AdWords Income

Friday, September 30, 2005

Monday, September 26, 2005

Squeeze This!

I hate to brag, but you know, there are things I've been telling you in my blog for over a year now - that the "big" marketers are now selling as "hot new information". They probably read about it here.

[ And the reason they're big marketers and I'm not is I should be selling you this info - like they are]

So, I admit to being a non-methodical mess at times. And I admit that I don't squeeze profits like I should. And, I even admit that I don't always follow my own advice.

I guess I've always seen myself as the crazy-haired, rebel, mad scientist - not anything like the scientist from Gillagan's Island. I throw a lot of stuff on the wall and sometimes what sticks is sun-baked brick-hard before I get back to it.

I've sold a boat load of a certain, specific program over the past 3 years. Literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth. But crafting my own name squeeze page just eluded me. What the hell did I have say? Besides, my system worked even if I knew that gaining a few email addresses here and there would mean a lot more money in my pocket.

So, I finally got off the dime in June and went to work on turning dimes into dollars.

Yee-haw! B - I - N - G - O

My subscription rate really sucks - like I said, my creative genius has left the building on this one. But, I put that aside and I'm going for it anyway. No decline in sales on the product and even with a crummy subscribe rate of about 18% (crummy is a kind word) I've been adding 280 subscribers per month who are looking for something VERY specific. So, while I've been trying to get my head out of my arse, 900 new subscribers have populated my autoresponder system.

Still, for two months I just looked on and said "Hey, cool. Now what?" I don't know why, but the follow-up just seemed to float right over my head.

Then it hit me; 95% of these people aren't buying and price is the reason . . . can anyone say "Cheaper alternative?"

Finally, John got his groove back. :-) Please DO NOT try to picture that.

People hold different levels of resistance to buying. Price is the primary EXCUSE. I say excuse, because that's usually the conscious reason but rarely the REAL reason. It's more a matter of "internal risk management" ie, fear. If you make a deal risk-free enough (ie, low-cost), then you turn prospects into customers.

So - I'm pitching a $30 alternative to the $160 product they came looking for originally. It's not as good, but it gets them in the door and once they experience the product and use it successfully, I suspect they'll be back for more. And since the alternative offers some interesting twists, I'm sure the people who did buy are sure to buy more.

And the next step? I'm going to create my own cheap alternatives too . . . more on that some other time. The idea came from my buddy Carl Galletti who makes more money giving his products away than selling them.

How?

Tune in next week . . .

Best wishes, John

The Surest Way to Make More Money

Nice discussion on the Warrior Forum that ties up the hot topic of the moment for Internet marketers - outsourcing.

I thought you'd gain great value from reading - and applying - the advice in this article from Jonathon Mizel. I recommend HIGHLY his Online Marketing Letter.

Dear Friend and Subscriber,

Last month, I discovered what may be the most critical business lesson of my entire life, and I want to share it since I’ve never heard it explained this way before.

It’s more of a philosophy than a technique, and it has to do with your personal relationship towards time. It’s practiced by nearly every successful person I know, though few discuss it, and most do it unconsciously.

Here’s the deal: I think you would agree if we all had unlimited time on this earth, any one of us could eventually become successful. After all, we’d simply try something, and if it didn’t work, we’d try something else until we found a winning formula.

But we don’t have unlimited time, not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the older you get, the more you understand time is far more valuable than money. You can always generate more cash, but once time is spent, it’s gone forever, and someday, you will die. (Profound I know, but it’s true.)

Well listen up, because I learned how to create more time for myself and also make a lot more money in the process (plus, have a lot more fun doing a lot less work).

Ok, let’s start:

Say you have a goal to make some money, and for the sake of argument, let’s pretend the amount you want to make, over the next 12 months, is one million dollars.

Now that’s a lot of money to think about in one lump sum, so let’s break it down to something more reasonable:

First, ask yourself how many days a week you want to work. We’ll say five, which is realistic.

Second, ask yourself how many hours a day you want to work. We’ll say five because we are lazy.

Third, find out how much per hour that comes out to be. In this case it’s 260 days times five hours divided into one million dollars, or $769.23 per hour.

Hold that thought for a minute.

Now, make a list of the tasks you do every day. In other words, the actions you perform when you get into the office or start your day (and be honest with yourself). For us, it’s a variety of things, from administrative duties to copywriting to answering the phone.

Here’s the important part: Put a dollar amount next to the task that represents what an independent contractor or employee would charge to do the job properly. If it’s something only you can do (like setting up a joint-venture), put down how much you earn when you do that task.

Our chart looks something like this:

Employee tasks:
Responding to e-mail: $20/hour
Answering the phone: $15/hour
Accounting: $50/hour
Programming html and Java: $75/hour
Backing up computer system: $10/hour
Picking up office supplies: $7/hour

Critical tasks
Developing new products: $750/hour
Setting up large joint ventures: $2,000/hour
Developing new affiliates: $1,000/hour
Rewriting sales letters: $1,000/hour

OK, here’s the million dollar a year secret!

In order to achieve your financial goals, all you need to do is spend your time on activities that generate more than $769.23 an hour and put in a full five hours, and according to your own formula, based on how often you want to work, you can (and will) make your $1,000,000!

Get it? Only do the expensive work, the sales, copywriting, business development, and production (or whatever the high dollar tasks are in your own business).

What about the other stuff that needs to be done every day?

Easy, since there are daily tasks that need to be done in every business, either automate them using technology, or hire someone else (employee or contractor) to do them for you!

You can’t afford it you say? Hogwash! You have just proved to yourself that you can’t afford not to replace activities that move you further away from your goals.

In fact, if you find yourself doing $10/hour work, you may want to just get a job working for someone else, since you can probably beat that lowly rate.

What’s that? You don’t want a job, you scream? You want to build equity in your own business?

Easy, just give yourself a raise, and learn to get rich at the same time!

Respectfully submitted,

Jonathan Mizel