Archive | August, 2020

This won’t make you rich, but it can pay the bills. Basically, you’re going to hire two outsourcers and then sell the websites they build for you. This has been done by at least one marketer that I know personally, and I’m sure many others have found similar success with this business model. Here are the details…

Hire two outsourcers, possibly from the Philippines or anywhere you can get excellent full time help for about $500 each per month.

One outsourcer should be versed in all phases of website building and PhotoShop. Things they will need to do: Install WordPress sites, install plugins, install autoresponder forms, use Photoshop to create website graphics as needed, etc.

The second outsourcer is a good writer, preferably a VERY good writer, able to research and write about most any topic.

This is your team.

One thing to know – work expands to fill the time allotted. So if you give your team two weeks to build a site, that’s how long it will take. Instead, see if they can do it in 2 days.

For what you want done, it should only take 2 days. In fact, for the website builder it should only take one day, and two days for the writing.

Now then, the first site your team is going to build will be for you. It should be an authority blog, containing several posts and an embedded YouTube video or two.

You choose the domain name, let them know what you’re looking for, then let them sort out everything else.

This is going to be your example website. Of course, you can continue to build this site out over time, making it a true authority site. And you can use the outsourcers to do this for you. But first and foremost, you want to treat it as your example website.

Now you launch an offer to build authority websites for other people in the niches of their choosing. You can start by notifying your list of your new service, place in the top marketing forums and branch out to Facebook after that.

Charge whatever you like – $300 is a good price but it’s up to you.

The website will be a unique authority blog in whatever niche they choose, with perhaps 5 posts already written, all the plugins in place, basic SEO, a domain of its own… you get the idea.

You’re paying your team $1,000 a month, so you need to make 4 sales to be in profit.

But realistically your team can build 10 sites a month, spending 2 days on each site and working 5 days a week.

10 sales at $300 is $3,000, minus the $1,000 you pay your team leaves you with a $2,000 profit.

Of course, you can charge more, offer different packages and so forth. For example, your deluxe package might contain 15 posts and cost $700, depending on how good your team is and how well you do at selling the sites.

If you find your team has downtime between orders, you can have them create a product for you, or build sites which you then sell pre-made.

There is some work in getting the sales and communicating the desires of the client to your workers. But it shouldn’t take you more than an hour a day to accomplish this.

And once your other ventures are making enough money that you don’t want to be bothered with this endeavor anymore, you can always sell it as a turnkey business. Sweet success!

Short and sweet: Are you going wide instead of deep? For example, if you’re in online marketing, are you trying to reach every new marketer out there? This is a huge mistake.

If your niche is gardening, are you trying to reach every vegetable gardener on the planet?

And if your niche is dating, are you targeting every single male – period?

Then you’re going too wide. By appealing to everyone, you appeal to no one.

I once coached a woman who wanted to start a newsletter for parents.

All parents.

Of every age of child, 0-18, who lived anywhere on the planet.

I spent half the coaching session trying to talk her out of this strategy, or rather, lack of strategy.

She could not be dissuaded.

And I never heard from her or her newsletter again. My guess is she’s still stuck working the 9-5 job she was trying so hard to leave.

What should she have done?

Targeted brand new first time parents, or parents of 0-2 year old children, or middle class working parents of annoying teenagers, or adoptive parents, or frustrated foster parents, or…

…you get the idea.

Broad niches will keep you broke and frustrated.

Narrow niches can make you rich.

It’s that simple.

You have to admit – the online world is CROWDED with marketing messages. It’s hard to start out and get noticed, and it’s becoming more difficult every day. Ironically, some of the older methods have once again become more effective. As everyone else vies for attention online, consider doing something old school, such as…

Sending Postcards

When you send an email, it’s easily ignored or deleted. A message on social media carries even less weight.

But a real life, physical piece of mail that lands in a prospect’s mailbox is something they will take notice of. And postcards are cheaper to mail than letters.

Here’s what to do: Decide on the goal of your postcard – do you want them to join your list? Attend your webinar event? Go to a sales page?

Once you have your goal, use testing to find just the right slant for your offer. A postcard is a relatively small space, so every word and every image has got to pull its own weight. But once you find the magic mailing piece, you can continue to mail it out for months and even years, as long as it remains effective.

Know the lifetime value of your customer. This will help you determine what kind of conversion rate you need with your postcard mailers to be in profit.

Send the postcards yourself, or use a postcard mailing service.

Simply Google “postcard mailing service” and you’ll find a company to match your needs.

