Me and my biz partner are just now starting a new marketing newsletter. High level, advanced stuff. More details at http://MaverickInfluence.com

I still blog – every week – at my personal blog at http://linusrylander.com

Here’s my first prediction:

2012 will be the most bizarrely interesting, inspiring and opportunity-ridden year in a long-ass time.

I think more fortunes will be made than ever before.

I think more people will realize the silliness of the 9-to-5 than ever before, and more people will have the chutzpah to go out there and go after what they want like never before.

I also think more fortunes will be lost than ever before. More people will go bankrupt than ever before.

Above all else, I think the people who know what they want, and go after it at all costs, and make no apologies about it… will be happiest and most successful… like ALWAYS before.

Overall, I think it will be a pretty exciting year. Or not.

That choice is up to you, and now is the time to decide.

And tomorrow is also the time to decide, because every day is an opportunity to do what you didn’t yesterday.

I think counting our time on this planet in years is kinda dumb. We should count it in minutes, because you never know which minute will be your last. I think 12 months at a time is kind of arrogant, is all.

Second prediction, online marketing related:

I’m not sure if this will happen in 2012 or later, but I think we’re all headed in this direction:

Online advertisers will stop competing for clicks and start competing for people.

Advertisers have more data available than ever before. Previously, all you could target against was keywords or websites — which is AMAZING in and of itself — but things are changing…

… now you can advertise to someone based on what they like and what they’re interested in. If they not only like to buy books about golf, but they practice martial arts as well.

More people will get more marketing savvy. Realize the 80/20 of people who buy stuff online.

Targeting people, not clicks, is already done to a certain extent with retargeting.

Joe visits your website, you drop a tracking cookie. Cookie is now in their browser. Your ads follow him around the web wherever he goes.

Doesn’t matter if he searches your keywords or if he visits sites where you’ve placed banner ads. He’s been to a specific page on your website (say, your thank you page) and therefore you know he’s interested.

You’re targeting a PERSON, not trying to get clicks based on demographic data or whatever else.

Of course, savvy marketers have always understood that ultimately you’re trying to sell to people, not clicks… but here’s what I’m getting at: technology is catching up.

This leads into my final point for the day: why I’m quitting IM.

No, I’m not actually going to stop marketing stuff on the internet, which is really what “IM” means… but I’ll dramatically decrease my activity and presence in the “IM” sphere.

Two reasons for that.

The first is… that I am not 110% happy serving this audience.

I listened to Gary Vaynerchuk’s famous keynote from the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo again (which I make a point of watching at least once a year) — and heard him talk about how he was 99% happy with his business… but that 1% unhappiness forced him to do something different.

To me, this whole space is so… immature. Childish. I’ve seen marketers who I previously had tremendous respect for, start promoting the WSO of the week.

An extremely tiny percentage of the marketing community are in fact real marketers. Hardly anyone is building a real business. Hardly anyone is providing real value to their audience.

People just want cheap tricks and magic software which will do all their thinking for them.

Man. If you REALLY want success… you’re gonna have to be willing to do some things you’ve never done before… some things that radically stretch your comfort zone.

You have to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

You have to extremely courageous, unlike 99% of everyone else. The “99%” marching down Wall Street aren’t doing anything to change anything. Like a few angry signs could do anything.

It’s reactive behavior, and that’s where everyone falls.

You will never accomplish any degree of satsifaction or fulfillment if your daily living reality is based on reacting to outside circumstances.

You have do decide on what it is you want, and proactively take action towards that every day, relentlessly.

The “99%” are part of the problem. It’s because a whole country is made up of people who would rather spend hours crafting their angry signs, than to buck up and create something truly valuable, do their work, do something real.

Of course, there are the few dedicated individuals out there, perhaps reading this newsletter, that really have the balls to go after what they want.

And I applaud you.

And you know what? You have all the tools you need. A newsletter like this might keep you on track, but if you are that person, you will succeed regardless.

And if you’re not that person, tomorrow is a new day. And every day is an opportunity to do what you didn’t have the guts for yesterday.

The second reason I’m quitting the IM space, is because of my new business. Lifestyle Maverick.

I just got the idea this weekend, and it excites the shit out of me.

Let me explain what this is all about:

I’ve been part of the “seduction” or “pickup” community for a few years, and recently I’ve been working on some big launches and marketing stuff for players in that market.

It’s one of my favorite industries in the world, because of the real, tangible, tremendous transformations that happen on an everyday basis for people in that industry.

A guy can go from being the most shy, most introverted nerd you can think of… and transform into a radiant, charismatic, authentically attractive man.

(now, just a sidenote here… there are essentially two camps in this industry: there’s the “routine” side of things, where people learn scripted lines and intricate “formulas” for attracting a woman in order to get her to have sex with you…

… and then there’s the “natural” side of things, which is based on actually becoming a person who is naturally attractive to women… gaining real self-confidence, and all these different things… and then there’s all sorts of “schools of thoughts” that represent everything in between — take a guess which camp I’m in…)

One of the first things guys usually learn when they get into this sort of stuff, is how to approach women any time, anywhere.

