One of the things I've noticed lately is how much negative crap vs.

positive stuff that's

out there in the world. Actually, to be clear, there's probably a lot more positive stuff for
the taking, but it's a weird thing about human nature that most people tend to notice
more of the negative.
I mean even when the economy was going great, the news reports were all about "will
this last" and "how long before the fall?" And now when things are supposedly tough in
the markets, it seems to be gloom and doom everywhere.
This isn't to say that no one is focusing on the positive, but all too often it seems to be
disproportionate in the other direction.
The point I want to make in this month's edition is how important it is to stay focused on
the positive, and on what it is you want, not on what you fear.
If you think about it, what's wrong is always there for you to focus on. But it's just
as easy to focus on what's right.
As simple as it sounds, if you focus on "no money" then you end up with no money. If
you focus on prosperity, wealth is pretty simple to come by.
So to illustrate my point, I thought I'd start out with a few examples. First, here's some
of the stupid stuff I've witnessed lately ...
Just the other night I took the missus and the family to P.F. Chang's for a little night out.
For those of you who don't know, P.F. Chang's is a trendy but really pretty good
Chinese joint. They have 'em in most big cities.
Now, allegedly we're in this recessionary economy and no one's going out to eat
anymore. So restaurants are hurting unless they serve something like the Never Ending
Pasta Bowl Gust $8.95) at the Olive Garden, in which case they're fine because they
have that little segment dialed in. But more upscale restaurants are hurting, which is
why it shocked me to receive this note in my fortune cookie at P.F. Chang's.
l'K-1 You shouldnt overspend at the
~ moment. Frugality is important.
I share this with you because I wanted to illustrate the point that the people writing these
things know significantly more than the rest of the world about getting money. I mean,
whenever you see a mUlti-gaziliion dollar corporation telling their customers not to
overspend, clearly you're onto something.
Basically this is saying: "Here you go. Don't buy anything from us. You should go
home." I can just picture the big corporate marketing team sitting around one of those
fancy conference tables saying, "You know people can re-create these recipes with
ramen noodles and some Tabasco so why don't we tell them to go home and try that
out. Certainly they shouldn't give us the money. Our share holders don't need it either."
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So this is what I call, ''failing the stupidity test." And it's what happens when a bunch of
corporate ying-yangs start to fall into the same bullshit that everyone else is buying into.
Don't listen to 'em!
Now this is about as much negative crap as I can handle, so let's move on to some cool
shiny stuff that grabbed my attention in the other direction-from this month's edition of
the Robb Report.
If you're not familiar with it, it's basically written for people who aspire to be rich and
fancy but also for rich and fancy people.
This ad is a classic example of really targeting your market.
The headline, "Have You Ever Seen Billionaires Fight?" is great because it's so
dramatically different from the other crap you'd normally see, even in a publication like
this. And, it's starting to come closer to a direct response approach to marketing.
The subhead and body copy also makes you really want to go and see what the hats
are all about. Only 14 new hats? $100,000 for one hat? What's it made out of?
Cocaine?
All in all, a moderately good job of calling to your market.
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So if I were to re-write this ad, first of all I would probably try to do a half page or at least
a quarter page ad or something (instead of the small size this was on the page - it was
on the same page with several other ads, some of which were larger and stood out
more).
I would then make it look like an advertorial and say something like, "The Mysterious
Case of the Billionaire Hat Fight." And then put in an illustration of two men in suits
punching each other or attacking each other. You know, show a hat flying in the air,
things like that.
From there, I'd go with the direct response copy saying something like, "38 billionaires
were made last year, but there weren't enough Master Weaver Montecristi Panama hats
for all of them. In fact, there were only 14, which left 24 billionaires out in the cold
fighting for scraps. Find out why these men came to blows over the most expensive
and valuable hats in the world at www.brentblack.com .....
Another note of interest: there is no mention of the economy. There's no mention of a
recession. This is a great example of an ad that's just ignoring the bad news and
focusing on prosperity, which is dramatically different from the idiocy we saw at P.F.
Chang's.
So I'll walk you through the brentblack.com Web site in this month's DVD as it's pretty
good, especially for not being one of us, you know?
