tools and technology do we need to do a webinar?
Glenn Bridges: That's a very good question, but I'm just going to play devils advocate and say that the tools, technology and medium are things that very easy to use once you've had a few goes with them and it's pretty standard. I have this belief that with good marketing, technology is about 10% of that or maybe less and 90% of it is good psychology. That is something I hear Joe Polish talk about all the time and it really makes sense to me.
So I want to answer that question, I'm just going to say to anyone that is thinking about it, please don't get hung up on what equipment to use or what to do because this stuff is so easy to pick up. It's important but it's not as important as the bigger questions of what you are going to content and what you are going to offer people and how you are going to get that but I know we will come to that.
So I do want to answer your question as it is a question people want to answers to and of course you've got burning there Joey, so... for my live webinars, I use GoToWebinar.
It's a bit more expensive than other software out there. However I'm going to encourage you to use that better equipment and better tool because you never want to get into a situation, where you've got a big audience on a webinar and you are excited, you are going to give lots of great content and you might be making an offer at the end of it.
You've got everyone there and you don't want to upset your audience or someone else's audience and the only thing that lets you down is the software. I'm happy to beat myself up about it if I've done a bad performance but I'm not happy if it's something out of my control and I can't do that. So I'm going to say spend a little bit more on GoToWebinar and if you get the conversion model, opt-in right, the ROI on what you pay for GoToWebinar will be minuscule in comparison to that.
Is it easy to use? Yes. It will take a bit of time, like anything, to get familiar with, however I come from the belief that if you can answer email and send attached files and use Facebook and LinkedIn, which most people can do, then it's not too much to use GoToWebinar.
A quick tip I will give you is... one of the things I do, if I'm working with someone on how to use webinars in their business or I'm working with someone who is on their first time, what I will do is encourage them to have someone else answer the commenting questions for them or I'll do it if I'm there with them. This is because I like to take the performance pressure off of someone when they are just starting out. I'm not going to paint this pretty picture that it's going to be the most amazing experience getting started. It's a bit like when you lose your virginity you have this massive build up and then it's like "Is that it?". I bet you didn't think you were going to have that analogy used on your interview today did you Joey?
Joey Bushnell: No, I didn't think I would!
Glenn Bridges: So you're going to have all of these things going round in your head. You can be worried about what you are going to say, what are people going to think, will people show up, will they stay and if I make an offer will people take me up on it? All of these things will be buzzing round your head and the last thing you need to be worried about is the little details of the settings.
So generally I would encourage you have someone to help you out, that you can have cover the comments and questions and look at the technology for the first couple of times you do it. Then what you will find is after a couple of times you will be more than confident and competent in managing the questions, technology, presenting your content, interacting with people and anything that may go on or happen.
So that is my best bit of advice for anyone on the tools and technology side of things. Use GoToWebinar, have some one help you out and you will be rocking and rolling in no time.
Joey Bushnell: You mentioned that was for live webinars Glenn, do you do automated webinars at all?
Glenn Bridges: Yes I do, I'm going to encourage people to start with live webinars. Everyone has this dream fantasy of this idea of "Hey, I'll just use automated webinars, I don't have to be there and people can watch my stuff". Automated webinars are fantastic, it's a big portion of my companies revenue and just this week we've rolled out for one of our clients their first automated webinar program and it started bringing in sales within hours of it rolling, which is fantastic. However that success with that client only came after running about 4 or 5 live webinars.
The thing I found is... if you don't know how to interact, engage and present content to an audience when you are live, when you go to do it recorded and you're doing it in an automated fashion, the content and the energy won't come across because you've not learned that skill of how to engage people.
A client of mine insisted on doing automated webinars. I couldn't get him to do live webinars. I kept beating him up on it and I got really frustrated with him because he was paying me a good amount of money to help him and he just wouldn't take my advice. It's no surprise then and it came to me that it took him 10 webinars until he made a single sale and he was insistent on going on and changing the webinar every single time. I said to him "Look, run a live webinar get that working then go and automate it". The first time he did that - boom! Sales out the door.
So I'm going to say... do automated webinars but don't run before you can walk. Start with a live.
If you want to know what technology I use it's a platform called Stealth Seminar. I'm very familiar with the owner Geoff, I'm not an affiliate of his stuff but I do forgo my commissions to get people introduced to Geoff and get them a slightly discounted rate. So If you would like an introduction, I'm more than happy to help you out there.
But Stealth Seminar for me is the most amazing platform because the support is incredible. I've had webinars where I have said to the support team "Hey, there is a change I would like to be made to this registration page or on a certain page in it, something in the funnel." I would usually expect to pay several hundred pounds to a designer or to a coder to do that but they implemented that change in minutes for free. The team were incredible people and that's all included in the price of your webinar software.
Geoff Ronning the guy who created it is a really good sport and really kind guy. He knows his stuff with webinars, so from the very get go all the settings that you would stress over like when should I have follow up step, when should I have this time set up, Jeff has already done the hard work for you. So if you took Stealth Seminar out of the box it will work for you.
There are a couple of things I would recommend doing and if you are at a stage in your business where you are doing that, please reach out to me and I can give you some tips and tools on fine tuning it. But use GoToWebinar for live stuff and Stealth Seminar for automated stuff. You can use Stealth Seminar for both however, I just prefer to have that as my set up Joey.
Joey Bushnell: I've heard you talk in the past about 3 webinar profit activators, do you mind telling us a bit about that?
Glenn Bridges: Yes of course Joey, so I deliver a training sometimes by webinar and sometimes to a live audience. It's based on this idea that there are 3 core ways to trigger profits through a webinar in your business. It is also the 3 most common places people will have a profit pit fall. In other words there is leaking facets in their funnel which means they won't make any money from webinars. Now there are more but these are the 3 most common.
First of all let me give you 2 scenarios... first case scenario is "I want to run a webinar" they might decide that they want to run an offer off that webinar, they might decide not to. They might decide give some great content, follow up with people, maybe offer a consultation at the end of it or maybe just build their audience.
It could be any one of those things but when people decide they want to run an offer what they will do is promote the hell out of that webinar. They will shove emails, message and everything that you could imagine down that persons throat until the point where they get on it. Then on the webinar, typically it's this long boring story about them and how they have gone from rags to riches. Then maybe give a few little bits of content, they promise this massive amount of stuff you are going to learn then they gave a few bits of content and say "Hey, if you really want to get this then get this product." I'm not in the fashion of doing that, it's not my style. I think that sort of stuff does work because people do make money doing it but it's kind of a one trick pony, you can do it once but after a while it wears thin.
So what I decided from working with my clients in my programs, I realized there were 3 main challenges that people face and where, in my opinion, it maybe doesn't go wrong but there is a classier way of doing things.
So the first profit activator... you want to focus on is getting attendance not registrations. Most people in their marketing messages will say to you "Hey come register for this webinar." Wherever you are promoting your webinar, it could be by email, social media or in person, I've worked with telemarketing services who have done that, it could be by direct mail, whatever you are using, give people a reason to attend and use the language "Register and attend this webinar, when you attend this webinar, once you are on this webinar you will learn this," then really start sewing that seed of a reason why.
Just address the concern immediately that "I know it's difficult to attend this webinar, I know you have all of this other stuff going on, however I think it's really important because of this..." and give people a good reason why.
