Posts Tagged → Marc Milburn

The Way of the Warriors

The Way of the Warriors eBook that I started last week is almost finished – I have basically written 1 chapter a day to get this book written.  We are up to 63 pages now and almost 16,000 words.  I hope to complete the final chapter of the book today.  This will be a front end product and I will then try to upsell my other products from this eBook.

I basically chunked the book down into chapters to get it done because I found that I was getting fatigued if I tried to keep writing beyond one chapter per day. I didn’t want to find that I couldn’t finish the book because I got fed-up with it.  To motivate me to write the chapter each day I added a more pleasurable task into my timetable to do when I had finished the chapter – it was something to work towards.

I am using Google Calendar and a piece of software called Action Enforcer to time-box my work in to 60 minute chunks to increase productivity.

I have taken the same approach to recruiting affiliates.  I have joined a load of JV Facebook groups this week – this is where my potential JV partners will be lurking.  Thank you to Manie Amari, a fellow Marc Milburn student, for this list:

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List of JV Groups on Facebook

  • *MunchEye
  • *Secret Society of Super Villains
  • *Make Money Online – JV – WSO – Solo – Adswaps – Giveaways – IM – Warriors
  • *Warrior JV WSO Group (VERY ACTIVE HERE)
  • *JV Launch Calendar
  • *WSO Launch & JV Network
  • *JV ELITE LAUNCH GROUP
  • *Forum Offers
  • *Official JVZoo.com Facebook Group
  • *JV Zoo Product Launch
  • * Launch Superstars
  • *Affiliate Products PROVEN To Sell
  • *Daniel Lews Kickass JV Group
  • *WSO Elite Inner Circle
  • *Elite JV Group
  • *IM Secret Elite JV Launch

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I have been steadily adding affiliates to my affiliate spreadsheet but found I was getting distracted when I looked up some personal information on them.  I therefore decided that I would set a goal of adding 5 affiliates a day to my spreadsheet before moving on to another task.

There was an incredibly good thread in the WSO JV Central Facebook Group – it was started by Kenster which then sparked a reaction from Andrew Fletcher of DigiResults and I am copying these comments below because they are highly instructive about how to recruit affiliates to sell your products.  They also re-enforce Marc Milburn’s teaching:

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Don’t you HATE when somebody messages you for the first time asking you to promote something. Don’t you hate when somebody you never know just pushes their offers on you…like they just want to use you. Don’t these people know how to market? Don’t they understand that they are being rude? Shouldn’t they respect you and your time!

Well…

I’ve griped about these people before and I’m sure you’ve seen my comments in this group at one point or another.

But to be honest, perhaps I’m getting soft at my old age of 28, but I’ve learned to give these new marketers a break. Let’s be honest, I think most of us successful marketers have done something along the those lines when we first started out…right? I know I certainly did.

I didn’t intend to be rude or approach the affiliate-getting process wrong – I was just doing what I thought was supposed to be done. People said, “create a product and get affiliates”. I created a product and now I was emailing random people to “get affiliates”. Was is a bad way to approach affiliates…absolutely. But I was a new little IM sprout with no experience or knowledge…I was just trying to hustle.

So I’ve learned to respect these marketers that approach me to promote their stuff and ask for advice. They are trying to hustle and over time, they’ll learn the right way to approach affiliates and the right way to build relationships. I think we should give these newbie marketers a bit more slack!

Now the experienced marketers who know how this industry works and know how they should be approaching affiliates and networking partners and who still bombard me asking for advice, referrals, traffic, promos, etc…no slack given to you 😉

Remember struggling when you first started? I do and I have a new-found respect for hustler newbie marketers…even if they are doing stupid and annoying stuff!!! [/features_box_light_blue]

Andrew Fletcher then posted 3 times:

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Andrew Fletcher – 1st Post

Kenster just made an awesome post all about his approach to handling newbie’s sucky cold approaches.

