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They say you have to walk before you run… and you have to finish 9th grade before you can start 10th grade… and you have to start at the bottom and work your way up… and all that stuff. Quite true, isn’t it?

Is it?

Really??

When you hear something enough times, you think it’s true.

“Of course it’s true, EVERYONE KNOWS it’s true.”

Yeah.

Right.

Do you really need to know all the basics of how to market online before you can start making money?

OR…

Can you find a desire in the market, create a product and get it online within a week, knowing almost nothing about what you’re doing?

I’ll give you an example:

Let’s say you’ve heard about “Internet Marketing,” but you really haven’t paid any attention to it.

You don’t know how to set up a WordPress site, build a list, create a product or any of that stuff.

But last week you got laid off from your job!

Unemployment compensation will barely cover the mortgage. Food? Utilities? Insurance? Car payment? You need money, and you need it FAST.

So you don’t pay attention to all those people who say you have to ‘pay your dues,’ ‘learn the basics first’ and all those other ancient clichés.

Instead, you hit a forum, or Amazon, or the Dummies guides.

You find a desire that people have.

You devise a plan to make a product that fulfills that desire.

You decide to get it on the market in 7 days.

Website building? Sales letters? Turning a word doc into a PDF? And a hundred other little things?

You’ve got help for that – Google.

Every time you need to know something, you Google it…

Yeah, I know – it’s too easy, right?

Where’s the suffering? The pain? When do the dues get paid?

Getting a product online within a week (or even a month) of first beginning in Internet marketing is like skipping your first 3 and a half years of college and graduating in no time.

Come to think of it… what’s wrong with that?

Some of the richest people in the world didn’t graduate college.

They were too busy DOING.

So yes, I do believe a person can run before they walk in Internet marketing. I’ve seen it done too many times to not believe it.

What are you waiting for? A written invitation? 😉

We’re all too familiar with webinars. And we know that when we get on a webinar, someone is undoubtedly going to try to sell us something. Fair enough. But what if you change the medium?

Suppose you invite a handful (let’s say, 24) of your best customers, or your most recent customers, onto a Skype conference call?

The attendance percentage will be much higher than what you would get with a webinar – often close to 100%.

The perceived value of a coveted spot on the call is also greater – after all, a webinar holds 1,000 people, whereas a Skype call holds just 25 including the moderator.

It’s perceived as being different – and that is often a good thing all by itself. It raises interest and provides a bit of intrigue.

You can actually use the names of every single one of your attendees. Talk about making them feel special!

So what would you talk about on a Skype conference call?

Anything you might cover in a webinar. The point is to give some good information or coaching to a small group of your best customers.

And at the end? Of course you’ll give them the opportunity to get more information, more coaching, buy a product, join a membership, etc.

No, you won’t make 200 sales. After all, you only have 24 people on the call, max.

But you could sell close to half of those or more. You could definitely form relationships with all of these 24 customers, making you stand apart from any other competitor in their minds. And you can do this as often as you like.

The marketers who are using Skype conference calling in this manner are making excellent money, 24 people at a time. It’s definitely something to consider.

And one more thing – if you’ve been trying to build up the courage to do webinars but the thought of speaking to hundreds of people at once is too scary, why not start with 24?

Once you do it a few times, you’ll have your talk optimized. You’ll have gained plenty of confidence, and you’ll be ready to jump on that big conference call and make those sales.

It’s simple. Partner up on projects. Now, just to be clear – I’m not necessarily suggesting you take on a full time partner for your entire business. At least, not at first – not unless you already know someone really well who is the perfect fit in every way.

What I am suggesting is partnering on individual projects.

For example, you have an idea for a software product. But you’ve never taken a software product to market before, so you call up your friend who’s done it several times.

You talk things through, and decide to work together because:

1. His skills and strengths complement yours – you bring different assets to the table and together you make a better team than either one of you working alone.

2. Two heads are better than one. Together you come up with improvements in both the marketing and the product itself that you likely never would have thought of on your own.

3. You can keep each other accountable for getting your tasks done.

4. And together, the two of you bring more affiliates to the table than either one of you can individually.

In the process of working on this project – which is a success – the two of you come up with great ideas for your next project, and so forth.

Partnering can be a great way to get more accomplished in less time, to defeat the procrastination monster and to make things happen, fast.