But what I want to get across more than anything is that this guy not only sells these
hats (obviously successfully if he is buying what has to be tens of thousands of dollars
worth of advertising), but he's been doing so for years. If this isn't an example of
disposable money being spent, then I don't know what is.
Core Question We Should All Be Asking Now
Who's got a lot of money? What can I sell them?
Now I have a couple more ads to show you, but let me give you a few tips to call out
some of the things that work with these affluence-oriented ads specifically.
Tip 1: When marketing to the wealthy, you need to understand who they are and
what's important to them. (Actually this is true for anyone you market to, but
it's especially important for the affluent.)
One of the things that's important for this group is making them feel unique,
acknowledging that they've made it. In fact, for many affluent, if they're not
unique, they're not happy.
Their biggest wound is being one of the pack, like everyone else.
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Tip 2: All of your marketing needs to reflect the way these people think about
themselves.
And there's a key point here. It's not about who these customers really are, it's
about who they think they are, which is basically the identity they hold for
themselves.
Now identity really just means what someone believes about themselves (or how
they define themselves). But it totally controls the way people experience and
respond to almost anything.
If someone believes that they are unique and different from the masses and that
this status is what makes them significant as a human being, then your marketing
needs to reflect this.
Show what makes your product or service unique and how purchasing your
product contributes to them being even more unique and significant.
Tip 3: Make owning your product or being one of your clients mean something.
(remember the tribe mentality from Mass Control?!?).
Even though it's no longer the ih grade, people, especially affluent people, want
to belong to the clique.
Knowing the secret handshake, or being one of the 14 people who actually own a
Master Weaver Montecristi Panama hat, creates significance for this person.
They've made it, they're in the tribe, and as a member of this group, they have
accomplished something important, they're smarter than everyone else, and
they're part of an elite group of people who have what they want most.
Anything that will publically recognize this fact is a valuable marketing tool.
Now this stuff is probably true for just about any market, but we're focusing on where
the money is right now, so let's continue debunking some of the ads that are out there.
Here's another one for you. This is a Scotch Malt Whisky ad, again, from the Robb
Report, offering proof that the continuity model doesn't have to be just books and tapes.
You can turn anything you want into an experience and membership and build a society
within it.
In this case, it's called the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, and as the ad says, it's an
"international, private club for discerning enthusiasts of Scotland's rarest Single Malt
Scotch whiskies."
The cost of membership is $200 and it includes a bottle of scotch. So basically what
you get is a card that says you're a member and a bottle of scotch, rather than just
going to the liquor store and buying the bottle of scotch for $50.
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The Scotch Malt
Whisky Society
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is an international
private club for discerning enthusiasts of Scotland's
rarest Single Malt Scotch whiskies. Founded in
Edinburgh, the Society selects particularly fine
individual casks of single malt from virtually every
distillery in Scotland, then bottles their contents
as full cask strength exclusively for members.
Society members receive regular newsletters along
with current bottling lists. Members and their
guests are invited to use our club facilities throughout
the world, which include well,appointed suites at
the Vaults, our member's facility in Leith.
The initial cost of membership is $199 U.S.D.
(plus applicable sales tax and shipping charges)
and includes the purchase of one 750ml bottle of
an extremely rare Society whisky. Membership is
renewable for a modest fee each year thereafter.
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So the point of the ad, first of all, is to show that all of this "no one's got any money" stuff
is bullshit. I mean just the ad alone was probably $30,000 for a full page in the Robb
Report.
Now let's look at the ad itself. What's right about it is the headline "an invitation to join
the Scotch Malt Whisky Society".
Also, they are showing the glass instead of the bottle, which is wise to do because
people might see the bottle and not identify with the brand.
Also, they are telling the story a bit in the first paragraph and also conveying the
benefits a little in the second paragraph (Le. they receive a regular newsletter along with
bottling lists-which in my opinion is a glorified catalogue of shit you can buy!).
And, of course, you can hang out in Leith. I guess that's in Scotland. I don't really know
because it doesn't tell you where it is. So I suppose that on one of the frequent
occasions that you would go there, you can stop by their club facilities, if you want!
But, at least they are saying, "Here's what we've got, and here's what comes with it."
What's wrong with the ad though is that they're wasting a tremendous amount of space
that could be used for copy.