That is the first way you can do things and if you focus on attendance, from first of all, communicating to people that they need to attend and not just register, then give them a really good reason. That is a massive way for you to unlock more profits because you are just going to get more people on to your webinar to offer your products and services to. There are lots of small things you can do and optimize.
One of the things that we test a lot of is our registration pages and how we can get the maximum number of registrations. Through my clients I'm typically working with people who can drive say a few hundred people to a webinar, not thousands or tens of thousands. We hear in the marketing industry people doing webinars with 1000 people or a lot more than that. In reality most of my clients are only going to work with a few hundred people. I'm really guerrilla I like to look at how the small tweaks make a massive difference.
You will want to start split testing your webinar registration pages and look to get as maximum a conversion as you can do. Some of our best converting webinar registration pages get between 50-70% of people signing up which is fantastic. So just by focusing on getting a maximum attendance as you can do and do all the little guerrilla like tweaks you can, that will mean you can get more profit from your webinar. If you are only able to increase your attendance by 10% that s going to have a significant impact on the revenue you are going to do.
I was going to go on to the other two Joey but I feel you might have a question about that?
Joey Bushnell: Yes, what did that mean in terms of numbers Glenn? Do you know what the difference was? For example let's say 50% of people who registered actually turn up, is that good or bad in your eyes? Or do you think we should be aiming for a lot higher than that?
Glenn Bridges: Yes that is a very good question and it's one of those questions that there is no specific answer to. I'll give you some of the results that I've had and what I would look for.
So you are going to hear a lot of people tell you 30% is great, if you can get 30% that's fantastic. That is a disappointing day for me, if I can't get 50% of people turn up, I'm having a bad day and that is not good. Typically 60% of people is high for me. I've had a few occasions where I have gone a lot higher than that, however that is the exception and not the rule. I'm disappointed if I can't get myself or help someone else get to a point where they can get to 50%. That should be pretty doable with the right communication up and before doing that.
Joey Bushnell: What were the numbers like when you first started? Did you go from 30% up to 60%? Basically by applying these techniques did you double your attendance rates?
Glenn Bridges: Yes, I started off with around 35-40% I think, specifically I think it was 37-38% if I can recall that number stuck out, as I did have a webinar calculator and I was trying to work out predictably what sort of revenue I could expect.
So I started between the 30-40% mark and what has been able to drive up the attendance rate has been the quality of the communication I've had with people before hand. Whether it was by email, social media I typically use a lot of email, just giving people really good reasons to attend and really speaking to their pains and focusing on 3 things... Focusing on open rate of those emails, click through rates and registration rate of that webinar page.
So when we have a brand new fresh list and we are offering a webinar to them we are going to get very high open rates say 30-40% and higher. I know some people say that's low but the industry I work in that's pretty good. Then focusing on getting click through rates I'd say 10-12% for that by using shorter form emails. Then when we get to the registration page just constantly split testing.
If you want a really good tool to use for that we are currently using lead pages it has a built in split testing tool, the deigns are really good and it's working really well. So how does that answer your question Joey?
Joey Bushnell: Yes very good, it's a third more people showing up so it is a very measurable difference. If you have a third more people to pitch to there is a good chance you are going to get a third more sales. So big, big reasons to not ignore this advice, it's very important. It could be the difference between a successful webinar or not, that is some great advice Glenn.
OK, so my next question - When people are signing up, what are you doing after that? Let's say that they have now registered, what goes on between the sign up and the webinar? What else do they see from you and what else do you communicate to them in between?
Glenn Bridges: It's very dependent on the webinar so to make things easier for people, you take a white board or piece of paper and you draw two lines down the page so you have it broken into 3 different sections... The first part you put in before unit, the second section during and the final part is after, this is something I garnered from the amazing Dean Jackson, who in my mind is one of the greatest living direct response marketers of all time. You can check him out at ilovemarketing.com. He is a wonderful guy, got great information and worth checking out. He gave me this idea of thinking in 3 stages.
If you look at what we have discussed so far and profit activator number 1, we are really talking about getting registrations. The next thing of course is we need to get attendance. That is something I talked about in terms of the email copy but what has happened when somebody has made the first conversion and registered for that webinar. Again it's dependent on your webinar. With some people we will send them through some videos and build some rapport with them.
If we are using cold traffic so if someone had sign up through a Facebook ad or a source of traffic where they don't know, like or trust us yet, what we will do is look to give more information before they sign up for the webinar and more information after they have signed up for the webinar.
It would be a bit like me and you Joey, having never met, me walking up to you in a bar or restaurant and saying "Hey Joey, I know we've never met but would you like to spend the next 90 minutes with me talking about how great I am?" You just wouldn't do that. This is sounding a bit bromantic, sorry about that! But maybe I get your number we chat for a while, we might have a few more conversations,then we would decide if we were going to learn about each others businesses. I put that line in about businesses so it didn't sound quite as I came off at the start!
You want to do the same with webinars, you don't want to be like "Hey you've never met me before, come and spend 90 minutes with me". You can do that to a certain element because if the promise of your content is so good people are going to sign up for it, having never heard from you. But if you want to build the relationship, optimized for their attendance and building a great relationship with them and making sales, then you want to invest in that relationship so they know you, they've got some great information from you, they've got that good will already.
What I would encourage you to do is, by all means do send out emails after they have signed up, we even send out SMS integration saying "Hey, just a quick reminder we have a webinar tonight", anything you can do to build that relationship is good.
However I will say that with when it's to mine own audience or to or an audience who that is really familiar with me. I really don't put too much effort in to doing a big campaign to those people, getting them to know me. It won't really drastically affect things too much, in fact you could find it could have a detrimental affect because people are bombarded by stuff and they already know you. So you need to do more work on cold traffic than warm traffic you can afford to not put so much effort in to the relationship building process at that stage.
Joey Bushnell: That is cool and I love the text message tips because I have had that experience myself, where I've missed webinars in the past that I've signed up for, which I've was very interested in at the time but when the day came around I didn't check my inbox, I missed the reminder emails and I missed the webinar.
But I've had it in the past where someone has sent me an SMS an hour before and it gave me that reminder I needed to get on the webinar and I attended, so that is a really cool tip.
Glenn Bridges: We had a webinar we did back in the summer during the Olympics and I very egotistically thought my content was so good that it would pull people away from the Olympics which was a big mistake.
I had my email list imported in an SMS file, when I was talking to people at the start of the webinar, I sent a text just a standard text on my phone saying "Hey, the webinar is just beginning". At that point I had not many people on the webinar about 80 people and it jumped to 150 in the course of 10 minutes as people thought "Oh crap, I forgot about this and jumped on it". So it really does work and it's a very fast way of getting people on it and it's very inexpensive to do, so just do it!
Joey Bushnell: Awesome man, so just by sending that text it doubled the amount of people that showed up that is a really great tip. We've covered profit activator number one getting attendees not registrants, so what is profit activator number 2?
Glenn Bridges: Number 2 is about compelling and motivating people with your offer, if you choose to make an offer. There's a bit of a discussion on this, some people are like "I just want to offer some information and then people will find out about me" or "I want to offer some information and I won't offer an offer at the end of it". Now it's OK to just do a webinar to build your audience of fans and build a relationship with people, I call it a good will webinar. I really do enjoy doing those.
But listen up, most people have got a hang up about sales. They have a hang up about being sold to or selling to someone and I just want to give my 10 cents on it. You are not being Mother Teresa by not offering people a product or a service, if you believe that they could use that product or service and could do with your help.
