Sometimes You Have To Reinvent The Wheel
One of the great selling points of many online programs – I use this myself as part of the marketing approach for Blog Mastermind – is the appeal of following the steps of someone else who has done what you want to do. A system that has worked for someone else should work for you if you do exactly the same as them, right?
Well not exactly…
Let’s state the obvious. We are all different. It’s not possible to do something in EXACTLY the same manner as someone else, but you can certainly come close, yet that doesn’t mean the end result will be close to the person you attempt to replicate. If only it was as simple as that!
There are so many variables at play, for example – the external environment, luck, timing, skill, talent, resources – that it is almost ridiculous that anyone can claim if you follow their system you should expect the same results.
Let’s take my blog and my blog training program for example.
I grew a blog over several years and now make six figures a year from it. In 2007 I sat down and over six months documented, in a teaching format, the steps to replicate what I did to build my blog.
I couldn’t completely cover everything I did, but I’m confident I comprehensively covered the key points. It’s probably better for someone to go through the lessons in Blog Mastermind as a study resource rather than follow exactly in my footsteps since I made so many mistakes. You get the benefit of my hindsight to help you avoid my mistakes, you get the benefit of my insight so you don’t have to work it out for yourself and it’s all nicely packaged in an easy to consume program (and all of that’s part of the marketing spiel too!).
Yet, even with the road map laid out, no one will reach the same destination.
How many students who take Blog Mastermind will build a profitable blog? Not many. Of course I’ll do my best to highlight the success stories to lend credibility (and hope) that it’s possible, but I think it’s important to be realistic too. I’d love it if every student who studied my program experienced big time success and met all the objectives I state are possible. Most won’t even come close, a few will make it and maybe one or two will excel beyond my achievements (the grasshopper surpasses the master 
).
I’m comfortable posting this to my blog because I know it’s not a reflection of my training that people don’t succeed. I know what I teach works, given the right conditions, which sadly are rarely met. I don’t publish this to discourage people from aspiring to become a professional blogger or take any online program – that’s definitely not my intention – but I do want you to understand why it is that so few people make it in the end so you can avoid the same fate.
Why Do People Fail?
The Power of Purpose
I’m presently sitting in a cafe called the Gelato Bar, which apparently has been here at Bondi Beach (Sydney) since 1958. If you have ever been to Bondi it’s the cafe with all the amazing cakes in the window…
Hmm…cake. This was a traditional eastern European eatery – they even had borsch (ech!)
I’m in Sydney for three days for a short holiday and of course my holidays always include some blogging, so here I am typing away.
I popped into the World Internet Summit to catch the beginning of the event, where the first few speakers were talking about forming a vision for what you want your life to be like, with a successful Internet business granting you a fantastic lifestyle that most ‘normal’ people only dream about.
I’m not staying at the summit for the full four days this time, I have another workshop on this weekend back in Brisbane and frankly I don’t think I could take four days of presentations on various methods to make money on the Internet. It’s just a bit much.
The networking at events like the summit make it worth while and that’s the only thing I feel like I am missing out on by leaving early. I was only there today for about an hour and talked to three people, including one of my blogging students (hi Corinne!). It’s amazing how good it is to be in a room full of people with shared goals and aspirations, along with various experts who are presenting on stage.
Make The Decision To Do Something
Two Blog Resources, A Competition and I’m Off To Sydney
Sarah Lewis, a Blog Mastermind student who blogs at Blogging Expertise, sent me an email yesterday about a website she’s just released.
It’s called WordPress Theme Review and here’s how Sarah described it to me -
Because SEO can have a significant impact on overall traffic, I always encourage clients to get a blog theme design that’s optimized for search engines, even if they go with a free theme. The difficulty, of course, is for them to find a theme that’s optimized without knowing code.
For my own clients, I help with this, but I know many people don’t have the resources/willingness to hire help, and they really don’t know what to look for. Last year, I published a couple of posts highlighting themes that were optimized out-of-the-box, and they turned out to be some of my most popular themes. Since there was obvious interest, I sat down and figured out exactly what makes a theme search-engine-friendly, and WordPress Theme Review is the result.