If you look at the right side of the ad, you've got this random picture of people just sitting
around, which isn't going to do anything for us. We could put a lot more copy in there.
Also, the words "invitation to join" at the top are almost invisible to the eye at first glance
because of the contrast of the black and white. Plus the buildings are kind of pointless.
They're not going to do anything.
Even more important, they're not making the call to action very clear and at the
bottom-I'll call it the footer of the page-it just says, "learn more about membership"
with the 800 number, e-mail and Web site.
I suppose this is meant to generate leads. So I don't think they mean to sell directly
from this, but what they should do is offer a free online video or a free report about
scotch. Something like, "Secret Scotches that Only the Finest Collectors Know About"
or something like that. Some sort of content bribe to get people in the sales funnel
would be good.
And I would just write a full-page sales letter basically selling that thing in place of what
they have here in this copy. So my headline might read something like, "Attention
Scotch Drinkers: Here's an Open Invitation to Join the Most Exclusive Secret Society."
The bottom line is there is a lot of wasted space here and no real call to action.
All right. Onto more news and proof that money is out there.
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This next example from the Robb Report is a 1960 Ferrari GT SWB California Spider
that was recently sold at $4.9 million-which they are calling a bargain.
A STEAL AT $4.95 MILLION
THE HIGHLIGHT OF this ye.r's festive Gooding & Company
Scottsdale Anction--an annual event held in January-was the sale
of late ROll VanKregteo's car-alld-mororcyde collection. The top
lot was an onrestored 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spi-
der that VanKregten had .<:quircd decades ago. 'nle rare ,rallion from
ManmeUo sold for S4.95 million. a price that might represent quite a
bargain. At a Europe ... ,ale last year. a restored C..aI Spider sold for an
eight-figure price. If you factor in an exquisite half-million-dollar res-
toration, the VanKregten car's new owner would still be far abt..-ad of
the game. noted Jakob Greisen. a specialist for Gooding & Company.
"We bad a lot of people milling around the cars before the event,
almost like people amazed to be at a dinosaur graveyard," said
Greisen. "Real collectors love to uncover the history of a special cat,
especiaUy one that not been seen for a long time:'
Other VanKregten machines that turned heads and opened wane.ts
inchlded a menacing 1953 Allard J2X (S258,S!H. a stately Mercede ...
B,"z 300SL Roadster ($242,000), and the colk ... 1i011'S other Ferrari, a
similarly unre<tored 250 GT Series II Cabriolet ($385,000).VanJ<.r.,gten's
1977 Ducati Desmo 900SS ,old for $27.500. alld a bidder acquired
hi. 1977 Triumph Bonneville Silver Jubilee edition for $9.900.
AltogedlCr. the 12 can and eight motorcycle, in VanKregten'. col-
lection fetched about $6.6 million. -M.lLD.
---.- ------ --
Gooding & Company. 3 /0.899.1960,
JVLY 1.009 nosn RRPQRT 99
.. _-_._ . ..,
Barn Burners I
"None of us knew these vehicles were even out there',:rhe
y
were lost cars. This is what we all dream about.
- D AVlD GOODING, PRESIDBNl AN D CEO, GOOD1NG #I(
I
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Realize, of course, that it's likely this car isn't even road worthy. It's also unlikely that it
even runs at all, much less well. It's even less likely it'll ever be driven.
What's the lesson here? Never underestimate what people will pay to gain
significance. And, never underestimate what people will pay to acquire what
they tru Iy want.
Another Key Question to Ask
What does my market really want? How can I give it to them?
The thing I keep thinking about here is that you could just paint a Fiat or even a Triumph
red and have almost the same thing if you wanted to. Yet, this is a "bargain" at $4.9
million!
All of these examples are a great illustration that you get what you focus on. And
speaking of focus, here's what I've been up to this month .. .
It's True What they Say:
Never Talk about Money. Religion or Politics
If you've seen my blog this past month (before I somehow managed to blow it up), you
witnessed firsthand why you never want to bring up politics.
Now I should preface this by saying that I don't even really care much about politics and
in general find the discussion of anything political to be a monumental waste of time.