Guys can literally walk up to girls in the middle of the street, engage her in a conversation, and walk away with a phone number.

And here’s my point in all this:

When you have the balls to do that, that is all you need to not only be successful with women… but be successful in any area of life.

The pickup community not only teaches guys how to be successful in their love lives… but the foundation of what it takes to be successful anywhere.

It takes incredible guts, incredible courage to walk up to a beautiful woman out of nowhere.

And it ain’t courage if you ain’t scared. Scared shitless, usually.

It also takes real courage to after your dreams. Build a business, relocate to South America, lose weight, learn something NEW.

The thing that separates an entrepreneur from the “mediocre majority” is a matter of chutzpah. Balls of steel. Courage.

They will not only recognize what they want out of life, but they will unapologetically go after if, against all odds, no matter what.

…

Here’s what I want to do in my new business, which is also my primary focus for 2012:

I want to teach these guys not only how to be successful with women… but how to achieve financial success as well.

Once people discover their ability to, say, approach women, and the fact that they actually can and get good at things they thought they never could do…

… they’re hungry for more. A lot of them still work 9-to-5s. And like most people, they don’t want to.

I want to teach them how to build tiny little internet business of their own, so they can live life in a bigger way.

Previously, my plans were to build the “IM” business, and start another business in the dating advice industry.

But then I got an email from Jeff Martyka, newfound friend and a moderator in Perry Marshall’s mastermind forum.

He suggested teaching what I teach with the business building stuff, to a younger audience.

And then it sort of clicked. Not immediately, but a few weeks later.

The “dating advice” people… would be the SAME people as the “business building” people.

Bring both together and suddenly we have a “lifestyle design” business. Thus, Lifestyle Maverick was born.

(oh, and a third reason for making the switch — I feel much more of a connection to these guys… because they ARE me, same age group and everything)

…

I guess that’s it.

I feel the ending of this post will be a bit anticlimactic. Oh well.

That’s what I had to say.

Did you know that according to an ancient indian tribe, the year of 2012 is the year marked as “the time for kicking ass and taking names”.

That is your mission, should you choose to accept it.

Have a great fucking year.

And I’ll see you later.

- Linus

Creating a killer offer.

A blockbuster smash-hit offer can make you very rich. One great offer can change your life forever.

In mainstream “internet marketing” doctrine this is one of the least-talked-about subjects, but it should be in the top 3.

(the shortlist is currently: driving traffic, driving traffic and driving traffic…)

(it should be more like: how to nail down an audience, how to match offers to that audience, and how to communicate with that audience — that’s the entire marketing puzzle figured out in three sentences – and note how it has nothing to do with the internet itself, it’s universal…)

Gary Halbert used to say that the offer was the most important element to test in every sales pitch.

At the core of all great sales copy is a great OFFER

Think about that for a moment.

Without an offer, nothing happens, or can happen.

The offer is the DEAL that you wish to take place: “you do X, and I will do Y in exchange under Z conditions.”

Typically, X is give money, and Y deliver product or service. Z is the terms under which this agreement takes place under. “If you don’t like it, you give me the product back, and I’ll give you the money back.”

These are the fundamentals of creating an offer.

VALUE in exchange for VALUE

The first component of the offer is the actual thing delivered. The result you are selling. “If you give me money, I will help you accomplish this result.”

Additionally, if the value you deliver is, to your customer, worth more to him than the money he’s paying you, then you have a good value proposition.

The bigger the gap between money received and transformative value, the greater your offer is.

Let’s compare two different offers:

Offer #1:

“Pay me $2,000.00, and I will give you this paper bag filled with dog shit.”

Offer #2:

“Pay me $2,000.00, and I will give you this brand new Ferrari.”

See the difference?

The first offer is an indescribably bad one. Heck, you couldn’t even give ME money to take your bag of dog poo.

The second is an almost indescribably great offer.

Now, let me ask you a question:

Why does an ordinary pencil cost less than… say, that Ferrari?

Because money is always in direct proportion to perceived value.

Second, ALL value is perceived value, and depends on who is doing the perceiving. (for example: you’ll have a hard time selling medication for erectile dysfunction to a woman)

If you want to charge MORE MONEY for your product or services, deliver HIGHER transformational value.

(value is transformation, some kind of change… the more radically positive the change, the higher the value is)

Offer elements

The second component of a great offer are the terms under which it takes place.

This includes guarantees, types of offers, amount of money, etc.

The 30-day hold

An example is Gary Halbert’s famous “30-day hold.” This is when you don’t cash the check or process the credit card for 30 days.

