The McMethod Email Marketing Podcast

We all know how important sales funnels are… How is/are yours holding up? If you don’t have one. Or if yours is ancient, Then Jeremy Reeves might just be your new best friend. He’s got a product for you DIYers, He’s a coach for you pros, …and he’s a sales funnel master himself always crafting together at least 4 funnels on any given day for clients. But today, ..Jeremy is simply dropping loads of free insider info for you to run with. We talk simple sales funnels versus advanced. All sales funnels are good. Because they’re all automatic money machines. So learn all about these different types and which you should be using to move your customers down your sales process and increase your ROI. But just as important as the funnels… …is TRAFFIC. Anyone can make money with good traffic (no sales funnel needed), But if you have the bad stuff, Nothing converts. You can have the best copy in the world, But if nothing converts, you make nothing. Let Jeremy take you on the Reeves Sales Funnel Special. His bombs of marketing wisdom will make please your inner marketing mind. It’s an educational and entertaining interview with real life examples from Jeremy’s vast experiences. Enjoy this powerful interview we’ve got for you today.   In this episode, you’ll discover: how to separate people into the right sales funnel sequences for maximum effectivene$$ a few tricks to get people to interact with you as soon as you start their journey into your sales funnel at what point should you add a backup product to your sales funnel when starting out with just one? Find out when A line-by-line welcome email that is there for you to use on your own sales funnels (guide your subscribers through a general nurture sequence) why re-engagement emails are a super powerful client snatching tool (set rules that enables RE AR to kick in automatically) exactly when it’s worth it to you as a business to invest in multi sequence super targeted, in-depth sales funnels how to stay relevant within your in depth sales funnels (learn how to track and find where you need to maximize your efforts) list-cleaning 101… discover when it’s ok to bump people off of your email lists how a sales funnel removes buyer objections one-by-one until you get the close how important a survey is for all new sales funnel ventures you take (hint.. it’s in the top 2 things to do) how you can increase your conversions 10X just by doing this traffic-switch strategy why it is not an option… you must have a system for BUYERS (please at least talk to them) Mentioned: JeremyReeves.com Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO   Raw transcript: Download PDF transcript here. John McIntyre: I’m in cafe. I’m in Thailand. It is my last week in Thailand actually. … it’s beautiful, absolutely beautiful, now let’s get started with this podcast. It is John McIntyre here, the autoresponder guy. It is time for episode 105 with Mc Method email marketing. You’ll discover secrets of getting rich and wealthy and wise. The secret here – there is no secret. This is about creating automated marketing systems with email to get yourselves a steady stream of customers, of clients. So you don’t focus on client generation, you focus on bringing in new traffic, satisfying your customers. That’s what automated marketing is all about. Today we are talking to Jeremy Reeves about sales funnels. Jeremy does similar to what I do, he does it under sales funnels. I do it under email order responders. Very similar stuff at the end of the day. He is just positioning himself differently. Today we deal with advanced custom segment stuff. And also what people do not talk about when it comes to sales funnels. There are couple things in this episode that aren’t going to be conventional go to some of your ideas what it means sales funnel, what works, what doesn’t. For this show online go to mcmethod.com/105 Three things. Number one… and that is follow up till they die and what I mean is that if you are emailing a client and they just stop replying, and you email them twice and they don’t reply and you forget about them, you are leaving so much money on the table. This applies to your clients and to people in autoresponder; some people just take long time to get back to you, people forget, people’s lives are busy. I mentioned in a recent podcast that had John Colton on the show, 15 followups I emailed him first, he said “yes”, then didn’t reply, so I emailed him again,… emailed her, she replied and disappeared again. So I replied again – 5, 10, 20 times without getting a reply, to me it is just follow up, follow up, follow up. Sooner or later someone is going to do it. It costs me 10 seconds of my time to follow up, label email and follow up again. So that’s today’s insight “follow up until they die”. And this is why autoresponders is so important, is because you can keep following up. Keep following up and it will blow your mind how it actually works. You are going to wonder and probably regret how much money you left on the table by not following up. If you follow 5-10 times you are ahead of the game. Mc Moss is a private training community for people who wanna convert more leads with email marketing; it’s got blueprints, systems and checklists and templates all under the matter how to convert more leads with email. Do it all automatically. You can be on a beach playing with your kids. Reviews, I love reviews, they make my day. They make a smile on my face. Make it all worth doing. If you want to do a review, I would love you to. Go to I-tunes, Mcmethod email marketing podcast, leave a review, tell me what you like, tell me what you don’t like. I will read it in a show. Even if you put your website address, I will read it on the show. Last but not least, if you’d like to work with me personally and create these campaigns for you, maybe you don’t have the time to create campaign yourself, you don’t wanna learn how to do it, you are just lazy, who knows, I can do it for you. Email me John at Mc method.com and in the next week or two we will discuss your project on scype. Anyway, that’s it for now. Let’s get into this interview with Jeremy Reeves. Its John McIntyre here, the autoresponder guy. Now Jeremy is a bit like me, he’s got a different take on macro, different positioning into sales. He is director songs copywriter, what he does, he specializes in strategic automated based on a quick chat we had before this recording, I might know a lot about email copywriting, I set up a number of sales funnels for myself and my clients. I haven’t gone too deep into sales funnels. I asked Jeremy if a sales funnel is a landing page and couple emails and sales page, he said: “no.” Today we will talk about what most people don’t talk about. We will discover few new things, even me. We’ll get into that in just a minute, Jeremy, how are you doing, man? Jeremy Reeves: I am good, how about you? John McIntyre: What about coffee? It is the best thing to have before a podcast. I am just drinking water unfortunately. It is too late for coffee. Jeremy Reeves: I’m on my water now. Just finished my coffee. It is seven in the morning here. I only had my first cup so far. John McIntyre: Are you a big coffee drinker? Jeremy Reeves: I usually have a cup or two. I focus on quality over quantity. I get expensive crazy coffee. I store beans in air type container, do the French press a John McIntyre:Can you give a background on who you are and what makes you different. Jeremy Reeves: My real talent is marketing strategy. In first years of my copywriting my clients were saying: “You are really unique, you understand the strategy behind the copy; that transformed into doing sales funnels. I was always a big fan of making things automated and making sure people go down the right path, taking them where they’re at in the buying cycle, moving them further the buying cycle. I basically work with clients to do that, to build automated sales funnels, makes everything more reliable, more stable cash flow. It makes a lot of money, because you are doing the right thing and the right offers at the right places. That is pretty much what I do for clients John McIntyre: Okay. Some people think: I love it, I love the idea, I want more time, I want automate the whole thing. Is it possible, if it is possible, is it possible for anyone to do, or is it something like you need to be a lead copywriter to have something like that set up? Jeremy Reeves: It is a good question. It really does. Sometime I have to tone is down a little bit, because it does sometimes sound like a magical pill. It takes a long time to do. It is not like you get it set up in three days and you are done. In my business I sent people to Jeremy Reeves.com. They get emails, in emails it tells them about different products and services that I have, they might go to services page and click on one or the two main services that I have. That gets to that page and that funnel essentially presells people, so that by the time I get on the phone with people, they already know who I am, what I do, what makes me unique, what makes me charge higher fees. So by the time I get people on the phone it is not matter of “hey, should I work with you?” it’s “hey, how could I work with you?” Maybe one out of five or six people don’t fall into that, maybe they email me rather than falling to the funnel. It is not perfect. It takes people from where they are, which in most cases it warning about you to where you want them to be. They are lying in the left side, you want them in the right side, when they are with your product. Sales funnel consists of landing pages, sales letters, emails, it even consists of content blogpost, facebook, anything to build your authority, credibility, Each little touch moves them down that path, builds more authority, builds more trust; explains that your solution can help their problem John McIntyre: I’m on fundamentals. How many emails you send, how often you send them, it is really about cultivating relationship, what touch points can you have between now and then will increase likelihood when you get on the phone ready to get going. Before anyone would do business with any of us, they got to set objections, there must be three objections, there might be ten. The goal of the sales funnel is to remove those objections before they get to the purchase point. Jeremy Reeves: Exactly, yeah, yeah, well said. John McIntyre: Is it just a sign up page and emails, string of 5-10 emails, and than a sales page? Is it more advanced than that, what does it look like? Jeremy Reeves: It is a good question. When I say sales funnel, you probably get an image in your head of mine map, and you can see, people going to landing page, giving away something free, free video, free webinar. You give them for free, you give a prospect to sell the main product. Maybe backend, most of backend people are awful. Technically, that is sales funnel. In my opinion, you can’t