Let's say someone wants to get a certain result, they want to get from A to B. But you've shown them how to get half way there or you've given them information that could lead them directly in the opposite direction without information, advice or your help, whatever form or medium that comes in, you are actually doing them a disservice in doing that.
I would really encourage you to put aside your own hang ups about offering a product on a webinar. You can do it in a classy, cool way where you can say "Hey, if you need some help with this I'd be delighted in doing so, this is how it can work in doing that." So if that is something you decide to do, which I would encourage you to do in most situations, your focus needs to be on profit activator number 2, how can you compel and motivate people with your content, message and offer?
So this is a much bigger conversation that we can have today, however I would like to give some advice and pointers on that. What I would encourage people to do is focus on two things... First of all focus on, of course, giving great value. Most people have come to this assumption that the more content I give away, the less I'm going to encourage people to work with me. That is absolutely not the case.
If you've ever had an experience where you've given away so much information and you have not managed to convert that person into a customer or into a client, it was not down to how much great information you gave. It was down to the fact that you didn't really build the need for your product or service. In other words, you didn't show people just how much this can help them and really solve their problems.
Let me give you an example... one of my clients is a personal trainer, actually that's an insult, he is one of the top body transformation experts in the UK and he has a program which he charges £10,000 for. We did a webinar and he was talking about the 5 bicep building exercises everyone needed to use to put on 1 inch of muscle in 30 days. Now if you're interested in going to the gym and building muscle that is a compelling argument for you to stay on a webinar.
He gave away all great content and of course he had a product to offer at the end, he wanted to offer a DVD set with training on all of these different exercises. At the end of it what he turned around and said was "Look these exercises are fantastic they will really help you out and you will put on a lot more muscle, however I need to be frank with you. If you don't get your nutrition down you are going to spend a lot of time in the gym with very little gain. In fact you could work all the time you wanted in the Gym but if you don't know how to feed your muscles you will never put on that inch of muscle, let alone any inch of muscle. Which is why I have this training for you on what you need to eat, how you need to eat it as well as all the other exercises".
Now that is an ethical stand point because if my client had just decided to send them off into the distance with all of this information, naively and without all of the right resources. They could easily spend the time and money going through the disappointment of never getting any results.
Instead by saying "Look this is something you need to do and it is something that can help you, here it is". So I encourage you to really look at how you can give great value, build the need and most importantly, how you can really energize and engage the audience.
You can't have an audience of passive people on the end of a webinar. They can't just be sat there twiddling their thumbs, checking Facebook while you're doing it, you need to keep it really engaged. So use lots of questions, really interact with your audience and that will help them to really engage with you and what you've got to say and ultimately that will result in more people taking you up on your offer.
Joey Bushnell: OK, so what is profit activator number 3?
Glenn Bridges: So number 3 separates the boys from the men. Sorry to be sexist I'm sure there are lovely ladies listening so it also separates the girls from the women! So if we come back to a typical situation from someone running a webinar, what they will want to do is promote their webinar, run their webinar, hope for some sales, have some sales go through then say "Great, fantastic! I'll stop that and do it again next week". That is a really naive way of looking at things.
A more sophisticated way of looking at things is looking at the follow up. Now how many times have you heard ad nauseam, that the fortune is in the follow up? We have heard this time and time again, I'm sure you've heard this a million times too. This is no more true than on a webinar. There are 4 types of follow up that I like to do...
Now If you can't do all of these in the beginning because it's a bit sophisticated, I realize I've got systems and I've done this a few times, I know what I'm doing there, just use a basic follow up. Let me give you the creme de la creme and you can decide which is best for you.
I do a 4 part follow up. I do a follow up to the people who didn't attend my webinar, a follow up for people who didn't buy anything from my webinar, a follow up for people who didn't stay to the end of my webinar, as a 3 main part follow up, I'll tell you about the 4th in a minute but let's go through the 3 first...
For those who didn't attend my webinar... I'm going to write to them and say sorry you missed my webinar, here is the next date you can catch it and here is where you can sign up to do that. That works great and you will find that is the easiest low hanging fruit. Don't take it personally if people don't turn up to your webinar, some people just have life happen, that happens all the time.
I have one example of a follow up sequence for customers that didn't attend and one lady, who I didn't know who she was at the time but I just emailed her saying "Hey, sorry you missed the webinar, here is where you can get it again." I wrote to her 3 times and each time she wrote back to me and said "Hey, Glenn I'm sorry this thing happened with my mum I'm sorry I missed it." So I said just being generally concerned "Oh I'm sorry to hear that, how is your mum, what's happened?" I got into just a little bit of dialogue, this kept happening and I thought she's never going to watch this webinar. I thought that's fine but she was interacting with me and I liked having a bit of interaction with her.
Anyway, the 5th time the email went out, it was a 5 part follow up sequence, she managed to get a webinar and she attended it and a week later, I had this influx of sales for a webinar at a time of day I didn't normally get sales through, it just doesn't happen that time of day. I wrote to each of these customers saying thank you so much, how did you hear about us?
It turns out the lady I followed up with, had an email list, not very big but it was very responsive. She emailed them saying "this Glenn Bridges guy, you need to check him out not only is his content fantastic but he makes a massive effort of following up with me and did such a good process I can tell that he really cared about me, go and check it out".
Now she hadn't told me that, I found out through new customers. So of course I jump on the phone to her and say "Thank you so much for doing that, it's really wonderful" and she was just really impressed with my follow up process. Things like that will happen for you. I can't guarantee that customers will start promoting your stuff for you but I can guarantee people will like it. So in the interest of time let me just rattle off the other follow ups, so that was for the people that didn't attend.
Of course, the people that didn't buy that's an immediate opportunity for you to follow up and offer people another bite at the apple. Some people just don't like webinars and they won't buy on a webinar. They are in the minority but some people won't, so by recapping the offer or adding in a few more bonuses that can really push people over the edge and drive them to that sale.
Then next follow up I do with people is, people who didn't stay on a webinar, so for whatever reason, they left. Some people leave because your content is boring, some people leave because it's not of interest to them, some people leave because the technology lets them down, their wife or child walks in the door and something happens or they just need to go because you are over running. Don't take it personally, just follow up with them. We do a follow up with those people and we don't get as good results as the first 2 follow ups but again it's another good opportunity or another bite at the apple.
Then the final follow up we do is with people that bought. So normally we don't just stop and say thanks for buying our product, what we then do is offer them any other solutions that could be of use to them. It's a typical up-sell model, we call it up-solutions. I know that's cheesy but I'd prefer to think of it as.. what else can I offer these people that is of great use to them? Rather than how can I screw more money out of people and make it real transactional.
So we will put people through a series of emails saying "Hey, how are you doing with this? Do you need any help with this? Is this really good?" and that brings additional sales for us.
So that is our 4 part follow up process. That will increase your overall webinar revenue anywhere between 15-45 %, it really is a massive opportunity that you need to implement. Like I say if you can't do all four, just start with one because you will make more money from it.
So that in a nut shell is the 3 profit activators for generating more sales from your webinar campaigns.
Joey Bushnell: Awesome Glenn, so just to recap on those three profit activators because they are so important, if you miss any one of these out you're leaving money on the table.
So profit activator number 1 was focusing on getting attendees and not registrations and in your case you were almost doubling the amount of people attending.
Profit activator Number 2 was educating and motivating attendees to follow your call to action. Just out of interest Glenn, any sort of measurable improvements there in terms of how many you sold on the webinar itself?
