A hermit lived high on a mountain top above a township, and every day as the people below him scurried around, doing their daily tasks, the old hermit would watch.
He had everything that he needed on his mountain, there was plenty of food and supplies, he had a small vegetable garden near his cabin, and he kept a few animals to supply his needs, near a rock pool filled with water that flowed down from further up the mountain.
His life was quiet and content, after breakfast and his morning chores, he would make his lunch and take it to the rocky outcrop where he could sit and watch the activity in the town below.
The town was a long way down, the people running around performing their daily deeds seemed like ants to him, but even through all the bustle and busyness it seemed so peaceful. It looked to him like a great ballet or dance.
He watched the activities in the town every day, finally he decided that he would go down to the town and experience this beautiful ballet for himself. He took his coat and started down the mountain. As he descended, he started to hear strange noises, the closer he got to the town, the louder they became.
Finally, he reached the foot of the mountain. The noise here was almost deafening, everywhere he turned there were people rushing around doing tasks he couldn’t even begin to understand, as he tried to walk through the streets, he was getting pushed and jostled by the crowds of people.
He could not understand where the peaceful and beautiful ballet had gone.
Unable to take it anymore, the hermit fled from the town, back to the safety of his mountaintop. Arriving home, he went to the outcrop and looked down again upon the town, to his amazement the beauty and silence had returned. He could still see all the ants rushing around below, but there was no noise anymore, all the screaming sounds and mixture of voices were gone, replaced with the serene silence he had always heard before.
He sat down and stared in amazement, asking himself how could such peaceful beauty come from such noisy chaos?
In our lives and businesses, we’ll often feel overwhelmed by what’s going on around us, but is it really the stressful pressure-cooker we believe it to be? When we feel overwhelmed, our natural response is to give up, to break down. But instead whenever you feel those times approaching, try to step away from the daily issues and look back at them from afar.
Often, you’ll find that the situation or decision that you have lost control of, that is stressing you out, when you step away from it and see it without all the other clutter, it’s not half as bad as you think, and often when you view it from the outside (looking inwards) you can see the solution clearer than you would when you’re right inside the problem.
Each day, take a moment out, step outside of your business, your problems, find your ‘mountaintop’ and look down on your life from there.
It’s all about your perspective, when the one you have isn’t serving you, simply get up and go to another side of it.
So, you’ve decided to start a home based business. Congratulations, and welcome to the fast-paced world of entrepreneurship. While there is a lot to learn, your effort will be worth it. The thrill of growing your business, the freedom and flexibility to set your own hours, and the possibilities of ever-increasing financial rewards are all wonderful reasons to start a home based business.
Now that you’ve decided to start your business, you might be wondering “How can I get it off to the strongest possible start?” These 7 tips will help:
Set up a separate working space in your home. It doesn’t matter if this is a small bedroom, one part of the garage, or a corner of the living room. I used to work out of my closet. The important thing is to have some space that you can designate as your working area. This will give you the space and room you need to craft your dream.
Stock your working space with materials. This sounds basic, perhaps, but one underlying element of success is that you have easy access to the tools, materials, and other resources you need. Gathering everything close by also keeps you from wasting time searching for it, so this step can be considered a time management strategy, too.
Speaking of time management, your third step is to define the parameters of your business. What days and hours will you work? When will you do your marketing? When will you provide services or products to clients? How will you keep all of this straight?
Balance action with planning. One of the most common pitfalls to successful entrepreneurship is getting too caught up in action without enough planning. Stated another way, this means that you confuse “being busy” with “working on important projects.” The best approach is to plan your next couple of goals and then work backwards to create step-by-step action plans to reach them. Once you have the plan, then it’s time to take action.
Network like crazy. One of the fastest ways to grow any business is to make connections with other people. Be sure to share your passion and enthusiasm with others at every opportunity. Let people know who you are and what you offer. Remember, people can’t buy if they don’t know you’re selling.
Present a professional image. If you want to be treated professionally, present a professional image. Set up a separate bank account for your business. Install a separate phone and fax line. Create professional marketing materials. Be courteous and pleasant in all your customer-facing interactions. Basically, be someone people want to do business with.