So you can imagine how incredibly surprised I was to see the massive backlash I got on
my blog for daring to raise money for the Clinton Foundation. (Despite this, I was still
able to raise $43,000 for the foundation, which hopefully will be put to good use,
providing health care to people who need it and so forth.)
But the big take-away from the process is this: People really do become assholes
whenever politics are involved!
And, the even bigger take-away is: There's absolutely no money to be made from
negative shit!
During this whole thing, I probably spent about four hours looking at blog comments,
moderating them, and keeping the particularly venomous ones off. Amount of money
made (for me or the foundation) during that time? Zero.
I also spent time dealing with the many people who repeatedly went to the blog
engaged in arguments with others making posts either for or against Bill Clinton.
Amount of money made during that time? Zero.
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I also noticed a lot of Twitter posts about it and track backs from other people's blogs
largely focusing on their opinions of Bill Clinton; this took time to sort through and read.
Amount of money made during that time? Zero.
The grand sum total amount of money made focusing on your opinion of a political
candidate past or present, or worrying about someone else's opinion? Zero.
When I think about it, if the people who spent their time writing a 10-page post about
why Bill Clinton is trying to take over the world and put microchips in everyone's brain or
whatever-if these same people had put that much effort into writing an e-mail with an
offer to their list, they would have made a lot of money and could have started their own
anti-Clinton foundation if they wanted to.
It's amazing to me that the most reaction I'd ever gotten from any post-even when I
gave away some really amazing, cool stuff-was from this attempt to raise money for
the foundation.
So it's evident to me that people like to fight about this kind of stuff. If we don't take
control of our focus, it's easy to be distracted.
It's human nature to postpone getting things done for the quick hit of significance that
comes from voicing an opinion like this.
The Most Important Key to Making Money Now
We must constantly monitor our activity and behaviors,
and be vigilant against wasting time on things that don't have
any direct positive gain.
Now, the second lesson I got from this whole Clinton Foundation experience is ...
They're No Different From Us
Here's the inside story of the Bill Clinton thing. Because I raised all this money for the
foundation, I got invited to go to this snazzy event in NYC.
So I flew to NY, stayed at the Ritz in Battery Park (super fancy hotel that was pretty
cool!), got to spend some time walking around Wall Street and Broadway for a while,
went to Border's books, and a bunch of other cool stuff.
Sure I got a little weirded out by the crowd at times, but through it all, I couldn't help but
notice that the people of New York, in the city of non-stop action, are just trying to make
a living and exist just like anywhere else. Even though New York is deemed to be this
powerful city with so much influence and everything.
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You know what I mean? It really was no different from any other city I've ever been to in
my life with the exception that there were just a lot more people there.
In the process of all this, I also noticed something about the folks who live there. As
we've all heard time and time again, New Yorkers are supposed to be rude and cold.
Instead, I made an extra effort to deliberately be as nice as possible to everyone I
encountered. I'd genuinely ask people how their day was, compliment people who were
ringing up my food, and things like that.
Lo and behold, it not only resulted in them being really nice to me, but I also got a bunch
of free stuff! I'd be in the sandwich shop and the guy behind the counter was like, "Hey,
why don't you take one of these cookies here?"
What's the lesson here?
Key Belief
Perception and reality are dramatically different. Just because the
majority says something, does not mean that it's reality.
Here's what I mean by this. Let's deconstruct the belief, ''The people of New York are
rude." Unfortunately, this is a common belief many people have.
People tend to think they are mean and cold and if you say hello to them, they'll look at
you like you're an alien.
But why do we believe that in the first place? More than anything, because it's what
everybody says. We see it portrayed that way on the media or on TV.
When I was in New York, I was reflecting on all the times I'd heard this same thing
about New Yorkers. But then it dawned on me that only a small percentage of people
describing New Yorkers to me actually had ever even been to New York.
This led me to wonder why these people were telling me all these horrible things about
New Yorkers. The only answer is that it's what other people had told them.
So I realized that there is probably this cycle of shit-talking going on. In this case,
they're just spouting this belief about New York that is likely largely due to the fact that
everyone else says it.
The false belief here is that if everyone is saying it, it must be true, therefore I'll say it.
Again it comes back to focus.