Glenn Bridges: Yes, so typically, we really measure a lot of this stuff so I could tell you what a £97, £197, £497, £1,000 product for different conversion rates for different traffic sources. So I can tell you it's going to be this much for cold traffic and this much for warm traffic.
If you are looking to sell a product any where between under £100 to £500, with a particular content formula we use and the close we use, with warm traffic, that's traffic that knows you either by email, video or wherever you've got your database from. We easily do between 25-35% in sales.
It can be higher if you are talking about lower priced products or if you've got more of a relationship with your list but that is good. But expect it to be slightly lower if you are doing it with cold traffic just because these people don't know you yet and they are not as familiar with your stuff.
Joey Bushnell: OK so we are getting a lot of people on the webinar and maybe selling to about 25-35% of them. Then with the third step of advanced follow ups we can increase that by maybe a further 15%, 30% or 45% on top?
Glenn Bridges: Yes, ideally in those 3 units we look to improve our attendance every time by 30%.
We look to get conversions, with higher priced products its very difficult but perhaps with lower or medium priced products we look to get to about 30% conversion rate as a minimum.
Then we look to close another 3rd on the follow up.
I'd like to give one very quick tip - Webinars are not a selling event. Now that is going to sound very fly in the face to what you've heard, they are not a selling event. They are a selling process.
So from the moment someone signs up with that webinar or clicks that first email and enters into that conversation with you, work on the basis that if they indicated any interest in whatever you have to talk about, assume then that in the next 2 years that they are going to invest in getting that problem solved with you or someone else.
So really look at it as the webinar is the start of the conversation and your follow up could be the next 30 days after that webinar and you should be continuing that conversation for the next 18 months or more. So really look at it as the start of the conversation. You might close a great percentage of people on that webinar but if you want to close a much, much larger chunk of those people that signed up, think long term like the next year, two years, "How am I going to educate, compel and motivate these people to want to work with me?".
Joey Bushnell: That is brilliant Glenn, thank you for that, it's some really good measurable results and improvements that can come by doing this stuff.
What more can you offer us Glenn? Do you have anything else if we want to work closely with you or want more of this kind of information from you, if we are thinking of running webinars or we already run our own webinars but we could really do with improving the response, what have you got for us?
Glenn Bridges: Yes I do, so what I have done is prepared something a little but extra special for your audience Joey because I really respect and admire what you are doing, the content and the great stuff you are doing out there and I wanted to do something a little bit special for your audience.
So what I have for anyone listening today who thinks this is something I need to be doing or is maybe doing already and is looking to ramp up the revenue you can make on a campaign level by implementing these 3 profit activators and much more, is I have a strategy session with me that is completely free, I won't charge you for it.
You can jump on the phone with me, we can diagnose your business or look at any campaigns you have run. We can look at how you can integrate webinars into what you are doing and come up with a game plan of how you can use webinars in your business to create a profitable webinar sales funnel.
Now I am limited in space just as I'm sure you are, I'm very busy but I want to put aside some time to talk to you. So if you'd like a space to grab and secure your place go to videovanguards.com/session.
Go there for the details on that page. Then someone from my team, probably a gentleman by the name of Claude who is my right hand man, will set up a time that is good for both of us to speak. We will spend about an hour on the phone and come up with an easy to follow and implement plan for you to bring webinars into your business. So take me up on the offer and jump on that now while spaces are still available.
Joey Bushnell: Glenn that is really generous of you. It's not everyday you get an offer to work with one of the UK's leading webinar experts for free. So if webinars are something you do or are thinking about doing get in touch with Glenn, it's free which is incredible. Glenn thank you for that offer and thank you for all the brilliant content you have given us on the show today.
Glenn Bridges: You are more than welcome. I want to extend my gratitude to you Joey, for allowing me to come and share some great content, I hope it's been useful to you and those listening. Thank you so much.
Todd Brown is one of the worlds leading authorities on building highly profitable marketing funnels. He’s the creator of several training programs including “Marketing Funnel Automation Partnership Coaching Program, 26 Advanced Marketing Funnel Conversion Tactics and The Marketing Funnels Uncensored Newsletter”. He helped Rich Schefren grow Strategic Profits into the company it is today by implementing these strategies and tactics.
What we talk about in this interview is easy to understand but it's advanced money making advice. It's all about Marketing Funnel Optimization.
I promise you there is no joke, no hype in this next sentence... acting on what Todd teaches in this interview could easily multiply your online sales by double, triple or much more.
Why? Because your marketing funnel is the core of your online business. You have to get it right and you have to keep optimizing it if you want to make the most money possible.
In this interview Todd reveals...
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The must-have tool to run your marketing funnel
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Why straight, linear funnels are dead! (Hint: Dynamic, segmented funnels are what's working now)
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How to have a high converting, front-end funnel that pays for all your traffic
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How to create content in your funnel that does no selling, but still makes you a lot of money
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How many steps a funnel should have
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3 back-end marketing sequences that will raise the lifetime value of your customers
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And a lot more! Trust me, this content is gold, invest the next hour to listen to it, it will pay off
Either listen to the interview or read the entire transcript below...
Joey Bushnell: Hello, welcome to The Online Marketing Show! I’m your host Joey Bushnell
Today’s special guest is Todd Brown... who is without question, one of the worlds leading experts when it comes to marketing funnels.
He’s the creator of several training programs including “Marketing Funnel Automation Partnership Coaching Program, 26 Advanced Marketing Funnel Conversion Tactics and The Marketing Funnels Uncensored Newsletter”. I highly recommend you go check out his blog over at marketingfunnelautomation.com
Todd, thank you so much for being on the call with me today.
Todd Brown: You’re welcome man! I’m excited to be here.
Joey Bushnell: Thank you. Todd, how did you become an online marketer and become known as the go-to-guy for marketing funnels?
Todd Brown: I’ll give you the shortened version of how I first got online. Basically I was working for a company that owned about a dozen health clubs in New Jersey, in the US. I got a direct mail piece, a letter in the mail that was selling a direct response marketing training program for fitness professionals. It was about $300 odd dollars and I thought it was perfectly fit for what I was doing with this health club company.
So I went to the owner and asked the owner if I could buy this thing and expense it, he said :”Yeah go ahead.” I bought this course for $300 odd dollars, got it sent to me and that was my first exposure to direct response marketing, copywriting and the world that we operate in within the online marketing community.
I was immediately engrossed with this training program and got sucked in, so I decided I’m going to pick up the phone I’m going to call the dude who put this training program together and I’m going to ask him who he learned from, what did he study. That’s what I did and he mentioned Dan Kennedy. So of course, I immediately went out and bought everything I could get my hands on from Dan Kennedy, at the time most of what I was buying was on eBay and I dove in and was going through the Dan Kennedy stuff like crazy.
That very quickly led to me starting my first information marketing venture online. Knowing nothing about the internet, technology or websites, I barely knew how to send an email, this is about ten years ago now. The rest is history in terms of online, eventually the business started making a lot more money than what my job was paying so I eventually left that gig and moved down to south Florida and the rest is history.
How did I become the go-to-guy for so many top marketers in terms of marketing funnels? Well, two things really happened. One, I was originally a client of Rich Schefren's when I decided to leave my job and go full time online, the skill set that I knew I was missing was business systematization. It wasn’t the marketing, copy or marketing strategy it was the actual systematization of the business. At the time I knew that and still to this day, Rich is the absolute best at teaching that side of things.
