AM(A)A: How I Make Money.

[microphone head]

This could turn out to be an epic thread. Sub'd.

No specific questions, but for one just now: You say you've lost everything numerous times over, so I'm interested to know - what was the biggest mistake that you made that cost you everything, what lessons did you learn, and what methods did you employ to get over that? Can you describe your hardest lesson & biggest turnaround.

 

[Untitled]

after being 7 years in the business, why did you never run rebills or ringtones instead?
inb4 this doesn't last long, but it could have made you a "millionaire" at least

 

[scottspfd82]

I would love to know any wisdom you could drop about flipping sites, anything at all.

I have no real tips on this beyond going the extra mile to find the right buyer, providing all documentation/proof possible, being careful about tire-kickers trying to gain intel on your niche and things like that. If you're talking serious money I'd recommend hiring a broker with a track-record.

What's your process when it comes to writing copy for an offer?

I'm a big fan of Gary Bencivenga's teachings. But it's a $5k DVD course. Bencivenga 100 Seminar Signup for his newsletter (root of that domain). Read Makepeace's old/free stuff. This is probably my favorite short/sweet "how to write copy" post of all time, the rest of his site is gold as well... Online Sales Copy Worth Betting Real Money On | MakepeaceTotalPackage.com

And of course The Gary Halbert Letter

I wish his sons would take the letters offline and charge $500 for the book so people would understand the real value they provide. But for now they're free, and no to be missed IMO.

after being 7 years in the business, why did you never run rebills or ringtones instead?
inb4 this doesn't last long, but it could have made you a "millionaire" at least

I've ran a lot of continuity. Not forced rebills with hidden print. The only "big" niche I've ran in is dating. I've ran a lot of stuff that was pretty under the radar.

I missed some gravy trains sure. I've never been one to follow the crowd. And as cliche as it may sound, I always want to promote products that provide value, not trick people out of their money (and that's not a slam against anyone). I never felt right about ringtones or berries personally. It's important for me to be able to feel proud of what I'm marketing, and there are a lot of products that I do feel proud of out there that I can get behind.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

5-star thread sir and relevant to my interests.

I built an ecom store for a guy I know that has a brick and mortar that sells relatively high margin items (average sale is around $2k with a 100% markup). Now he's been begging me to "work my Internet magic" (lulz) to increase sales for a xx% which sounds profitable enough, but I'm not sure how I would be able to capture all the sales I push online, since he has a physical showroom.

The online sales are easy enough since I have access to the cart, analytics etc, but I haven't figured out how to get credit on sales where I drive traffic to the site, do the presell, then they go to the store and buy rather than make a large purchase online site unseen. You clearly have a larger hand in their entire sales/marketing process than I would in this case but I'm curious if you have any suggestions on how to track these type of sales where people are basically window shopping online, then buying in person.

 

[scottspfd82]

This could turn out to be an epic thread. Sub'd.

No specific questions, but for one just now: You say you've lost everything numerous times over, so I'm interested to know - what was the biggest mistake that you made that cost you everything, what lessons did you learn, and what methods did you employ to get over that? Can you describe your hardest lesson & biggest turnaround.

The biggest mistake, over and over again, is money and time management.

A few years ago I had been working with a (legit) natural supplement company to bring a successful product to market in the US. Well money was flowing, I was only consulting for a couple hours of week and it was great. But I spent the money like it'd last forever. I'd take vacations. I wouldn't reinvest into other projects. Then it dried up overnight for legal reasons, and I wasn't expecting or prepared for that.

I wasn't flat broke but I was irresponsible. But within a week or two I found a new project to hop on and turned it around pretty quick.

I've had merchant accounts shut me down on launches and freeze huge amounts of money for months. I've gone all in on buying a business or on a marketing campaign and flopped.

It's easy for me to grow complacent/lazy, instead of continuing to hustle when I have the time. For me though it's always been more about freedom than money.

It's not a great excuse but I'm still young (30), I've never been married or had kids, so I've always been willing to put everything on the line when I believed in something. And there's been a lot of times that's backfired for me.

There are a few big lessons for me. One is to always look for opportunities to leverage. You can't do everything by yourself. You can work 100x faster and more effectively with a team, with existing assets, etc.

Another big lesson is to make and keep connections. I still work with guys I worked with 7 years ago, and I've learned a ton from clients/partners over the years.

Another is to always put your money to work for you. I've chronically sucked at this but I'm actively getting better at it.

Always have a plan b, c, d, e, etc. Have things to fall back on. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

I'm kind of weird. I enjoy growing broke, at least in hindsight. It reminds me just how hard I can hustle when pushed, and for me I always know it's temporary, that I'll be okay because I have skills/assets that I can fall back on.