The site offers thumbnail images of the theme in use, as well as info on whether or not it supports tags and widgets, if there’s a cost, etc., but the main feature is that each theme is assigned an SEO score (out of 100) that helps the average user know how optimized the theme is.
Continuing the blogging theme…
Blog Monetization Report
Matt from Blogging Fingers let me know he’s just released a free report titled Blog Monetization Strategies – Make More Money From Your Blog Without Increasing Traffic.
It’s a short and sweet read of 16 pages that cuts straight to the point about monetization tactics for blogs. If you are a veteran there’s nothing that new here, but it’s a good read and well worth investigating if you need ideas for how to best monetize your blog.
You can grab a copy of it here – Download The Blog Monetization Strategies E-book
A Crazy Competition
Gyutae from Winning The Web has put together what he calls the Craziest Internet Marketing Contest You’ve Ever Seen.
There’s over $7,000 up for grabs, including a nice chunk of cash, so you might want to check this one out.
I’m Off To Sydney
I’m heading down to Sydney tomorrow through to Friday and I’ll be popping in to the World Internet Summit, so if you are attending, say hello if you see me.
$9000 A Month From A Board Game?
As someone who writes about the Internet marketing industry, who presents articles to help people make money online here at this blog and runs a membership site to teach people to blog for profit, it’s pretty clear I make a living by helping others make a living online too.
That, for obvious reasons, tends to bother some people and I’m questioned whether you can indeed make money from the Internet if you don’t sell people products on how to make money. It does seem rather incestuous in some way doesn’t it.
Well some of you will be surprised to know that yes, you can in fact build an Internet business that is not focused on Internet marketing or anything related to making money and be very successful and in fact I expect significantly more people make a living online selling stuff in niches that have nothing to do with money, marketing, or business…
And here’s some interesting proof of just that -
A Board Game About Herbs?
If you ever had doubts about the potential to succeed online by finding a niche and creating a business around it, then Jeff Walker has a video you have to watch.
Jeff is the guy behind Product Launch Formula, a course I purchased over a year ago that is no longer available. Jeff’s tactics are great and in my opinion, mandatory study for any person who intends to sell something online.
Jeff’s about to release a new version of his program, titled Product Launch Formula 2.0, and in anticipation of the release, he’s put out this awesome video from one his clients who used the launch formula in a very obscure niche – herbs – and one of the products he sells is a board game.
I don’t know about you, but a board game based on herbs is not something I would ever expect could be the basis of a six figure business.
Watch The Video
Jeff explains how our herb entrepreneur pulled off this amazing feat and breaks down the exact process he went through to launch his board game in a free video you can watch here -
Note – you only get the first half of the video if you don’t opt-in. I suggest you opt-in first, then watch the full version of the video that you can access after signing up (it’s free). If you don’t you will have to wait for it to load twice and skip the first half after you opt-in, which is a pain – it’s a big video!
Lessons From The Video
There’s some great content in the video and I recommend you take 45 minutes from you day today to watch it from start to finish.
Here’s just some of the notes I took while watching it -
- Conducting teleseminars with experts as part of your launch process is a VERY powerful technique, especially in non-Internet marketing niches. Experts you interview will help build your list because they want to promote their interview and thus will send traffic to it, this in turn helps you sell more product.
- Using a limited bonus package for the first X buyers creates scarcity, which ramps up sales big time.
- Having a list of buyers is 10 or 20 times more valuable than having a list of prospects. This is the core reason people can run very successful businesses with tiny email lists – because they have a list with people who actually are interested enough in what you offer to spend money, they are not just freebie seekers.
- Create a sense of community before the release of your product. One of the suggested methods for doing this is through blog comments and there’s some awesome examples of how John (the herb guy) did this in his launch in the video.
The core strategy presented in the video is what Jeff calls the Horizontal Helix, which sounds scientific to me, but it’s not. Put simply, it’s about using each launch as a springboard for bigger launches in the future. What’s cool about this case study, is that John was able to automate this process using email autoresponders so you don’t have to do a massive launch (and invest all that time and energy) each time.
