Mindset
Specialized Knowledge: How to Make $50 (or More) Every 5 Minutes, All Day Long, By Clicking a Few Buttons (Just Like I Did at Age 17)
Let me tell you something.
Do you want to know the first time I saw a balance of 1000 bucks in my PayPal account?
It was 2002... geez, a decade ago now, I was 17 years old. I was a senior in high school. I lived with my parents. And you know what I was doing to make my money?
Installing a link tracker plugin. I had programmed it, and people could buy it for 67 bucks (I think)... I would get 1/3rd of that money. Better than working at McDonald's at that age, right?
But the big bucks came in when someone bought that plugin... many people wanted "someone else" to install it.
5 Minutes = 50 Dollars
The price was $50 bucks per install. What they didn't know is it took me about 5 minutes to FTP up files, chmod files, create a database, import that database, create a cron job, edit a config file... in other words, my "specialized knowledge" was worth every penny to them even though I could do it fast.
As you can imagine, it didn't take long to fill up to 1k...
And that paid for college. I'll admit I needed help from my parents for the first year living alone, but never fully. They gave me "some" money for rent. I paid the rest of my rent, plus school, plus food, cable, internet, clothing, all that good stuff...
Why am I telling you all this?
- Because I still believe that if you're starting out, the fastest way to make money is freelancing: performing a service in exchange for pay.
- You can get paid more per hour if you do whatever it is you do FAST
- You get paid even MORE than that if you have a SPECIALIZED SKILL and differentiate yourself
What's a specialized skill? Let's think about this...
Scenario #1: WordPress Installer
How much would someone charge you to install WordPress? 10 bucks? But what if...
- You installed WordPress on their domain
- You loaded it up with a beautiful looking WordPress theme
- You customized it with all the SEO, social media, discussion, and traffic plugins they need
- You setup their blog to retweet and post to their fan page every time you made a post
- You loaded up the blog with YouTube videos, EzineArticles and PLR articles
- You contacted 25 professionals in their niche asking for guest blog content
- You brought people to the site to leave comments
- You setup their autoresponder, optin form, and popup on that blog
Now how much is that worth? 100 bucks MINIMUM... and it still takes you under an hour of work.
Scenario #2: Offline Business Setup
A few months ago I had dinner with a small business who was getting his website setup. His "coder" gave him...
- A professional design (magazine style WordPress theme)
- "About Us" and "Photos" pages (content supplied by the business owner)
- A Facebook Like button (installed a plugin)
- Business information and a Google Map to the location (installed a plugin)
- Coupon and QR code (installed a plugin)
That took even less time and the business owner was happy to pay over 1000 dollars for it. Just something to think about... but what about this?
Scenario #3: Membership Site Ninja
I know a couple of people who are the "modern day equivalent" of what I used to do. They are membership site installers. Their full-time living consists of:
- Installing WordPress
- Adding a good looking theme
- Setting up membership site software
- Add a simple sales letter with a payment button
- Setup "free" and "paid" levels
- Install a forum
- Install backup and monitoring plugins
Average price these people ask for membership site installations: $4000. For MAYBE an hour of work if you're slow and a riveting, action-packed re-run of "Mama's Family" is playing on your TV in the background?
My head is spinning right now with so many ways you can look at what freelance services other people are providing, and put your own "twist" on it. Here are some more examples...
- Article writer: in addition to writing the articles, you could submit the article to 20 article sites, AND login to their blog once per day to post the articles they hired you to write
- Copywriter: in addition to writing their sales letter, you could write and schedule the autoresponder emails, setup the thank you page offer and upsell, setup the affiliate program, and contact 20 joint venture partners
- Graphic Designer: in addition to creating someone's logo, you could create their 3D cover, affiliate banner graphics, sales letter "doodles" and minisite design
- Product Ghostwriter: in addition to writing someone's product, you could put it on Kindle and CreateSpace for them
- Resale Rights Seller: in addition to selling resale rights to your report or membership site, you could install the sales letter and download page on their site for them
And how do you get these jobs? Easy... contact anyone who sells a WordPress plugin, WordPress theme, article creation course, graphic creation course, copywriting course... get yourself listed in their product and download page.