Automate your business as much as possible. Granted, you are just one person (right now) and might have a lot of extra time to take care of all the details. This might work for now, but won’t work into the future as you get busier and busier. It’s best to set up automatic systems and processes right from the start to free up your time to concentrate on the most profitable activities.
Working at home can be a dream come true for many people, and these days with computers and the internet, it’s more realistic than ever before. That said, building a business requires strong prioritizing skills and self discipline to take action toward your goals. If you have these qualities and are committed to doing whatever it takes to be successful, the dream of working from home can soon become your reality.
Next time you write a headline, see how many of these you can incorporate.
Self-interest – This is the obvious benefit that keeps the reader on the page, reading what you have to say. For example, “Revealed at Last – 13 Perfectly Legal Ways to Make Money in Your Pajamas”
Believability – Placing some kind of ‘proof’ in your headline. For example, “Diabetes Cured in 2 Weeks – A Chicago Hospital Confirms Shocking New Remedy. No Pills, No Surgery, No Prescriptions” In this case, the third party evidence dispels skepticism and keeps the reader’s attention.
News – Anything targeted and newsworthy tends to work really well. For example, “Warning! Don’t Even Think Of Calling Your Broker Before You Read This Startling Report about What’s Happening in The Market Right Now.”
Curiosity – This might in fact be the most compelling force in human nature. The best headlines build curiosity to the point where the reader is forced to look within the article or sales letter to quell their curiosity. For example, “What Never to Eat on an Airplane.”
Quick and Easy – If you can offer a quick and easy solution to a pressing problem, let them know in the headline. For example, “Lose a Pound a Day Just by Eating this Fruit.”
The more of these qualities you can combine in your headlines, the better they will tend to work and the higher response you’ll get.
If you have the same offer with the same amount of traffic but you double conversions, then you’ve just doubled your sales and profits, too. Here are 3 methods to do just that.
1: What’s in a Name? Everything
You pour your heart and soul into a blogpost, article – even an entire book – and nothing happens.
No one reads it. No one comments. No one shares it on social media. No one buys your book.
Yet the content is excellent, it’s well-written and it’s entertaining.
People SHOULD be reading it.
So how do you fix it?
9 times out of 10 it’s as simple as changing the title.
That’s right – relaunch with another title and see if you don’t do a whole lot better.
I know of one fellow (retired now) who spent his career finding under-appreciated books, buying the rights and retitling and re-releasing them.
He made a fortune doing this before the Internet blew up.
So go back and find your content that didn’t do as well as it should. Polish it off, do any necessary updating, and most of all give it a new title that is irresistible.
You just might have a new best seller on your hands.
2: Stop pushing your customers
BUY THIS! DO THAT! DO IT NOW!
“This is the greatest so-in-so ever and you will fall in LOVE with it, even though you don’t even know what the heck it is yet…”
Let’s face it – in the name of brevity and enthusiasm we tend to tell our customers what they should be doing and how they should be doing it.
We have their best interests at heart – don’t they see that?
Actually, no they don’t.
Imagine someone standing on the other side of the room from you.
They’re screaming at you that you should do what they say.
What’s your reaction?
My reaction isn’t fit to print, so I won’t.
Now imagine that same person smiles at you across the room, walks over, extends their hand and introduces themselves.
Next they start talking about this problem they have. That’s funny, it’s the same problem you have. And they sound just like you. They even have the same thoughts about the problem, the same worries and fears that you have.
How do you feel? Like you just met a kindred spirit perhaps?
They invite you to walk with them, and without even thinking, you are right there with them, side by side, going for a short walk.
By the end of the walk, they’ve shown you how they solved their problem. You’re elated. There is a solution! You ask if you can buy the solution and they graciously sell it to you.
What just happened?
Instead of feeling like someone was trying to command you to buy something, you voluntarily bought it because you wanted it.
All because they came over to where you were, talked to you in your own words and then walked with you to the solution.
That’s how truly great sales work. You don’t shout from the rooftops or across the room.
Instead, you go to where they are. You feel what they’re feeling, say what they’re thinking, and become a kindred spirit. Then you gently guide them to where you want them to go.
Use this technique in all of your sales materials and I guarantee your conversions will at least double, if not triple.
3: $40,000 a Month via Phone
Why do you suppose you see so many $10 products, and so few $10,000 products?