Just be sure to choose your partners and your projects wisely. 😉

Whatever your sticking point for not growing your business is… I’m here to suggest it might be something else entirely.

Not enough money?

You could use credit cards or borrow from family. Or you could sell some stuff. Or get a part time job to build up a little nest egg, quit the job and start your business.

You don’t know how to set up the websites and software you need?

Hire someone to do it for you.

You don’t know how to create a product to sell?

Hire someone to create it for you.

And on and on.

Just about anything you need for your online business, you can hire someone to create or do it for you. And if you don’t have the money, there are ways to get it.

S… what’s REALLY holding you back from starting or growing your business?

That one little, lousy 4 letter word – fear.

Fear of what, only you know.

But maybe it’s fear of starting. After all, it’s a big project, right?

Easy solution: Break it down into small steps.

Then do one step every single day.

Maybe it’s fear of failing. Oooohhh, that’s a BIG one.

You are 100% responsible for the success or failure of your online business.

It’s a success? Good for you!

It’s a failure? No one to blame but yourself.

Solution?

I’ve got two for you:

Try to fail.

Yes, I know that’s crazy. You’re afraid of failing so you’re going to TRY TO FAIL? Actually, yes.

We’re talking about a shift in mindset here. Instead of worrying about failure, we’re going to embrace it. After all, most self-made millionaires failed over and over again. It’s because they kept trying that they were so successful.

So embrace failure. Know that it’s actually your friend and not your enemy. Do everything you can to avoid it, but if it comes knocking, you know your life isn’t going to end.

Instead, you’re going to sit down with failure and discuss how you can avoid it the next time around.

Think it through.

Ask yourself, “What’s the absolutely, positively WORST thing that could happen?”

Oh yeah, that you do the work and don’t make money. That’s it. Your face won’t fall off. Your life won’t be over. The world won’t end.

Yes, maybe you’ll feel some embarrassment. But do you know how many times professional ice skaters fall in their lifetime of learning? Me neither, but I guarantee it’s a BUNCH of times. Do they sit on the ice and cry about it? Maybe.

But then they get back up and start skating again. Failing isn’t death, it’s a learning experience. Embrace failure so that you can succeed.

One more thing…

Start with a proven plan and work from there.

You are much less likely to fail if you take a path that has already proven to get you where you want to go.

So don’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, choose something proven time and time again to work – list building maybe?

And start with that. Then once you taste success, you can start taking roads less traveled if you want to.

Here’s the bottom line…

All those ‘reasons’ for not starting or growing your business almost always boil down to one thing – fear.

It’s so much easier when you get home from your job to park yourself on the porch with a beer or in front of the TV with a bag of chips.

And that little voice of fear in your head will tell you that you should be doing ANYTHING but working on your business.

So take little steps.

Embrace fear.

Start with a proven plan.

And enjoy the ride.

Because once you come out on the other side, you’ll wonder what took you so long to get started.

And you’ll have more confidence in yourself, your abilities and your choices to continue growing your business into the 6 and 7 figure income you’re dreaming of right now.

Best of luck.

Have you ever suspected that marketers make secret deals with each other behind the scenes? And that perhaps they will call each other on Skype or Zoom and coordinate activities and launch dates? And maybe they work together on marketing deals, promote each other’s products and work together to maximize their profits? Well, it’s 100% true…

Marketers network and mastermind with marketers on their own level.

Now, if you’re new to the game, how do you break into one of these million dollar mastermind groups?

Unless you have something incredibly spectacular to offer – like some marketing holy grail or something – you don’t. But you don’t need to.

Think about college – you go to school with a group of people. You meet as Freshmen or Sophomores, hang out together, do stupid stuff together, take classes or study together, etc.

After graduation, who can you call to get an “in” at a company, get a lead on an account, get an introduction to somebody and so forth?

Your pals from college, that’s who. You came up together. You’re friends. And of course you’ll help each other out whenever you can.

Marketing works the same way.

Find people on your level – marketers who are on their way up. Make friends. Hang out. Have drinks. Talk on Skype. Work together. Bond.

You and your friends will progress up the marketing food chain together.

And there’s your ground floor opportunity into your own million dollar mastermind group – the guys and gals who came up with you through the ranks.