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If I had bought into this belief about New Yorkers, I never would have made the decision
to be nice to people, and had the experience of people being really nice to me, giving
me free stuff, and just enjoying myself at that level when I was there.
I guess another way to put it is: don't let the average majority rob you of cool shit
by just blindly believing what they say!
All of this is just more evidence to me that the overwhelming majority is almost always
wrong. And, the beliefs and opinions of the overwhelming majority are often completely
unfounded, not based on fact, and solely based on what others are saying.
This cycle works in the opposite direction too. Have you ever noticed when you are
around positive, happy, successful people that the vi be just continues to escalate in that
direction?
Often it's because these people have positive beliefs about what's possible and what
people are really capable of. They focus on the good, so they see the good.
I really believe that most of us have a bunch of beliefs we've never even really thought
about, but we just have them because they've always been there.
This can affect our focus and therefore the results we are producing-in our business,
our finances, our relationships, our health and just about every major area of life.
So here's a simple exercise to help identify and rid yourself of all these hinky beliefs
once and for all. It'll just take a few minutes and I find that if you really think about it and
write them down, it can make a big difference.
1. What beliefs do I have that are based entirely on hearsay and not on fact at
all?
2. What am I miSSing out on because of these beliefs? What are the
consequences of having these beliefs in my life?
3. How would my life be better by changing these beliefs and basing them on
what I really know to be true?
The thing is, I can only teach you so much stuff on how to make money. That's the
easy part. It's the setting up of your psychology that takes the real work.
I mean, how many people right now this very minute, have a book, a CD program, or a
DVD that has killer information in it that would take them to the next level if they used it?
It's not about the information, it's about implementation and using it.
But the only thing that can get us to follow through is directing our focus and paying
attention to our beliefs about what's really true and what's really possible.
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We all have these beliefs that affect us-about ourselves, about other people, about
making money, and so on. So we have to become aware of what these beliefs are and
most important, which ones are just illusions and not based on reality.
Formula for Success
Right Mindset + Right Strategy = Predictable Results
(i.e. money in the door)
Here's my next lesson from the Clinton Foundation experience ...
The Most Effective Way to Influence Others (i.e. to Sell)
is by Being Entirely Genuine in the Process.
Back to New York. The shindig for the foundation was held at Russell Simmons' house.
For those of you who don't know him, Russell is a mega entrepreneur who co-founded
the hip-hop label Def Jam, founded the Russell Simmons Music Group, and created the
Phat Farm clothing line, among other things.
He's also just a generally cool dude who does a lot of charitable things as well.
So as you can imagine, this was an A-list event. In addition to Clinton, Adrian Grenier from
Entourage was there, Kirsten Dunst, supermodel Adriana Lima, Lauren Bush, Napster and
Facebook co- founder Sean Parker, and just an all-around group of heavy hitters.
In some ways, it felt like I was going to a high school party! The guys sat around, and
many of the conversations-not all, but many of them-were typical of any conversation
you'd have at any regular party.
We talked about movies, bands, sports, and of course, girls. The bar was crowded, just
like anywhere else, and people were eyeballing each other just like any other situation.
Watching all of this, it was evident to me that this heavy crowd had the same fears,
concerns and aspirations as any other crowd.
Their desire for significance and to be noticed and cool was just like any other group of
people.
You could have taken an Internet Marketing seminar dinner or networking event and
transplanted the two and it would have been exactly the same. There was no difference
at all.
My point in this is that the belief "I can't sell to this type of person in this way" is a
complete illusion.
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Lots of people will say "Well, I'm selling very expensive coaching to high level CEOs so I
can't use this type of marketing. I can't use long form sales copy. I can't speak
colloquially or whatever because I'm dealing with these high powered guys."
We all have to remember: the heavy guy is no different from your neighbor. The
CEO of that $2 billion dollar dot.com company is no different from the guy who owns the
lawn mower repair shop down the road.
And, I'm telling you from personal experience because I've hung out and had drinks with
both of them. They are no different!
Believing they're different is certainly not going to make you any money.
To take this one step further, here's something I did that I know universally will work with
everyone you meet.
With every person I encountered, I did so without any outward sign of an agenda
(because I didn't have an agenda). I just really focused on being nice, personal and as
genuine as possible. I made no effort to ''fit in."