I replied how one of my top JV recruitment strategies has been helping new starters out. The best example being one guy who went from not knowing what an upsell was to topping my leader board less than a year later!

Needless to say I immediately got a deluge of friend adds and messages looking to take me up on that … predictable if nothing else!

OK, so I don’t have time right now to make good on that and I feel bad. So instead I’m writing this post to show you how to make less sucky cold approaches. They are, after all, one of the hardest parts of the JV game.

First of all, let’s deal with the elephant in the room. I own DigiResults and 90%+ of the big affiliates in the space know who I am. So my cold approaches carry rather more weight than most.

So please believe me when I say, this is the stuff I used to get here from nothing and it still works really effectively now.

First up, making cold approaches not so cold.

This is where your branding and exposure come into play. It doesn’t have to be some Madison Avenue branding exercise, just a few basics that will massively improve your results –

1. Pick a brand word and stick it on your products. For 3 years I was the Digi guy. Everything I put out was Digi Something Something. Doing that makes you seem a bigger deal than you really are, which ironically starts to make it true!

2. Get yourself out there in an appropriate way. If you’re a newbie, aim to ask smart questions and seek advice. If you’re experienced aim to give smart answers and provide it. Parroting marketing theory that you have no experience of isn’t going to help. This isn’t Warrior Forum 101. The JVs you want to work with KNOW THEIR STUFF and will see through you without a second thought.

3. Pay attention to who engages with your content. If you ask a smart question and someone answers or provide a smart answer and something ‘likes’ it. That lead stopped being a cold approach. Engage!

Next up. Make an approach but do it the right way.

This post has already got quite long so I’ll cover some approach strategies next time. If you want to speed that up make sure you like this post and say nice things about me 😀

Andrew Fletcher’s 2nd Post (- read his ‘why me’ page on the link below – it’s really impressive!)

Yesterday Ken Ster inspired me to start posting about JV recruitment.

If you haven’t read it yet, start here –

http://www.facebook.com/groups/wsojvcentral/permalink/376684269098151/

And if you’re new and wondering “Who is this windbag and why should I listen to him?”

http://www.digijv.com/why-me

It’s several months and quite a bit of money out of date but it illustrates the point 🙂

Now, as promised yesterday, a simple approach that’s about 1000 times more likely to get someone to engage with you than a copy/pasted “Will you promote my shitty product” email.

Make your approach specific to the person you’re approaching and don’t make them feel like they’re going to be trapped in a conversation with you. (Pro tip: This applies just as well to picking someone up in a bar 😉 )

How to make it specific –

Either do a group of approaches at the same time, or find a few other people you could approach if you’re just doing a single one.

Now ask yourself, “Is my question/flattery/whatever applicable to other people in this group?” Contrary to every approach email anyone has ever sent, if the answer is “Yes” DO NOT SEND IT.

If it’s specific to them, then by definition it doesn’t apply to many other people.

You also can’t cheat.

I’m emailing you because I really liked PRODUCT_NAME and I’m on your list.

PRODUCT_NAME makes it feel specific but it’s not. It’s a mail merge in Word. It’s lazy.

So also ask yourself, “Could I substitute another name into this and have it apply?” If you could, DO NOT SEND IT.

Instead, pay attention to what they are currently talking about in their emails, on FB, on their blog, wherever and match your approach to something going on in their lives. This will massively increase your chances of engagement.

How to keep it short –

Realise they don’t care who you are to start with. If they are worth engaging with they already have a bazillion FB friends, Twitter followers and Skype contacts. Your goal is to stand out. You do so by fighting the urge to talk endlessly about yourself.

Make your own life harder by engaging about something that doesn’t imply you will follow up a million times. You’re much more likely to get a response if the person doesn’t feel that doing so will open them up to a million more questions or hearing all about you.

Some of my best approach emails have simply been flattery about a product (again, in specific terms) and a note saying “Please feel free to publicly quote me on that. If you need anything like a headshot photo or whatever to go with it, just say the word.”