put any differences, you can’t put any emails in those sequences. You can’t have a couple emails, they are on your list for two weeks, and they never hear from you again. You want to meet them from where they are. The customer journey, the customer path. As they move down that line from first hearing about you all the way on the left side to buying your product, your service or whatever that is that you sell on the right side, there is a lot of little inflection points along the way. For example, somebody comes at your site. Let’s say, you sell weight loss products. How to loose ten pounds in next seven days. They are on your list, they do behavioral emails and stuff. Let’s say you have a page talking about how to use cross fit to loose weight. There is like million different ways to work out. You see they went to cross fit sales letter three times. Pause the sequence they are on that is more general, like weight loss in general, and maybe you are talking about bodybuilding, eating certain nutrition to get to your goals… so that when they go to certain pages, you can pause them on general sequence and put them on the segmented email sequences. Let’s say they visit your cross fit page three times. You can pause the general segments and start sequence talking about cross fit because that’s where they are at that exact moment. Sequence, five emails, for example. In the end they can go back to general segment or they can split up. Most people think: “I can have a lead magnet, some emails, I can have a product or two and that’s a sales funnel, that means: “I am gonna do well.” It has to be set up properly. It is basically what I am saying, you have to have right lead magnet, which is congruing with your first sales letter. Lead magnet presells the product that you have, main product gives information to presell your backend, gives faster and better results to get all that in place. You have to have it right, position it right, bonuses etc. If you combine that with segments I am talking about and splitting up your audience, when you are doing emailing to specific people and specific segments of the audience, rather than the whole audience, everybody is there for different reasons, they all have different businesses. As for me, I have five main segments based on what type of business people have. You have five main segments, you can give them case studies and examples and analogies specific to their certain type of business. There is a lot more that goes with it than just putting those pieces in place. You have to do it the right way. The same goes to the backend and all the segment thing. Does that answer the question? John McIntyre: That’s good, man. When I first started it. I started as copywriter and over time realized I needn’t just be copywriter, I want to be someone bigger. I want to be entrepreneur. I want to deal more with the strategy type of thing, in stead of just writing copy for clients. For a long time I just did daily emails, there was no funnel, no segmenting, you just signed up and you do emails. and that worked well. But I talked with a few people on this podcast. I need a sales funnel. What I am thinking is exactly in the lines of what you are talking about. And what that looks like. Let’s say someone signs up, first thing I ask them is the question on the second page: “Do you want to write emails yourself or do you want to hire someone to do them for you? I am copywriter and want to do it myself or I got a business and I am gonna hire someone. Freelancers will get quick tip, case study, products. One segment will be Software for email marketing… click they open that email, they click the link in the email to read the article, they get five email sequence, they get back to the hustler’s thing in. Everyone is taking a journey like that. That’s the idea of what you are talking about, right? Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, exactly. That’s one of the things that basically you should do, you can split them with lead magnet. There is couple different ways to segment people, you can do it with the lead magnet itself, is by naming it something different, having a different lead magnet, you know what I mean. For example, if you are driving Facebook traffic, you can have three different lead magnets. One is about cross, one is about bodybuilding and one is about nutrition. Those are just three random examples John McIntyre: I have always been curious, if someone does that and you have three magnets, does that mean you need to have three facebook campaigns running, … or on the same page? Jeremy Reeves: I would do three different lead magnets. I’ve never tested having them set to a page and “hey, we have a free gift for you. Actually we have three, two is the one you like best”. I’ve thought of that idea, but I never actually tested it. Another what we can do is like a quiz. Quizzes work well, especially in higher volume niches, just, say, for weight loss, for example. You can give a quiz and based on the answers they give, you can set them up into the section. It can be what area of fitness you are more interested in or something else. Based on the answers that you do, you can put them into separate online… Another way to do it, let’s say you have one magnet and you want immediately start doing something. In first email say hey, make sure they reply or click something to get them weight-listed and engaged. Another thing that you can do in very beginning of a sequence is send them like a welcome email, where you explain who you are, how you are going to be able to help them and then you transition to “Hey, I am going to help you, but I wanna make sure I am sending you the most relevant information. There are three different types of people that I can help, which one are you?” And you put a link. I am interested in cross, I am interested in bodybuilding, I am interested in nutrition or whatever it is, whatever segment. You can have two segments, you can have ten – whatever you wanna do. Based on what link they click, they go through that sequence, it is ten emails or so, I call it a general nurture campaign, that’s where you type a general list. Then they go through that one, that is another 30 or 60 days, whatever the time frame is going to depend on your business, how many emails you wanna write or you hiring somebody else, how many emails you can afford for them to rate you and what makes sense. After that they come to the general nutrition sequence – they still didn’t buy, then you put them on something like re-engagement sequence, to get them reengaged in your content. Because at that point you wanna say: “Hey, you’ve been on a list for like 60 days.” “Hey I just wanna make sure you are still opening the emails. I wanna make sure you are actually engaged.” You can set rules that say if the client hasn’t clicked an email like for last 30 days, put them in reengagement sequence, that is to make them reengage with their content. You can split them up again at this point. “What’s wrong, you haven’t been opening emails. You can do a bunch of different things to get them reengaged with their content. Like a webinar, which I do a lot. Then they go down the whole webinar funnel sequence, and all that splits up again. If they go through reengagement sequence and there is still no opens, no clicks – you can segment them off the list. That is just kind of basic list cleaning John McIntyre: That’s like three month Jeremy Reeves: What I do after that… in most cases it kind of depends on business. In most cases what I usually recommend my clients at this point. They have been around for couple months, you go on broadcast list. You broadcast, you do newsletters. It is hard to stay relevant. It also depends on the size of your business. If you have a 10 million dollar business and it is worth it to write tons and tons of emails, than definitely do it. It is good to track your emails. See the point where people drop, where you should stop spending a lot of time there. And then just go to a broadcast list. Once a week, twice a week with the newsletter – you are staying in touch, but you are not spending quite as much time, you have to find where it’s now worth your timing more John McIntyre: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. The reason why I put it off and am lazy with it is because, I think it is going to take so much time. Instead of 5-10 emails or one sophisticated email a day…it is hard on the brain. It is either hiring someone, which is expensive, if you got hundreds of emails… Jeremy Reeves: Sure John McIntyre: …and it is time consuming. I just can’t be bothered, it is too much time Jeremy Reeves: That’s a good question. Never thought too much about that. Actually, I kind of do have an answer. If you have $50 thousand business, it is probably not worth it yet to get all this in place, because it takes while to rent, you should be focused on nailing down on who you think exactly your market is, exactly where your offer has to be to make it perfect, get that front end set up. Once you get a front end set up, then you have some back end products. As you grow. Once it becomes basically a good idea to do this, then you do. Someone at a million or 500 thousand or couple hundred thousand – then it makes it worth it to put in the effort. Then is becomes worthwhile to put in the time or to hire somebody. Let’s just say it be two hundred thousand, right? It is still pretty low, you still got a lot of room to grow. If you hire somebody for 15 or 20 thousand dollars or whatever tray your sales letter, sales funnel, that’s essentially ten percent of what you are gonna make. If you increase by ten percent, you essentially cover that cost. Doing something like this you are going to go way more than ten percent. Especially if you have someone good understanding how it all pieces together. And how not to just to write emails, but to write the right emails, set up right offers. It is kind of a no-brainier to do that even at that level. If you go to 2 million, all you need is a one percent increase, which is kind of …You probably put five emails to get that. It is a little bit of a hard question, you have to figure out. One of the things I do every year – this is kind of on the top of my mind, because it is still early 2015, I did my planning like a month ago. I write down big opportunities that I have for that year, right? And usually I do one to two year timeline. There are some things on my plate this year that I am starting to set up, on Saturday mornings that I know aren’t gonna come into place until later this year or even next year. I have a little bit longer timeframe. I will be around as long as don’t get hit by bus. [laughter] Figure out if it is gonna be worth your time. If you are gonna do it yourself like I just did. Service, I won’t go into that…He actually want to learn how to do the copy-writing and understand how and why this is put together. John McIntyre: Uhm Jeremy Reeves: He is hired for coaching rather than for implementing. For him that’s worth it, because the experience he is gonna learn, he is gonna take that for basically his whole life. He is a young guy, he is really really smart guy. He is getting into business, he is successful in other areas and now moving into business and all that, so for him it is worth it. For other people, I have other clients, who are like: “Hey, you know what, just do it. Just tell me what you are gonna do, go ahead and do it. It depends on your business and your skills set and what kind of money you have to put towards it and time you have to put towards it. I know that was kind of a broad answer. It is a loaded question. John McIntyre: It is one of these things, man, with any of this kind of stuff. The answer depends. Jeremy Reeves: Exactly John McIntyre: There is no other way to put it. It has to do with what situation someone’s in. How much time they have, what’s the budget… Jeremy Reeves: Exactly John McIntyre: …do they have access to cheap copywriters, for example? There are so many different ways to put the answer to the question together. Jeremy Reeves: Yep. John McIntyre: …funnel, nailing down who you talking to, what sort of stuff do you need to offer them. Once you got that, the funnel more or less writes itself. Jeremy Reeves: oh yeah, absolutely. One of the things I always do for every project, number one thing is the survey, because I wanna understand who is this person I am talking to; what’s bothering them… this is all copywriting research. It actually depends if the person actually does it or not [laughter]. And everybody should be doing this. Whether you are hiring somebody or you are doing it yourself you have to understand your market. I’ve gone in my own business, even client businesses where I actually call customers, rather than doing survey, you actually call them and talk to them on the phone. And you can do 20 minute interviews, talk to six people or ten people, it takes a few hours. But what you are going to gain from that in terms of market knowledge and understanding who you are talking to and what they think is unique about you. Sometimes you speak to people and think you are unique, but they say: “I actually noticed that you are unique…” That’s actually how I became sales funnel specialist is because of that. Which is funny, because my clients kind of notice: “Ha, I guess you are right.”And that happens all the time. That is the first step, you really making sure you understand exactly who you are talking to. You could be selling the best weight basket in the world, if you are trying to sell it to somebody who doesn’t wanna loose weight, or is already super skinny – you are not gonna sell it. John McIntyre: Right Jeremy Reeves: You know what I mean. Make sure, number one, you targeting the right audience, whatever traffic source that you are doing, Facebook ads or Google or even stuff like this podcast, being at the right podcast or webinars, or guest post, whatever source of traffic that you are doing. I’ve actually tested different traffic sources, I’ve seen 10-x increases just by changing your traffic source. It is really that powerful when you understand exactly who you are talking to. That’s step one John McIntyre: That’s one of the funny things that copywriting, if you get right copy with the wrong traffic. If you had bad copy, but with relevant traffic… better than the really good copy bad traffic. It is kind of like drills. Sometimes you really need to have amazing copy. But often what’s more important than having amazing copy is having most amazing targeting, relevance, getting in touch, connecting with the absolute right people, the product that you are trying to sell. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, if you show the right audience, you have the right product, compelling copy – you are unstoppable. Most people don’t have, they have maybe one of those three. It is one of those things again, like you said if you have the best copy in the world, if you are selling to the wrong person, you’ll sell nothing, whereas if you have the best traffic, like the most targeted traffic to whatever you are selling. You could pretty much say: “Hey, I’m selling this. Here’s what you got to buy now.” and you’ll probably get better conversions. The power comes in when you have both of them and the right offer. This is when you see people to just explode and have conversion rates that are tripled to competitors – that’s why, because they have all three of those. John McIntyre: Cool, man. One of the last things. I think it is: “It is gonna take a lot of time.” The way I think about: “ Approach business in general. It is a long game, not something you gonna do in the weekend, or even a week Jeremy Reeves: Sure John McIntyre: Funnel, getting your idea of what it is gonna look like, getting couple emails done this week, couple the next week Jeremy Reeves: Exactly John McIntyre: Three month or six month, you get the automated machine, then it is more fun getting to traffic, you put more traffic inside that funnel. The returns are exponential after that, very very fun Jeremy Reeves: I talk to all kinds of people, some people just wanna hand it off to others, some people want coaching aspect. Some people want figure out on their own. One of the things that I tell people is: “You look at my stuff. You see some of my mind.” They are really complex. One of the things people don’t realize is I do this all day, every single day of my life. Like right now I am working on four baby…for clients…all at the same time. There are literary hundreds and hundreds of emails, pages and sales letters, you know, webinars, subfunels all over the place – it’s insane. But this is part of my unique ability. I can process all this, I can see funnels in my head, literally, I am very visual guy. I can kinda see them floating. It is weird. Most people can’t do that, that’s not where their experteese is. So, figure out, where your experteese is. If you are in a place where you want a funnel, but it is not your experteese in actually building them and you also don’t have the money. You are starting earlier, you know in the more beginning, the money the outsource, any of that stuff. Don’t try to shoot for the Moon in the first shot, you know, just get like a basic funnel. In place first get that life, increase how much money you’re making. Then, little by little, then add extra pieces. It is good to get something there first… start out with a free thing, then a couple emails, then switch into a broadcast or whatever and have an up-seller, like a buyer sequence. I always have buyer sequence by the way. That is one thing I am absolutely shocked by how many people don’t have anything, like they have all these emails in the beginning to get people and then people buy. The most valuable people that you can ever have. And then it is just like: “Okay, now you are following in the Abyss. Make sure if there is one step, if there is one thing that you take away from this – have some kind of system for buyers. If there is one thing that you wanna do, just make sure that you talk to your buyers, they are the ones you are putting your time into, people who aren’t giving you money. People who already did give you money and they are proving to be profitable for your business. A lot of people completely neglect them. Make sure that you have something for your buyers. And then start doing the other stuff. John McIntyre: Nice. True, man. We are right in time. I think it is good to finish on the idea on setting up the basic funnel. Start with the small thing, you don’t have to have the whole thing mapped up. Start with phase one. Thank you so much for doing this. The question is if someone wants to learn more about you, or to build the funnel, where is the best place for them to go? Jeremy Reeves: If you go to jeremyreeves.com that’s going to show you all the stuff that I do. I have product for people who want to figure things on their own, I have a coaching program, which actually isn’t even on my site now, just email me about that. That is something I am relaunching later in the year. For everybody who wants to work with me and doing a sales funnel, just click on services. There are two things: one – if it is going to be a small sales funnel, we can figure out over the phone. Most of my clients start with, we spend a day together. Some times I have done for people in Australia and UK, then we do it over scype video. We map out the whole sales funnel. We do basically everything we’ve just talked about, figure out exactly what the offer is going to be, who the targeted traffic is going to be, where we are going to put the emails – everything that makes up the sales funnels. Then we go on and do the implementing. If you are interested to work with me, go to jeremyreeves.com, hopefully my website will intrigue you enough to get in touch and do its job. John McIntyre: Nice, all the links today in the show you can find in McMethod.com. Jeremy, thanks for coming. Jeremy Reeves: Sure. Thanks for having me The post Episode #105 – Jeremy Reeves on The Beauty and Power Behind Powerful Cash-Money Sales Funnels (simple vs advanced sales funnels) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Warren Buffet’s most important decision is not gauged off profit potential. Shocking huh? The man is who he is because he makes sure he can’t lose. Warren Buffet hedges his bets. When you do this with your business, You CAN’T be unsuccessful. Do you have a safety net in case Google, your ONE traffic source, gives you a solid backhand? What about if your only product all of a sudden has a new powerful big-dog competitor? You need to hedge your bets. You need to spread your business into a stable entity with multiple ways to support itself. From multiple products, to various traffic sources and a strong email list, HEDGE. Because one day something will happen.. Something always happens. It’s a matter of how you’re going to handle this “somehing” If you’ve got your bet’s hedged, then you’re sitting pretty. And you don’t have to do anything. Listen in and collect some unknown treasure Freddy Lansky has for you today. Come away with ideas that will get your business the security that it needs. Because you can’t ever know HOW things will change, ..so you MUST be prepared for the worst.   