“If you order today, I won’t even process your credit card for another 30 days. This gives you a full month to try out my product and use it as if you owned it, and experience these amazing results in your life first hand – without risking a penny. If after 30 days you absolutely love it, and would like to keep using it – then simply do nothing and I will charge your credit card for $49.95. However, if for any reason, or even NO reason at all you are not completely  satisfied with this product, simply send it back and I’ll remove you from the customer file.”

Typical results when implementing a 30-day hold is that you’ll TRIPLE the amount of orders and DOUBLE your refunds.

So if you currently make 100 sales a month and get 10 refunds… with a 30-day hold you could potentially get 300 sales, and 20 refunds…

The more-money-back guarantee

“You have 60 days to try out my product completely risk free. If after that time you’re not completely satisfied with the results you’ve achieved, just send me an email and I will give you all your money back PLUS an additional $100.00 just for trying it out – and you can even keep the product!”

Variations include double- and triple-money-back guarantees.

The conditional guarantee

Way, way more powerful than a normal “satisfaction guarantee.” It’s a guarantee against a condition: “If within this time frame you have not accomplished this specific result or better, I will give you your money back.”

Example: product about sprinting for athletes.

“If you use my training system for at least 30 minutes, three times per week… and you don’t cut your 40-yard dash by at least 1.8 seconds within 4 weeks… then just email or fax me a copy of your training log (for verification) and I’ll not only give you all your money back, but I’ll also throw in an extra $49 – just for trying it out. That’s how confident I am in the results you will accomplish using my training system. So best case scenario: you become the fastest person in your team, zooming past your opponents who’ll be clueless to your secret… or worst case scenario: this doesn’t work for you, and you’ll end up with an extra hundred bucks to buy my competitor’s product.”

(inspired by one of the offers out of Brent Halls book, Multiplier Method vol. 1.)

Another example… and I love this one… Perry Marshall’s “5-Point Satisfaction Guarantee” for his Facebook Firestorm course:

1. By the end of week 1 (November 18th, 2011) you’ll have a solid grasp of the basics and your ads will be running.
2. By the end of week 2 (November 25th, 2011) you’ll start to feel competent. “Hey, I’m getting the hang of this!”
3. By the end of week 3 (December 2nd, 2011) you’ll be happy you signed up.
4. If your score at IsFBforMe.com is 6 or more, by week 4 (December 9th, 2011) Facebook will be one of your three most economical advertising channels.
5. If you complete & document Tom’s step-by-step assignments, by April 30, 2012, you’ll be one of the best 3 advertisers in your marketplace on Facebook, if you so choose.

Trials

“Test drive my software for 10 days for only $4.95. After that, if you choose to stay, it’s only $29.95 per month.”

Variations:

• Free trial
• Low-dollar trial
• 10, 30, 60 day trials
• For continuity offers
• For single-purchase offers

Conclusion

Here’s what I’m trying to tell you:

You need to spend MUCH MORE TIME crafting your offer. It is THE MOST IMPORTANT element of your entire sales presentation.

It can be as simple as “Give me fifty bucks, and I’ll send you this thing.” — but it’s almost never the optimal way to go.

“Buy one, get a 2nd one free” – is a step in the right direction.

Add in 30-day holds and conditional, double-money back guarantees … and sparks will start flyin’.

Test all different kinds of offers, mix and match.

Your office is an alchemist’s lab… go experiment! And when you get something that works, you milk it for all it’s worth.

Carpe Vitae — Seize your life!

- Linus Rylander

I know I haven’t posted much lately, but I thought I would take this moment to ‘preciate ya’ll.

It’s American Thanksgiving. We don’t have that over here.

I think it’s kind of dumb.

The fact that you need a specific holiday, a predefined date where you’re supposed to be grateful.

Why not be grateful every day?

I keep a journal. You could call it a gratitude journal.

Every evening I write something in it… something that I am grateful for.

Just expressing a sincere “thanks, bro!” to the big ol’ Universe.

And I firmly believe that it not only has helped me achieve all my goals… but that it keeps me on track every day. So I don’t lose sight of the big picture.

Being in the habit of saying thanks, for everything, even the bad stuff… is one of the most powerful habits I know.

Like the year we spent in a run-down old house in futt-buck-ville surrounded by cows and enormous mosquitoes. If we hadn’t, I would have never been able to focus so intensely on learning copywriting… or taken up running… or the hundreds of hours I spent walking, thinking, pondering and figuring stuff out (and listening to old Gary Halbert tapes).

But now… thanks to all the people on this list.

You’ve kept us warm on many a cold days… for that I couldn’t be more grateful…

… and I’ve had the opportunity to change some of your lives too- which is an amazing experience for any teacher.

The greatest thanks from a student is really a big ol’ success story. “I took your stuff and I did this!”

It’s great.

As I’m typing this… It is 37 days, 6 hours and 49 minutes until New Years Eve 2012.

That means you have 37 days left to kick butt and accomplish your goals this year.

You can do a LOT of things in 37 days.

For example, NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month) is coming to its end here… where thousands of people write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

It’s totally possible… but who’s to say you couldn’t do it in december instead?