Partying/bars where a big problem for me when I was younger, not so much anymore. I'd go out every night and party like a rock-star, and not accomplish anything the next day.

The biggest lesson I think is actively working harder to better manage and leverage my time, assets, money and resources.

 

[ShadowCaster]

how to get credit on sales where I drive traffic to the site, do the presell, then they go to the store and buy rather than make a large purchase online site unseen.

Just a thought, maybe you can offer them a printable coupon, that they can exchange for a free gift upon purchase, the gift can be something worthless, but related, and the shop owner will know that the clients are coming from you, since no one else has such coupon.

 

[scottspfd82]

5-star thread sir and relevant to my interests.

I built an ecom store for a guy I know that has a brick and mortar that sells relatively high margin items (average sale is around $2k with a 100% markup). Now he's been begging me to "work my Internet magic" (lulz) to increase sales for a xx% which sounds profitable enough, but I'm not sure how I would be able to capture all the sales I push online, since he has a physical showroom.

The online sales are easy enough since I have access to the cart, analytics etc, but I haven't figured out how to get credit on sales where I drive traffic to the site, do the presell, then they go to the store and buy rather than make a large purchase online site unseen. You clearly have a larger hand in their entire sales/marketing process then I would in this case but I'm curious if you have any suggestions on how to track these type of sales where people are basically window shopping online, then buying in person.

Sounds like a similar situation.

For what I'm doing right now, I'm not selling anything online. I'm basically doing 2-step lead gen. I'm selling them on calling for an appointment or filling out a form. From there I followup with email/physical mail to pre-sell them before they hit the showroom.

They can only get the exclusive pricing by private, appointment only showing. So there's a very real sense of exclusivity, a very real sense of "look, these prices aren't available to the public, you have to buy now" without laying on the pressure too thick.

I don't know what you're selling but IMO there are very few physical products that you can easily sale sight-unseen for $x,xxx+ online. At least for my situation a closer in a showroom is a much better choice.

So my job with everything is essentially selling people on showing up, at least in this case. Hope that helps, let me know if I can clarify anything for you.

 

[scottspfd82]

You clearly have a larger hand in their entire sales/marketing process than I would in this case but I'm curious if you have any suggestions on how to track these type of sales where people are basically window shopping online, then buying in person.

I didn't answer this clearly.

For me, with the direct mail stuff they have to bring it in the store. All of the employees also have to ask where they heard about us when they set the appointment.

As for tracking phone leads, check out something like Twilio Cloud Communications - APIs for Voice, VoIP and Text MessagingA better way to measure call tracking conversion.. There are a million options out there, but you want to be able to track calls from your landing pages.

It's tough to get people to fill out a form on an e-com site but that may be an option too.

And as mentioned above, "online only coupons", or some kind of buyers guide that they have to bring in could work too.

 

[eliquid]

How do you protect yourself legally?

Ive done what you have done. I was partners with 2 ecoms, both of which fucked me out of my efforts and to this day are still benefiting from my work. I also partnered with a popular classifieds site that "claimed" they were bankrupt and couldn't pay me, thus are still running today online and benefiting from my work.

Taking these xx% share of revenue gigs seem like a scam to me now after my personal experience. I've made deals with people I have know for a long time personally ( like clients I had for a long time ) and people that I trusted, had documents, etc, but there always seems to be some "loophole" that they can get out of and still benefit later on from my work.

1. What exactly do you have setup up in place from a legal means, and how to do you pick your "partners" to make sure your going in "good"

2. What protection do you have in place, in case you get "fucked over" ( i.e. any dead man switches, etc )

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

I don't know what you're selling but IMO there are very few physical products that you can easily sale sight-unseen for $x,xxx+ online. At least for my situation a closer in a showroom is a much better choice.

This is exactly my dilemma. And although I've known the guy for years I don't honestly think he would report all of his sales to me that came in and said "Hey I saw this online and love it and here's my money".

The printable coupons aren't a bad idea, although again, there is no guarantee that he would hand me a stack of redeemed coupons every week rather than just tossing them in the garbage. Maybe some variation on this might be workable but I'll have to give it some more thought.

Anyway, great thread. I love to see WF people diversifying into shit like this.

 

[charlie.simm]

This is exactly my dilemma. And although I've known the guy for years I don't honestly think he would report all of his sales to me that came in and said "Hey I saw this online and love it and here's my money".

The printable coupons aren't a bad idea, although again, there is no guarantee that he would hand me a stack of redeemed coupons every week rather than just tossing them in the garbage. Maybe some variation on this might be workable but I'll have to give it some more thought.

Try the coupon thing but with a twist.