In this episode, you’ll discover: a tactical way for you to split your autoresponder sequences and win (segment your people for better conversions across the board) why you should never say the phrase “It’ll never happen to me” (the second you do… it will) how to add discount and urgency to your sales funnels in order to explode sales (they’re called deadline funnels) the upcoming resurgence of direct mail (I hope you like the taste of envelope glue) how to hedge your bets and why it is not a choice the best way to mix up traffic between affiliate referrals, Google, Youtube, natural word of mouth, and more why there is no reason to avoid reaching out towards additional income streams as long as it doesn’t take any of your personal time (80/20 is tried and true, but this is a way to still focus on other ventures) the bigger you are, the farther into debt you risk into falling if this happens to you why you should also be diversifying your email marketing… even the safest bets need a hedge how only having one channel is like having a table with only one leg the growing need for you to listen to this podcast will only grow bigger in the coming days.. ; ) the must have trait that you need to grow forever (you’ve heard it before, and you need to hear it again) Mentioned: Infusionsoft Deadline Funnels All The Money In The World – book MONEY – book unbounce Brian Kurtz Tim Ferriss No Hat Digital House DCBKK Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO   Raw transcript: Download PDF transcript here. Hey, it’s John McIntyre here, the autoresponder guy, and it’s time for episode 104 of the Mc-method Marketing Podcast, for you to discover how to convert more customers with less effort by creating an automated email marketing machine that works even if you’re on the beach, hanging out in the sand, doing a sand castle, because you know, we all like to build sand castles. We’re all kids somewhere deep inside. So, today we’ll be talking to Freddy Lansky about a very unsexy topic, to be honest, but it’s actually quite important, and this is “Hedging Your Bets”. Now, the problem is most people get into the game and when they first get started in their business with marketing, they have one traffic source, or one product that they sell. The problem is, you know, when they get banned from that add network, because you know, it does happen even on Facebook and Google, or when their product falls out of favor or someone invents a better product, whatever happens to be, the business dies. It explodes! And you know, it explodes not in a good way either! In a bad way! You really need to hedge your bets and really need to basically do some protection by having multiple traffic strings and multiple products, multiple ways that your business generates revenues. So if one of them screws up, you’ve always got a backup, okay? That’s what we’re going to talk about today: “how to hedge your bets”. It’s not sexy, but it’s really really important and something that’s worth understanding rather earlier in the game, than later, because you know you make some big mistakes and it costs a lot of money further done a lot. To get the show notes on this episode, go to themcmethod.com on /104. Now we’ve got three mentions, three things to talk about today, and number one is the reviews. If you like to support the show and if you’re listening I’d love you to support the show! Go to iTunes, search for the mc-method email marketing podcast, leave me a review, and tell me what you think about the show. Give me all the good stuff and the bad stuff. Do you want other guests? Do I speak too much? Do I ramble as a fluff or is it all very important and helpful? Let me know! Because I’ll use your feedback to improve the podcast. Now one quick thing here is if you’d like to, you know, instead of reasoning just listen to the podcast and blind training programs and all that, you probably don’t have the time. You may not have the time for that. And if you don’t, then we should talk. Because I work with clients with small businesses like yours to help you create more, to basically create these campaigns for you. So instead of you sitting down and do the research to know how to authorize the emails to create the copy, to create the hooks, I can do that for you, can take all that off your hands, so you can take all that time you would have wasted doing something that you could have paid someone else to do. You can throw that into managing your business, instead of doing someone’s technical work. Send me an email at john@themchmethod.com and we’ll have a conversation this week or next, to figure out if it’s a good fit. Last but not least, I’ve got this week’s McMasters inside of the week, which is ‘follow a blueprint’. You need a blueprint! If you are going to do anything, whether it’s running an autoresponder, running a sales-letter, creating a business. I mean, in one sense there’s no blueprint, you have to make things up as you go along, but at the same time, do what works. Don’t try and reinvent the wheel. If something’s already working for someone else, there’s a good chance it’s gonna work for you too. And instead of trying to be, you know, some creative rockstar, and come up with some amazing auto-responder, just follow a step-by-step system that shows you what to say where, how to say it, I mean even use templates! Templates aren’t gonna be as good as something completely custom, but they’re gonna show us how to be better than nothing, which is what’s gonna happen if you procrastinate and put it off not doing anything cause you don’t have a blueprint. So! That’s where McMasters comes in, and it comes with a McIntyre method, the flying ship training program ‘How to Write a Canned Email Response’. In just four weeks you do it yourself and you will be updated and tweaked to your heart’s content, and it’s all based on a step-by-step system that anyone can follow. You know, I tried really hard to keep things simple and that’s really the whole mark of that program. That’s inside McMasters. There is also a forum where we can ask questions, get feedback, really stay accountable to the tribe, and make sure that you’re following through on what you need to do to grow your business. And that is that! Let’s get into this interview today on ‘Hedging Your Bets’, with Freddy Lansky. It’s John McIntyre here, the autoresponder guy. I’m here with Freddy Lansky. Now Freddy canoed me through the dynamite circle, which is a digital nomad community. That’s how I put it. I hate that phrase, man, ‘digital nomad’. It’s much really work online, and have business and do all that fun life-style stuff. And so I saw you sent me a message and ‘let’s do a Podcast’, ‘let’s talk about email marketing’, or some YouTube stuff; or a bunch of different things. And we settled on a topic which is sort of… it’s not very sexy, to be honest, but it’s things like security, it’s really… we summed it up… Freddy summed it up as a ‘hedging your bets’, which is going to be very exciting when you first get started, with Facebook or Google adds or something like that you’re getting a lot of traffic. But then, it’s ah, sooner or later, there’s gonna be a problem, and you’re gonna get a ban from Facebook, or Google is going to do one of their algorithm updates, and all the traffic to your site is gonna vanish in the space of about one hour, which is what happened to me about a couple of years ago. It’s not very fun when that happens! So, gotta hedge your bets! Now, Freddie has a website on chess: onlinechesslessons.net. So if you’re into chess, definitely check that out. That’s the site where a lot of the stuff that we talked about today is going on. You also he also is doing the know-how digital, I think it’s the name. It’s a house down in Mexico somewhere and that’s for people who have an online business who need to go down and hang out. Sort of like, by the sound of my impression, you probably can explain more about it in a second. Sounds a little bit like a college ass, like a bunch of guys, like a bunch of people starting businesses, probably drinking, having parties, and he knows what, but all in the name of building an online business and travelling the world and you know, quitting the rat race. So, I’m kidding here. Little more of a rat that too! Freddy, how are you going there? Freddy Lansky Hey! How are you? It’s quite an epic introduction. John McIntyre * Laughs* Is that did I get that right with the house? I mean what exactly is this house? Freddy Lansky Yeah, it’s so funny! All my friends that keep calling at the real world house, I mean the real world house but it’s really not a lot of drama here, just people doing pomodoro sessions, waking up at, you know, eight in the morning, and crashing workout and you know it’s just the generally… Ah! You don’t know about this one! I learned about this at the DC BKK- it’s a coworking space in Thailand. It’s basically a bunch of people getting grouped together and then they do 25 minutes working, 5 minutes off, 25 minutes working, 5 minutes off, and during the 25 minutes you have to work and during the 5 minutes you have to take the time off and go outside, jump on a trampoline, do whatever you have to do. And before each 25 minutes session starts, everybody tells each other what they’re gonna be working on, and it sounds kinda ridiculous, but for some reason it makes people really really productive. Cause they’re not suddenly feel like people are, you know, doing work and I’m sitting here on Facebook and, you know, some of that stuff. It’s weird! It’s like the psychology thing that makes you more productive and not distracted because you just did like a verbal affirmation of what you were supposed to be working on. And it sounds kinda silly and childish, but it actually works. John McIntyre Nice! Okay! Okay! I’ve tried it before, I’ve just never done it in group. If you’re interested to see, you know, what the group effect is, I find that when I’m in the office with a bunch of friends, we would not work for five, this is exaggerating, but we would work for 5 minutes and talk about random stuff or another, you know, 20 minutes, do a bit more work, like we never have a routine, which would probably help, but anyway. So, before we enter some of the stuff here, hedging the bets, which is really the sexiest topic in the world. Freddy Lansky Yeah! *Laughs* John McIntyre We got Megan Fox on the show, this is about today, but what’s… can you give a list or a background on who you are and what you do, and a bit of about why you are so passionate about what we are going to talk about today? Freddy Lansky Okay! Erm… Well, first of all, I was a backpacker before I became. What’s funny we had the term ‘digital nomad’. I was a digital nomad and I didn’t know there was a community. It’s like I didn’t even know there was a word. And then people were laughing, I was like ‘I’m a digital nomad now’! Like, you know, and it’s funny like all these desperate people are kind of finding each other in these different communities and houses, and online communities as well, and just sticking together, so that’s a little bit of background of me. I was a backpacker and I started this business in Argentina with a business partner of mine. He was a chess master, and when we started it was just a private tutoring. That was our original offering. And that was about a year of misery where my business partner was teaching like forty hours a week and using all that money to you know invest and make the site better, and building traffic. And then we moved into digital download