Sending Lumpy Mail

What’s the best way to get your mailing piece to stand out? Make it lumpy.

If you’ve ever received a non-profit solicitation for a donation, you probably know what we’re talking about. They send pennies, pens, calendars, packs of greeting cards and all sorts of things to get you to open their envelope. And of course once you have their free gift, the law of reciprocity kicks in and you want to send them something back.

For our purposes, think of something unusual and cost effective, such as…

– A pebble (because of the rocky time they’ve had, or the rocky time ahead if they don’t get your product)

– Seed packets (to ‘grow’ their business, grow their profits, etc.)

– A compass (so they can find their way)

– A thumb drive loaded with your value-offering promotional materials

– Worry stones (because they’re up at night, worrying about their business or how to pay the bills)

– Poker chips (because they shouldn’t gamble on other products or providers)

– Aspirin in a packet to ease their pain

– A paper wallet because you’ll show them how to fill it with money

– A sand timer for when they’re running out of time

– And so forth.

Again, there are services to help you accomplish this. For example, www.gcfrog.com/lumpymail/ is a good starting point.

Print Ads

The trick here is to make your ad look like an article in the magazine or newspaper you’re advertising in. Let’s say you’re advertising in a magazine – get an issue and see how their articles are formatted. Two columns? Three? What font do they use? What about picture placement?

Write your ad as more of an advertorial than a regular ad. You might have to put the words, “Paid advertisement” at the top of your ad, but it will still convert better than if your ad looks like an ad.

Have a great headline and use lots of sub-headlines to keep the reader on the page.

Have a strong call to action for an irresistible offer. The offer should be so good people simply cannot resist it, whatever it is.

Get a Local Column

This is an excellent technique for local business consultants. If you live in a small to medium sized city, your local newspaper might be thrilled if you would volunteer your services to write them a column each week on a topic that interests their readers.

If not, you might consider taking out a weekly ad and making it look like a column. In some respects, this is actually preferable to writing the column for free, since you’ll have more control over your topics.

Be very helpful in what you write. Only the last line or two should promote your business. The bulk of your column should be helpful information that people can use.

This will set you up as the authority and the person people turn to when they need your services.

Birthday Cards

Here’s something that used to be common and no longer is, which is why it will make you stand out from the crowd of marketers like a beacon on a hill. Send REAL birthday cards through the mail to your best customers.

You might collect their birthday (Month and day, not year) when they check out. You might even tell them WHY you’re collecting it. Let them know it’s optional, but you’d really like to remember them on their birthday.

Most people will be eager to share their birthdate with you. Or you can hop on Facebook and discover their birthday there if they have it listed.

If you don’t want to send the cards yourself, use a service such as postable.com or sendoutcards.com.

Now then – a person might interact with a few hundred people and companies online over the course of a year. But odds are you will be the only one who remembers their birthday. That makes you pretty special.

You might include an offer of a free birthday gift in your card, too. Perhaps a video you recorded for their birthday (you can use the same one for everyone) and a download link for a free product. Guaranteed they will be opening your emails and following you closely on social media after that.

When it comes to things like investing and marketing, doing the opposite of what most people are doing is often the winning course. Now that everyone else is online, be sure to look for offline opportunities to win the hearts, minds and wallets of your customers.

I’m about to show you how you can use a big discount, and case study offer to start selling big ticket services like crazy. This can work for most big ticket items you’re selling.

Maybe you sell SEO services to brick and mortar business. Or perhaps you sell coaching over the phone to people who started with a free 20 minute session with you. This works in print as well, but it works even better when you’re actually talking to the person.

Let’s say you sell list building systems to local businesses. You’ve sat down with them, explained exactly what you can do for them and they’re excited. “How much do you charge?” they want to know.

Let’s say you charge $1,000 a month for the service. Tell them you normally charge $2,000, and explain why your service is a tremendous deal at that price. Then tell them that if they will allow you to use them as a case study, you will knock that price in half.

Here’s the beauty of this system:

First, you’ve already primed them for a higher price, so when you offer the lower price, they’re actually relieved and much more likely to say yes.

Second, in the back of their mind they’re thinking, “If s/he is using my business as a case study, that means s/he’s going to work extra hard to get good results.” Which makes perfect sense, because you wouldn’t want a case study that failed.

Third, you can use these case studies to bring in new clients. For example, let’s say you performed a service for a plumber. Now you can contact plumbers in other cities and show them the exact results you achieved in that first plumbing business. When they see these specific results, they are much more likely to sign on.