So start networking. Get a team of friends. Work together. Help each other out. Have each other’s backs. Care as much about them and their success as you do about your own.

And in no time, people will be looking at your group and wishing they were you.

No doubt you’ve heard that offering a bonus for other product sellers to give to their buyers is a good way to get a list of customers. And that’s true. If your bonus is good enough that the product seller believes it will increase their sales, they might be willing to let your bonus tag along with their product.

You might need to contact 5, 10 or even 20 product sellers to make this happen. Obviously, the better your bonus and the closer it’s tied to the original product, the higher your odds of getting a yes. Having a relationship with the product seller helps immensely, too.

But there is an easier way to get that coveted “yes” from the product seller, and here it is:

Offer them a complete upsell funnel.

A lot of newer product sellers on Warrior and JVZoo don’t have their own upsells yet. And because of this, they’re leaving a lot of money on the table.

If you offer them a complete upsell funnel and let them keep 100% of the profit, you stand an excellent chance of them saying yes.

Your upsell funnel should include a squeeze page offering a good freebie – this will capture product buyers who don’t purchase your upsell. It also should also include a proven product that converts well.

You can add exit splashes, pre-populated forms, bonuses and trial offers – basically whatever it takes to:

1. Capture the email addresses of the buyers, regardless of whether or not they take your upsell.

2. Makes sales for the product seller.

Using this method, you can add hundreds of buyers to your list every week. And as you know, buyers are worth far more than tire-kickers.

Everyone is happy using this model:

– The original product seller is making more money – often twice as much or more.

– The product buyer is getting a good deal on your product.

– Even if the product buyer doesn’t buy your product, they still get your freebie (remember to make it VALUABLE.)

– And you get a list of buyers with very little effort on your part.

For maximum success, rinse and repeat as often as you like.

Let’s say you’re offering a course with 10 videos, 10 corresponding pdfs and 3 great bonuses, all for $47 – and you want to make that $47 seem like an absolute and total bargain price. How do you do it?

By giving your customers a choice right there on the sales page, the check-out page or preferably both.

Here’s how to do it:

Strip your package down to a much smaller one.

For example, 10 videos, no pdfs and no bonuses. Or 10 pdfs, no videos and no bonuses. Whatever works.

Offer that smaller version for $37, or $39, or even $45. You might want to test this to see which one works better.

Have the smaller version right there next to the big version for $47.

Let them know they have a choice. Of course, you recommend the full $47 version, but it’s up to them.

This is a variation of decoy pricing which typically uses 3 prices to sway buyers into purchasing a particular item.

With the slightly lower price giving them so much less, your regular price looks much better.

Also test having a higher price with not much more benefit.

In this case, it could be $67 for a slightly bigger package. That might increase sales of your regular priced product as well.

Remember to test, test and test some more to see what works best.

Curious about the 3 price decoy effect?

The most famous example is pricing used by the Economist, and later by many other magazines and newspapers.

The Economist offered an online subscription for $59, a print subscription for $125, or an online and print subscription for $125.

Naturally, this greatly boosted sales of the third option.

How can you apply this proven strategy to your business? I know you can find some creative ways to do so and boost your sales in the process!

Okay, so you’ve hopefully got your core business online, or you’re about to put one online. You have it up and running, making money… Now what?

First things first – figure out how to make MORE money in the business you already have.

How do you get more customers?

How do you sell those customers more stuff?

And how can you charge more for what you sell?

This is basic and should always be your focus. The more value you give, the more money you typically make. Give more value and you can charge more and sell more.

But what about the ‘fun’ part?

That’s a matter of trying stuff out.

Buy new stuff on Warrior and JVZoo. Read the case studies. See the new techniques someone’s dreamt up.

Pick and choose stuff to try and then just try it. Don’t devote a week to it – it might not work. But devote a day or two and see what results you get.

That new thing that everyone is doing? Pick a topic (or whatever needs choosing) and outsource it. Or if you can do it yourself in a day, go for it.

Is it promising? Keep going.

Does it look like a loser? Good – you just found something that doesn’t work for you.

Either way, if you always look at it as experimenting, as having fun, as trying new stuff and seeing what happens, then you’ll never take it too seriously.

You won’t get stressed. You won’t smash your head against the desk when you realize the last 24 hours taught you nothing more than how NOT to do something.

Because you’re having fun.