With that said, everyone there was nice to me. And I definitely didn't have even a
fraction of the "status" or money as most of the people in the room.
Because most people typically have some type of agenda, it stands out when you're
real and just talk to the other person from a place of genuine caring.
In fact, when you meet someone for the first time in this type of situation, the first
question they're probably going to have in their mind is: Do you really have my best
interest here? Can I trust you?
It's the same thing in marketing. Any time you can come from a place of genuine
kindness and concern for your prospect's well-being and overall happiness, it will cause
your prospect to think, "I like this guy. He's cool. He's just like me."
A great test for this is whenever you communicate with someone (especially a prospect
or customer), ask yourself this question: When I say something, is it being filtered
through my own needs and what I want, or is it genuinely about the other
person?
If I had wanted to sell anything or conduct business with anyone, I think I would have
been able to do so with ease because I was approaching it from a peer-to-peer thing
instead of a false sense of belonging or some other type of personal motivation.
From this place, you enter a realm of selling in which there's little to no resistance at all.
It's kind of a brain twist because most people think that to really influence another
person, you have to be a master of every selling strategy that's out there, craft the
perfect message and close hard.
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People can smell it when you're not real and when they sense this inconsistency, they
tend to run away as fast as they can.
There is no tool or tactic that replaces congruency, integrity and genuine caring.
So the old adage mom used to sayan our first day of school of "Be yourself and
everything will be OK" is true (as long as ''yourself'' isn't an asshole). Of course it
goes without saying that if you are an asshole and you're being yourself, you might want
to work on the asshole part!
OK so where was I in this newsletter? What else did old Frankie learn this month in his
travels?
Oh yes. Here's my next point as it relates to Internet Marketing ...
Some Things Never Change.*
Shortly after the Clinton event, I went to Vegas where I spoke at Launch tree. The event
was going really well and it was a lot of fun. At some point in the Q&A though, I asked
the audience how many of them actually had lists and Web sites up.
This is what floored me. Even now, after so many different launches and so many
products with so many genuinely helpful materials out there (which the same people out
there buy over and over again despite having the knowledge to do so), 75% of the
room had yet to take that first step to build a Web site and get a list.
I've spent a lot of time racking my brain about why this is and after talking to tons of
people, here's one of the reasons I came up with:
Patterns of Customer Behavior
For many customers, the quick fix for them is often
of more value than the long-term result.
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
Let's take weight loss as an example. Have you ever noticed that people who tend to
be on the weight loss yo-yo for any number of years usually go through a similar
pattern?
Take someone who's maybe 50 Ibs overweight. Finally one day they get really fed up
(usually this is precipitated by some event: their high school reunion, the snap breaks
on their size 14 jeans, or their kids make an inappropriate (but obvious) comment about
their weight).
*No matter how much you really want them to.
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In other words, they reach some kind of threshold that causes them to snap and say,
"no more, that's it." The problem causes such a significant amount of pain, they feel
pressure to change it.
From that place, they start taking a ton of action to lose weight (to use what they know).
They go to the gym every day for three weeks, they eat really well, and sure enough
start to make some progress.
But what happens when they start making progress? All of a sudden their jeans fit and
maybe are a bit loose. They have a bit more energy than they did before.
When they start making progress though, the problem starts to go away (Le. they start
to lose weight), but at the same time, this also lessens the intensity of their pain and
also their drive to take more action.
Sure enough, because they are no longer at threshold, the drive to make the change is
lessened so they stop taking action. And two weeks later, the problem returns.
This is a crazy cycle but it's human nature and most of us do it at some point or another
in our lives.
Now the point in all this (besides being a kind of interesting thing about human beings)
is that I almost let this destroy this newsletter and other businesses as well.
And, you might be doing the same.
It used to bother me greatly that people would buy things from me and then not do
anything with them. I'd feel guilty that they bought in the first place and even guiltier
when they'd buy something else because I didn't feel like I was helping them.
So before I tell you the lesson, let me preface it by saying ...
"My personal belief and knowledge with absolute
certainty is that one of the primary purposes for us,
as human beings, is that we have the consciousness and
therefore are supposed to help every other living
creature on the planet gain more happiness and reduce
suffering.