37 days is a long time.

Go kick some butt… and then, I have some really cool stuff coming out in 2012.

Carpe vitae– seize your life!

Linus

Part 1: Split testing sales funnels

So let’s get started. Here’s lesson numero uno:

The earlier an element is in a sales funnel… the more impact it has.

It’s a leverage thing. Think of a long lever – a long stick, basically – and you need to use it to move a large rock.

You wedge the edge of the lever under the rock, and you start pulling down on the lever. But where? Do you pull down in the middle of the lever or at the end? Perhaps near the bottom, just next to the rock?

Obviously, you’d do it at the end.

Same things with sales funnels… for the simple reason that… everything that comes AFTER one part gets affected by that part.

So what do I mean by this? Okay, let’s make a concrete example:

Your sales funnel has these four parts in it, with these basic conversion metrics:

1. Google AdWords ad  (1% CTR)
2. Lead capture page (20% conversion rate)
3. Sales letter (2% conversion rate)
4. Upsell sales letter (25% conversion rate)

Just a note here, so I don’t mislead you: I’m going to leave email autoresponders out of it for the sake of making things simple. This is a short tutorial on tracking, not how to set up sales funnels. Something like this probably wouldn’t be profitable (or not nearly as profitable as it could be) without using autoresponders. Just, you know, FYI…

Assuming each element has gotten enough traffic to know that they work at all… your squeeze page is getting opt ins, and you’re making sales… now you need to improve it. Where would you start?

Let’s just run the numbers first, so we know what we have to work with. Let’s say your front end product is $50, and your upsell is $100. From 1000 clicks you would get… 200 leads… 4 sales… 1 upsell sale… to make $300 in gross sales. Meaning you would break even at $0.30 per click.

Your AdWords ad is your archimedes lever here. Why?

Let’s say you have a 1% clickthrough rate (CTR) on your ad. 1% of everyone who sees it, clicks.

You test it against 2 other ads… and the winner gets 1.25% CTR. Okay, that’s not so much, is it?

Running the same metrics, here are the numbers: 1250 clicks, 250 leads, 5 sales, 1.25 upsell sales… to make $375 in gross sales.

You increased your clicks by 25% – and the numbers go up across the board, just like magic. Or, well, math.

Most amateurs start testing the sales letter… only makes sense to test where money’s being made, right?

If you, on the other hand, got conversions up by 25% on your sales letter… you’d get 1000 clicks, 200 leads, 5 sales and 1.25 upsells, for a grand total of $375 bucks.

Wait… WHAT? The same $ amount of money? 

The untrained eye wouldn’t notice it… but here’s what you need to consider:

• It’s about a bazillion times easier to test adwords ads than sales letters
• Bumping ad adwords ad from 1% to 1.25% isn’t really a big deal. Sometimes you’ll double CTR by adding a comma, or something silly like that
• Bumping a sales letter from 2% to 2.5% IS A MUCH BIGGER DEAL – and you’d probably need to spend several hundred dollars, if not thousands, to pull this off.
• You also get 50 extra leads from the first example, that you can sell to forever. Had I included the actual emails as split-testing variables in this hypothetical case study, the first example would have outpulled the second by miles.

…

So what’s next? You follow the sales funnel. Next up is the lead generation page.

Let’s say you can get that up 25% too. Whammo, 25% conversion rate.

1250 clicks, 313 leads, 6.25 sales, 1.5 upsells = $462.50

That’s 70 extra dollars per 1000 clicks – which goes a long way to breaking even or reaching profitability.

…

I think you get the idea.

Finally, there’s no reason why you couldn’t split test every element in the funnel simultaneously. But if you’re like a lot of small e-biz owners, and you’re a one-man show… chances are you’re strapped for cash and resources. Now you know what you need to focus on first.

…

Advanced tip:

Every good ad, funnel, sales letter has a core theme… a “hook” that pulls people in by the neck and compels them onward. Your most important thing to test is this core theme. What primary appeal is MOST appealing? That’s your job to find out.

Here’s the thing: you should test this as early in your funnel as you can. This is something you’ll most likely base your entire campaign around. Trying to divine your primary appeal through variations of entire 12-page sales letters is… sort of counterproductive, wouldn’t you say?

…

Part 2: Your most important tracking metric

It’s not your conversion rates. It’s not your CTR. It’s not number of sales. It’s not email open rates.

It’s… your visitor value.

I wrote a short, 3-pager report on this. It’s called…

“Why Your Conversion Rates Are
BULLSHIT
… and the little-known ”secret numbers”
that underground marketers
secretly worship to build non-stop
cash-sucking money machines that
print money on demand…”

… and it also contains 7 more numbers which are all more important than conversion rates.

It started as a rant. I never planned on releasing it… but I figured I could just let you have it. I think you might learn something. You can download it here:

Right click + Save as to download PDF

Enjoy…

See you in the next part!

Oh… here is…

One final thing to test

What’s that, you say? Something ELSE to test?