And when you do strike on a winner, sha-ZAM!

Rinse and repeat and you’ve got another money making avenue in your online business.

Smart marketers are not limiting themselves to the English market. Instead, they are taking their best selling products and getting those products and the associated product funnels translated over to French, Italian, Spanish, etc.

Here’s how to do it:

Unless you’re really sure you want to invest the money, do NOT go with a professional translation service because the cost will be too prohibitive. Not to mention their translations can be too dry and boring to be effective, especially on the sales material.

Instead, find someone on Upwork or Fiverr who is fluent both in English and the language you’re translating your work into. They must be fluent enough to thoroughly know the slang and colloquialisms of that language.

Have them translate the product, the sales letter, the emails, the squeeze page, etc. Also have them translate a month’s worth of PPC ads to bring in new subscribers to your funnel. You’ll want a month’s worth because it can take you that long to test and tweak your ad campaigns.

Then retain that person with a small monthly fee to handle all customer support emails for you.

Rinse and repeat with another language.

No Products of Your Own? No Problem…

Negotiate with product owners for the rights to sell their products in other languages. You might pay them a flat fee, or a percentage of sales after your initial expenses are recovered.

You could build an entire business doing this one thing – getting licensing rights to popular products and translating them to various languages.

And if you’re fluent in another language, then you don’t even need to hire a translator if you’re willing to do the translation yourself.

Your very best products – the premium stuff making you the most money – is worth even more than you think it is.

Let’s say you’ve got a successful membership site. You’re charging $20 a month and you’ve got 300 subscribers. That’s $6,000 a month you’re bringing in, before expenses. Obviously you’re doing well with that, right?

So what do some marketers do? They make an info product teaching how to do this very thing. How to set up the site, how to get the outsourcers to create the content and how to get subscribers.

And they charge maybe $9 or $17 for a Warrior Special Offer or JVZoo offer on this product. That’s one way to go.

But there is another method – one that generally makes more money with less hassles, and it’s this:

Make a premium offering.

Let’s face it – there are significant advantages to attracting $500 customers over $10 customers in the online marketing field.

A $10 customer tends to be skeptical. They need a lot of convincing because they’re pretty sure nothing works. That’s because thus far, they haven’t met with much in the way of online success.

And when they buy your $10 program, they often need help. A typical query: “How do I take payments?”

You: “Have you heard of Paypal?”

Your customer, “Sure, but could you walk me through on how to set that up?”

A $500 customer, on the other hand, tends to be on an entirely different level. They’ve likely already experienced online success, which is why they can see what you’re offering works.

They don’t have as many questions. And they know that any basic answers they do need (like how to set up a website, or Paypal) can be found online, rather than expecting you to do the work for them.

It’s paradoxical, I know.

A $10 customer needs $100 worth of your time. Or more.

A $500 customer generally doesn’t need help. But even if they do, you don’t mind spending the time with them because they’ve paid you good money.

So to get back to my original point, don’t sell your knowledge short.

Packaging your know-how and experience into a $10 product may lead to more frustration for you than anything else, even if you do have a great upsell.

Since, in this example, you’ve got a membership site that’s doing well, you could:

1. Offer to build them a similar but non-competing website, complete with 6 months of content.

2. Offer to coach them one-on-one on how to build their site themselves (far more valuable, since they will then own the skill).

3. Work with membership site owners to get their subscribers up to a certain level.

And so forth.

And for any one of these things, you can easily charge $500 – $2,000. Get 10 customers at $500 each you’ve just made $5,000.

To make that same money selling a $10 book or program, you’d need to sell 500 copies, assuming you make all the sales yourself without affiliate help.

Now then, how about getting the best of both worlds?

Create the inexpensive product and sell it without any personal coaching. Make this clear – they get the information, but you’re not holding hands for 10 bucks.

If they want personal help, you can offer that as an upsell. And if they’re truly serious, you can offer one of the above three options at full price as well.

Of course, the $10 and $500 is arbitrary. You will set your own prices as you see fit. For example, setting up a full membership site with six months of content is obviously worth a great deal more than $500.

As long as you’re not setting up direct competitors to your own membership site, you can do this every single month if you like.

Using this method alone, you can easily double your income.

Membership sites are just an example. This works no matter what you’re doing online that is making you good money.