I hold this truth to be self-evident and I think it's
pretty obvious if you really think about it . "
-Frank Kern
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Keeping this in mind, here's what mean 01' Dan taught me:
It's Important Not to Imprint Our Values Onto Our Customers.
I used to think that if I didn't see people taking action and getting immediate results,
clearly I was doing something wrong. And when that happened, my approach was to
just decide to stop doing it and try to come up with something else to help people.
But whereas my value system is on the results, there are many other customers who
may have different value systems they're tapping into. For someone else it might be a
sense of belonging, entertainment, collecting knowledge, or whatever.
The best marketers are those who learn not to ever question how people measure the
value of something. Instead, they focus on understanding what it is their customers
value and in what ways they can capitalize on it. Then, of course, they make damn sure
they deliver according to those values.
Great potential fortunes can be lost by clinging to just our own value system and
ignoring what our customers' are if they don't match.
Personally, I just can't comprehend why someone would continually buy Internet
Marketing products and not get a Web site up or build an opt-in form.
It doesn't make sense to me knowing you can go to YouTube and type in "Web page
building tutorial" and get it there and just build a freakin' Web page.
But as I said, 75% of customers at Launch Tree and also the same number of
customers I've surveyed personally over multiple businesses still have yet to take this
first step even though they've bought everything under the sun.
At the end of the day, however, we know consciously that it's not the fault of the product
they are buying (as long as you're adding appropriate and awesome value, which I
know you are).
The sooner we can be OK with allowing folks to have whatever value system they do,
the more money we'll make.
Because if you struggle against it, beat your head against the wall, blame yourself and
say, "I made this product for them that's excellent, I put my heart and soul into it and
25% of the people are getting results, but the other 75% put it on the shelf," it's only
going to screw with your mojo and you don't wanna do that.
So whenever you see any baffling pattern of behavior, realize it's not necessarily wrong.
If just buying the product and having it on the shelf for the mythical "someday" makes
them feel better and makes them happier in their lives, then part of our work is done.
Certainly, we should create all our stuff with the 100% intent that it's designed to
deliver results.
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But if they buy your stuff and it's making them happy and they're still not setting up the
Web page, or if they buy the exercise machine and put it under the bed but it makes
them feel better because they bought it, as long as that exercise machine actually works
if they use it, then you're OK. And you should keep on keeping on.
If we can bring happiness into someone's life regardless of whether they're doing what
we want them to do with the product, we're doing the right thing.
On the other hand, in the words of Dan Kennedy, "should you feel a need, instead, to
impose your value criteria on others, you ought to exit business and enter politics or
ministry."
Speaking of doing the right thing, I thought I'd close this thing out with a quick scheme
that me and Cousin Trey have been testing out.
The New Master "Screw Google" System for Getting Traffic
Cousin Trey and I have been working on the re-Iaunch of Infomillionaire (which most of
you probably know is really designed for more of the beginner market, not the advanced
type stuff that I do with you guys).
Originally with this thing, we got something like 8,000 people who took the
Infomillionaire trial where they got a 180-page manual, 20 or so videos, and all kinds of
cool stuff.
We actually still have just under 2,000 paying members in this thing and it's really great.
The doors have been closed since sometime last winter.
The system we gave people is literally the exact way we built our niche business. Trey
has done over $3.8 million selling software and mine was a million a year for quite some
time, selling dog stuff. And it wasn't even Internet Marketing stuff, right?
So in this launch, we said, "here, for $9 or whatever is the exact blueprint we used to do
this." Not surprisingly, a large portion of people did nothing. But of those who did
something, a lot of these folks got hung up on Google.
As you know, when we're just figuring something out, we like to test things out. And, the
way we do this is we send AdWords traffic to a sales page.
The thing is, as you've heard me grumble about for quite some time now, Google
AdWords has become increasingly unpleasant to deal with.
Our concern was that Infomillionaire customers would be hit with the infamous Google
slap. Some wouldn't, but the ones who were hit with it would find it discouraging and a
lot of people would quit.
They wouldn't necessarily refund it or be dissatisfied, but they'd be stuck there.