Instead of relying on him to be honest and report each sale, give customers a reason to report each sale by offering something like a gift (maybe a product that complements whatever it is they just bought).

When it comes to coupons, it normally works like this:

1) The customer in question receives a coupon from you

2) He/she takes the coupon to the offline store and receives the discount/gift/whatever

You should do it differently:

1) The customer goes to the store and after buying the product, requests a coupon from the company

2) He/she emails you the coupon code for confirmation purposes

3) After confirming, you'll send the gift

 

[eliquid]

This is exactly my dilemma. And although I've known the guy for years I don't honestly think he would report all of his sales to me that came in and said "Hey I saw this online and love it and here's my money".

The printable coupons aren't a bad idea, although again, there is no guarantee that he would hand me a stack of redeemed coupons every week rather than just tossing them in the garbage. Maybe some variation on this might be workable but I'll have to give it some more thought.

Anyway, great thread. I love to see WF people diversifying into shit like this.

Prob the best thing you can do, is call each and every customer after the sale. Thats just a part of good customer service anyways. Get their phone number and call them up daily.

Chit chat them a bit, ask them how the sale was, ASK THEM HOW THEY HEARD OF SALE, ASK THE IF THEY USED THEIR COUPON OR IF THEY EVEN HAD ONE, and get info as much as you can. You can hire someone else to do this or use Twillo ( ive done this ). Dont handle tech issues or general problems. If they have those tell them you will have the owner or tech staff call them back, etc.

Make notes of all the customers that responded in a way that you should have been paid for, and reconcile with what the owner paid you/credited you.

 

[eliquid]

1. I am not sure if this is the only client you are handling, but what is the average xx% you are trying to get/do get from these companies?

2. You mentioned you get xx% of sales, is that NET ( surely not gross, right? )

 

[scottspfd82]

How do you protect yourself legally?

Ive done what you have done. I was partners with 2 ecoms, both of which fucked me out of my efforts and to this day are still benefiting from my work. I also partnered with a popular classifieds site that "claimed" they were bankrupt and couldn't pay me, thus are still running today online and benefiting from my work.

Taking these xx% share of revenue gigs seem like a scam to me now after my personal experience. I've made deals with people I have know for a long time personally ( like clients I had for a long time ) and people that I trusted, had documents, etc, but there always seems to be some "loophole" that they can get out of and still benefit later on from my work.

1. What exactly do you have setup up in place from a legal means, and how to do you pick your "partners" to make sure your going in "good"

2. What protection do you have in place, in case you get "fucked over" ( i.e. any dead man switches, etc )

I'll start by saying I can't/won't give legal advice. I've been screwed out of six-figures before, on a couple occasions. I learned and moved on.

1. I have contracts/agreements that spell EVERYTHING out. Including ownership, the rights I have, exclusive control over their marketing for x amount of time, access control of their lists, etc.

2. Contracts, IMO, are more of a formality/outline so both parties understand everything clearly. I trust my gut/relationships far more than a contract. That being said, I've found the best protection is to make yourself invaluable. And that's usually pretty easy.

If I'm making someone money, they generally have more to lose by screwing me than by honoring the agreement. But for the off-chance things don't go well, I have control over their entire marketing funnel. I have their lists. I have control of their website. I *could* transfer their domain if I wanted to, although I never would. So in this case, if I get screwed I could screw them much worse, although I wouldn't.

The flip side question would be "why would they trust you with all of that power over them", and that's really how you position yourself, pitch them, use your reputation to your advantage, etc. And really I'm in the same boat. I could run off with their lists, etc. But I'm going to make a lot more money working with them than I would ripping them off.

For online stuff, I've used Clickbank quiet a bit (yes, I know) to setup JV contracts. So I get x% of sales as agreed on, automatically. They can't cancel unless I agree to cancel, it's all managed through CB.

There are similar setups for other carts/processors.

I've been burned before, and I never worked with them again. But 99/100 times, if you have their best interest in mind, if you add value to their life, if you bring in money that they would have never had otherwise, people tend to treat you well and honor agreements.

It's a case by case type of thing, but that's the general idea.

 

[scottspfd82]

1. I am not sure if this is the only client you are handling, but what is the average xx% you are trying to get/do get from these companies?

2. You mentioned you get xx% of sales, is that NET ( surely not gross, right? )

This company is my primary focus right now, but I have a couple of other projects going on too.

The fee structure depends on a million things. For physical products it's always a % of net, or sometimes a pay-per-lead structure. For digital products it's generally gross, but not always.

In this specific case, the company operates at about a 40% margin on their products. My take is half of net.