Remember, that's how I got all my "$50 installation in 5 minutes" jobs came from... someone bought the link tracking plugin, and they had all the instructions to install it themselves, but that download page said: contact this guy if you want to pay 50 bucks to get it installed.
Quick question: What have you done, heard of, or plan to do to make more money with freelancing and done-for-you services?
It’s Simple, So It Must Not Work: How You Too Can Make Several Thousand Dollars in a Weekend
Let me tell you how my weekend went.
We made 8 sales of $97 Newbie Crusher, 3 subscriptions into $97/month Membership Cube, 1 signup to $97/month Webinar Crusher, a sale of a $49.95 product I haven't promoted in years, a couple of $7 products sold, a few $47 copies of Action PopUp, a few $47 modules of Double Agent Marketing also sold, a $197 product sold...
And a bunch of recurring subscription payments to take up the slack!
I'm saying this not to brag or make you jealous but to tell you how I did it...
Step 1: Setup a membership site to deliver the download
Step 2: Setup a sales letter to explain the offer and take payments
Step 3: Setup a page giving away a free gift upselling to the paid product
Step 4: Sent an email to my list telling them to click on a link
That's it. It really is that simple, and most of the time I even skip step three to make it even easier.
But most people won't do it, because it's too easy... what's the loophole?
"It's Simple, So It Must Not Work!"
It must not work. You must not be doing what you teach. Let me apply my own "twist" to this system. Let me try re-teaching it to others without actually doing it.
I see the same thing when it comes to "four daily tasks."
At one point I averaged how many things I really accomplished in one day. Some days it was 10 things, some days 0, some days 2, some days 5.
But on average -- I completed FOUR sixty minute tasks.
On days I completed more than four things, guess what?
- I didn't actually COMPLETE four things
- I cut up my tasks into "too small" chunks
- I was tired the next day and didn't get anything done
I've tried using fancy to-do lists, software, timers, and schedules. The only thing that will work LONG TERM for you is to do four things a day.
And if you don't know what four things you should be doing today, then:
- Setup a membership site
- Setup a SIMPLE sales letter that takes payments
- Create an optin page
- Send an email to your list
Finish four things today. Not 6, not 2, not 3, not 7, not 100... four. Then tomorrow, finish four more things, and so on. On average you'll get more things COMPLETED than those people who do 22 things one day, and 0 the next.
Overcome Procrastination Once and For All (Almost Instantly) in 4 Easy Steps
You only need to know (and implement) four things in order to overcome procrastination... so that you can take action, get results, make money, repeat it, and make it last.
First, we need to pick some simple task that you know you need to do, but aren't doing. For some of you it's quitting your day job. For others it's putting an information product out there. Maybe for you it's something as simple as writing (or dictating) one article every day.
Step 1: Side-by-Side "Ben Franklin" Comparison
The "Ben Franklin" comparison is where you have two columns. In one column you list your reasons for doing something, and in the other you list your reasons NOT to do something.
Most people do it wrong. They try to see HOW MANY things they can list in each column, and the column with the most things is the winner.
Instead, set a timer for 4 minutes and ist the "top four reasons" to do it and the "top four reasons" not to do it. That's it. If you list more than four, cross out some so you get the 4 most important, and if you have trouble thinking of four then any four will do.
I'll give you a couple examples...
- Quit Day Job: reasons to stay (reliable income, social interaction, daily routine, health insurance) vs. reasons to quit (more income, more fun, more freedom to travel, more free time)
- Launch Infoproduct: reasons not to launch (safer, no work, easier to stay anonymous, no risk of refunds) vs. reasons to launch (money, fun, growth, contribution)
- Getting Joint Ventures: reasons not to contact people (no chance of rejection, people are awkward, it's easier, ) vs. reasons to contact people (it's what successful people do, it doesn't take too much time, there are huge rewards, it's always good just to keep in touch)
Look at that, when you list things side by side it seems ridiculous to keep a job. It seems ridiculous to stay in a stay job, to not launch an information product, and makes it a necessity to get JVs.