I became a client of his, we hit it off and became really good friends then Rich asked me to come aboard as a partner at Strategic Profits and run the marketing for him. So for about 2 years I was juggling, running all of the marketing for Strategic Profits, launching 15/16 different front end products, big internal launches, JV’s, affiliate promotions and campaigns along with my own companies. It was through my running of the marketing there that I got to work on projects with Jay Abraham, Clayton Makepeace, John Carlton and then became friends with Michael Masterson. Then worked on and co-ordinated projects, launches and campaigns with JV partners like Mike Filsame, Russell Brunson, Frank Kern and Ryan Deiss.
So I got to see 2 different sides of the marketing funnel world. I got to see what the online guys were doing and how they were applying direct response marketing techniques to their funnels online. I also got to see how the original “old school”, if you will, direct marketing guys did it offline. So how was Jay Abraham with his clients? How was he getting new customers? How was he multiplying their front end or back end? The same thing with Michael Masterson at Agora and the best franchises and divisions if you will at Agora, What were they doing? How were they doing it? Eventually that carried on over into application at Strategic Profits and we launched a whole bunch of killer front end products.
We launched the Founders Club Membership which is still thriving and growing today. We did about 3 quarters of a million dollars in 7 days in an internal relaunch of a particular product applying some of the things I have learned.
Just to wrap this up because I want to get into some meat and potatoes for everyone listening, what happened as about a year ago was a good buddy of mine Chris Brisson from Call Loop which is great application for SMS and voice broadcast, he was constantly giving me access to all of his software, application and all of this great stuff. So I said to him one day “What can I do for you?” and he said to me “Look, do a webinar for my customers.”
We had one funnel at the time which was doing 24 dollars for every opt-in and so I did this 90 minute webinar for his customers. He has a lot of savvy big name marketers on there. It was pure content, no pitch at the end and after that webinar Chris’s partner texted me within 20 minutes and said “People are freaking out they loved the webinar and they were disappointed you didn’t have something to share with them in terms of coaching, courses or training.”
Then we came back 2 months later and opened up Marketing Funnel Automation, the partnership coaching program and the rest has been history.
But enough about me man let's talk about funnels what have you got next for me?
Joey Bushnell: My first question for you Todd, was for someone who maybe hasn’t heard the term before what exactly is a marketing funnel?
Todd Brown: A marketing funnel is a strategic process. A strategic set of steps that you bring a prospect through with the ultimate objective being... at the end of the process they desire your product and they are ready to buy. They see the need and value of your product as the solution to their problem and situation above anything and everything else.
Let me make an important point that I want everyone to get... When I first launched this Marketing Funnel Automation brand I specifically refer to it as a marketing funnel, not a sales funnel. Most people talk about it as a sales funnel but there is a distinct difference between marketing and sales.
I think it was Peter Drucker who said that the whole purpose of marketing is to make selling superfluous. When you do marketing the right way, you are leading the prospect to the make the decision on their own that your product or service is the best choice for them, the perfect fit and perfect solution for their problem or situation. People love to buy they hate being sold.
There is a massive difference in the way we approach a marketing funnel. Our job again, is to give the prospect this feeling of freedom of choice and freedom of decision so they feel at the end that they’ve come to the conclusion on their own and they weren’t sold. So there is a very specific way that we do that. I’m sure you and I are going to get to how we actually do that and how are we marketing and not selling. How are we leading them to the conclusion.
But again a marketing funnel is just a series of steps, it’s a strategic process and I say strategic because so many marketers get caught up in the tactics of the marketing funnel.
Most marketers, especially newbie marketers that get online and start learning about marketing funnels, when they think of a marketing funnel they think “OK, I’m going to have a squeeze page to a sale letter or one time offer to the order form to the up sell, if they don’t take the up sell it goes to a down sell, if they do take the up sell it goes to another up sell". That is all the tactical components if you will, of a marketing funnel.
I refer to that as a an offer sequence. You have the main offer then you have the up sell offer or down sell offer or an OTO and so on and so forth. But what’s more important is the strategy behind the marketing funnel... What are you saying? When are you saying it? How are you saying it? Why are you saying it? What are you actually communicating through each of the steps of your marketing funnel?
Whether your marketing funnel is 8 steps, 4 steps or 2 steps, whatever it is... it’s the strategy behind the marketing funnel that’s more important than the tactics. You have to have both but you build it on the foundation of strategy.
Let me give you just 2 examples so that this makes sense. When we are putting together marketing funnels, there are a few things that we look at but 2 of the main things we look at are Market Sophistication and Prospect Awareness Level.
Market sophistication is basically what promises, claims and benefits have your prospects seen from competitors? What are your competitors promising to your prospects? What claims have they made about their own products, about the benefits of their products to your prospects? There are 5 different levels of sophistication if you will, in a market and depending on the sophistication level of the market, that needs to change the sophistication of your marketing.
The example that I give which comes straight from Eugene Schwartz and “Break Through Advertising” one of the greatest copywriters of all time, is this idea when weight loss supplements first hit the market, one day there weren’t any weight loss supplements then the next day there was a supplement the advertising only had to say “Take this pill and you’ll loose weight.” That’s it. That was because nobody had made any similar claim before, there was nothing like it on the market. It was a totally fresh and really you could call it a "level 1 sophisticated market".
But as more and more competitors came out and were saying similar things, the market became more sophisticated and those same claims didn’t work to the same level that they previously did.
Now the marketing had to go up a sophistication level. So then it became “Take this pill and lose 7 pounds.”
Then when the market reached that sophistication level because more and more marketers were making a similar claim like that, then it was “Take this pill and loose 7 pounds in 7 days.”
Then it went on to “Take this pill that contains some crazy rain forest bark that blocks the absorption of fat in your intestinal track.”
They go through these different levels of sophistication. If you think about that one example then, today you couldn’t release a weight loss or fat burning supplement and say just “Take this pill and you’ll loose weight” Why? Because the market is too sophisticated for that.
So that's just an example of how the strategy behind the campaign is more important, behind the funnel is more important than the tactics. It’s not about having a front end offer, an up sell, a down sell or an OTO.
If you don’t take into consideration for example, market sophistication you could come into that with all of the right tactics and the whole offer sequence but your message is not sophisticated enough for the market. It’s too “Unsophisticated” for the level they are at then it will fall completely flat. That is what happens to a lot of marketers and that is what I mean when I say strategy. Does that make sense?
Joey Bushnell: Yes, it makes perfect sense. I think we’ve seen that happen in the internet marketing world. I remember back in 2007, where people were selling push button riches, and all sorts of other shenanigans which we all know now, are total BS. Fast forward to 2013 and the market has really matured, they don’t fall for these things like they used to. So I can totally see your point there and I’m guessing that would carry over to any niche wouldn’t it?
Todd Brown: Absolutely, every niche will go through this and mature. They mature based on the marketing claims and promises that they are exposed to from the market place and from competitors. All we are saying is, if you could go into a niche and you could make a completely unique promise that they’ve never seen before, man you are going to crush it!
I’m not saying if you can go into a niche that no one has ever marketed to before. I’m saying if you can go in with a unique promise you are operating at that level 1 sophistication, so your marketing message doesn’t have to be that sophisticated. But in all niches eventually as competitors see you making money or as individuals see you making money and doing well competitors are going to come in. Usually what happens is you see lots of copy cats and so similar messages get put out to the market place. Then I don’t care what geography you are operating within, every niche matures and gets sophisticated over time.