Yeah, that’s right.

Thornton’s Yoghurt-Coated Strawberries

They’re pretty awesome.

Relax, breathe a little.

Carpe vitae,

Linus

I was originally just going to talk about A/B split testing… but that’s a bit old hat, innit?

Old split testing methodology goes something like this…

1. Create an ad
2. Create a second ad which is slightly different (change the headline, change the color scheme, etc)
3. Run them against each other and see which one wins
4. Repeat steps 2-4

(btw – when talk about “ads” here, that could be anything – not necessarily a Google and or a banner… I’m talking landing pages, sales letters, checkout pages and even articles in addition to PPC ads and things like that)

Whispers vs. Screams

And here’s the thing:

There are two kinds of elements of an ad that you can test:

• Elements that scream
• Elements that whisper

Screams would be things like… headlines, offers, HOOKS, overall theme of the ad, etc…

Whispers are things like font colors, background colors, buy-buttons, minor tweaks in layout, images/graphics, etc…

Now – here’s what I’m proposing:

IGNORE the “whispers” and ONLY focus on maximizing the “screams”.

While it would be nice to have all the little details perfectly optimized – it’s ultimately a waste of time.

Why? Because  running tests to determine whether or not a blue headline is better than a black one… takes time and money.

And maybe you’ll get a miraculous 5% bump in conversion. Cool.

Now what if you had spent that same time and money testing a completely different offer? Or a completely different TYPE of ad altogether?

If you did that, one out of two things are likely to happen:

• You win… BIG!
• You crash and burn.

Risk/Reward

The risk/reward pendulum swings an equal distance both ways.

But if you focus your efforts on ONLY this type of test, the law of averages say you’ll eventually hit the jackpot. And much sooner than the competition who’s testing Arial versus Georgia headlines.

So while the competition is winning or losing by 5% at a time… you’re winning or losing by 50% at a time… or 300%.

And guess what? It takes even longer to test a “whisper” than it does to take a “scream” because the changes are so small. When focusing on the screams, you’ll be able to tell very quickly?

And if you do crash and burn… that’s a win too! Because (A) now you know one more way not to do it… and can make strategic decisions for your next test, and (B) you can just change it back if you hurt too badly.

Why People Fail At This Stuff

If you think about it… it’s completely OBVIOUS that testing the “screams” is the way to go. There’s almost nothing that speaks against it.

But you know… nearly EVERY business owner focus on the whispers. They just don’t know how they would test something else. I think a big reason might be that they don’t understand copywriting at such a level that they can knock out killer ad copy whenever they need to. (This is one of the biggest reasons why business owners set up long-term partnerships with copywriters).

And it’s also why trained copywriters have such an edge in business.

Testing whispers is a coward’s game. Business ain’t no place for cowards… and just like in the wild, the fittest survive.

Most Important Skill In Business?

I am of the firm belief that copywriting is the most important skill in business. It is the cornerstone of every piece in the marketing puzzle. If you understand copy, you have leverage. You’ll never struggle driving traffic. You’ll never struggle turning traffic into money.

If you don’t understand good copywriting, start learning fast.

And this has nothing to do with whether or not you actually WANT to write copy for your business or not. You need to UNDERSTAND it, is all. You need to be able to tell good from bad, and you need to be able to recognize a blockbuster idea when you see it.

If you don’t want to write (or speak) copy, you need someone real good on your team who can handle copy on a long-term basis.

(And… for the record, I’m not trying to pitch my copywriting services here – I’m booked up until march — This is just the truth… It’s why I go to such lengths to study, learn and get good at every aspect of the craft… )

Anyway, that’s a little bit about split testing. Here’s a summary:

• Always split test SOMETHING. (If you don’t know what to do, testing a “whisper” is better than testing nothing)
• Whenever possible, test screams, not whispers.
• Copywriting is, as always, the cornerstone of everything.

I use Visual Website Optimizer (affiliate link) to split test my pages. It’s super easy to use, yet very sophisticated — you can do both standard A/B stuff as well as Taguchi testing, WYSIWYG style (this is killer, especially if you’re basically tech-illiterate like me). Also comes with cool stuff like heatmaps and clickmaps.

You can also use Google’s free tool, though I find it a bit bulky.

Ever had trouble getting people to pay attention to what you say?

What if you could make people, prospects and customers addicted to you… and hang on to every word you say?

One word: personality.

You’re gonna need some goddamn personality.

Think about your personal life. I’m sure there are certain characters who stand out above the rest. There’s someone among your friends who’s just more memorable than the others. Maybe it’s you.

Nearly every memorable person on this planet has one thing in common: they have personality. Bundles of it.

Irreverence, controversy and outrageous behavior make people look up.

Those are just some personal preferences. Here’s what’s important for YOU:

Be you. And make no bones about it.

Even if you’re introverted and shy – LIVE THAT.

Everyone is craving honesty in today’s world.