When I was thinking about quitting my day job, both sides were pretty even for me, so I had to tip the scales in one direction or another... and once it was out of balance... I quit. But the key was chunking it down and focusing on just one specific thing.
Now you've measured the risk vs. the reward and you have a logical bird's eye view of WHY are you doing this that you can fall back on later.
Step 2: Pattern Interrupt to Minimize Bad Habits
You know what you need to be doing, now to get some kind of instant change you need to STOP one bad habit that keeps you from your goal. Back when I had my day job, and I was doing internet marketing, I was day trading stocks on my phone. I was always stressed out and sometimes it took effort to go even 10 minutes without checking my stocks.
Here's how I fixed the problem: I put a rubber band on my wrist. Every time I was about to check my stocks, I would snap that rubber band and move it to the other wrist.
I know that the reason most of you aren't productive is because you have that habit to check emails, check forums, check Facebook, check your stats or play computer games. Whenever you're about to do it, do the rubber band trick until you've accomplished your tasks for today.
Step 3: Conditioning & Anchoring
You'll start to notice that you'll start to associate pain with whatever bad habit you're getting rid of (let's say checking email) because every time you want to do it, it hurts.
Replace that old "checking your email" task with something productive. Let's say it's creating a report. Open your Word document or whatever tool you use to create a product, and the whole time you're working on it, force yourself to smile.
This does something really weird. Your brain is used to being happy, and then smiling. But it works in the other direction too. When you smile, you become happy.
When you continuously smile while typing and working on your product, then working on your product will make you happy.
If it makes you happy, then you'll want to do it more!
This is the same reason why physiologist Ivan Pavlov could ring a bell every time he fed a dog... and then eventually, just ringing the bell would get the dog to salivate. Because you're much smarter than a dog, you'll use this strategy to reward your good habits and get out of your comfort zone.
Step 4: Consistent Action (4DT)
Now that you'll have something that works, you'll want to repeat it, right?
That's where you'll use the same productivity advice I've given on every interview for year and probably will continue to give for the rest of my life...
Four Daily Tasks: At the beginning of the day, choose just four tasks you'll complete that day to move you in the right direction.
Accountability Partner: Tell someone (whether it's a business partner, spouse, parent, child, friend, neighbor, roommate) what your four tasks are, and at the end of the day, report back to them and tell them what you did or didn't finish, and why.
Time Boxing: Figure out how long a task will take you (for example, if finishing that report will take you 60 minutes), time it with a timer, and when that timer goes off, then put it online and step away from the computer. This ensures you'll stay focused and get that task completed QUICKLY.
And that's how you overcome procrastination: figure out what you want to do and Ben Franklin it, pattern interrupt whatever normally distracts you from making progress, condition yourself to enjoy it and use Four Daily Tasks to keep taking consistent action.
Procrastination
I understand if you need to post your comment below under a "fake" name (but I will still be proud of you when you use your real name)...
But I have a very simple 2-part question for you today:
Part #1: What's one thing you know you should have done today, yesterday, this week, last month... that you didn't do? (you can be as detailed or vague about this as you want)
Part #2: What's your excuse, reason, or story for not doing it yet?
I'll explain why I'm asking this question and what I'm going to do with your answers in the next blog post... what's important is you quickly answer both of those questions below and I'll talk to you very soon.
How to Pull Confidence Out of Thin Air, Starting Today (Easy 4-Step Process with PROOF!)
I was talking to someone the other night who was afraid to run a webinar. A lot of people are. Many of you have "enough" technical skills to do it, enough knowledge about your topic to present, but "something" is holding you back.
Let's change that in this blog post, for you, right now!
Go ahead and look at this page carefully, because it's going to help you make a sale (if you are a marketer), help people (if you are a teacher), conquer public presentations (if you are a speaker), and so on.
First, I am NOT a self-help expert of any kind. But I have run 359 live webinars (697 hours) so I know a couple of things about webinar confidence and public speaking.
You and I both have our own unique set of problems. Let's solve those problems for you, not in one huge step but in a couple of SMALL pieces at a time...
News Flash:
You Have Only Have 8 Emotions (Seriously!)