The same goes for any other service you provide to local businesses, professionals, coaching clients, etc. Show them your ‘regular’ price, then offer the option of getting a reduced price in exchange for allowing you to use them as a case study.

One caveat: In the case of personal coaching (versus business coaching) you might want to change their name in your case study to protect your client’s privacy.

Here’s how to make your content timely, highly relevant and super hot, every single time.

Let’s face it – online marketing is and always will be about selling stuff to people. Simple.

The techniques might change (somewhat) and the methods we use become more refined, but it’s still all about selling products and services people need or want.

Keeping that in mind, it’s very simple to write a series of reports on all of the basics.

For example:

“How to start a Facebook Fan Page and get 1,000 fans interacting with your product.”

“How to build a profitable list of 10,000 people in 3 months.”

“How to create products, how to drive traffic, how to use social media, etc.”

You get the idea.

Now then, here’s the trick to making your content super timely and hot:

Watch the news.

See what the latest brew-ha-ha in marketing is.

For example, did Google make yet another change that threw website owners for a loop?

Then your ‘how to drive traffic’ report can be repurposed into: “How to Drive as Much Traffic as you Want without Google”

Did Facebook make major changes to their advertising policy? Repurpose your Facebook Fan Page report into, “How to Get All the Facebook Leads You Want WITHOUT Buying Facebook Ads”

Or for your, “How to make a product” report, you could take the latest marketing trend and write something like this: “5 Products [New Trend] Users are Screaming for That You Can Make in 2 Days.”

In each case, you’ll just go into your word processor file, update your document with the new title, add or change the bits specific to the current news or trend, and you’ve got a hot selling new product to offer.

Put it on ClickBank, JVZoo, etc. Then promote it to your list, or buy enough traffic to get some sales. Your goal is to get noticed by the affiliates, and from there it’s Profit City for you and your evergreen content.

The beauty of this system isn’t just that you can repurpose your best content over and over again. When news of a marketing change or new trend hits, you can get your highly relevant product to market almost overnight, filling a market gap practically the moment it’s created.

Plus, isn’t it wonderful to continue getting paid for content you wrote once, and only need to modify to make it highly relevant again?

One more tip: If you don’t like to write, you can always search for PLR. Then update and tweak it to make it relevant to what’s happening now.

Some people need to build a full time income in their business before they can feel comfortable leaving their jobs. Perhaps they have a family and mortgage, and they need to know their income is solid before taking the plunge to full time.

Others have to leave their jobs before they’ll get busy and start their business. For them, they need the ‘sink or swim terror’ to inspire them to take massive action.

No matter which camp you fall into, here’s what’s true for nearly everyone:

– Your reason ‘why’ isn’t just a nice thing to have – it’s crucial for your success. The bigger your reason ‘why’ when you’re starting your own business, the more likely you will stick to it and do whatever it takes to succeed.

– To make your fledgling business a success, you need massive, undistracted action. For example, consider taking a week off from work, moving into a motel room away from all distractions, and creating your own product and sales funnel.

– If you don’t know how to do something, you have 2 choices:

A: Learn to do it yourself. This takes time and will often derail any momentum you had. For some, it will mean putting off starting the business for weeks and even months.

B: Outsource it and move on.

– Nearly everyone does better, accomplishes more and reaches success faster if they get a coach. Just sayin’.

– Once you taste success, you will never go back. I’ve almost never seen someone make money in their new business and then drop the whole thing to go back to a job. Once that fire is lit, there really is no turning back.

– Having your own business is not only financially freeing, it also instills a sense of self confidence that enhances almost every other aspect of your life.

– Starting your own business means overcoming your related fears, whatever those might be. Once you achieve success, you’ll find you’re able to overcome even greater fears and accomplish more than you dared hope back when you were safely enslaved. Errr… I mean employed.

If there’s a bottom line to this, it’s this: Decide what you’re going to do. Give yourself a deadline. Then move heaven and earth to get it done, and you will succeed.

In life and in business, we tend to hate two things mainly: criticism and hassle. And why wouldn’t we? We all want a drama-free life without people telling us what we are doing wrong – that’s human nature. Complaints and additional work can be a bit demoralizing.

However, in business (especially online as vendors of a product or service), whether it is justified or not – we are always at some stage going to have to deal with complaints. And as much as that is something no one wants to face – we must learn that no matter how good we are, everyone has their own level of quality and a different perception of what they want to experience. Plus, things don’t always go smoothly – our connection can be slow, a tool may not work or something may not go to plan. It is alright in these moments for customers to get frustrated. That’s ok.