You think that gets a response? Of course it does!

I started writing up some real world examples and bonus points on how to get a response but this post is long enough already.

Andrew Fletcher’s 3rd Post

Following on the topic of making your JV approaches suck less I’ve compiled a list of the most basic mistakes people making.

Just fixing these things won’t guarantee you a reply but getting them wrong will pretty much guarantee you don’t.

1 – Generic subject line: “JV”, “Hello”, “Promotion” for a marketer with 100+ emails a day, is this going to get opened?

2 – Being overly deferential and apologetic: “Sorry for the interruption, I know you are a great man and probably don’t have time but could you spend 60 seconds looking at my JV proposal, I’d really appreciate it.”

3 – Being needy: “I have a great product, I just need your sales and marketing skills, advice and access to your list to make it happen.” Big affiliates promote people who have their shit together.

4 – Not getting to the point: Copy can never be too long, only too boring but I guarantee 99% of the drivel people write by way of an introduction is TOO BORING.

5 – Guarding your idea: “I have a fantastic product and I’d love you to promote, I just need you to sign an NDA so I can give you details.” Ahahahahaha, No.

6 – Having someone run the process on your behalf: I actually did this one for ages and it can definitely work once you’re established but when you’re starting out trying to abdicate responsibility for this just plain won’t work.

7 – Being too casual: We’re IMers but that doesn’t mean you can type like,,, ths and xpct me 2 rspnd. If you message me sounding like a retard, I’ll presume your copy will sound like a retard and bin it.

8 – Being vague: I have a software, would you like to promote it? I have a trash can, would you like to be in it?

9 – Sharing nothing in the email: It’s fine to have the details on a JV page that you link off to but you’ve got to give me enough to make it worth clicking the link. This isn’t some “You have to check this out: LINK: solo ad we’re writing.

With top JVs getting 1000s of these kind of pitches the success ratio is probably about 1000 to 1. Do yourself a favour and skew the odds, stop making these mistakes.

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I wanted to record the above comments because these are the opinions of someone with experience in the field and represent a great template for recruiting affiliates.

As a result of the ‘branding’ comments by Andy Fletcher, I added my business name (The Business Renegade) to my header on this blog to keep my business brand alive.  I also added the ‘salmon’ graphic to the background of my site to spice it up a little – it looked a little dull and boring before.

As a result of Marc’s training, I also sent out a couple of promotional emails this week about Webinar Express – the new Google Hangouts plugin.  I’ve got it and really like it so I felt comfortable about promoting it.  Here’s a sample landing page I knocked up in a few minutes – http://mark-salmon.com/sample-webinar/. I’ll send out another email today about this post.  I couldn’t reach my target of 5 emails this week – must try harder next week.

I also did a video testimonial for Marc Milburn and ‘exposed’ myself on webcam – good training for what I know must come in future. I don’t mind speaking in front of an audience but its not an activity that I rush towards doing.  However, I must get out of my comfort zone a lot more in order to become a leader, so more videos and webinars are on my agenda.  Here’s the testimonial vid:

I also recommended another potential student for Marc’s coaching programme.

I think I have another idea for a front end product that I can start next week when I have completed The Way of the Warriors – I would like to create a simple graphics site, mainly because I love making graphics.  (That reminds me, I also completed a header image for Tsahai de Silva this week for her blog and I helped Terry Weatherill to start improving his website (but nothing has changed yet!  i would like to do a ‘before’ and ‘after’ makeover of Terry’s site if he will let me! ) as suggested by Marc.)

Finally, Marc Milburn recommended that we set up a help desk using a piece of free software called Hesk – this video tutorial shows me setting up the Hesk Help Desk – it is a live recording including the mistakes I made but it should give you a good idea about how to set-up a  Hesk Help Desk: http://renegade.evsuite.com/hesk-setup/

If you are interested in joining Marc Milburn’s coaching and want to talk to me about his coaching programme, then feel free to contact me for the inside story.