I’ve only touched on a few of the ideas from the video, so as you can tell this is one value packed resource. It’s worth watching regardless of whether you intend to join Jeff’s program or not. Here’s that link again -
The Horizontal Helix case study video
Remember – opt-in first to get the full version so you don’t have wait for it to load twice. You can unsubscribe after opting in if the emails bug you, but I expect they won’t. Jeff’s one of the few Internet marketers I remain subscribed to because he doesn’t abuse his list. Plus I like the guy, he’s pretty down to earth, yet smart.
Remember what I said in my recent article – Why Do So Few Bloggers Sell Their Own Products? – treat this video as inspiration to make the change and begin the process of selling your product online.
Yaro Starak
Horizontal Helixing
Small Business Branding Has A New Owner
You might remember a month or so back I posted about some websites I had for sale. One of the sites was my other blog, Small Business Branding.
I am pleased to announce that Vera Raposo has taken over Small Business Branding and will endeavor to continue to grow the site from where I left off.
I’d like to thank Rob Kingston and the great team of writers who kept Small Business Branding going and will continue to write for the site and no doubt take it to new heights. I wish Vera best of luck with the blog.
Vera has posted a brief introduction and I encourage you to say hello and welcome her.
Sponsorship Opportunities
With the change of ownership some new sponsorship opportunities have arisen at Small Business Branding, so if you would like to reach the small business marketplace, visit the advertise page for details.
A Blog Flipping Story
As long term readers of my blog might recall, back in December 2005 I purchased Small Business Branding from Michael Pollock, who created the site and sold it to me to go build his now very successful blog theme design business, SoloStream.
That sale was one of the first publicly announced blog deals between two well known bloggers and it generated quite a bit of buzz at the time. Micheal and I recorded a two part podcast about the deal, which is still interesting listening if you like the topic of buying and selling websites.
After taking over the blog I quickly came to realize that I could not write to two very similar blogs by myself and began a unique experiment into outsourcing blog content creation. Small Business Branding become a magazine style publication with a roster of authors. In February 2007 I published an article – How To Outsource Your Blogging – A Case Study – that detailed how to replicate my system for blog content outsourcing.
Return On Investment
When I purchased Small Business Branding it was a well known blog with good search engine rankings for some popular small business terms and about 400 daily RSS readers. Michael hadn’t focused on monetization so the site was only making about $100 to $200 a month, mostly from AdSense.
Just over two years later, when I sold the site to Vera, it had grown to 2500 daily RSS readers and around $1500 a month in revenue. The income growth came mainly by increasing the monetization techniques applied, with a big chunk coming from adding banners and text links and selling the ad inventory directly to sponsors for a monthly fee. This was obviously helped along by the steady traffic growth thanks to the team of content producers.
I’m not at liberty to disclose how much I sold the site for, but I was happy with the return I made and compared to what I paid for it, I did very well. However you have to take into account how different the after-market for blogs is today compared to what it was when I bought the site.
Michael and I were pioneers in the industry of blog flipping, which today is a much more mature market, with hundreds of deals made every week. People pay more for blogs now because there are more interested buyers and thus competition raises prices. It’s seen as a good investment to buy a blog, with hundreds of case studies demonstrating this. In 2005 the idea of blogging for money was just gaining traction and wasn’t widespread.
As an acquisition and flip go, this deal was very good and my return was well over ten fold. This doesn’t include the income generated while owning the site and I have no doubt as long as Vera continues to grow the blog her earnings will surpass mine. Blogs can be great cash cows and capital investments, if you look after them.
More Sites For Sale
I still have a collection of two forums and a video site focused on the niche of mini bikes for sale, which generate about $1200 a month in almost passive income (you just have to invoice advertisers). I’ve got a PDF document that breaks down the details, so if you are interested, please email yaroATblogmastermind.com and I will send you the info.
Please note I’m looking for around 20 times revenue for these sites (as a group), so do not approach if you cannot entertain this price range.
In case you are wondering why I am selling these sites it is because I am divesting my self of assets not aligned with my core business focus, which is my blog training programs and information products. While these sites are great income sources, they do require mindshare to look after and grow and I intend to use my mind to focus on my main business interest.