products, and that was just like ding ding ding- jack pot, like, you know, revenue from a few K a month to five figures instantly, and yes, I mean, since then, that’s become our main offering, these chess videos. If you’re not into chess, this is basically one of the ways people learn chess besides reading books as they watch videos or just generally a chess board, and now more recently a chess board and they talk about so and so- opening or middle game, or you know this game sorts of player, and it’s a kind of an old-school industry, it’s been around for a while, and was a lot bigger in the 90’s, and then kind of in the early 2000’s it collapsed the old model of doing business where someone would spend thousands of dollars on the production of a DVD in a big studio, and then distribute to all these chess shops it was kinda dark ages for a few years. We moved in just at the right time to kinda start back up again when we hired the grand masters to record these chess videos at home, with a simple screen-recording software, find a stream-line way to edit it and get these out really really easily, and that’s kid of our competitive advantage. So that’s who are now. And then about a year ago I found this community has moved in the email marketing. Just moving into this conversion rate optimization marketing and all this really exciting stuff that’s like wow, this is just going to be the most cost-effective way of just expanding and scaling my business. John McIntyre Nice. Nice. Okay, okay! So what’s been the biggest win? I’m curios. I’ve lost a few years. Where’s the… This is just a really quick question, but what’s been the biggest win the last year? The biggest lesson. The biggest like boom, this is good! Freddy Lansky The biggest… The good lesson… Erm… Really just the email marketing over the last year. It’s kinda funny, we’re going to talk about the dangers of only depending on the email marketing, and then it’s going to be preceded by me saying you know marketing. But it really is! I mean you know Google Facebook and YouTube and all that stuff are great, but you’ve got to get the email addresses, as that’s just where all the conversion happens. Something about somebody clicking from Facebook or Google or YouTube… YouTube are quite warm as well, but still not as warm as the email traffic, and just building auto responders and then… I’m a big Infusionsoft user now, and setting up the auto responders by skill level at something else we do and then now we… I think it was one year ago a podcast with the guy from the Deadline final. We haven’t checked that out yet, but I’m so excited to try to build these time dependent sales that just work in the long terms funnel. Cause now it’s like each week we have, we have a 50% sale on one specific item. And we have to like set all this stuff up and it’s not automated at all, so I think that’s really right now where the money is at. John McIntyre Yeah, man! It’s incredible what you can do with those deadline funnels. There’s a bunch of software you can use and adding like a discount and the emergency to it just cranks the sales up. It’s really fascinating to watch. Freddy Lansky Yeah. John McIntyre So when you get that down the funnel automatically, that makes you do your job so much easier and it’s like you keep these promotions going and you just sit back and collect the checks. Freddy Lansky Yeah, It’s pretty incredible! John McIntyre Absolutely! Alright! So tell me about this hedging your bets thing! What’s in it for someone who’s gonna hedge their bet? Why should this be a sexy topic? Freddy Lansky I mean it’s not really sexy but it’s just something to think about, like what I was telling you until maybe 13 months ago, I never like came across a so large entrepreneur community. I was kinda doing my thing. And when I did start talking to a lot of people that run all these businesses and not working like crazy for example, or… you’re in Chiang Mai, right? John McIntyre Yup. Freddy Lansky There’s so many entrepreneurs there. And there’s a certain thing where it seems to me some people have kinda just one product or one traffic source, or, you know, one way of conversion, or one specific, it’s just like they’re putting all their eggs in one basket, and it just seems like a very very high- unnecessarily high risk- where if you are kind of a lower level entrepreneur and you are still trying to move from five to six figures, or six to seven figures. It’s the most important to consider it like a game of poker. The most of this important thing before winning all the pile is making sure you don’t get knocked out of the game. And I just notice so many people. It’s like, you know, they sell one product, but what if that product has one competitor that comes out or something. I mean could you sell their product? I mean what’s your hedge on that? What’s your hedge on traffic? I mean you get maybe so many people depend so much on Google or Facebook, or, well I guess not so much YouTube, and I always kind of mixed up the traffic between affiliate referrals, Google, YouTube, word of mouth, and all these different things, so if something happened, you have a little bit of a hedge, you know, that the house isn’t on fire, and we also… It was not… It’s funny! We decided in the end that we would almost. We do eBay and Amazon sales and they never equaled out that much, you know, just a few percent. Four-five percent each of our total income. And we must get rid of it, cause it’s like 80-20, and getting rid of the non-performing assets and things like that. But in terms of as long as it’s not taking up your personal time, if it’s not taking up your time, then any investment you’ve already made is making more than zero, there is a reason to not let it go. So that’s kinda how we built our business a lot, you know. We get YouTube adds, we get erm money from eBay, Amazon, and a little bit from all of those deals as well, and that all balances out a little bit. So if say something really bad happened on Google or Facebook, or YouTube, you know, our business wouldn’t be wiped out in one day. John McIntyre Mmm. What’s interesting here is I’ve been having this conversation with a few people here in Chiang Mai lately. I mean, people get this. Well, yes, they end up with a business that does… I have a friend who is doing up to a million dollars a year. And as far as the revenue on sales was there, they were reckoning they were loving it. They bought a new car, you know! A whole much of cool stuff was going on. And then, they didn’t have the balance sheet. One of the sheets that the business tracks these numbers. You know, they had some warning signals and things like and basically ran out of cash, and the whole thing imploded. So they went from five-six million dollars, to in debt. I think this happens a lot, so, because people think that… Freddy Lansky Yeah! John McIntyre People think that gravy trains never gonna wet. You ask them what’s the traffic from Google and Facebook or YouTube, and there is this assumption that yeah, man, we’re making so much! We’re making $5000 a day, this is so great! And you think it is just always going to go up, and on, and up and then one day something happens and especially if you’re new and haven’t… you don’t know anyone who has done this, or it hasn’t happened to you, it’s really easy to think ‘ that’ll never happen to me’! Freddy Lansky Yeah! Definitely! Until it does. But the funny thing is like the bigger the game you’re playing when it comes to your business, the easier it is to get wiped out. I mean it’s like at the point where we’re at. I mean we have to make like two gears a day, just to basically break even this month. Imagine now something goes tanking. It’s like ‘boom!’ you can end up with six figures in debt just in your company clot. You know the higher up you go, the bigger of a game you’re playing. I think it was you that mentioned as well that book- All the Money in the World. I’ve been plowing through it a bit. It’s really a long book, but it talks about some of the Forbes 400 people that just they got a little too crazy and they got into the wrong bets and went like from billions to, you know, 30,000 a year or something like that, like really crazy stuff. John McIntyre Yeah! I mean it’s crazy! Like people, you know, think it’s money that you make. Once you made it, you know, it’s not gonna go away, it’s there and the you can get cocky and relaxed. And that’s one thing you mentioned here. Like Tony Robbins who wrote that book called Money, and there’s a bunch of interviews about that at that too. Tell me about that! Freddy Lansky Oh yeah yeah! I was erm… so I didn’t read the book like you, but I did listen to the two-hour podscast between Tony Robbins and Tim Ferris which gave me a pretty solid idea of what the book is about. You know, it was one quote that stuck out to me from Tim Ferris that it’s like think specifically Warren Buffet like oh, how do you make your financial decisions? And before even thinking would say: ‘Oh, I just tried to find the highest way of return’, but instead he said ‘to make sure that I can’t lose’. That’s the most important part. So if these billionaires had two paths- one with which they might make a very big return, but they might lose a bunch, and another one where it’s guaranteed that they won’t lose any money, they always take that one. And I think there was another thing in the podcast where they talked about in the book, I don’t know who it was, but to teach their kids the lessons about how to make an investment that will guarantee their return, they bought like five million nickels which apparently the value of the US nickel in terms of alloys that it’s made is worth more than the five cents itself, and son, here is an investment you can’t lose. You know, we got these for 5 cents and the alloy is worth eight. Like those are the type of investments you need to make. So I think it’s good to take that mentality into your business, where you have multiple streams and multiple products, multiple traffic sources, multiple promotional sources, and kinda stick your tentacles out everywhere. I mean we even sell our competitors’ products, to make sure that we always stay relevant. I mean, look at the most extreme in case of that would be Amazon, where they sell everything. How does something that sells everything on the cheapest price not go out of business? Another is, the people say: ‘oh, well, and what about the paradox of choice?’ Right? The paradox of choice! We should sell two or three products, we wouldn’t be overwhelmed! Well, I say to those people ‘why can’t you have your cake and eat it too’. On the one hand, I have all the range of product offerings, and on the other hand, if through your email marketing, direct mail marketing, Facebook marketing, YouTube marketing promote the products at the time like your own products or those that are performing the best or the most profitable, and if things change, you still have the traffic, you still have the momentum. You know, the only way that we could personally really go out of our business is if chess becomes completely unpopular, which is not very likely. That is to never happen you know! You know, I mean, one thing I noticed about marketing, over the last year too, don’t you feel like sites are getting so aggressive with these unbalanced, like these pop-ups, and just like all over the place, I mean it’s crazy. Don’t you feel like email marketing is depending too much on… I love email marketing! I’d starve without that. But don’t you think that right now it might be just a cold war that starts in people’s email addresses because of this unbalanced exchange and pop-ups and side-bar and below the article but people, they are just getting solicited their email too much, where they’re just getting kind of annoyed with each site. So maybe two years from now it’s gonna be a lot harder to get people’s email. Or maybe also what’s happening with Google is that some of these emails are running up in the promotion box, not the spam, but in the promotion, which some people say that it’s okay- I think it’s almost as bad. I don’t know how much people are checking their promotion box where people say oh well Facebook, you know, they screwed us all over. In 2012 they said build up your list on Facebook and now you basically can’t reach them unless you pay. That will never happen with email. But what if it does? It is a weird scenario, where Google says I’ll pay chess be a trustworthy program and to get to your list and suddenly email marketing becomes more expensive, because everybody… Its possibility. So don’t depend just on email marketing. Diversify that too! John McIntyre I mean I… it’s some good point that, but I also think that Google would never charge people to get in the inbox. Cause that would be like Google facilitating blackhat spam. Freddy Lansky Yeah that would be too extreme. John McIntyre It’s in a way like Google adds to show up on top of the searches. Let’s put it simpler. With Google you can go pay for adds that appear in the gmail inbox, you know above emails, so that’s the equivalent there. It’s one of these things that I like… if you zoom out and look at it from that broad thing, the idea of business is that you have a product or a series of products and you have a market or series of markets that you sell it to. And then all these different things, whether it’s Facebook, or email, or Google adwords, all these different things, they’re all just distribution channels. So the main thing is don’t depend on one single channel for your marketing, which is probably not exactly what Brian Curt said on the podcast we did for over for six months ago now. Brian Curt was the director of Bodrum or, vice-president of a huge direct mail direct response company. And that was his aim. I don’t think he’s using it, but he said that a sided single-channel marketing is boring. I mean you get that one point from to just use one channel, but… I mean the point remains, don’t just have one channel. Whether it’s email, whether it’s Facebook, or whatever it is, you can never really know how things are going to change, but only having one channel is like having a table with one leg. Freddy Lansky Yeah, it’s definitely true. Maybe I got a little carried away, okay! Google is not gonna charge for… It’s a bit extreme, but I do see in the next year- two or three, email marketing is gonna get tougher because you and I are not the only ones pretty to the stuff that’s going on right now. Like oh well, you know, Google is getting harder to predict, Facebook’s cut off their traffic unless you do organic, and YouTube’s always been tough. We just got lucky that we’ve got a market that’s fit for it . So you know what’s next, is whatever traffic you get, try to get their email, and it’s just gotten more and more aggressive, so… I can notice some of the trends, because a lot of times they… see we run our site in English and Spanish, and we are actually going to expand in three more languages this year, and in Spanish people are much more receptive to the idea of giving an email for you know, this… So we can give them just five or six master secrets before we put them in a long-term motor-responder that teaches them a little bit about chess. I mean sometimes in Spanish, we have one box in particular, the one below the article that in Spanish coverts 70% or 80% whereas in English it will just convert to 20% because the English market is just being marketed so hard. And another thing that’s maybe some similarity, this is like in the late 1990’s, you know like there used to be those pop-up ads, where it said ‘hey you won so and so amount of money, congratulations!’ When those adds came out they actually had like massive conversion rates, and within two or three years it just dropped because everybody found out about it and everybody jumped on it. And I’m not saying that that might happen with email marketing cause it’s been around for 20 some years, but it does seem that right now everyone is really focusing on it, so to really hunt down your email marketing your auto responder’s gotta be good, your prime has to be good, the initial pages have to be… It’s gonna get tougher. I know it’s gonna get tougher, especially in the English market so be prepared for that. Also, have other sources. I mean we have YouTube, Facebook adds as well, and then just directly from Google as well so I feel like we’re pretty hedged. It’s funny this whole thing about right now there is this trend of entrepreneurs. I like the 80/20 idea, but sometimes people will interpret it the wrong way, where it says ‘oh, just take your most profitable sales channel and the most profitable product and just get rid of everything else’. It’s not so simple. Like maybe in the short term you might be making more money but why not both ways where you scale up the most profitable one but if any of the other products or sales channels or anything else are making money- keep them! Just in case! John McIntyre Yes, that’s a good point! The 80/20 is very easy to misunderstand! I thought I first talked about it for a week. So what you are saying Tim, cause we’re talking about Tim Ferris, is that I can work for 2 hours and get the same result that I get with 10 hours! Now what if I want to work 10 hours? You know? Instead of thinking about how I will just work 2 hours on those really important tasks and then just duplicate those 2 hours, I didn’t really get it the first day. In the first day I really just didn’t get it. This tiny era that I misunderstood wholly for 2 or 4 years ago. If you look it’s like a trance, because the way we think is we think that the times we are here in this will pass and then it’s the future. Time is an ongoing thing, the trend is this ongoing thing. So you know if I’m good at any skill or skill-set or channel in the market, generally, it’s going to get more competitive over time, which means you are gonna need more skills, which means you need to keep listening to the email marketing podcast. Freddy Lansky Not a bad idea. John McIntyre *Laughs* So all the latest trends will be right here, but what’s interesting with direct email right, from what I’ve heard cause I’ve got friends with direct mail, cause most people have moved away from it cause they’re doing internet or social media now. Direct mail has actually the effectiveness. In some instances it is actually increased with direct email, as opposed to decreased! Freddy Lansky Yes, I know, there’s a big time comeback. We’ve been just experimenting with it. It’s quite hard to set up some of the more complex stuff but I think that with email marketing, with just direct mail marketing there’s just a lot of potential right now. There’s a funny meme on the internet or just a little graphic that sometimes pops upon my Facebook feed, which shows the 1990’s and it has some of the bunch of junk mail holding all the direct mail and ‘I’ll throw it out’. And the it says ‘you’ve got email’ and they’re all excited that they got an email message and then years later it’s the exact opposite where they get a bunch of emails or whatever then they got a little something in the actual snail-mail direct mail and they’re all excited about that so… Your podcast has to at least contribute to our looking into the direct mail marketing as well but I do see potential of that and I do thing that a move in the direct mail can be part of the game because I mean, things go digital, but people still live somewhere, I mean direct mail isn’t going away. Right now no one wants to spend the money and I wanted to do something. We have infusion soft, hooked in with fixture funnels hooked in with send-out cards, and one thing that I haven’t figured out how to do with them, is send messages that have a coupon code with their actual name on it and the time-expiring date, so right now they all kinda gets the same message. The only thing that we have to do is their name, but we try an email forwarding follow-up, asking them about a successful purchase or abandoned card or wider different scenarios. They get these custom-made coupons that last 2 days from the day they get the email and it has their last name in it. I heard on some podcast that if they put their name in the code that will drastically increase the conversion rate and I’m trying to figure out a way to do that in the direct mail. After a purchase they get the same email with the keep-on code, and boom! Then in the direct mail they get their custom coupon code that would say McIntyre 23 but this offer expires in so and so day with that specific 48-hour or week period 30-day period to that specific customer, that would just be so powerful combining these things together! John McIntyre Yes, you’re right man. I’ve been trying to do something to know how it would be but a good developer and some software that can save you right there. Freddy Lansky Yes, a good developer. I know they’re out there, right? John McIntyre *Laughs* What I’ve noticed from the Tony Robins book is this probably, cause I didn’t have a business background. A lot of people don’t know that I actually dropped out of high-school. And then I went to college and dropped out of college and then… you know… skipped university! Freddy Lansky Good for you! John McIntyre It worked out in the end. But because of that I didn’t have a… Freddy Lansky Wait, did you have an interview, remember for the DC BKK? Those little ten-minute interviews. Was it Till Carlos? John McIntyre Yes, I did one of those, yes! Freddy Lansky Yes, did you see mine? It was just cracking up like what do you think about higher education. He was like ‘it’s a huge scam, especially in the States!’ crazy also so… You’ve got it. You’ll be a type-case example of who I mentioned in that little five-minute interview. Someone who you know, high-school, college… It depends on some… If you want to be a doctor or a lawyer maybe you need to do it but if you’re trying to do marketing and online business and stuff, if you do 5 years of that while someone else is in college, you’re just going to be light years ahead of everyone else! John McIntyre Exactly! Exactly! But the interesting thing here is that when you do have a business background, it’s easy to get in there. I didn’t understand money. Like what money is, and how to use it, and what it takes to manage a successful business and this is such a fundamental idea. Some people have been talking a lot about how simple this is but the basic idea is spend less than you earn, and violating that single principle has put so many people out of business and made so many bankrupt! Like even really experienced people who make a lot of money. I worked on marketing and email page the other day, the sales page for a product, and this woman in the store was like ‘ah you know we figure this email marketing thing, started making money, so we bought a new house and a new car’. And that was her story, and why should we be impressed. Now why wouldn’t that email go if she’s digging a deeper hole with this thing stops working or when there’s a problem and she might need to take 6 months off, the whole thing’s you know, gonna explode! One way to increase that, to hedge your bets, is spend as little as you can! Freddy Lansky Yeah! I don’t know if it was your podcast, I think it was actually recommended to me by a friend, there was a book Profit first. Figured this book? I forgot the name of the author, but it talks about a lot of the struggles that antrepreneurs have where they always had this mentality that if you have a bunch of months, maybe not completely in the red, but barely making any profit, and they are just convinced that all these investments are going to pay off and oh… two months down the road, that’s when things really are going to explode. No no no, two months go by and then it’s ‘after the December sale, that’s when things are gonna come up’, and that’s where it sounds just like our company and this guy is like, look, you either have a profitable company or you don’t! And that’s how I realized I kinda don’t. We have this massive revenue numbers, but the profit is just, you know, we have enough money and a comfy little salary to travel and things like that, but for this massive amount of time that we’ve been working we can’t just keep assuming that. It’s hard as a bootstrapper because you know all these Silicon Valley funding you have all these crazy exciting things you wanna do but at the same time you have to steer the ship and divide the gross from investments to grow your company and know which one is the smartest and the best, and take a little bit home for yourself! I mean there’s nothing wrong with that, right? So that’s kind of where to get, and I never did the whole problem with the system cause it gets really crazy where they say you have to get five or six different accounts and things like that. But I did have one take away when I opened the second bank account. Just the savings, it could cover saving stats or whatever, there is profit. We moved it over there. So we’ve managed to put a little the next day or two, and that’s what he recommends as well. He gives an example. If your website just went down today and you incurred all your liabilities without any of the revenue, how long would you have before you are chopped off the ladder in terms of savings and he recommends that you should have at least two months in the bank, just to make sure you’re hedging your bets. John McIntyre Yup. There’s one of these sayings that you just don’t know what’s gonna happen. And this is why it’s not sexy! Cause people like to talk of the revenue and say it was an awe. Freddy Lansky Yes, people like to talk about revenue a lot more than profit. John McIntyre Exactly! The profit is misleading though! Like, I used to think that that was true, and it’s true in a sense, but at the same time the profit just… You might catch a few flights, but that investment’s ultimately going to pay off in the next five years. All that money is going to come under the expenses of that month, depending on how you spend it and so then you don’t have a profit for that month. But technically you do have a profit, because all that expense, you can really spread that over to the next five years. Freddy Lansky It’s true, the line gets a little bit blurry sometimes, I mean, it’s funny you bring that up. I finally… I mean when I outed DC BKK all by myself and when I finally convinced my partner that we are going to all these conferences, it’s actually a good investment. So we decided I get a 1K budget a month, so now I’m gonna just lie wohooo! I’m gonna head to Phoenix, I’m gonna head to San Diego, Austen, I’m just not gonna work like crazy, and it’s so exciting, you never know who you’re gonna meet at conferences! You’re talking to a guy down the hall, you have no idea who he is, where he lives. Then you find out he’s been on CNN and Time magazine and stuff, and you’re like ‘holy crap!’, you know, I’ve just met this guy’! That’s where the magic happens. It’s really worth going to conferences and even if you’re not looking for investment or clients, that working, always in the long run pays. I mean you understand just by doing these podcasts you get to meet all these people and just have that first touch where you guys are doing this interview together whether or not they are gonna forget you and just opportunities arise that way. John McIntyre Yes, this podcast has done absolute wonders for my whole business! I mentioned it a few times. Someone on this podcast interviewed me about the podcast and how it came to be and all that. But it makes a huge difference in the long run! Freddy Lansky You can’t look at it the way a web entrepreneur looks at it. Like Google analytics, like oh I had 204… cause who are these people really? Would you rather have 100 influencers listen to you or 100,000 nobodies listen to you? I would rather have 100 influencers so when you look at it like that it is just- I was also thinking of a podcast- it’s just such an easy way to level up in terms of the network of who you’re meeting! Cause if you talk to somebody who is the CEO of a big company and you try to pitch them something, they’re gonna be like get out of my face. But you’re just like ‘hey man I just want to interview you for 45 minutes and just now what you do’. People like to talk about themselves! ‘Yeah, of course’! You know, that’s just so incredible! I just got solicited a podcast this year and I thought just, I didn’t understand at first, and then I kinda like get it. For a listener, you get to hear the brightest minds, and for you doing a podcast yourself that’s just working glory, that’s what you think and everyone doing a podcast. John McIntyre Yeah I mean, and the other thing too. The kinda sneaky thing about it is that when you have a podcast, everyone listens to you, but you- or I, don’t listen to all of our listeners. So when I go somewhere, often this phenomenon that took a while to get used to, to be honest, but it’s where people come over and it’s like ‘hey, I’m John! What’s your name, pal’? –‘Ah you’re John! I listened to your podcast last year, it’s great’! Freddy Lansky Oh, that’s awesome. John McIntyre Cause they feel it like I have this thing from when I was like on the other Bill’s podcast, cause I feel like I know the person who is podcasted. Because I spent so much time walking around and research for the podcast, so I know that it’s happening in reverse, this person who I’m chatting to knows all about me, listened to how I talk, and knows the jokes I liked, and that sort of stuff. In the meanwhile, I’ve got no idea who they are! Freddy Lansky That is great! It’s just like the I’m doing the work for you while you sleep. John McIntyre Yeah! I mean even like that, even with bigger guys, like Iwanda, who is actually in a realistic state right now, please listen to the other ones cause I’m sure that these guys who have emailed me before, I don’t get any names but out of the blue they’d be like I listen to the podcasts, or I see sometimes people sign up for the email- this thing- I know who you are! And sometimes I hit them up. It’s like passive networking, you know? Freddy Lansky It’s great! It’s like when I bring my dog to the park to meet girls and I just let him loose and… he just *laughs* John McIntyre You just chase him? Maybe he bites someone, you know. Freddy Lansky I don’t know about that one. It’s not a rabid dog. It was funny I actually got to bring it from Atlanta to Mexico. So we got on the flight together, feeling like a celebrity me and my little dog and his bag at the airport. I’m like hey, what’s up? John McIntyre Nice, nice. Meet the ladies on the plane. Freddy Lansky It’s kinda like comatose cause I didn’t sleep at all that night. I have a 7AM flight and I was working till five in the morning. I was like- okay, it’s like almost five now, I’m clearly not going to sleep. That was just a little bit of a blurr. I know, I should talk about that house that I’m living at here! It’s just crazy, man! Networking people just running through here all the time. That’s just been like the coolest experience ever. I’ve been here since the end of January at this know how digital house. John McIntyre Tell me about the house! What’s the concept of this house? The know-how digital thing. Freddy Lansky So, I guess they’ve already been doing the house thing for a few months. It fun to bring that up about eggs in one basket. People had like very bad PBN hit in the business so I guess one of the ways they expanded to get a little bit of revenue, is they do like almost like conferences, but be sure two or three-week training where people come and hang out, and then on top of that for you know, DCR other people and other people in the house you know you can just live here for I guess $400 a month for a shared room, or $800 a month for you own room, and then $400 more for food. And so it’s like the cleaning and the food is just taken care of. It’s really healthy! I’ve gone from… like the last six months I did so much travelling, I’ve been all over Europe, all over Thailand, then I went from China all the way to Italy by train and I was just fat and out of shape and not feeling too well. And since then, you just get in such a good routine here. People head to the gym every day, working out every day and everybody’s just got the same mentality and it’s good to be around that, it’s been pretty incredible. And the backyard with the dog you know he cares about his business on his own so I don’t have to walk him any more. You know, forget about automating your business, it’s like automating your life! There’s so much more time! It’s great! John McIntyre Nice man, nice. Well, we’ve ran out of time here, so… Before we go, though, some of the listeners might want to know more about you, get in contact or maybe get to hear about that digital thing so what’s the best