It seems like it would be harder to sell a $10,000 product.
But what’s easier – selling 1,000 $10 products, or just ONE $10,000 product?
Odds are, it’s going to be much easier to sell one big product than 1,000 small ones.
John Chow opted to sell the big products and it paid off big time. In just 2 years, he grew his blog from $0 in revenue to more than $40,000 per MONTH.
To do this, he worked a whopping 2 hours per day.
And he didn’t even do his own selling. Instead, he licensed a phone team to sell big ticket items for him.
If you want to sell big ticket products, I would highly suggest hiring or licensing a professional phone team. They’re going to be able to convert prospects at a much higher rate than you can through online marketing.
Offer a free product that totally ROCKS to get the prospect’s information.
Work on building that relationship and let your phone team do the rest.
And in two years? If you follow in John’s footsteps, maybe you can be making $40,000 a month as well.
These are three very different methods that all have the same end goal – to increase your conversions on everything you sell. Use them wisely and the sky is the limit!
Or to put it another way… if you normally sell $5,000 of products a month, and you increase that amount by just 20%, you’re selling an extra $12,000 of products per year.
Here are some tips to make it happen painlessly and nearly effortlessly:
1: Offer additional offers on the order form, after they start to put info on the form. By waiting to make the offer until after they’re begun the checkout process, you greatly increase the odds they won’t abandon the cart and they will take the extra offer.
2: Let them know that customers who bought product “X” also bought product “Y.” You can do this before the actual sale, during the checkout process or afterwards in an upsell or follow up.
3: Another way to word the “X” and “Y” product proposition is this: “Successful [investors] who bought “X” also bought “Y”, and as a result saw an additional [12%] increase in [profits.]
4: After the sale, send them an, “Important Alert: Because you bought “X,” you get to try “Y” at a preferential rate. Because it will do [benefits] we highly encourage you to try it immediately. And with our no excuses guarantee, we’ll take all the risk and you get all the benefits.”
5: Make a deal with another product owner to sell one of their products on the order page at a steep discount. “Special Bonus for my customers ONLY: When you order right now, you can add [Joe’s Colossal Traffic Course] that normally costs $299 for just $19 more.” You make more money and Joe gets to add to his list of buyers.
6: Add a subscription bonus into the sales package. “When you buy today, you get a [3] month free subscription to [The ABC] membership. If you like it, do nothing and you will be billed $29 a month starting in month 4.”
7: Add a subscription bonus with no auto-billing. If you have a subscription – such as software – that people love and get addicted to, you might add it as a free bonus without the auto billing. People use your free subscription, get hooked and then they have to subscribe to the paid version when their trial runs out.
8: Offer an upgrade to a premium version of your product, such as a physical copy that is mailed to them, or a deluxe version that includes tutorials, case studies, etc.
9: Marketing test bump: At the end of your offer and before the purchase, because they are a first time buyer (or whatever reason you want to use) and you want to ensure their success, you’re going to let them also have “X” product, which usually sells for [$], for only [$]. This works really well when the second product provides help in implementing the first product. For example, if your product teaches someone how to build a website, the bump could be a hosting package or a WordPress theme.
10: Add an interpersonal, interactive experience. For example, you might offer an upgrade that includes live conference calls or even live one-on-one coaching.
11: If applicable, offer continuous updates for a certain period of time for a larger price.
12: If your price is big, offer to take payments. For example, you might offer to take 5 payments of $99 instead of one payment of $447 for your course.
13: Offer templates as an upgrade. “It took me years to develop this, to learn exactly what to do, say, etc., and it’s made me [$x], but you can have it for only [$].
14: Offer a critiquing service as an upgrade. For example, if you’re teaching coding, website building, copywriting, how to create a dating profile that works, etc., then offer to critique their work for an added fee.
15: Offer advanced training in the form of teleseminars, webinars, live in person seminars, etc. And by the way, you don’t have to be an expert – you can get experts to do this for you. For example, if you’re selling someone else’s product, ask them to do a live webinar for your buyers.
BONUS Method: Presell a product you’re about to launch. If you’ve got a related product that’s coming out in the next 1-3 months, offer it at a discount to your buyers today. This method is so powerful, Jay Abraham used it to sell $2.5 million of a subscription that didn’t even go live for 6 months after he started promoting it.