It's your job as a marketer before you begin crafting your marketing funnel, before you begin engineering it or start thinking about one word of copy, it’s your job to understand where your market is at on that scale of market sophistication.
Joey Bushnell: Todd that’s a great explanation, thank you.
Before we talk about strategy and some of the marketing principles that go into a marketing funnel, I want to first of all just talk about the automation part. We can do all of this, as the name of your website marketingfunnelautomation.com suggests, on auto pilot. So there’s lots of autoresponders and CRM tools out there that can help us to automate things.
In your opinion what is the best one?
Todd Brown: My opinion is that Infusionsoft is the best CRM. I don’t get paid anything by Infusionsoft for thinking that, if something better came along, better meaning it would allow me to do more things than Infusionsoft allows me to do for myself, coaching students and my consulting clients, I would go to that. I am always keeping my eye out for a better CRM but the thing that Infusionsoft allows you to do that makes it so invaluable is that you can auto segment prospects based on their engagement or lack thereof with your content.
What I mean by that and I think it will be incredibly valuable for everyone reading is... The days of bringing all prospects through a straight, linear funnel are dead.
What I mean by a straight, linear funnel is, the days of sending everybody to a squeeze page and then sending them through a 4 part video series, where 3 of the videos are educational, another one is a sales video... So day 1, you send an email to prospects who have opted in saying “Video 1 has been posted.” Then day 2, you send everyone an email that says "Video 2 has been posted", day 3, send them an email saying "Video 3 has been posted" and day 4, an email saying "Video 4 has been posted".
Those days are long dead of sending people straight through regardless of their engagement.
Some people that opt-in to that type of funnel will immediately on day one go and watch video 1 and day 2 go and watch video 2 and day 3 and 4 and so on. But what about the people who opt-in go watch video 1 then on the next day when they are sent an email about video 2, they don’t watch video 2?
Now if your entire video series makes up your entire marketing funnel, if it’s one big overriding message, that means every video in that example funnel is valuable and serves a purpose. Everything that we do, say and everything that happens in a marketing funnel is done strategically. It's there for a reason, it serves a bigger strategic or tactical purpose. If It doesn’t then it shouldn’t be in the funnel.
We have to assume that in a 4 part video funnel, every video has a reason for being in there. Obviously, if it didn’t we wouldn’t keep it in there. Does it make sense to take a prospect who let’s say... gets an email about video 2, doesn't click the link to watch video 2, doesn’t actually watch it, should we the next day send them an email about video 3 which sends them straight to video 3 without them even watching video 2? Does that make any sense?
No of course not.
That is like us taking a 1 hour sales presentation so to speak, and letting them skip a 15 minute chunk of that sale presentation. We might say something crucial in there or cover one objection or two objections, highlight a benefit or a feature that is critical to making the sale at the end, in that 15 minute chunk.
What Infusionsoft allows you to do, is move people through your funnel based on their engagement.
The people that are consuming the videos in this example... if they consume video 1, tomorrow we are giving them video 2. If they consume video 2, the next day we are giving them video 3 and so on.
The person who doesn’t, we are going to continue to drive them back to where they left off. So people can go through your funnel at the appropriate speed.
It’s like if you were selling “face to face” with somebody and they said they had to go to the bathroom, you would stop your presentation, you’d let them go, wait until they got back then pick up where you left off. It’s the same thing, we wouldn’t just carry on speaking. Infusionsoft allows you to do that and a whole bunch of other auto segmenting.
Segmentation is critical in the marketing funnel process because it allows you to communicate more targeted messages to your prospects. The more targeted you can be in terms of their engagement, needs, their response and their interaction with your content, the better your conversion rate is going to be for all the different segments.
Joey Bushnell: So in that situation Todd, where someone has a 4 part video series as part of their funnel and they watch video one and then they don’t click the link for video 2. So would you send them an email again saying here’s video two, you wouldn’t let them see video 3 until they’ve clicked the link and consumed video 2?
Todd Brown: Yes and No. What I mean by that is, yes I’m going to send another email about video 2, I’m going to take an additional 3 days to do everything in my power to get them to consume video 2 before I send them on to video 3.
At some point you’ve got to send them on to video 3 in hopes that they will re-engage and go back through video 2 as well.
If they go and watch video 1 then the next day we send them an email about video 2 and they don’t click the link or go to consume video 2. The day after I’m going to send them an email about video 2 that is going to present a different benefit, a different hook or angle as to why they should consume video 2. Remember people desire things for different reasons.
So sometimes the hook you present or the main benefit that you represent as to why they should watch video 2, it might resonate with some people but not with others. So the next email that we send out is going to be a different angle or hook.
Then finally, the day after that is going to be another angle and hook, ultimately again, trying to get consumption of video 2 and our marketing message.
After about 3 additional days we are going to drive them on to video 3 but they are now in a different follow up sequence, meaning that the people who are actively engaged in the funnel, the people that went to watch video 1 went to watch video 2 are in a follow up sequence that acknowledges their engagement. It acknowledges their engagement, it's a funnel that’s designed for people that are hot and engaged with your content.
Whereas the people who didn’t consume video 2 that we eventually have to move them on to video 3 they are in a different video 3 sequence then that communicates differently with them than the other video 3 sequence that is communicating with the other “hot” prospects.
Joey Bushnell: So basically there’s no such thing as a one size fits all funnel anymore. Every funnel should be tailored to how the individual engages with the funnel.
Todd Brown: Yeah so if you are thinking big, operating big and you want to play like the big boys play, then you go the distance with your marketing funnel when you are engineering it because a single, phenomenal front end marketing funnel could revolutionize your business. It could revolutionize your business, a front end meaning customer acquiring.
The funnel or funnels you have that acquire new customers for you, when you have one that allows you to generate new customers at break even, meaning you spend $1000 and you get $1000 worth of new customers in your business, the sky is the limit. You’ve just reached the promise land because at that point it’s no longer about marketing it becomes a scale issue.
I mention that within this context because is it work for you to set up a funnel like this? Yes absolutely. But anybody that tells you that you can have a 7 or 8 figure business without putting in the work is lying to you.
The reality is, there is no fast way to sustainable riches online, that’s all bull crap. I’ve been around this game a long time, I wish it was true. I wish there was a fast and easy way to make crazy money online but the reality is, there is a big difference between having an income stream online or making money online and having a business online.
When people go after just income online, they are constantly having to hustle month in, month out. Eventually when that hustle breaks them they have to move on to something else.
Whereas what we are doing is building a business, a long term sustainable business that grows and grows every month. In order to have something like this you have to have a rock solid funnel that allows you to pay for traffic, do paid media and break even on the front. In order to be able to do that with the cost of media today, you need a funnel like what we just went through with multiple paths all based on engagement not a one size fits all cookie cutter approach.
Joey Bushnell: So with this type of funnel, you’ve already said Infusionsoft is your weapon of choice, it’s mine as well. Am I right in thinking that if there is anyone listening to this interview that has Office Autopilot, they can do it on there as well?
Todd Brown: Yes, that’s right.
Joey Bushnell: And tools such as Aweber, Get Response, Icontact, Constant Contact and MailChimp those types of auto responders, can’t do these extra things?
Todd Brown: With Aweber you can do certain things with AW Pro Tools.