As a nerdy computer programmer, I like to take apart what makes us work. And according to psychologists (I'm not one and haven't read ANY books about psychology) you have 8 basic emotions:
- joy
- trust
- anticipation
- surprise
- fear
- anger
- sadness
- disgust
That's it! Anything else you feel is either one of these in greater or lesser intensity (i.e. rage, jealousy, distraction, annoyance, interest) or is a combination of these (i.e. love or guilt).
"But dammit Jim, I'm a computer programmer, not a psychologist." That "psychology" explanation looks like a bunch of ideas thrown at me. I like to deconstruct and simplify things.
This information isn't available in any book, only right here. At least not assembled in the way I've done it here. Let's get it into a step by step formula you can apply today.
Eight things are a lot to keep track of... are four key concepts easier? Of course they are. So let's keep in mind that each of these 8 emotions has an OPPOSITE... for example, the opposite of being "happy" is "sad", right?
Four Positives and Four Negatives
That means you really only have four negative and four positive states:
- ANTICIPATION (positive) <--> SURPRISE (positive)
- JOY (positive) <--> sadness (negative)
- TRUST (positive) <--> disgust (negative)
- fear (negative) <--> anger (negative)
(I've put positive emotions in ALL CAPS and negative ones in lower caps to make this more readable.)
The "green" and "orange" colors don't mean good or bad, it's just so you can tell which are the opposites of one another. For example, "joy" and "sadness" are opposites because they have different colors. (This is important for later.)
Here's something else you should notice from these (2 + 2 + 2 + 2) eight states:
- With 2 of the "positive" emotions, the opposite is a positive
- With 2 of the "positive" emotions, the opposite is a negative
- With 2 of the "negative" emotions, the opposite is a positive
- With 2 of the "negative" emotions, the opposite is a negative
You can have all the knowledge and all the skill in the world, but if your emotions (especially fear) hold you back, if you can't "get over yourself" so to speak... then you can't do anything!
This is why so many people have trouble putting up an optin page, can't YET run a live webinar, and so on. Too many negatives holding you back and not enough positives pushing you forward.
How to Change Your Behavior
(The Way That Really Works)
And I think the reason so many people can't get past it is they either let it take them over, try to ignore it, fight it or even go against it.
You have to REDIRECT it and USE it to your advantage. When I was young, I was in (music) band, played sports and gave school presentations probably just like you.
Anytime I "fought" what I was feeling, it distracted me from hitting the baseball. BUT... if I was nervous about playing saxophone in concert, I would use that alertness to do an even better job than I would otherwise.
(Maybe that explains why I was always stuck in leftfield/shortstop/3rd base in baseball, but was 1st/2nd chair in band class?)
To improve any skill, you need to go from:
- unconscious incompetence (unaware you're doing it wrong), to...
- conscious incompetence (find out WHAT you're doing wrong), then to...
- conscious competence (doing it somewhat right even if you have to work at it), and finally...
- unconscious competence (doing it automatically as easily as breathing or driving a car).
The seven stages of grief (shock, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression, acceptance) take you up to "conscious competence."
Twelve step recovery programs (problem, awareness, decision, inventory, admission, readiness, openness, details, repair, inventory, meditation, repetition) stop before you get to "unconscious competence."
Unconscious Incompetence to Unconscious Competence
There are a lot of things I don't know. But I DO know about overcoming your fear of public speaking to run webinars because I've done it. And the secret isn't figuring it all out at once, it's focusing on ONE issue you have (i.e. running one in the first place, slurring your words, stopping for questions, silence or dead air... slowly fixing things, until one day you realize you don't have to try at all...
- 0% of the way there: ground zero
(not online, not doing webinars) - 20% of the way there: unconscious incompetence
(running your first webinar, just doing "something") - 40% of the way there: conscious incompetence
(aware of little things you're doing wrong on a webinar) - 60% of the way there: conscious competence
(fixing little issues i.e. breathing on a webinar) - 80% of the way there: unconscious competence
(running a great webinar automatically)
If you've heard of the 80/20 rule, you know that 20% of the effort will bring you 80% of the results.
