AM(A)A: How I Make Money.

[scottspfd82]

Both of these places use kittens for their main ingredient in their cashew chicken.

Only place I feel comfortable at is the Silk Road.

Kittens or not, you deep fry anything and smother it in gravy it'll taste good. I actually rarely eat any Chinese food. I don't think I've ever eaten at Silk Road.

Also, inb4 this turns out to be the greatest "Abraham/Kennedy style" presell thread on WF.

Did I PM you the link to the webinar? (Kidding).

Why didn't you partner up to form an agency (ogilvy, madison 2.0)

Eh, I may think about something like that down the road. Only so much time in the day and it's never been something I wanted to dive into. Really, and it's similar with any service oriented work, when you build an agency there's a lot of value in it as long as you're running it. But when you start thinking about an exit strategy it's pretty worthless.

Your hard assets are going to be your relationships, talent, employees, etc. They're valuable to you, but you're not going to have anything of hard value to sell if you decide to cashout down the road.

That applies to me in a lot of ways too, but that doesn't mean I want to keep building businesses like that.

One thing I haven't really mentioned is that I consider everything I do a learning experience. I don't claim to have it all figured out - and I never will.

I still make my share of bad decisions and mistakes. There's a million opportunities I haven't explored yet.

Once you've been in this business (and by "this business", I mean "marketing"), I transitioned from thinking "okay, how the hell do people make money doing this?" to "there's more ways to make money than I could ever attempt in a lifetime, where's the best area to focus my time, attention and resources right now?"

 

[scottspfd82]

Just want to say I've known scott since like 2006 and watched him go from writing articles on DP to being pretty damn successful.

He's also done some work to help us launch some of our supplement products and mailings. Smart as fuck.

Thanks man.

Josh actually turned me on to internet marketing, we used to play online poker together. He started a thread at 2+2 about IM and it immediately caught my interest.

Pretty sure you introduced me to Wickedfire, right? I remember you turned me on to Eli's old blog. I remember us both bitching about low paying content work a lot, ha.

I've got to watch Josh over the years too. Saying that he now represents a "big brand" would be an understatement. Most people would kill to do what Josh does for a living.

Find a way to party that doesn't leave you in a hole bro!

I've done some growing up lately. I think turning 30 was a big wakeup call for me. Time to focus and put things into high-gear. I was lucky to do what I did through my 20's. And I still am. But it's time to grow up and take things seriously.

I'll hit you up on Skype soon man, thanks for stopping in.

 

[Wicked Ice]

How did you get your start?

Do you enjoy what you're doing? Are you happy with your life?

How did you handle mistakes (i.e. business downturns)?

 

[scottspfd82]

How did you get your start?

Cliffs:

- Was playing online poker - Ran into Josh, mentioned above, discovered IM.

- Very first Adwords campaign I setup was running at like a 300% ROI, made more money the first week than I did in over a month at my job at the time. Thought I was obviously an internet genius, quit my job.

- Campaigns dried up shortly after. Didn't want to go back to a day job. Started doing freelance writing (and a lot of other stuff) to make ends meet.

- Realized the pay sucked. Teamed up with a programmer on a script. Wrote a sales letter and made a decent amount of money (more than I'd ever made in a month). Sold the site shortly after because of complications with the partner, etc. This was back in probably '07.

- Someone told me the copy was good and that it was a pretty insane conversion rate - recommended I look into becoming a copywriter. After hearing what it paid, I decided it'd be worth a shot.

- Did well with that, started becoming obsessed with both copy and strategy. Things just kind of evolved from there.

There's a lot of other details there, but that's the short version.

Do you enjoy what you're doing? Are you happy with your life?

Yeah, I really do enjoy what I do. And besides the occasional slump I'm happy with life. Looking back, the times where I'd get down on myself, etc, were the times I was spending 14 hours + a day alone in front of my computer. That's a big reason I really like to get outside and working with people face to face, etc.

How did you handle mistakes (i.e. business downturns)?

Really I try to look at them as learning experiences. When things go bad for me, it's ALWAYS my fault.

Maybe I wasn't producing enough value. Sometimes I'd get lazy/complacent. A lot of times it's been bad money management. Deciding to go on a month long vacation or whatever. Sometimes it's expecting too much out of other people, people I hire, etc.

But I always look at a failure as a win. You learn from them and you do better the next time. I like that Michael Jordan quote "I've failed over and over again in my life, and that's why I succeed."

I should clarify that when I've failed, it's always on my own projects. Under-estimating a budget for developing something. Not reinvesting enough revenue back into the business. Getting in over my head with menial tasks, things like that.

With clients I have a very good track record. And that's most likely because there's a much bigger moral obligation there for me to make sure they succeed. So I only work with businesses who I'm 99% confident that I can help dramatically. I only focus on my strengths. I play it somewhat safe, I only bring strategies I've seen work over and over again to the table, I don't experiment on their dime.