The only thing you must realize and prepare for is:

1. Complaints will happen and sometimes it’s not your fault.

2. Learn how to deal with complaints in an effective way that serves and protects both you and the customer.

If you don’t accept the above facts – you’re going to get an unhappy customer, leading to bad reviews and counter-productive word of mouth. So, understand that when complaints happen it is not so much about the complaint itself – it is how you deal with it that will be how you are measured by them. That is, not what went wrong but how you treated them afterwards.

Don’t think if you get a complaint online that the world is over and that you are bad at what you do and certainly don’t take it personally. The best thing you can do next in this situation is focus. Focus on what you can do to now rectify the situation. Unhappy customers become happy ones when they have an experience of something going wrong and note that it is dealt with swiftly, professionally and most of all – with care and politeness.

Often we can get so caught up by the insult of a complaint, we can fuel even more complaints with our harsh and defensive reactions. Or we may even not bother to fix it in the way we should because it seems like a pain.

Here’s my recommendation:

Respond to complaints calmly, confidently and completely.

Every complaint is an opportunity to turn around a dissatisfied customer – respond quickly and positively. Remember your brand is easily damaged, and the last thing you want is for people to be actively spreading bad stories about your business. A complaint that is dealt with well can often result in a loyal customer, one that has the experience of how sweet you were when they were quite cross. In doing this (as opposed to getting annoyed with them) gives them refreshed trust in your brand and the confidence to buy again. Why? Because they now know if things do go wrong they will be sorted out quickly.

And that is worth much more to your business, your reputation and bottom line than trying to be perfect. Customer complaints, and your positive and helpful response to them can actually become a strength builder for your business and brand.

Things that entertain us – well, that’s not entirely our choice. When you satisfy your need for entertainment, (eat ice-cream, watch a movie, win a game) the reward centers in your brain fire off a weaker dose of the same chemical rewards that you would get for actually gathering rich food, finding a partner and winning a fight.

These chemicals stay in your brain telling you the behavior that triggered them is really good for you and forcing you to seek more of this ‘high’ state. Essentially, you don’t need entertainment, you won’t die without it- but the more you have, the more you think you need… you want it like a drug.

Advertising is the biggest business on the planet – why? Because they know this deep addictive need in human beings to want to be entertained so they weave a good feeling story or an adventure into their product brand and just like that – people are buying four pairs of the same shoes with different shapes on it.

I guess the lesson is this: Want someone to buy your products? Want someone to love/remember you?

ENTERTAIN THEM. Make them laugh or cry, make them say yes! Make them want more videos, more options, more of your approach. Give them value.

This idea dates back to the Roman era when the Colosseum delivered people to their death in the name of entertainment; showing how important it has been to us for centuries to feel occupied and given a certain standard of entertainment in order to maintain interest. This fact doesn’t escape us as Internet marketers. Just because we are not film directors doesn’t mean we cannot use what we have and know to entertain and keep people engaged with us.

My first bit of advice is this – we live in social media times so it is irrelevant if your business is well-established, new or you are selling nails and think you don’t need to know what the ‘crowd’ is doing – because you do. Make sure your social media strategy is up to date and always try to be ahead of what is happening. What are people interested in? What’s happening now? If you don’t know what is going on, I’ll bet that your competitor will and I’d say they’ll use that strategy to keep people entertained, and focused on their business – not yours.

In the same way as a face-to-face conversation, make sure your posts, tweets, content and images are unique and entertaining. People get bored in dull conversation all the time so it’s not a surprise that uninteresting social media webpages and irrelevant, boring posts will not get people coming back to your social media page or engaging in your online ‘conversations’. No talking about you? No sales. It’s really that simple.

Invest a little in finding out what really gets people talking and update yourself to be authentic, current and cool. Maybe you’ll find your inner entertainer in all sorts of unexpected ways, and in turn create more of a tribe following for your business that you can grow to ever-increasing heights.

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you just have to live your life inside that world as best you can.

Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. Don’t step on toes, don’t be too cocky.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call ‘life’ was made up by people that were relatively no smarter than you and so if you want to change something in your world… you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use too.

You are more useful than you know. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

This is the advice I learned from Steve Jobs. You know that billionaire guy with the Apple fetish? He rocked. And more than that, he knew he did.