The reality is that we shouldn’t even compare Aweber or Get Response with things like Office AutoPilot or Infusionsoft because Aweber is a tool to send out email broadcasts and email autoresponders. It is not a marketing automation tool, it’s an email automation tool.
So when we talk about segmenting on the fly and you and I could talk about tracking links, using interest tags and crazy marketing automation stuff in InfusionSoft. Aweber isn’t set up to do that, it’s not a tool to do that.
So to me the reality is, I have a lot of coaching students who use things like Aweber and Get Response, I’ll say the same thing to your audience as I do to my clients, I say “That’s where you’re at right now and we are going to set up the funnel with what it is you have right now, to the best of our ability. We are going to max out the tool that you currently have and get it as close to where I know it should be. But we are going to do that knowing that ultimately in the near future we want to move over to Infusionsoft" because done right, a tool like InfusionSoft or Office Autopilot will give you a positive return on investment month 1 when you use it.
So we are going to set it up right now with whatever you have, that goes for everybody. I don’t care whatever it is that you’ve got, you use what you have and you use it to the max. You don’t use a lack of tools, a lack of technology or a lack of capital as an excuse, ever!
I’ll tell you very quickly, I started my business over 10 years ago with $850 - that was it! For that $850 I think we formed a corporation there in the States, like a legal entity. We got a merchant account, I think we paid out $200 for that. We bought a domain name, some hosting and that was it. I never to this day invested another dime of my money into any of my online ventures. That $850 grew our first company, then the money from the first company grew the second company and the third company.
The point is... you can never let technology, tools and resources be the excuse because we just set it up the best we can, with what you've got then we go from there.
Joey Bushnell: So Todd, what are the main steps of a marketing funnel? I know that this is going to be different depending on the product, the offer and the niche but are there some core steps, core components, that you think should be in most marketing funnels?
Todd Brown: I’m going to answer that question a little bit differently than the way you were asking it. What I’m going to say is... First of all you were right in that every funnel is different.
Every funnel and the complexity of the funnel, the steps and the length is all dependent on the complexity of the product that you are ultimately going to present, such as how many features and benefits there are.
Also the number of steps in the funnel, the length and complexity of the funnel is based on the objections the market has, the sophistication level of the market, what competitors are doing in terms of, are all competitors using video or PDF’s? So there are a lot of these to take into consideration.
I spend a lot of time on with our coaching clients, it’s something that I call EBM content. EBM stands for Education Based Marketing. The bulk of a marketing funnel should be EBM content.
The way we are able to come up with the content, what you communicate and what order you say it is by asking one main question. There is a bunch of little questions but we start with this main question which is “What do prospects need to believe to buy?”
The way I want you to think about this, is I want you to think of yourself as an attorney, lawyer or prosecutor if you will, and you are presenting a case to a court room and jury. In this case, the jury are your prospects and there are certain things that they need to believe.
If you were prosecuting a case where the gentleman was being charged with murder, you would know that the ultimate objective is that you want the jury to believe that this guy committed murder. From that we can work backwards and we can say what do they need to believe in order to believe that. What do they need to believe he committed murder? That he was there, that he had motive, that his finger prints where there, that he is a shady character, whatever it is they need to believe.
Our entire court case as prosecutors would be presenting that information in a linear, logical progression, making sure that everything they need to believe in order to come up with a guilty verdict at the end we are presenting. To simplify it, if we were prosecuting we make a statement of what we want them to believe and then we back it up with a preponderance of proof.
Proof in marketing, proof throughout your marketing funnel for all of your claims is one of the most critical aspects of a high converting marketing funnel. Without proof all you have is a claim - that’s it. So as a prosecutor you can’t just say "He was there at the scene of the crime" that’s not enough. You need to say he was there and here is proof his finger prints were there, there was an eye witness, he was caught on camera and it become a preponderance of proof.
Making the claim is the easy part, any marketer can make a claim but the difficult part is presenting the preponderance of proof. So every point you would want that jury to believe, we present in the right order, like he had motive, here are the reasons, why the reasons are the proof. He was there at the scene here is the proof, he committed the murder here is the proof, his finger prints were on the knife, the knife has the victims blood on it. So we are presenting it in a logical, linear order and for everything we want them to believe, we are making a statement, a claim, a promise and then we are backing it up with a preponderance of proof.
That is EBM content. That is education based marketing and before I give you an example let me say this... all of this happens without talking about the product. We are not talking about the product, we are educating and educating them in a way that leads them closer and closer to the sale and increases their desire for the end result, even before we present the product.
So when we present the product, they want to buy rather then us selling. We are educating them in a way where we are pre-selling them on our product or service. So when we present our product or service, it’s exactly what they want and they are grateful that we presented them with an opportunity to get it.
An example is one of the early companies that I started, was a company that worked with chiropractors. We used to teach chiropractors and even create funnels for them and what it would do is offer a free video to prospective patients. The free video would be "How to relieve back pain naturally with no drugs, surgery or crazy treatments". The video would be educational and what it would do is walk people through all of the different options that they had to relieve back pain.
All of the options where the other choices or alternatives to chiropractic that they had. But when they presented each of the alternatives one at a time, we would give them the negatives of those alternatives. We might give a weak benefit but we would go through such as they could go and get a massage, physical therapy, hire a personal fitness trainer, they could take natural herbal supplements and for each one of the alternatives we would tell them about the negatives.
Then when we finally got to chiropractic we would give them all of the positives. Now we weren’t talking about chiropractor care with the doctor we were just talking about chiropractic care in general. We educated them the whole way so at the end when we were done talking about chiropractic they got value from that marketing message and they reached the conclusion on their own that these other options suck, the best option is chiropractic care and I have to do it.
So when we transition from EBM content to the introduction of their service (chiropractic care) then it became “Yes, this is great I want this!” There was no hard selling needed or hardcore sale pitch, there was no fake scarcity needed, none of that. This was because we educated them in a way that led to the sale. We pre-sold them on the idea of chiropractic care with education based marketing content.
So whether that EBM content gets delivered by PDF, video, audio, a combination of those, a webinar or evergreen webinar or Google hangouts. Whether it’s done in 3 steps, 6 steps that is all dependent on how much information you have to present. It’s just like the question of how long should a sales letter be? Well, a sales letter should be as long as necessary to make the sale and no longer. Whether that is 3 pages, 1 page or 25 pages there is no arbitrary length, just like there is no arbitrary number of steps for the ideal marketing funnel or no ideal length for the perfect marketing funnel, it’s all dependent on what you have to communicate.
Joey Bushnell: So Todd, if we were to picture this front end marketing funnel, am I right in thinking it’s an opt-in or squeeze page of some kind, then they are delivered the EBM content then you are sending them to a video sales letter or sales page to make the sale but only after they have consumed the content?
Todd Brown: Yes, I think that is fair. For most marketers online, the majority of their conversions and front end revenue will come from the follow up steps in the marketing funnel. Whereas companies like Agora or take Stansberry research for example, one of their divisions they send people directly to a sales video or sales page. They are able to do that without an opt-in because of the quality of their copy. The quality of their copy is so good that they don’t need to generate a list of prospects, they can just send people directly to a sales message, generate enough sales to pay for their marketing and only a customers list.