How many people sitting in coach on an airplane wish they were in first class? Odds are, most if not all of them.
First class flyers get fancy lounges in the airport, preferential boarding, comfortable and roomy seats, their own special first class flight attendants, real food and drinks, blankets, pillows… just about whatever they want within reason.
The first time I flew first class, it was on a complimentary upgrade for having made me miss my connection due to an airline delay. (Those were the days when airlines thought of you as a valued customer instead of cattle.)
I was shocked at how well they treated the first class passengers, even bringing hot moist towels so we could wash our hands, free drinks, completely edible food, a soft pillow… I never wanted the flight to end.
And I was hooked, too. Who wants to go back to coach after flying first class? Not me!
Which makes me think – what if we offered our best customers a complimentary upgrade?
Think of it this way: You’ve got prospects, you’ve got customers, and then you’ve got SPECIAL customers who spend lots of money with you.
So what do you do?
You create special perks just for these customers.
For example, maybe you give them:
Their own member’s area full of fun and useful stuff
Discounts on all of your products
First dibs on new products – they get to buy your new stuff before anyone else
Discounts you’ve negotiated on other people’s products
Special videos you made just for them
Insider’s info on your niche
And whatever else you can think of that they would love
There are two different routes to take in creating your preferred customer program.
Either you charge customers to be a preferred customer. This might be an annual fee that gets them in the door and gives them all the perks of being a preferred customer.
Or perhaps they have to EARN preferred status through the purchases they make from you.
For example, you could require that they make a certain number of purchases or they spend a certain amount of money with you in a time frame you choose.
In the first case, anyone can become a preferred customer. In the second case, as long as they continue to make the necessary number of purchases, they get to retain their status.
So why would you bother to create a preferred customer program?
Your preferred customers feel special. They get better treatment and get fussed over and pampered, and who doesn’t like that?
Your preferred customers will become your best advocates on social media. One happy preferred customer has the power to tell many, many others.
Your preferred customers will look to YOU, first. Whether it’s to buy something, get advice or whatever, you will be the person they turn to in your niche – which is exactly what you want.
You will set yourself apart from everyone else in your niche. When you offer the premier preferred customer program everyone talks about, you become an instant authority in your niche, which helps to bring in even more customers.
Your preferred customers will sell products for you, as well as preferred memberships. Simply by doing what’s natural – bragging about the great deals and treatment they get – you will likely get new customers coming to you through social media with no extra effort on your part.
You’ll get feedback to grow bigger, better and faster – a team of your best customers who will give you feedback on how to improve your products, as well as telling you what they would like to see next.
Any way you slice it, a preferred customer program is a great thing for both your customers and your bottom line.
None of these take much time, but any one of them can add significant sales to your bottom line. Or try all six, and see your sales explode.
Your Prospects Are Afraid…
Provide your real contact information, including name, company name, snail mail address (physical is better than P.O.) and phone number.
Why? Because your prospects are afraid you are not who you say you are.
On your ‘about me’ page, provide all of this info again, along with photos of you, any employees you have and maybe even your location. Make it super easy to trust you and you’ll get more sales.
Elevate Your Prospects’ Status to Make More Sales
People want to prove they are better than others and have people look up to them. This isn’t bad, it’s just human nature. And you can use this tidbit of knowledge to make more sales, too.
Play up to this tendency to feel more important. Show prospects how buying your product will raise their status among peers, friends, family, etc. Show them how important they will become as a direct result of buying your product.
Have Your Sales Message Come from a Peer
One of the ‘secrets’ to boosting response of your sales message is to have it come from a peer of your ideal prospect.
In other words, you want your message to come from someone of the same group you are selling to.
Are you selling to women in their 40’s? Have your message come from a woman in her 40’s. Selling to investors? Have your message come from another investor, and so forth.
You can likely take any promotion you are running right now, change the message to come from the prospect’s peer, and increase your response considerably.
This technique is even more important when you are selling to someone who is highly skeptical. Nothing melts resistance faster than hearing a message from someone you perceive to be very much like yourself. Split test this and see the response – I think you’ll be shocked at the increase in sales you experience from this simple technique.