Life's 80/20 rule applies here in that the last 80% is the hardest... you can put in just 20% of the effort to achieve an 80% skill level (the beginnings of "unconscious competence") ... but now you're running webinars and doing them correctly: making sales, being a good presenter, recording it, all that good stuff.
Let's connect your "skill" (good or bad) your "emotion" (good or bad)... we want your negative state to be in the past, and your positive state to be in the future, right?
Anger, disgust, fear, and sadness should somehow fit into past -- the "unconscious incompetence" and "conscious incompetence" areas.
Anticipation, joy, trust, and surprise are in your future -- "conscious competence" and "unconscious competence."
When you're incompetent, you're in a negative state. When you're competent, you're positive. But how do you GET there?
Why Don't You Go "Confuse" Yourself!
The key is confusing yourself and let me explain. Think about when somebody won you over by making you laugh, overloading you with information or just confusing you with conflicting information until you gave up. You change your state through confusion.
The lack of confusion is also how you stay in a state, and why you're stuck in the state you're in now. Let's see what happens if we pair the "unconscious" states (beginning and end) with emotions that are NOT opposites, and "conscious" states (middle stages where we're improving) with emotions that ARE opposites -- to add the "confusion" factor where we make a change?
The Exact Roadmap to Do It Today
We get this roadmap of going from "guilt" to "love."
- unconscious incompetence = sadness + disgust = guilt
- conscious incompetence = anger + fear (opposites)
- conscious competence = ANTICIPATION + SURPRISE (opposites)
- unconscious competence = JOY + TRUST = love
(Remember, both "green" or both "orange" next to each other, means they're the same, "green and orange" means they're opposites.)
What you'll do is use fear and anger to rise above the guilt, take some action out of impulse, experience anticipation and surprise once you realize what you're doing, experience the joy of completion and the trust that it's possible to repeat.
Here are the steps you need to go through in order, for example, to get confident with webinars:
Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence: (sadness + disgust) Do you feel bad because you're not making enough money? Feel guilty because you're not doing enough? It's okay to blame your "past" self for not doing enough... cry it out so you can move past it. Your present and future self WILL run one webinar this week, it's going to happen.
Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence: (anger + fear) Remember when someone said you weren't good enough to do something? That same person would probably say the same about you and webinars.Prove them wrong. Are you jealous of someone else, who has more than you do? It's not fair, you deserve it more than they do! Get mad enough to make a difference.
Maybe you could do a webinar better than "they" would... now you have something they don't.
In any case, your marketing message isn't getting out now -- you need to run at least ONE webinar. Try it. What you've been doing so far isn't working it... attack this head-on.
Stage 3: Conscious Competence: (ANTICIPATION + SURPRISE) You're allowed to be a "little" bit nervous trying something, like webinars, that you haven't done before.But one of the cool things about doing a webinar is that you don't know what's going to happen. Doing a webinar means you have to move outside your comfort zone a little bit, but what have you got to lose?
The absolute worst thing that happens is that no one shows up, or no one likes your webinar, and guess what... you're at the same place you are now! In other words, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Once you do this you'll know where your limits are.
Stage 4: Unconscious Competence: (JOY + TRUST) You completed the hard part... that first 2 minutes of the webinar when you were nervous, and you powered through it to the fun part.You finished your first webinar, and you're already excited about doing another one. Even if just one person said you were great, that made it all worthwhile, didn't it? You can't believe it took you this long to run a live webinar like this. You want to do it again and again. Your next webinar will be even better.
If you're not ready to run webinars, replace "run a webinar" with "make an optin page" ... "setup a payment button" ... or even "exercising" or "quitting your job" or "dating" ...
I'm not saying I know everything about everything, but you can apply what I know about webinar confidence to your own life, so that you can tackle that problem of having a SKILL but not yet having the CONFIDENCE to put yourself out there.
What do you think?
How to Complete a Week’s Worth of Work in One Day
- You're overwhelmed by all the new offers you see.
- You're switching between too many tasks every day.
- You're doing too much of the work yourself.
- Your to-do list keeps getting bigger (not shorter) and you can't prioritize.