Everyone is full of shit. And people are sick of it.

If you can come up and say “this is how it is” and do it in your own personal flavor, people will pay attention.

Dan Kennedy is grumpy, please-don’t-talk-to-me, horse racing, hard-hitting, so B.S. strategy.

Frank Kern is laid back, guitar-playin’ southern-born California surfer dude.

I enjoy stuff like unicycling – a rather unique trait. And I make damn sure to tell my audience about it.

Personality is humanness. And there’s never any bullshit with me, not on the internet and not in real life.

I’m not saying you have to be outrageous, swear and be all-around silly. I am saying be personal.

And lose the corporate-speak.

This tip might sound simple and obvious. But in my consulting and copywriting work, this is one of the most common “insta-fix” solutions. Magic happens when you start communicating like an actual human being. Who’d have thunk it?

Here’s a little exercise: Keep writing your blog posts and emails and sales letters and websites and postcards as normal… but when you’re editing, think specifically about how you could inject more personality in it.

One of the major themes I see is the confusion factor.

People who lack a sense of direction.

Information overload. “How should I get started?”, “what do I do next?”

It’s a pretty tricky question. I wrote the “Theory Of Constraints” pages as a response to this, which by nature are rather ambiguous – since there is no one-size-fits-all. (I later discovered that TOC was kind of Rich Schefren‘s thing. I had no idea. I’m not very into Planet Shefren.)

Look: there’s enough “systems” information out there to drown in. MiniBiz is one of my own frameworks. It works. But you need to do it.

The problem isn’t really confusion. It’s not really information overload.

The problem is uncertainty.

You are not certain, and it frustrates you.

You want to be sure of things. You want to know exactly what to do next.

But that doesn’t exist, no matter how much some goo-roos would like to convince you otherwise.

Let me tell you something: no matter where you are or how much money you’re making, or at which stage your business is at…

… there will ALWAYS be uncertainty.

And there’s no avoiding it.

But you can push through it. With enough stubbornness and pigheaded determination, you can conquer it.

It’ll still be there, but hiding in a corner, not staring you in the face.

Get started. Test some stuff.

You’ll crash and burn. Fail, stumble and limp forward.

So the fuck what?

At least you’re moving. And that’s all that matters.

100% might be slightly exaggerated. How about 40%, 50%, 70% or even 90%?

This is all possible.

The specific tactic I’m talking about is what smart cats know as List Segmentation.

It means dividing your email list up in little chunks based on their interests, demographics, purchases and so on.

Let’s say you have a list in the muscle building niche.

What if you could put everyone who’s really into ab exercises in one list, everyone who are fanatical about chest exercises in another, and people who don’t care about exercising and just want dieting advice in a third?

That’s segmenting. If someone likes all those things, he’ll be on all three lists.

Another way to segment is based on purchases. In one segment is all your “free” subscribers who haven’t given you any money… in the second, all those who bought your product… and a third of those who bought from your affiliate promotion three weeks ago.

Now when you launch your high ticket coaching program, you already know your “free” list probably aren’t interested in it because he didn’t even want to buy your $97 video course. Now you want him to cough up $5k? Don’t think so.

You’re better off not telling them about it… it would simply “burn” the list. Few would buy it and they’d be annoyed that you’re trying to sell them expensive stuff.

On the other hand, just sell it to those who have already bought your product, and you’re much more likely to get a higher response rate and less complaints.

Likewise, you’d send all your emails about abs to one list… the chest exercising tips to the second, and dieting tips to the third.

If you sent an email about exercising to someone who just wants to eat better… you’d “burn” the list by sending him irrelevant information.

Everything comes down to relevance, and by segmenting your lists you can send everyone the right information at the right time.

One of the most effective ways to segment is through your automated follow-up sequence, your autoresponder. These are the emails that go out automatically at certain times after someone signs up to your email list.

So in this example… you might have a 30-day follow-up series of emails lined up for everyone who signs up to your “fitness tips” newsletter.

Then, say, on day 5 you send them a link to an interesting video about ab exercises. (your first segment)

On day 10 comes a free teleseminar recording you did with a leading expert on chest training. (segment #2)

And on day 14 you send a link to a collection of recipes that are great for losing weight. (segment #3)

In other words… you let your subscribers vote with their actions.

If someone signs up for all three… then you know they are interested in all these things.

This way you can let them tell you what they want from you in their inbox.

Don’t send them stuff they don’t care about.

You get high open rates by sending emails about things people want to hear about.

Simple!

And it is. But that’s not real info-marketing.

I wanted to share this with you, and show you how some people make the big bucks… selling digital information products online.

People who are doing these kind of numbers usually aren’t big “guru” type people. They stay underground, OFF the IM scene, because they’re too busy working on their real business. Or skiing, as the case may be.

Mike Geary is one such case, and this post on Tim Ferriss’ blog just laid it all bare. His entire business in plain view. Enjoy.