Focus on the Benefits of the Benefits
You already know how important benefits are to the selling process. Features are great, but it’s the benefits that sell. For example, that weight loss book is pretty and it has 300 pages – those are features. The benefit is the reader will lose weight if they follow the plan laid out in the book.
But what are the benefits of the benefits?
In the above example, ask yourself what are the benefits to losing weight? For example:
Looking better
Feeling better
Becoming more attractive
Living longer
Fitting into clothes they already own
More confidence
Turning heads and getting dates
And so forth.
Talking about just the main benefit – in this case, losing weight – isn’t enough. You want to dig deeper and expound on all the benefits your customer is going to get, and then paint a picture of their new life after they use your product.
Find the Story
Every product has a story buried somewhere – you just have to dig it out.
For example, look at this headline from John Carlton:
“Amazing Secret Discovered by One-Legged Golfer adds 50 Yards to Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks and Slices… And Can Slash up to 10 Strokes from Your Game Almost Overnight!”
I have zero interest in golf. None. Yet after reading this headline, I want to know about the one-legged golfer.
Now imagine if I did golf – and imagine what all the golfers who read this headline did. Yup – guaranteed, they couldn’t help but keep reading to find out about that one-legged golfer.
That’s the power of a good story.
Get More Micro-Commitments
The more a person commits to something, the less likely they will change their mind.
For example, if you can get someone to opt-in to two or more of your lists, they are more committed to staying on your lists.
And get this… they are also more likely to make purchases, too.
It’s a principle of psychology that the more a person commits to something, the more likely they are to stick with it for the long haul.
For example, someone might say they are going to start running. But all they do is say it – they don’t do anything else – and within a week they’ve forgotten all about it.
But if that same person buys new running shoes and clothes, visits running websites, subscribes to a running magazine and joins a running club, then I can almost guarantee they’re going to run.
It’s the same with your lists. If you can get subscribers to opt in to multiple lists, they become more committed to you and to the niche or topic itself.
So let’s say your niche is dogs. You might ask your new subscribers to opt in to a special course on potty training, another course on bad behavior modification, another course just on their particular breed of dog and so forth.
By getting more of these micro-commitments from your readers, you greatly increase the odds they will become your customers and even purchase from you multiple times.
Now how great is that? Apply these 6 forgotten tips, and start making more sales!
Take a look at your monthly subscriptions – software, autoresponders, membership sites – and then decide to make them pay for themselves.
Sign up as an affiliate for each one, post a review for each on your website along with your affiliate link, and then add a resources link on your main page.
No, you won’t make a fortune this way, but you will likely make enough to more than cover all of these monthly expenses.
And with some of the expensive upgrades available on subscriptions, you might also find yourself making some good money along the way, too.
In fact, your profits can be increased further if you optimize your reviews for Google, and point some good quality backlinks to them. Then you can start picking up free traffic to your reviews whenever people search for the product you’ve reviewed in Google and other search engines. Done well, you can have an entire side business built on reviewing products and services you are using yourself.
Bad information keeps many people from making money online.
People give a half-hearted effort to one form of marketing, get disappointed that it didn’t work, and then cry out to the world that it no longer works…
How many times have you seen one of these headlines:
“Email Marketing Is Dead!”
“SEO No Longer Works Thanks to Google…”
“Content Marketing Has Lost Its Luster…”
Or the big one:
“Affiliate Marketing Is for Scammers!”
When something is proclaimed dead or not working any longer, it’s probably because someone was gaming the system and the system owners plugged the hole.
Ethical marketing always works in the long run.
That’s why Affiliate Marketing has worked for decades and will continue to work for the non-scammers of the world.
But the headlines persist, and the myths and misconceptions flourish.
Let’s talk about the top 5 myths about affiliate marketing today…
1) Affiliate Marketing is easy…
There’s a misconception out there that the newbie online marketer can grab an affiliate link, put it on their Facebook page, and the money will start rolling in.
Not so fast…
Affiliate marketing like any other business model IS a business.
And it should be treated like a business.
While affiliate marketing may be the exact business model you need as a new entrepreneur, it’s important to understand and accept that it is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme.