- You procrastinate and can't seem to finish what you start.
- You're a perfectionist.
- You're unhappy.
- Choose one "computer free" day of the week, and one "email free" day (even when you're at the computer).
- Only focus on ONE project this week, such as launching a new product, finishing that sales letter, or creating that membership site content. Everything else can wait.
- Outsource just one thing. I recommend you dictate ten articles (2.5 minutes each) and send them out to get transcribed, that saves you one day of work.
- Throw away your whiteboard and only write down four daily tasks instead of having a long to-do list.
- Reward yourself with 30 minutes of TV, a bowl of ice cream, or the rest of the day off for finishing your project early.
- Be "perfectly complete" instead of "perfectly perfect." In other words, try to win the high score. If your goal was to write 10 articles and you wrote all 10 before your deadline, you scored a "perfect" 10 regardless of the quality of those articles.
- Use the extra money from internet marketing to go on a vacation, pay off your mortgage faster, spend time with your family, or send your kid to college. In other words, use the money to do something you enjoy.
The Future Has A Lot Less Buttons And Levers: Choices Are Bad
I hope you are noticing this: The more successful solutions out there reduce the number of choices.
I first noticed this a couple of years ago when I bought a special box that attaches to my TV called a NetFlix Roku. What this box does is it connects to my Netflix service over Wi-Fi and streams movies and TV shows to my TV.
Sounds complicated, right? But it's not! The funny thing about this remote is that it has only got nine buttons: It has got a Home button, an Enter button, four arrows (like left, right, up, down), a Play and Pause button, Rewind and Fast-Forward. That's it!
There is no Channel Changing button, there is no Volume button, no Mute button. Not even an On/Off button.
That's Right!
The Roku device remains On for as long as it is plugged in! It is one of my favorite devices to use because I can literally use it within seconds of taking it out of the box.
Here is something else to think about: Video cameras. For a long time I resisted buying video cameras. It is so difficult to decide which one to get. I didn't want to get a video camera that used tape, even digital tape, and I wasn't sure if I should get a camera made by Sony, Kodak or some other manufacturer.
But I did buy the Flip camera years ago. The great thing about the flip is that it really only has one Big Red Button. Much like the Roku remote, it has a couple of extra buttons, such as Pause and Play (that's one button), the Trash button, and buttons to navigate between videos and zoom in and out. But the button usually almost always used is that Big Red Record Button.
You want to record new video? Take it out, hit the Big Red Button - it records. You want to stop? Hit the Big Red Button again.
That is compared to other cameras which are better in quality and have better features, but the problem is they have too many features. For example, with the Kodak Zi8, I almost bought it because it has an external microphone. But everyone I have seen record with it has to navigate through different menus to choose what quality they want to record with, and other settings, before they can record it.
I don't care about that! I want to just hit one button and it records.
Think about the iPhone: again, almost no buttons. It has got a Lock button, volume controls, a Silent button and a Home button. That's it. No buttons for dialing or going through different menus. That is all handled in the touch screen.
If you don't have a touch screen phone, I would recommend you borrow someone's iPhone and try to do a conference call. It is amazing how it can generate new menus and give you new buttons to push when there were none there previously.
Same deal with the iPad, Droid, Kindle and other touch screen devices with almost no buttons. It is super simple and super intuitive to use - and requires almost no documentation.
Think about WordPress: I think what makes WordPress special is that it simplifies everything. You can literally set it up in a few seconds and write your first blog post in a few minutes. The interface for writing new posts and activating plugins is far simpler than any other blogging platform I have ever seen.
And the blogs that are the most accessible are the ones that remove features. They might remove things like the dates, or the ability to leave comments on posts, just to make it easier to get to the information.
Now that I have told you how much I like the Roku, the flip, the iPhone and WordPress, it's your turn!
What Are You Doing To Remove The Buttons?
Do you offer two Order buttons on your sales letter: maybe a way to fully buy your product and another offer as a payment plan?
What would happen if you split tested, only showing one of those buttons? Would it make it easier for people to join your program?
When someone logs into your membership site, is it clear what they should look at first? In other words, are your posts listed in chronological order? And do you have some kind of welcome message or welcome video when someone first joins?
