Issue #1005 – Is This Your Hobby or Your Business..?
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Action Today: Is This Your Hobby or Your Business… ?
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Tuesday October 11th, 2011: Issue #1005
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Published by Trevor Greenfield. I always welcome your comments.
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Hi,
May seem like an odd question to ask but I have a good reason for
asking it. You see, the way we usually get started in this
business, running it from home while we still ‘work’ somewhere
else, can make it feel like it’s secondary to what we do for our
job. In fact, because it’s something we do in our spare time it
makes it seem like a hobby in many ways.
What I found in my case was that although I thought of it as
building a business that was going to replace my ‘job’, I wasn’t
building it like a business. Everything I did were just one-offs.
I’d create an ebook in a niche and put it up on Clickbank. I’d
usually put an opt-in form on the landing page to get subscribers
in exchange for a free report and then just follow up with a few
emails.
Sometimes I found another product in the same niche and mailed it
out to the subscribers that I had built but that was it.
I realized after quite some time that doing things like that is
not the way to build a business, it was treating what I was doing
like a hobby. I studied what successful marketers were doing and
realized that every offer they made was part of a funnel. The
front-end ebook, or a free report to get the opt-in, was just the
start of a funnel. What was more important was that this funnel
was mapped out almost in its entirety BEFORE the front end offer
was made.
The whole thing was in place, tested and ready to go before
anyone saw the front-end offer. I have seen some quite complex
mindmaps or process charts setting out every step in the process
for this. You don’t need complicated software to do this,
however, you can just sketch it out on a pad.
Identify the steps
To do this you start with your front-end offer. Let’s say its a
free ebook in exchange for a visitors opt-in to your list. From
there you identify what actions your visitor may take and what
actions you are going to respond with. So here, for example, your
visitor can opt-in – yes or no. If yes, they receive the confirm
opt-in email followed by a redirect to your thank you for opting
in page. On the thank you page you include another offer
preferably one that provides you with residual income, like
hosting.
They are now on your list and receive your second follow-up
message (the first was the opt-in confirm) which reinforces the
decision they have made to opt-in by providing some additional
useful information. You then map out what additional products and
services you are going to offer them and which form your funnel
for this set. All of these products and services need to
complement each other building one on top of the other. In
between each offer will be a series of emails that contain useful
information that support the next offer.
If your visitor chooses not to opt-in you could provide an exit
pop-up that provides them with something else, another reason to
opt-in. If they still choose not to opt-in then you may just
choose to let them go. I’m not a big fan of constant pop-ups but
the choice of what to do here will be down to personal choice.
Getting back to the funnel, you should have a sequence of
products or services that increase in value. So for example, you
may start with a free ebook followed by a $27 product with a $47
upsell, followed by a $97 product with a $197 upsell and a $97
downsell or maybe a cross-sell to something complementary. At
each offer stage you identify possible visitor actions and your
responding actions. If they buy your next offer in the sequence,
you offer them the upsell. If they don’t buy the upsell you make
a point of offering them the upsell at a later stage in the email
follow-up sequence.
You can make a good living selling other peoples products as an
affiliate but you will make a lot more money selling your own
products and while that may sound difficult to achieve its a lot
easier than you think.
Take a look here … http://trevor.linktrackr.com/infopipeline
Over the last year I’ve created a funnel of products in 6 non-im
niches and each time I do it, it becomes easier. Like everything
else, when you have a system it becomes easier to repeat. It also
becomes easier to provide that system to an outsourcer to do the
work for me.
One of the big benefits of running a funnel based business like
this is you know before you start a campaign how much you can
spend on generating traffic. You gradually get a picture of how
much each visitor is worth during their life with you on your
list and can plan accordingly.
As I mentioned, I do most of my work in non-Internet marketing
niches because I find them a lot less competitive and more
responsive. This info product funnel method works fantastically
well in other markets so don’t just think Internet Marketing
niche.
Is it time you started building your business by building your
funnel?
Get all the details here …
http://trevor.linktrackr.com/infopipeline
+ + | | | + +
I mentioned recently that my 600+ year old local pub is holding
its annual beer festival this weekend. It got off to a good start
yesterday and I went along to check it out. There were 27 real
ales available to try out and included some I hadn’t come across
before. Real Ale has quite a following here in the UK and Europe
and tends to be brewed by small independent breweries. There are
rules about what constitutes a ‘Real Ale’ that I don’t fully
understand.
All I know is that I prefer it to the chemical laden lagers that
are found in most places these days.
For the rest of the weekend there is entertainment, a pig roast
and more beer to sample so I’m looking forward to popping along
over the next couple days.
+ + | | | + +
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The Thought For Today
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The definition of insanity is said to be “do today what you did
yesterday and expect a different result”
In order to get something different in our lives we have to be
uncomfortable with where we are. Comfortable, our comfort zone,
is the kiss of death to success. We must break out of our comfort
zone to get a different result in our lives.
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Action Help
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Over the next few days, take one of the niches that you want to
make money in and sketch out on a pad, or with mindmap software
if you use it, each of the stages that you would like to progress
a visitor through. Identify all of the possible outcomes at each
stage and your action to those outcomes. Build into it the
products and services that you will offer at each stage. Then
look at getting those products that don’t currently exist created.
If you want to email me your finished version I’d be happy to have a look
and give my thoughts and suggestions.
Email me at trevor@actiontodaynewsletter.com
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Products and services to streamline your business
recommended by Trevor Greenfield
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Reliable hosting for your niche blogs or website
http://www.nichemarkethosting.co.uk
Unstoppable Affiliate
If you already have some online experience this will get you off
and running.
http://trevor.linktrackr.com/UA
Newbie to Millionaire
If you are a complete beginner, this is the course for you. It
starts at the most basic level and builds your knowledge from
there.
http://trevor.linktrackr.com/newbie
SEOPressor
Must have niche blogging plugin
http://trevor.linktrackr.com/SEOPressor
#~#~#
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Contact details
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Trevor Greenfield, Queens Rd, Kenilworth, Warwickshire,CV8 1JS,
UK.
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