As you can see The Way of the Warriors is not about lying on the beach with a laptop but it involves hard work and application i.e. the willingness to pay the price in advance.  I am… are you?

Please post a comment below and let me know what’s on your mind.

Mark’s Month 1 Progress Update

I started my coaching just over one month ago with Marc Milburn and set up this blog on the 1st May.  I thought that I would just recap my progress to date in the first month.

We have now had 6 trainings within the bonus product called Digital Millionaires Bootcamp.  This training was a basic overview of the kind of business we are going to create with Marc.

At the core of the business model is this website and the creation of a list.  Surrounding the core of the business will be a series of info products on separate web domains.

Prior to Marc’s coaching starting, I almost had 3 of my core products already created.  I have now ‘released’ these 3 products on JVZoo.   I now need to drive traffic to each of the sales pages.  The sales pages are here:

In addition to releasing these 3 products into the market, I have created this website to chronicle my journey with Marc.

I have been able to assist my fellow students by securing a discounted deal for Membersonic ($27 rather than the market price of $167) – this is a membership plugin that I use to protect my products and now 13 of my fellow students also have access to this plugin.  When they discover how good this plugin is, hopefully I will win some friends as a result of this deal!

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So the thrust of my business activity over the next month will now be as follows:

  • to continue creating products – I have at least 4 more planned – the next is Business Storyboards on business strategy and planning which I want to have finished by 19th June so I can revamp List Building Renegade for re-release at the beginning of July
  • to email my list 3 or 4 days a week with one promotion each week (including my own products)
  • to recruit affiliates for my products using the system Marc has given to us
  • to set up a recurring income membership site using BusinessCreationMastery.com (- I need to narrow my niche focus perhaps just targeting ‘beginners’).  This will be the upsell on all products and I am starting the monthly fee at $9.95 per month.
  • to start building sales funnels for each product that I have released
  • a weekly blog post and email my list as I publish it.
  • consider trying some solo ads  to start building my list
  • become more organised about finding products to promote by creating a JV email address and forwarding all promotional emails to a gmail account for review
  • set up Bonus Press on a directory of my site to offer bonus packages on big promotions.
  • make sure that I have joined all the affiliate networks recommended by Marc

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I definitely need to create a good working routine.  This includes using Alex Jeffreys time management system – particularly setting goals in advance of each month, week, day and reviewing progress through a ‘did’ sheet i.e. what I have accomplished each day.

I definitely need to concentrate on simplifying my business model as far as possible and increasing productivity.  I attended Alex Jeffreys live event in London during May and this has helped to galvanise me as well.  The realisation that I was over-complicating my business suddenly removed the blockages in mind about what it takes to make money online.

I also bought and read ‘Ready, Aim, Fire’ by Michael Masterson.  I now know that I must spend the majority of my time in ‘selling’ activities – Marc is giving us the optimal model for selling our products – but I now need to focus on doing it which will be difficult for me as I have never liked this aspect of business.

Marc has also made it crystal clear that most of his activities have a promotional aspect to them, with the main free content being in the form of his blog posts.  He says that the trouble with offering too much free stuff is that your prospects are conditioned to expect everything for free!

Also, I may try a launch of one of my products on the Warrior Forum just to start getting some traffic and affiliates to my sales letters to track conversions.

One idea that is circulating in my mind is to set up a graphics membership site providing graphics and tutorials on how to customise the graphics.  I love creating graphics and I think there could be a market for showing marketers how to create simple web graphics.  Whilst we are told to outsource this task, I definitely like to create my own graphics – it’s more convenient and it’s part of the creative process of creating a product.

The other big breakthrough this month has been my understanding of how to use Google Hangouts on Air.  I have purchased a useful plugin called Hangout plugin to help me to set up live webinars on Google Hangouts.  I would definitely like to test this out during June.