For the average marketer online, yeah at a bare minimum, more than likely they should send people straight to a squeeze page. Then from a squeeze page have some kind of sequence behind that. The sequence then depends, in some cases you might have an immediate one time offer that you present right off the back of the opt-in depending on the niche and the product and so on. Or depending on the price point you might have a lengthier funnel, where you have one or more videos. There is no one tactical way to set up a marketing funnel. There is one right strategic way to set up a marketing funnel but the tactics of how you deliver your message, well there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Joey Bushnell: With our front end marketing funnel, are we looking to make a profit on the front end? Or is this just something we are looking to break even with and make money later on?
Todd Brown: The right way to do it and the way the big boys operate (when I say big boys, I mean real big boys, the Agora’s, Boardrooms, etc) is that you look at your marketing in two different categories...
Marketing to prospects in order to make the first sale and get the first transaction with them, that is what we call front end.
The other category of marketing, is all the marketing that we do to existing customers, people who have one or more transactions with your company and that is what we call the back end.
The purpose of the front end is to acquire the maximum number of new customers at break even. That is ultimately the goal, maximum new customers and for the average marketer, it’s at break even. We won’t even get in to the more advanced "going negative" on the front when you have the cash flow, we’ll just say the goal is... maximum new customers at break even.
There are 2 components there... One is of course, at break even, that means if you spend $1,000 in media buy, your goal is to get $1,000 back in the form of new customers. That’s really like acquiring customers for free, there is no expense. If you invest $1,000 and get $1,000 back plus you get new customers on that front end transaction, that’s not an expense, that’s an investment and you should be willing to do that all day.
The second thing and this is where a lot of people seem to misunderstand, is that the goal is not just to break even, the goal is maximum new customer acquisition. I hear a lot of marketers say, they will teach from theory this idea of why have a $1 trial on the front? Why not sell an expensive product?
For you, if you are selling a $1 product, let’s say you have to generate 1,000 sale,s where as if I'm selling a $1,000 product, I only have to generate one sale. The difference is I would much rather take 1,000 new customers at $1 a piece than one new customer at $1,000 because now even though on the front end they both break even and both put out in the same financial situation, if I have 1,000 new customers and you only have 1, I have the ability to put those 1,000 new customers into a back end funnel and sequence that sells them on my premium offer.
Now we could bring them from $1 to a $97 a month continuity program or a $500 offer or to a coaching offer, a $2,00 or $5000 offer. I have 1,000 people to work with and you only have one. The goal is maximum new customers on the front end at break even.
The purpose of the back end, all your marketing to your existing customers is to maximize lifetime customer value, is to build the value of your customer.
So if you know that every $1 customer you get is currently worth $300 to you, our goal is to increase that so your average customer goes from being worth $300 to being worth $350, $400, $500 and eventually to being worth more and more. The marketer with the highest lifetime customer value can dominate.
If my customers were worth $3,000 to me and your customer is worth $300 to you, I can afford to spend $1,000 to acquire a new customer if I really wanted. Whereas that would put you out of business but for me it would still give me $2,000 of profit over the life of that customer if I wanted to, so lifetime customer value that’s all back end.
Joey Bushnell: My last question was, I’ve seen on your blog, you talk about 3 back end marketing sequences that can help you maximize the lifetime value of a customer, can you let us know a little bit about those 3 sequences?
Todd Brown: There are more than 3 but these 3 that I'm referring to are the resell sequence, the retention sequence and the reactivation sequence.
The resell sequence is what most marketers online call their fulfillment sequence or thank you sequence. So somebody buys a product and most marketers fulfill the product, they will deliver the product whether it’s physical or digital. That sequence really should be used to resell them on their purchase, sell them on consumption of the product.
In other words don’t just deliver the video course or eBook, it should resell them on the wise decision that they made. It should also deliver a phenomenal customer experience, make them feel valued and give them access to whatever training materials they need. It should also build a relationship with these people because ultimately your goal is to continue to sell to customers by delivering more and more value. Deliver more value in exchange for their investment in you so you build a relationship but it should also be used to generate testimonials and referrals. These are all things that need to be built in to the reselling sequence, that is number one.
The retention sequence is really more of a sequence that is applied to continuity. What are you doing to retain your members or subscribers above and beyond just delivering the content that they expect to get. So if you have a newsletter, membership site or CD of the month or book of the month club, it's a sequence that is designed to remind your customers of the return of investment that they are getting from their subscription. It’s telling them, reminding them and refreshing them on the benefits they are getting, the community that they belong to and the value they are reaping from this continuity program.
In terms of keeping them around long term, one of your goals with this retention sequence is to tease future content. Tease what is coming up, what is going to happen next and what you are going to miss out on if you are not a member. In the retention marketing sequence, it’s rewarding your members with little gifts, trinkets and unexpected surprises recognizing that there is a value to each subscriber.
If you realize after looking at your metrics that a significant percentage of subscribers or members drop off at month 5 then you know in month 4 it would benefit you to send out a little something extra. Spend the $10 or $12 to send them a little gift tapping into the whole law of reciprocity the month before the big drop off point because if that helps you boost up your retention rate and you’re charging $47 a month you could very easily, very quickly see a positive return on your investment. So a strategic use of expected gifts is extremely valuable.
Then the last one, the reactivation sequence is just about not giving up on customers that either asked for a refund or cancelled their membership with you. But recognize that with the right reactivation campaign, in the right setting, you could activate up to 50% of the people that go inactive.
If you have a membership site for example, credit cards decline because of balances or expiration dates on them and I learned from Jay Abraham a majority of people that go inactive in any business, don’t go inactive because of anything harsh or negative from the business or business owner did but they go inactive for one of many different “Life reasons”.
With a certain reminding them, that there are no hard feelings, these things happen, come on back with different custom offers for inactive, cancelled or old clients. You can re-engage with them and bring them back. Remember that a customer at one point has the potential to be a customer in the future and it’s your job to continue to try to make that happen. So that is the reactivation marketing sequence.
These 3 sequences are of course in addition to the big back end sequences that are designed to sell your customers on bigger and more valuable products and services with you. Your job with your customers is to deliver more value at higher and higher price points to your customers. The key being deliver more value, don’t just have the mindset of what can I sell to them today. I learned from Jay Abraham... fall in love with your customers, value the customer and be a true customer resource and advocate for your customer. Put their needs at the forefront of your mind and you can’t go wrong with that.
Joey Bushnell: Todd, you said you were going to give us some meat and potatoes and there it is! Absolutely brilliant, so thank you. Where can we find out more about you and where can we get more of this first class information which is going to help us build our own first class marketing funnel?
Todd Brown: The website you mentioned earlier, go to marketingfunnelautomation.com. Put your name and email address into the form and you will get our email newsletter when we put out new blog posts and have webinars you will get notifications on those things.
We have a couple of different programs right now that marketers can participate in and they’ll learn more about when get on that email list. We have a print publication called Marketing Funnels Uncensored it includes analysis, dissection, explanation of a player money marketing, money making marketing funnels. There is a newsletter with that, a blue print report that gets mailed to them.
There is also of course, the Marketing Funnel Automation Partnership coaching program when that opens up.
We have a product called “26 advanced marketing funnel conversion strategies”.
But more than anything everyone, go over to marketingfunnelautomation.com, get on the list and I strive to always put out some great content so you’ll find value if nothing else just being on that list.
Joey Bushnell: Brilliant, Todd I want to thank you so much for your time today and thank you for being so generous with your information it’s been absolutely first class. Thank you every body for listening in, get on Todd’s free newsletter and you’ll be able to continue your marketing funnel education.
Todd Brown: You are very welcome, thank you so much Joey, talk soon.