As with any business, your primary job is to present a solution to a market with a desperate problem. The problem must be so severe that they are willing to pay for that solution quickly.
Is this beginning to sound like work yet? It should.
Affiliate marketing can be VERY rewarding, but it is not easy, especially if you have no business experience. But affiliate marketing can be the best way to learn how to build a business with very low-risk.
Your investment as an affiliate marketer is low because you don’t have any product or delivery costs. Your focus must be on building a market, knowing that market inside out, and learning how to sell.
These are essential skills for any business owner to master.
Driving traffic and measuring conversions to build your marketing list is the primary tool of every affiliate marketer.
2) Affiliate marketing doesn’t work any more…
The days of throwing a link up on the social marketing sites and making a million dollars overnight are gone…if they ever existed.
Social media has heightened the importance of building relationships with your target market, and that can be a slow process.
Your followers and email subscribers must feel a connection with you. If they don’t, they find someone else where that connection is real.
Affiliate marketing not only works with an audience that knows, likes and trusts you, but they will ask for your affiliate link for new products. Sometimes, they feel such a close relationship that they’ll pass around your affiliate link for you.
Affiliate marketing without real relationships (even if they’re automated) is hard, but can be done with a lot of effort.
But affiliate marketing with real connections with an audience that has been nurtured and embraced works like a charm because you’re genuinely looking out for their interests.
3) The competition is too steep in affiliate marketing…
First, let’s agree competition is good.
That means there’s a market for the product. If not, no one else would be trying to sell that product.
Competitors can also become your best traffic source. Using the right tools like iSpionage.com, you can target your competitors, and step in front of their traffic with better offers, Facebook ads, or other techniques.
Sound a little cutthroat?
Nope, it’s just business. Once you become the Big Dog, everyone will target you too.
Your job is to offer better bonuses, better services, better support, and better experience to that market. And by doing that, you’re building a better relationship.
Find out how your competitors are building their audience (keyword research) and jump in there to grab that audience yourself.
Business is about competition, so if that bothers you, you probably need to get a job.
4) The more I promote my affiliate links the more money I’ll make…
Listen, this one is tricky.
In theory, this is true. But there are other considerations like…
Does your message match the right audience? This is where you’ve got to get good at knowing your market including their hopes, dreams and issues.
In the consulting world, they call these the FUDs – Fears, Uncertainties and Doubts.
What is your audience trying to do? And how can the solution you put in front of them solve that issue?
Promote to the right audience and you don’t have to “sell them” often because you become part of their go-to-problem-solver while you’re building a relationship.
Spamming your links to an audience never works.
But offering a solution to a problem always works.
5) Affiliate marketing is high risk and low ROI…
Ok. There is risk in any business endeavor. In affiliate marketing, you could make a lot of sales for a product only to have the product owner go out of business.
That’s always a risk.
And the return on investment could be very low, but only because you’re not making sales.
That usually means you don’t have the right message for the right target market. Conversions are much easier and ROI much higher when you convert prospects to customers.
Opponents of affiliate marketing will jump in here and declare you’d be better off building your own products, selling them online and keeping ALL the money.
Here’s the truth about that:
If you can’t sell someone else’s product and get a good ROI, what makes you think that you could invest a lot of money on your own product and sell THAT to the same target market.
Affiliate marketing is attractive because the risk is extremely low. You don’t have to create a massive infrastructure to support your products. You’re letting someone else take that risk on.
And the low ROI? Wrong.
The potential in affiliate marketing for those people who learn how to build an audience and convert that audience to paying customers is HUGE because it’s a pay-for-performance model!
The more you convert, the more you make and the higher your return.
Of course, like everything else, affiliate marketing only works if you know how to do it correctly.
I received a marketing email telling me how GREAT a new video making product is, because it works in conjunction with a piece of software almost everyone already has.
Cool!
So I go to check it out, and guess what?
They NEVER show you what the videos you’ll be making will look like.
Not ONE single example!
Worse still, the video they use to sell the video maker is a regular talking head type of video, NOT the kind you’re supposed to be able to make with this software.
What thinking person will take this offer seriously?
It’s like someone trying to sell you their artwork without letting you SEE the artwork.
If you’re selling software, and especially video creation software, let people see what it can do, rather than just telling them.