Also during June, I need to book another consultation with Marc to review progress and to get Marc’s guidance.  One consultation per month and the opportunity to ask questions at each weekly webinar should enable me to keep moving forward.

On a point of detail, I am acquiring the new Membersonic membership theme in the next few days to use for my non-core products.  Optimize Press will be used for my core products so that my branding is nice and crisp.

That concludes my month one update of Marc Milburn’s coaching.  Altogether, some good progress has been made and it’s all shaping up well.

Product Launched Within 3 Days of Attending Alex Jeffreys Live

I’ve just launched a product within 3 days of attending Alex Jeffreys Live – it’s called The Sky Inside and it’s about vision, mindset and time management.

This product is the first in a series of 7 integrated products designed to teach all I know about launching an online business.  It’s a combination of material from my days as an offline consultant combined with what I have learned about internet marketing over the last 4 years.

Credit for this speedy launch is not entirely due to Alex, but attending his seminar has added urgency to my action.  I already had the product and was going to launch it as a WSO but I missed the launch date and I was prevaricating about how to create an upsell to the product.  Instead of wasting any further time, I have launched the product on JV Zoo after a coaching session from Marc Milburn last night which outlined his product launch strategy.

Marc does not ‘launch’ products, he simply ‘releases’ them, then drives some test traffic at his sales page to see how it converts – ideally around 1,000 clicks and then, when he knows how it is converting, he begins his traffic strategy of inviting affiliates to promote his product.

This strategy takes away all the stress of a launch and I can perhaps consider a WSO launch later at a discounted price point.

I have two further products to launch over the next couple of days, once I have completed a sales letter for each- suddenly the strategy is becoming clear.  By launching on JV Zoo, I am able to offer affiliates lifetime commissions on all my products which is important bearing in mind that all the products are integrated into a single purpose of helping my buyers to create a sustainable online business – I therefore fully expect to cross-sell the other products to any buyer of a single product and I will set up my auto-responder to this end.

In addition I am setting up a fixed term membership site called ‘Business Creation Mastery’ to supplement my product range as an additional upsell.  The purpose of this site is to bring all the products together at a higher level. Credit for this goes to Alex Jeffreys who set the challenge of setting up our recurring income membership site within 30 days – I fully intend to meet this deadline.

Once all this is set up and generating revenue, I will also be offering coaching but I think that it is important to show some results first!

Within the last few days, thanks to Alex and Marc, a number of road-blocks in my mind have been removed and the way ahead suddenly seems clear.  I am sure that there will be further road-blocks along the way but with Alex Jeffreys, Marc Milburn and Dean Holland as my coaches I have someone to turn to if I get stuck.

One of the big realisations from Alex’s event was that I am over-complicating my business. One of the frustrations I had was that technically I have most of the information I need to succeed but I just couldn’t make progress as fast as I thought I should be because I was over-complicating the process.

An example of this was trying to get my sales funnel in place before a launch.  However, by simply ‘releasing’ my product, I can add the sales funnel later as I ‘release’ further products.  It takes all the stress and complication out of getting my products to market.

Also, JV Zoo is technically much simpler to set-up than a WSO which reduces the stress hoping your launch does not flop badly because of a technical problem.

Another example of how I am introducing simplicity to my business is through my resolution to use just one WordPress Theme for my products and sites – Optimize Press.  Each WordPress theme has its own special features which take time to master.  I’ve decided to use Optimize Press because it can be deployed in most situations – squeeze pages, sales letters, launch sequences, blog and membership sites.

Not only will this cut down the time taken for deployment but it also helps with branding your business if all sites and products look similar.  Whilst many other internet marketers use Optimize Press, I intend to differentiate my site through the creative output of headers, graphics and using the creative features of Easy Video Suite to present my material so that my sites are visually interesting.

If The Sky Inside was launched within 3 days of returning from Alex Jeffreys Live Event then the question is, ‘how quickly can I release the other two products that I have developed’? Watch this space!