“… his numbers are now closer to $1,000,000 per month, and “e-book” doesn’t begin to explain what he does. That someone is named Mike Geary. He prefers to keep a low profile, skiing powder and refining his “muse,” or automated business, to a precise science. From strategic customer service in Germany, to testing for trending, it’s all piece of a well-planned puzzle and well-oiled machine.

For the first time, this post will explain how he built his business, some of the key lessons learned, and common mistakes with digital products.”

It’s a fairly simple business model. A product(s), and a base of interested people to sell it to.

“My ‘muse’ (i.e. business) is composed of three main components:

1. I sell a fitness information product called “The Truth about Six-Pack Abs,” which has sold more than 500,000 copies since 2005.
2. I publish a fitness and health newsletter to about 680,000 subscribers (with subscribers in almost every country), and have built a large content based website that goes along with this fitness newsletter.
3. I act as a media buyer, purchasing large amounts of traffic (mostly in the fitness/nutrition niche) that I funnel to a few select partners. This allows me to become integrated into several other large fitness and nutrition businesses (they promote my product extensively on their backend) since I act as a very large source of their overall traffic.

I think most of you are familiar with the product:

“My main website, which has the sales process for my ‘Truth About Six Pack Abs’ product, is: www.TruthAboutAbs.com

[Click here to see an affiliate landing page, click here to see the standard non-affiliate/PPC landing page]“

Now, I’d like you to pay attention to the naming of the product. It’s not merely a name. It’s a “hook”. It’s something that will grab a casual surfer and make her go “hmm…” It’s interesting and fascinating.

Being able to come up with a good hook is one of the most important skills you will ever learn as a marketer.

And, notice how he came up with this hook based on real feedback from real people:

“Working as a personal trainer, I knew that about 90% of the questions I got from clients were always about “six pack abs” or getting a flatter stomach. I also knew that there was a load of crap out there on the internet and on TV infomercials for all sorts of garbage like ab machines, belts, and worthless pills. Finally, I’d seen a ton of bad exercise advice floating around online. That was where my initial idea for ‘The Truth about Six-Pack Abs’ came from. Little did I know that the idea would eventually become such a phenomenal success!”

Consider how he stayed focused on a single thing… this one business… didn’t get distracted, and just kept focusing on this one thing until he got where he wanted to go.

“As crazy as it sounds, ‘The Truth about Six Pack Abs’ was my very first idea, and it’s been the product I’ve continued to focus on throughout the years. I haven’t strayed into other businesses or distracted myself from the product that I knew would be a best-seller. I wanted to keep my focus on one main product. With that said, I do have a couple other products that sell okay, such as my skiing fitness product (AvalancheSkiTraining.com), which I produced solely because it was a labor of love. But to this day, the “Truth about Abs” product remains my bread and butter.”

He set goals. Not just randomly flailing. He knew EXACTLY what he wanted to accomplish:

“I started my internet business in 2004 because I had become fed up with the time and freedom constraints that came with my old 9-5 corporate lifestyle. My main goals in designing my “new life” were:

1. To build more time freedom into my life. I desperately wanted to design my new life with much more free time to enjoy my hobbies, friends, and family. This “time freedom” was actually a higher priority for me than the financial rewards of starting a web-based business. And this may sound funny, but I also had a goal to eventually NEVER have to wake up to an alarm again (aside from traveling). I despise waking up to an alarm!
2. The ability to travel as much as I wanted, to anywhere in the world, with no financial or time constraints.
3. More financial security for myself and my family.

When I set these goals back in 2004, I was basically working three jobs. I worked an engineering consulting job from 9-5 at an office. I also worked 15-20 extra hours per week as a personal trainer at a local gym, and I was attempting to build my online fitness business.

From 2004 to 2006, I made consistent but SLOW progress on my internet business. By the end of 2006, the internet business was making just as much money as my corporate job. I quit my corporate job in January 2007, and never looked back. Quitting my job at that critical point in time was the best decision I could have made as that freed up the time I needed to dedicate solely to my internet business, which started to boom in the months that followed.

Within another year, my internet business grew into a 7-figure annual business and, eventually, an 8-figure annual business in revenue.

It may have taken a few years to achieve, but I eventually successfully reached all three of those goals… time freedom, ability to travel anywhere/anytime, and financial freedom. Oh, and — except for when making flights — I haven’t had to wake up to an alarm clock in over four years now!”

The importance of DRIVING traffic:

“In the very beginning, I had this foolish idea in my head that this flood of people would automatically rush to my website, buy my product, and I’d be a millionaire within months. Reality struck when I had a whopping 5 visitors to my site in the first month. At the time, I didn’t understand that you actually have to DRIVE traffic to your site, as people won’t just magically find you.”