And when you see a business doing zero marketing, or bad marketing, but a great product and a proven market, it's almost impossible to not make them more money by doing even the simplest of things, like mailing a letter or actually monetizing their website/leads, etc.

So with clients I always look for guaranteed wins. Businesses where I know for a fact I can bring them a quick and easy payday.

With my own stuff I tend to experiment more. And I tend to screw up a lot of the administrative/business side of things. That's why I enjoy clients. I get to do what I'm good at, they get to handle running the business.

A quick story about bouncing back. A few years ago I was kind of on a perpetual 6-month road-trip. I took a huge gamble on a project and I woke up in a spot where I was almost out of cash to pay for gas, a hotel - most people would see it as a bad situation.

I had a buddy with me and he was like "Dude, wtf?" Understandable. I told him everything would be fine by tomorrow. I hopped online, sent some emails, got on Skype, was introduced to a really successful guy I'd never met, closed a deal that night and had a wire come in that just about covered the entire mistake before morning. I went on to work on a bunch of projects with him, he's still a good friend today.

A lot of times I have way too much gamble in me. Going broke doesn't scare me (although it should). But I can always find an offer to mail, or get in touch with my contacts and find a way to bounce back.

If I had kids/obligations beyond myself, I wouldn't be able to take chances like that. And I'll have those kinds of obligations soon. I've made a lot of mistakes, and I'm not saying being willing to lose everything is a personality trait I'm proud of or that I'd recommend - although I've taken many chances that paid off too.

I have a lot of things working against me. I'm ADD like crazy. I jump from one thing to another. I don't plan things out. I'm horrible with managing money. I've had $20K+ months and found myself almost broke the next.

I'm a perfectionist to a fault in a lot of areas, meaning 50%+ of the things I've invested in/worked on never make it to launch. I've let lists that were an easy mid-high $x,xxx or more a month completely rot. I'm insanely disorganized.

The last 15 hours of my working life I've been shopping for talent and dumping money into a business (online software as a service product) that I haven't even decided for sure if I actually want to develop.

So when I said in the first post "Anyone with an open mind and a good head on their shoulders should be able to accomplish a whole lot more in a lot less time than I have", I meant it.

That being said, I have no regrets, and yeah, I'm very happy and grateful that I get to do what I do. It's given me a perspective where I see unlimited opportunity in the world, and I'm always excited to get to work and see what's coming next.

 

[medway]

Great stuff, nice to see posts like this here.

 

[dgerryd]

Hey scottspfd82
I have read through this thread and found it very interesting I have a question about a particular part here.

I'll use an example from my early days online. I ghost-wrote a book for like $1,000. It became a Clickbank bestseller for my client. It was in the top 10 sellers for years. I take no credit for that, he did an awesome job marketing it and it filled a hungry niche.

I know for a fact that he made over 7 figures from that site.

So looking back, at the time I was new online and thrilled to make $1k for a ghost-writing job.

If I'd negotiated a 10% rev share I would probably have made six-figures.

If I'd negotiated a 50% share I'd have made more. If I'd have negotiated rights to the product (or paid another freelancer to write it for me), and found a similar way to reach a wide market I would have made 7-figures.

Anyway, looking back this guy had no interest in writing. He outsourced the design. He outsourced the copy. He probably outsourced a lot of the traffic buying. The only thing he brought to the table was a vision - and he made big money because of that.

I have an idea for creating a product-ebook but have no experience in this area what advice would you give to someone who wants to look into this.
The ebook is in diet niche but it is in a fairly targeted type I don't no how to research it properly like how to know weather it would be profitable or not but I do no that there are 1000 exact searches per month I no this is not a lot but I see an opportunity to piggy back off of other diet products to compliment and promote it any advice would be appreciated.

 

[zmxn73]

Hi Scott could you please detail your strategy for setting up a relationship with a client that is selling a great product/service but is undertaking crap marketing - and you taking over the marketing of the business.

1. How do you approach them?
2. What do you say to them that's crucial early on in forming the business relationship?
3. How do you overcome any obstacles in terms of them being comfortable enough to open their business operations up to you to take over their marketing (especially how did you do this early on, when you didn't have the same number of runs on the board as you do now).
4. How do you get them to feel excited about the relationship when they clearly don't put a lot of worth in marketing to begin with?
5. What's the best way to structure the compensation you receive, so that the client is happy and you're happy? I'm referring to both financial and non-financial incentives, including access to their database etc.

Thanks mate, great thread so far!

 

[DomboCom]

Great thread Scott. +rep

I've studied Abraham, Kennedy and many of the others you mentioned and always been fascinated with their stuff. Not sure this business is for me, but really dig what you do.

How do you go about finding/coming across these opportunities (in general, not specifics). Are the mostly through networking and your lead gen products you mentioned earlier?

When you say you use other peoples resources, etc and a team to implement... are you using your clients' employees as part of your team, or assembling your own team?

 

[scottspfd82]

Hey scottspfd82
I have read through this thread and found it very interesting I have a question about a particular part here.