When I read your report, am I going to find clear, step-by-step instructions about what to read first and where to go from there?
And, most importantly, what should I do when I'm done? So tell me, how are you removing multiple choices and multiple calls to action that don't matter?
What are YOU doing to remove the buttons? Comment below.
You Think Too Big And It Is Hurting Your Business: Why Gary Vaynerchuk Was Wrong
If you never had the chance yet to read Gary V's crush it book, I definitely recommend it. In fact, if you ask me privately I have tons of copies of it and I am willing to give you one for free.
Gary took his father's liquor store and turned it from a $4 million dollar business into a $50 million dollar business.
The biggest lesson I got out of his very quick read was this: When you are a self-employed entrepreneur you are going to work harder and you are going to work more hours than someone who has a day job. It doesn't matter, if you are going to be doing something that is fun that excites you to get out of bed in the morning.
Gary talks a lot about getting noticed by the big media companies on social media like twitter, facebook and you-tube. I think a lot of marketers take that advice too far, especially when pursuing the getting bought out model.
In case you weren't paying attention during the first dot com boom of the late 90's and early 2000's. The idea is that you mass tons and tons of users get tons of market penetration while breaking even or even losing money, in the hopes that some big company will buy you out for $100 million dollars.
You-tube lost money for years even after they were bought out by Google, until recently. Facebook lost money until it partnered with Microsoft and started displaying ads. MySpace lost money until it was bought out by Rupert Murdock, and the list goes on.
Chances Are: You Won't Get Bought Out By Someone Else!
You can't count on that payday. If you are already making millions of dollars a year and can afford to lose money for years and years, that's fine. Ignore my advice.
If you are trying to make a living, and build a business you need to make some kind of profit. It is NOT evil to make money! Although people like Gary V. have enough money to think big, you are still starting out and you need to think small.
When you pay $20 dollars for advertising, just try to get $20 dollars back. On a regular basis, I will post form offers or create pay per click campaigns for load to your products to make some of the money back, and to attract affiliates, and to get a few extra leads.
If I spend $20 dollars to promote a free offer, and I get 20 opt ins out of that promotion, I know I have made my money back. I know I get more than $1 dollar per subscriber on my list.
When I find affiliates, I have no problem giving them bulk of my profits. I pay 60% commission to my affiliates with lifetime tagging.
I know a lot of people who offer 100% commission on the front end, and 0% on the back end. What does this mean? It means that you might have a report selling for $20 dollars that up-sells people to a certain course for $100 dollars. You have a $20 dollar front end, $100 dollar back end.
When an affiliate promotes that $20 dollar product, if it makes a sale they get all the $20 dollars and none of the $100 dollars. What I do instead is give 60% of both. That means if they make a sale at $20 dollars, I will give them 60% or $12 dollars of the $20. When somebody then buys the $100 dollar product, I will give the affiliate $60 dollars of that as well.
Again, I don't mind giving away that high commission because I would not have made that sale without that affiliate.
Affiliate Sales Are Just "Extra!"
Even if you do want to get yourself bought out some day, you need to show some kind of earnings potential. You-tube, and facebook, and twitter can easily sell because they've massed millions of users. Just in case you don't make it to the millions of users, try to monetize the few number of people you have. That way you will find it easier to devote the time to a site that is making money versus a site that might make money sometime in the future.
I do agree with most of what Gary says. I don't want you to repeat the same mistakes made during the dot com bust, which was losing money for years in exchange for users. You don't have to give away everything for free. Your knowledge and your services are worth something. You are just going to have to trust me on this.
Do you agree or disagree with what I had to say today? Leave me a comment below right now giving me your quick and honest opinions.
Eating Your Own Dog Food: Make More Money, Reduce Refunds And Minimize Customer Support
In programming, there is a phrase called, "Eating Your Own Dog Food", which to my surprise almost no marketers know about it, almost no MBAs know about it, and almost no programmers know about this phrase. It is so important, not just in programming, but in writing, in real life, in presenting and in copywriting.
Here's What "Eating Your Own Dog Food" Really Means...