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So in the re-Iaunch of Infomillionaire, we wanted to fix that. And, after surveying a
gazillion people and knowing that even though out of everyone who has bought
everything 75% still haven't gotten the Web site up and so on and so forth, instead of
just trying to make people more determined, we started trying to ask ourselves
something different.
We realized ''what if we just figure out a way to bypass that step and show people a way
to get traffic direct linking to affiliate programs and so forth, where they didn't have to
figure out FTP and all that kind of stuff?"
Lo and behold we did.
It's great because we now have the magic bullet.
Always Look for the Magic Bullet
Anytime there's a great source of pain in a market (in this case the
75% of people who just for some reason won't set up a Web site), and
you can find them a legitimate solution to accomplish the same
results without the pain, you've got a magic bullet.
Results - Pain = Magic Bullet
We're in the middle of it as I write this, but we foresee this going well because we've
found the Magic Bullet and it's been directly in front of us the whole time.
It turns out that Yahoo at the end of the day doesn't really give a shit about quality
scores.
Yahoo.com is like AdWords used to be back in 2003 when you could just bid on a bunch
of keywords and they will just send you traffic without being dickheads about it.
So here's the big tactic:
I know some CPA guys, super-affiliate guys who do bazillions of dollars a month in
sales using PPC. And they told me something at the beginning of this test that sticks
with me today and has me very excited.
Yahoo + MSN = Google
The majority of people selling stuff are focusing all of their marketing attention on
Google because they think Google is the only thing out there. And, Google has the
market share.
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But the CPA guys told me that Yahoo plus MSN equals Google in terms of the amount
of traffic you can get as a Pay-Per-Click client.
Now everyone knows Google controls something like 60% of the search market share,
so I'm not saying this from a market share standpoint. What we tested is how it works
from a traffic-getting standpoint, and how to get cheap traffic that's even better than
Adwords.
In case you are looking for something more complex so it feels better, let me restate it
this way: QUIT SCREWING AROUND WITH GOOGLE.
Everyone else is on Google. Everyone else is fighting Google tooth and nail and they're
neglecting Yahoo and MSN.
How do I know this works? We tested it for ourselves.
Over three weeks Trey and I put up over 400 campaigns (in a bunch of different niches)
directly linking from Yahoo straight to the affiliate pages with no landing pages-
basically nothing-and we got over 27,000 unique visitors in 21 days with an average
cost per click of 32 cents. And we weren't even trying!
We kept testing and set up a campaign last week that got 449 clicks for 14 cents each,
and after tweaking this campaign, I'm averaging 12 cents a click as this is going to
press.
And best news of all for the 75% who don't have a Web site, you don't need one with
this-you can actually send traffic directly to an affiliate link and it's totally OK.
So let me give you a preview of my next product. It's called "Try Yahoo!" Page one is
going to say "Try Yahoo" and page two is going to say "The End." Stay tuned for our
next product called "Try MSN."
Obviously I'm kidding here but you get my point.
This is a classic example of herd mentality. All the 'gurus' are busy out there selling all
this stuff like "Google Assassin" or "Google Killer" or "Google Murderer"-there are all
sorts of idiotic product names out there about how you can show who's boss, beat the
Google Slap and once again get low-priced keyword bids.
But why do all that when Yahoo is willing, ready and able to take your money and
deliver quality traffic that converts?!?
Now in further Internet Marketing news (which will be old news by the time this goes to
press), it was just announced that MSN is buying the search-marketing platform that
Yahoo owns. In other words, they are teaming up.
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Meaning they're going to be one person. Meaning that service is likely to get better and
easier. Meaning that because they've teamed up, they're going to want to give Google
a run for their money in terms of search marketing.
As you know, MSN has now become "Bing," which is being advertised heavily. This is
of course great news for marketers like us because, unlike Google, Yahoo and MSN
understand that when you take the money, aren't a douche-bag about it and you deliver
the result, that's what makes business work. Everyone is happy.
So the tactic this month is "hurry up and use Yahoo before everyone else figures it out."
Next month I'll tell you all about another launch I'm working on for Tony Robbins. As
usual, it's been a wild ride so far and this time we're bringing the usual suspects along.
I'm sure we'll have lots of interesting tales to tell.
Talk soon.
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