I have an idea for creating a product-ebook but have no experience in this area what advice would you give to someone who wants to look into this.
The ebook is in diet niche but it is in a fairly targeted type åI don't no how to research it properly like how to know weather it would be profitable or not but I do no that there are 1000 exact searches per month I no this is not a lot but I see an opportunity to piggy back off of other diet products to compliment and promote it any advice would be appreciated.

First of all diet/health is the biggest evergreen niche in the world. It's very profitable but you need to know what you're doing.

If you want to do an info-product it needs to be something awesome and something that you can build either a really strong hook into, that has credibility built in and that has a chance of being marketable.

It's a market where too many people make the mistake of thinking "oh, money, what kind of crap can I promote to get a cut" vs. trying to add value. I'm not saying that's you, and there are shoddy diet products that sell like crazy, but they never last.

There's not really enough info, or thread space, to give this a solid answer. I'd say just make the product. Make a plan to bring it to market. Learn as you go. Be prepared to fail. At worst, you'll have a bribe you can use to collect opt-ins and promote other stuff as an affiliate.

Hi Scott could you please detail your strategy for setting up a relationship with a client that is selling a great product/service but is undertaking crap marketing - and you taking over the marketing of the business.

1. How do you approach them?
2. What do you say to them that's crucial early on in forming the business relationship?
3. How do you overcome any obstacles in terms of them being comfortable enough to open their business operations up to you to take over their marketing (especially how did you do this early on, when you didn't have the same number of runs on the board as you do now).
4. How do you get them to feel excited about the relationship when they clearly don't put a lot of worth in marketing to begin with?
5. What's the best way to structure the compensation you receive, so that the client is happy and you're happy? I'm referring to both financial and non-financial incentives, including access to their database etc.

Thanks mate, great thread so far!

Good question.

1 These days I'm usually introduced to them, or they're referred to me, or I write them a letter. And things usually never work out as expected. Not too long ago I approached a guy because I had an offer I wanted to physically mail his list.

I wrote him a quick email, and was planning on following up with direct mail and a call if I didn't hear back. He called back within 20 minutes of me sending the email. I didn't want to work with this guy other than doing a mailing. He ended up paying me to do a bunch of stuff for him instead, segmenting his lists, writing in-house promotions, etc.

I have a relationship with him now. He's still open to my original idea but we haven't had time to get to it yet.

But I have credibility these days. At the same time, even with basic marketing knowledge a letter/email saying something like "Need Help Getting More Customers On A Thursday Night?" can get a lot of people interested.

I used to regularly update a blog with marketing tips and things like that. I'd build a list off of that and shoot out emails with marketing tips. I don't keep up with it anymore but it kept me booked when I did.

As far as credibility, the less you have the more you take on the risk. Work on a revenue share with no money due upfront. Or give them a guarantee that they hit a desired result or you don't get paid. Or do something on your own and use that as proof that you know what you're doing.

Make yourself as risk-free to work with as possible. I'm not saying do that for long, but when you're starting from scratch it makes sense, it worked for me.

2. Something like "I've been studying your business. I have some lead generation ideas that I think could bring in a lot of new business for you. I'm more than happy to tell you about them, give me a call".

3. That's case-by-case. Feel them out. Don't press with anything they aren't comfortable with. Prove yourself and things will work out from there.

4. Most business owners don't put a lot of value on marketing because they don't understand it. Demonstrate yourself as a rain-maker. Someone who knows the secret to making things work - when you tell them that your job is to make the cash register ring, and you're not just some douche trying to sell radio spots and can prove some level of competence they get excited.

Really though, a lot of businesses do value marketing and are desperate to meet people who can help them to optimize it. If they don't, don't waste your time.

5. Really broad question. If you don't trust the client get paid the minimum you'd do the work for upfront. Be prepared to lose any residuals/payment on completion payments. Normally you'll get paid if you deliver. But as a rule of thumb get the minimum that you'd do it for without going broke upfront.

Great thread Scott. +rep

I've studied Abraham, Kennedy and many of the others you mentioned and always been fascinated with their stuff. Not sure this business is for me, but really dig what you do.

How do you go about finding/coming across these opportunities (in general, not specifics). Are the mostly through networking and your lead gen products you mentioned earlier?

When you say you use other peoples resources, etc and a team to implement... are you using your clients' employees as part of your team, or assembling your own team?

I use both, client resources and my own.

It just depends on the situation. I've kind of glossed over the question earlier in this post. The lead gen content helps a lot. It's kind of a mixture of everything. Referrals, past relationships, attraction marketing - all of that comes into play depending on where you're at.

Really you always want to leave a mark. Leave a lot of footprints so people can find you.

If you need any clarification let me know. Been busy and just trying to get some answers up here while I have time. I appreciate the questions and hope the answers help someone out.

 

[zmxn73]

Thanks Scott, I appreciate the response mate.

Will shoot you a quick pm.

Thanks