It means test your stuff!
When you think of dog food, it's not very appetizing is it? You probably would not eat it. But what if you had to? If you had to eat dog food, you might make it with better ingredients. You might make it with different ingredients so that it would taste better for you.
It is the same idea with your own websites and reports. If you were the one using your software programs, if you were the one using your blog or your membership site, what would you change to make it easier for you to find your own information?
Think about Microsoft Word. When you open up Microsoft Word, what is the first thing that happens? It automatically opens up a new blank document. You don't have to navigate to open up something new. By default, it guesses that you are going to write something brand new. It saves you a little bit of time every time you open up that word processor.
What about the iPod music player? I notice that sometimes when I am listening to my iPod or iPhone and I yank out the ear-phone jack, the music player will automatically mute itself. Back when I had a DiscMan, WalkMan, or tape recorder and I was listening to something through head-phones, and the head-phones were accidently disconnected, it would immediately switch to the speakers.
Nine times out of ten, I did not want it to broadcast out of the speakers. That's why when they created an iPod they added this extra feature so you would not accidentally broadcast your music.
It makes it much more convenient because if you are listening to something on your iPod or iPhone and you are done listening through the head-phones, simply unplug and it mutes itself.
I use this logic all the time in the real world. For example, back when I had a day job, I created a web page that submitted a form that took a while to load. People testing it noticed when students were waiting for this long form to load, they would click the submit button multiple times.
What I did was greyed out these submit buttons, so after they clicked it once, they could not click it again. You might see this in sites such as PayPal. When you click the pay button, you only want to pay once.
The best story of Eating Your Own Dog Food, which I am not sure is true, is from Michael Fortin. Apparently, Michael released some kind of VHS video tape about copywriting. He sold a thousand copies. Only one person asked for a refund. The person said that the video tape was blank. As it turned out a mistake was made and all 1000 video tapes were blank. Because no one had tested it, and none of the customers had even played the tape, nobody knew the tapes were blank.
How Do You "Eat Your Own Dog Food" in Your Business?
Do you have instruction manuals or software manuals? If you keep getting the same questions asked over and over, integrate those into your manuals. I have revised my manuals for products such as "PaySensor" and "Action PopUp" hundreds of times to the point where the first page gives people the quick-start guide.
Certain phrases people still miss, even with the written instructions. I have bolded, made them red, and increased the font just to cut down on the amount of customer support. On my blog, I have adjusted things such as moving the search box higher in the side bar. I've used plug-ins such as Psychic Search to figure out what people are looking for and what they aren't finding.
After I setup a membership site, I create a user-level account to see what my users see when they first join it. This is how I sometimes can catch that the category bar is missing, or that the site needs a search box, or that certain posts need to be stickied or moved to the top so people can easily find information, or even create special side bar widgets that give easy links so they can quickly navigate to different areas of the site.
Even if none of these options apply to you, read your own reports, your own articles, your own blog posts. You might notice that you are not giving a clear picture of what needs to be done. Maybe you need to add a step by step blueprint or checklist. If you follow along the different steps you are providing in your report, you are missing a crucial chapter.
For example, in one of my reports I talk about how to dictate a lot of articles and get them transcribed. I noticed going back weeks later using my own report, I missed the step about getting applicants who transcribe a job to take a test. I filled in that missing chapter.
This should be common sense. I still have to tell it to you: Eat Your Own Dog Food! Test your stuff.
Use Your Own Sites, And See How Your Front End Appears To People Who Are Trying To Find You!
If people are searching a certain phrase in Google to find you, what are they searching for? When people are on your sales letter and there is a video on that page, is it clear where the play button is? If someone goes through the check-out process of your site, is it clear how they can get their download? Do you have an email follow up sequence in place to ensure that they download your product, that they consume it, and that they actually get to the end and get the results they were looking for? If not, you have more work to do.
You will thank me later because you will reduce refunds, spend less time on customer support, and make more sales by Eating Your Own Dog Food.
Question Time! Do you eat your own dog food? In what way? How are you going to do a better job of dog fooding in the future?
Comment below, right now. It's 100% free.