Here, pay attention to how he went about separating himself from the crowd. The specific tactic he used is no longer applicable… BUT the same kind of strategic thinking is: Observe the holes in the competition’s armor, and stab a knife through ‘em:

“At the time, I noticed that most vendors on the Clickbank marketplace were only paying affiliates 35-50% commissions. Even the highest paying vendors were paying 55% to 60% commissions max. To some, that might seem very generous. But at the same time, we’re selling digital products, so we don’t have as many overhead costs as with a physical product and can be more generous.

I decided to be OVERLY generous with affiliates and truly set myself apart from the crowd. Instead of the normal 35-60% commissions, I set my commissions at 75% (which is the maximum percentage you can pay to affiliates in Clickbank). Immediately, this made my product more lucrative for most affiliates than other products that were paying lower commissions. I had hundreds of affiliates shift their traffic to my site instead of some of my competitors. Within a couple months, I jumped up to one of the best selling products on the entire Clickbank marketplace, out of more than 10,000 products.

Within 6-12 months, most other top selling Clickbank vendors followed suit and switched to 75% payouts. Currently, as a vendor (product creator), if you pay affiliates any less than 75% (as that’s now the standard), it’s very hard to be competitive, because most affiliates will only promote products that pay 75% commissions.

Some vendors still have the wrong mindset and can’t stand the idea of the affiliate making more per sale than they make as the creator of their own product. That’s foolish, however, because the math is simple: would you rather get 10 sales and make $30 per sale ($300), or get 1,000 sales at $10 per sale ($10,000)? Better yet, how about 500,000 sales at only $2 per sale in profit ($1,000,000)? The answer should be obvious. The more generous you can be with affiliates and other business partners, the more sales VOLUME they can send you, especially if they’re buying traffic and incurring that cost. Plus, there’s more backend revenue potential with a higher volume of customers.”

It’s a customer-centric business. This is key, fellas:

“The above was a huge takeaway for me, and it led to the development of two priorities that are still at the heart of my business today:

1. Treat my customers like gold. Without happy customers, any business will eventually die. I wanted people to get RESULTS! I don’t just want to sell them some fad or gimmick that doesn’t work.
2. Treat my affiliates (and other business partners) like gold. Going above and beyond while being overly generous with business partners and affiliates effectively jumpstarted my business success. In fact, in additon to being one of the first vendors to pay affiliates 75% commissions, I was also one of the first vendors on the Clickbank marketplace that started to reward affiliates that sent over a certain number of sales each month with bonuses up to 85% or even 90% commissions. The additional percentage points had to be paid manually at the end of the month as a bonus.”

On developing information products: “Sell them what they want, but give them what they need.” Great philosophy! Not to be misinterpreted as “do a bait-and-switch”.

“Sell the customers what they want, but give them what they NEED. In my market, what people want are six-pack abs exercises. But that’s not what I give them, because that’s not what they need. They need the right nutrition, the right full body training program, and the right mindset to be dedicated to their goal. Basically, I sell six pack abs, but I teach them how to live healthier and adopt a fitness lifestyle in order to lower their body fat for life.”

Here is one of the biggest takeaways from this post… TEST, TEST, TEST!

“The most common mistake is not letting enough traffic flow to see true trends. Some people shut down their campaigns after only a couple hundred clicks thinking that it won’t be profitable, but they haven’t let it run long enough to see for sure. For example, a newbie might shut down their campaign after only 500 clicks and 1 sale. But what if they would have made 3 sales in the next 500 clicks, for a total of 4 sales in 1,000 clicks? Data can be pretty variable when you’re still under 1,000 clicks. I generally test an ad for at least a couple thousand clicks. However, keep in mind that I deal mostly with the fitness and nutrition niches and they require high volumes of clicks to see true data.

Another big mistake is not split testing enough variations of ads. Many advertisers give up on losing campaigns after testing only a couple ad creatives. However, I’ve found that simple modifications — such as a one word variation in a headline or a slightly different image or background color — can be the difference between a losing campaign and a profitable campaign. In some instances, I’ve used the exact same ad text combined with slightly different pictures and seen DOUBLE the click-through rate (CTR).

The last mistake is also very common: most advertisers aren’t willing to lose money to find what works. I EXPECT to lose money the first time I test a campaign. Then I tweak the ad copy, offer, etc. based on our testing results, and we see if we can restart the campaign a second time and make it profitable based on what we learned [i.e. what lost the least money, etc.] For example, if I do a $10,000 traffic buy test on a new website that we haven’t worked with before, we’ll usually only make back maybe $6,000 to $7,000 for a net loss of about $3,000. But we also usually learn that one of our ad variations performed MUCH better than the others, and we can work with that specific ad from that point forward and possibly negotiate lower rates. Sometimes we find that the numbers are too far off to work in the future, so we just decide to cut all ties with that particular website and not buy traffic from them again if they can’t offer lower rates.”

Source

These things were, in my opinion, the highlights of this post. Feel free to check out the full version.

It’s not all happy-happy-sunshine in info-marketing land. You’ll have to work your butt off.

This is what building REAL online businesses is about.

No magic buttons. No automatic traffic software.

Real hustle.