That was the biggest secret to his success on and offline – like you, he initially thought ‘I don’t want a job. I want to be an entrepreneur’. Most of us end there and then let self-doubt cloud any potential of getting any further. We make a few bucks, we live pretty comfortable and we dream realistically. We see the obstacles. But obstacles don’t stop us from going further as we may think – it is actually how resourceful we are in dealing with them. We can’t let a few trials dictate to us where our ceiling of success is.

And while being safe instead of bold is a good strategy if you like this life… there is no harm in a little self -love. It is this that creates the boldness.

If you wonder what being bold has to do with being successful or you think that talking about self-love is a little too ‘new-agey’… then let’s get scientific.

55% of all of our communication (that is how we present ourselves to the world) is not what we say and do. It is our body language. It is what we do with our face and our tone. The words you say are a side note. And so, it is essential to believe in yourself each day before you ever set foot online thinking you’re going to make a million because – heck – if you don’t believe it and you are not congruent, not one customer is going to believe that you’re the one to solve all their problems either.

So next time you say ‘I don’t want to sell myself’ or ‘I’m not sure people will like my product’ or ‘Am I charging/asking too much?’, make sure that the answer to that is in line with how much you value yourself. Be the value and people will pick up on it. Tell yourself you have lots to offer and that you can do it.

And why not… many people talk to themselves negatively all day long and this is not a great strategy for motivation is it?

I’ll say it one last time… you want to succeed.

Do it from the inside out – believe you can first. Believe you are worth that money. It is from a place of fear and worry that most people never pick up that phone and call when they should, most people never ask for what they want (at the price they want) when they know they should. That’s what separates the people that do things from the people who just dream about them. You’ve got to act. You’ve got to be willing to fail. You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. And when it is all done and it’s time to get up, it’s not your legs that will lift you… it’ll be your self-belief.

Deep breathe and say it – You’re worth it.

Coupons have been around since the beginning of man’s shopping experience. People love coupons because it gives them an extra discount on something that is much needed and wanted. They are an incentive to buy, and leave you with a pleasant feeling that you saved money. In fact, coupons are a very powerful tool to grow your business and brand.

You aren’t just giving the customer a reason to buy, but allowing them to save their hard earned money and not spend it all in one place. This will always get you on their good side and also gain trust that you really want them to save money.

How creative can you be with coupons? There are many different types of coupons to give. One type of coupon is an amount that is discounted from the total price. Simply put $5, $10, $15 dollars off a product for example.

Another type of coupon is “BOGO” or “Buy One Get One” free or half off. It is for you to determine which products and services go together to give someone half off or even a free product with their purchase.

A different variation of the “BOGO” coupon or discount is to buy multiple products to get one free or half off. You can have them buy as many as you like, but the price needs to be reasonable. It can be any price you set, but it has to be something that a customer would feel is worth buying and useful to them.

You can also be creative and give people a discount for referring your business to others. You can give a money amount or a percentage off their next order. Again people are saving money and also it is a way of inexpensive advertising. When people learn they will save money with you, the potential to gain more customers is stronger.

If you sell physical goods you can offer free shipping. As you know amazon.com offers free shipping to Prime members on many products. You can do the same if you have your own private store online. You may want to be a little more competitive and offer free shipping on items of lower prices. Make sure it is cost effective though.

You can also take a percentage off the total price if someone spends a certain amount with you. For instance, say you will give 10% off if they spend $50, or $100, but only if it meets or exceeds the amount. This will help you out in making money, but also encourage customers to buy more from you.

Rebate coupons are also great. Do you remember the last time you bought something and got a rebate? You have to send a slip in the mail and wait for the money to come back, but on the Internet you can make it more instantaneous. You know in today’s day and age, instant gratification is in high demand.

What you can do with coupons is really up to you. You can combine them, or give them out weekly or monthly. You can be as creative with this as you can imagine. Sometimes people like to combine coupons with offers, or use multiple coupons at one time. Whatever you think will make the customer the happiest, and still work to grow your business and brand.

With a number of different coupon options available for your use, now it’s to put some of these ideas into practice. Don’t just throw them in front of the customer and try to persuade them to buy just because they are getting a discount. That’s not actually good business practice, but throughout many years, people believed it worked.

Buyers will come to you because they like your products, they like your brand, or they like your attitude. Just reach out to those who are interested, and treat them nicely by offering coupons and discounts to build customer loyalty, and gain more referrals. This is a sure-fired way to grow your business over time.