But as for other factors. Say a company has an active list of 100,000+ newsletter subscribers. Newsletters are almost 100% profit after marketing costs. These are buyers, not leads. I'd be willing to take a much smaller cut, like 10% of gross, vs. a company that's just starting up, or only has a 10k prospect list or whatever.

It's tough to explain how I structure deals like this. I look at everything that's on the table. Maybe I really want their list because I have access to a complimentary product and want to cross-promo it.

Maybe it's a company I want to be in good with for whatever reason. Maybe they're not doing anything at all marketing wise and I know I can make a fortune doing some really basic stuff for them.

There's dozens of things that I think about with any deal. I'm thinking long-term, is this compatible with any other clients/lists/products I have access to? Do they have resources I could barter for that I could put to use? Printing, etc.

How scalable is the company?

There's a ton of stuff I look at, and the real value isn't necessarily always in the fee structure, but also in the relationships/assets/other things of value to me in the long run.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Prob the best thing you can do, is call each and every customer after the sale. Thats just a part of good customer service anyways. Get their phone number and call them up daily.

Except I wouldn't have their phone number. For instance, let's say I'm running a PPC campaign to drive customers to the site. They click the ad, they bite on the presell and they go to order, but then decide rather than make a $3,500 purchase online they'd rather go to the physical store and see it in person to make sure that's what they want. At that point, I have captured zero personal info from the customer, so there is nothing for me to follow up on. They may go to the store and tell him they saw the item on his site, but what reason does he have to cut me a check for the sale if he doesn't have to? It's not like I would have any way of knowing unless I worked in his store.

You should do it differently:

1) The customer goes to the store and after buying the product, requests a coupon from the company

2) He/she emails you the coupon code for confirmation purposes

3) After confirming, you'll send the gift

This (or some variation of it) is actually a really good idea. I'll have to put some thought into it but I think something along these lines might work.

Contracts, IMO, are more of a formality/outline so both parties understand everything clearly. I trust my gut/relationships far more than a contract. That being said, I've found the best protection is to make yourself invaluable. And that's usually pretty easy.

If I'm making someone money, they generally have more to lose by screwing me than by honoring the agreement.

That's great advice.

 

[scottspfd82]

Except I wouldn't have their phone number. For instance, let's say I'm running a PPC campaign to drive customers to the site. They click the ad, they bite on the presell and they go to order, but then decide rather than make a $3,500 purchase online they'd rather go to the physical store and see it in person to make sure that's what they want. At that point, I have captured zero personal info from the customer, so there is nothing for me to follow up on. They may go to the store and tell him they saw the item on his site, but what reason does he have to cut me a check for the sale if he doesn't have to? It's not like I would have any way of knowing unless I worked in his store.

My approach solves a lot of these problems, although it is a bit more work and may not be viable for you.

By controlling all of the marketing I get a lot more leverage, and it's a lot easier to track.

I'm making them structure this as a private, by appointment only sale. This works well for a lot of higher ticket stuff. Think cars, jewelry, art, etc.

The first benefit is that it gives me a really powerful reason why for the advertising. We're clearing out inventory, this is an exclusive invite to a select group of our best customers (or exclusive invite to friends of JV partner, etc), we're offering deep discounts because we need to clear up space, but these discounts are available by private appointments only, not to the general public.

A variation on the landing page is that we have a few openings available but you must schedule your appointment before x date.

So there's a lot of urgency, a lot of scarcity and it's an event. I'm a HUGE fan of event based marketing. It's why webinars and product launches work so well. It's why black Friday kills it for retail. People love events. And they hate missing out.

Plus it makes it a lot easier for the sales team to close. They buy when they come in or they miss out.

And it makes my job much easier, because I'm promoting the event, not the company. If a customer makes an appointment for the private sale, I know that they're my lead.

And it's not a one-off thing, it's perpetual. When a customer enters the funnel at x date, they have until y to schedule or buy.

I don't know if you want to get that hands on with everything, but there's a lot of upside to it if you can. Just some ideas.

EDIT: And this isn't something I invented. Gary Halbert wrote about doing something similar years ago. What I'm doing here is a higher-tech variation of what Gary writes about here with my own twists thrown in. Skip down to the sentence "90% Of All Business Owners In America Have Never Written A Sales Letter To Their Customers!" if you don't want to read his anti-MLM rant (which is a good read too).

 

[microphone head]

It strikes me from your last post OP that you're also very familiar with John Caples. ?

All good stuff btw.

 

[scottspfd82]

It strikes me from your last post OP that you're also very familiar with John Caples. ?

All good stuff btw.

Caples is great.

"Tested Advertising Methods" (and his other stuff) is fantastic. I'm a copy junkie and I spend a lot more time studying the old school guys than I do anyone who's around today.

 

[Alltimed]

Favorite Cashew Chicken spot?