place to do some of that stuff? Freddy Lansky Okay, erm, for people who are in the dynamite circle, they would just check the post there and they know that digital is available at the digital.com and when you go to the home page, you will see right on the top ‘covert with us’ and you can just sign up there. Sign up for the mansion and the city, it’s about two hours outside the Mexico city and it’s not too bad. It’s quite a little town, not too much distractions, but it’s a good rhythm. People are working hard during the week and then, you know, a little bit of partying on the weekend. It’s just been great here. Last year was the final hurrah of my crazy backpacking life. I used to be so after seeing countries, I still am, but leaving places every three or seven days, you know, I feel you hate your late 20’s. You want to do this slow-travel life that is recommended by Tim Ferris and Dan Andrews and everybody else. I moved into that and that’s great! John McIntyre Yes, yes. Absolutely! I’m with you man! I’ve been in Thailand, I left the Philippines 2,5 years ago and moved to Thailand just like you know to check this place out. Freddy Lansky It’s not utterly different from Chiang Mai because just like in Chiang Mai, you know, you’re a 50 thousand baht flight away from Bangkok and what is that, $50 or whatever. I forgot what the baht is it’s inaccurate… John McIntyre 50 thousand baht is almost too grand. So you’re looking at like 2000 baht to get to Bangkok, $50. Freddy Lansky Yes, Bangkok, but at the same time the town is quiet. It’s got tons of entrepreneurs and it’s not too distracting and also pretty just easy-going laid-back life so that’s different here where we have this town, quieter than Chiang Mai, really just a little tiny town. It’s famous for this big Manly lake that we have in the center where people are paragliding and people come up to Mexico city in the weekends so sometimes on Saturdays there’s a little bit of a party but or the most part, just a town but if you wanna go to Mexico city, it’s two hours away and I wrote a big post on DC, I’m a huge fan of Mexico city. Especially for people who were raised in the States it’s really hell-from. It has so many advantages! It’s close to States, it’s cheap, so much going on, and it’s only two hours away. John McIntyre Yes, I like it. All of the links to the digital site are shown on the mcmethod.com. Freddy, thanks for coming on the show, man! Freddy Lansky Thanks so much man! It’s been a pleasure! The post Episode #104 – Freddy Lansky on How To Hedge Your Bets & Guarantee Business Success (because playing it safe is sexy too) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Ever wonder how a fortune 500 company does email? Wonder no more, We got Mitch Lapides on the show. Mitch founded Fulcrum Tech 10 years ago, Back then they were building the very first shopping carts, analytics set ups, and more from scratch. Today Mitch and Fulcrum still go strong servicing email for big enterprises. While often it’s a freelancer or copywriter featured on the podcast, Mitch is not the usual guest. He works with BIG business. Next-level stuff. Millions and millions of dollars are invested in these businesses.. ..and their campaigns. They influence industry trends, And Mitch is the guy who gets to be fully in the know. Here are a few of 2015’s trends to watch for, given to you here & now: 1. increased personalization in email (1-to-1 emails) 2. be able to tie your website analytics to your email analytics to send super targeted messages 3. real time content – content that pops up when you’re in the geo-proximity of a store (- help deliver real-time content) Listen to the interview for the full in-depth 2015 trend list. Mitch shares how business and email work together… Learn to test to make sure you’re converting at your maximum clip, Learn how a simple tweak in your business, ..can increase your ROI enough to double your income. And at the end of the day, Learn how these powerful email strategies are just as effective from the top fortune 500 companies, Down to the solopreneur with an email list in the low thousands. It’s all about speaking to people in right context, time and place. Mitch shares multiple ways to hone in on that right context, So you can engage with your list properly, And as a result, ..more opens, more replies, more target market insights, more conversations with prospects, .. MORE RESULTS. And a more profitable business.   In this episode, you’ll discover: the big picture to what email marketing is and how it’s best used (hint… you should get good at making friends) the difference between an email marketing agency, and a copywriter/email marketer why trust is the number one goal that all email campaigns should strive for (no matter the industry) how the data and trust gathering process should be an ongoing organic thing that never ends why running your email marketing with a team is the most efficient way to do it when to build relationships with leads, and when to sell why the juicy metrics are not the clicks… they’re the opens and more importantly, the replies (don’t take replying lightly) a crazy simple way to judge where best to tweak your sales funnel in order to increase your ROI (this is so easy, you must do it) why relevance is key foundation to email and why you should to make it your number one priority real time content.  What it is and how you can benefit from this highly efficient and trending email marketing strategy how many different sales funnels you should create in an ideal world (and how this is now possible to do) that there is no such thing as a 100% flawless route into an inbox (you can safeguard your deliverability though by taking these certain precautions) why it is with testing that the rubber hits the road (learn how to do even basic testing, and you will succeed in all your email campaigns) Mentioned: Seth Godin’s “Permission Marketing“ Power Inbox Live Clicker fulcrumtech.net (Check out the ROI goalsetting tab) Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO   Raw transcript: Download PDF transcript here. Hey, it’s John McIntyre here, the auto responder guy, and it’s time for episode 103, of the Mic-method marketing podcast. We’ll discover how to get more customers with less effort by using automated email marketing machines. Today I’ll be talking to Mitch Lepidus about 2015 trends marketing name. Might be one … Basically, I want to go and gets some enterprise email marketing guys, guys with agencies that work with the clients surrounding a freelancer consultant or big-name copywriter, like John Carlton or Perry Marshall. I want to get some people who’re working with corporate, big fortune 500 companies to find out how they’re doing the marketing, because it’s all very valid and then this is where millions and millions of dollars get invested in the software and in the creation and these campaigns. So, I want to get Mitch on, he has a company that works with these kind of clients and find out how he does it. What sort of projects they’re doing? What’s going on in the industry? How the industry is changing? And, get some really interesting insights. That’s what today’s about. To get the show notes for this episode, go to the micmethod.com/103. Now three things: Number 1 Reviews. I don’t have a review to read out this week, so I’d like you to head over iTunes, search for the Mic-method, leave me a review and tell me what you think about the show? Be honest, I can take it. Now, the other thing is listening to this podcast, you might be thinking that you need to get something like this, set up itself, but you don’t have the time, you can’t join. You can’t go and buy training yourself. You just flat out your business on and clearly do not have the time. That’s where I come in, I work with people like you to take this sort of stuff of your hands and create the campaign for you, so you can focus on growing the business, knowing what you need to do and if you want to learn more about that, shoot me an email at John@micmethod.com. We’ll have a quick chat on Skype this week or next to discuss your project and have fun, get you some customers, get you some more freedom with one of these automated email marketing machines. Now, I got one Mic-master’s insight the other week and that is speak up, ask for help and what do I mean by that? This is one of those things, where all of you be able to try to go it alone, try to do it, you can do itself, do it solo and well it’s admirable, if you really want to get ahead in life, you have to ask for help, you have to ask for feedback and you have to be open to receiving negative feedback and in all honesty the best entrepreneurs I know are actually fantastic to take the negative feedback. They love to get negative feedback, because knowing where they suck really helps them to get the information they need to take things through the next level, okay. Now, that’s why Mic-master is actually a training forum, where you can learn, basically you post questions and get feedback on your emails and checkout the templates and check out the training and ask questions and that’s the ideas around and this is the kind of feedback I am talking right. You can post reply within a couple days, to let you know if the email such maybe the Hawks wrong maybe the stories, you know a bit off. You can hear this kind of stuff, but it’s only to people who are ready to take that kind of feedback. That’s Mic-master. If you want to learn more about Mic-master’s, the private training community I have for people who want to grow their business with email marketing. Go to the micmethod.com/micmaster and you get all the information there and that’s for today, let’s get into this interview with Mr. Mitch Lepidus. It’s John McIntyre here, the auto-responder guy. I’m here with Mitch Lepidus. Mitch is the former chief technology officer from … which is an American research company far bigger than Forrester, he has done a bunch of other stuff and I’ll like turned over him in a second to complete the full details. He is now heading a “…Tech” which is a email marketing agency and what’s interesting and why I got Mitch on the show today, because I wanted to bring on perhaps an alternative perspective. I have spoken to a lot of copywriters; a lot of marketers with a variety of size businesses, what I want to do is to get some with an agency that works with different companies instead of working with internet marketing person just to setup sales funnel who are working in much bigger and a much higher level and I want to find out, what goes on at that level and see what are the opportunities that are trying to happening in 2015 and really I think this is interesting to see a different perspective. This is one of the first times I spoke to someone like we are starting the conversations going to be a quite interesting. Mitch how are you doing? Mitch Lepidus: Doing great and thanks so much for having me today, John. John McIntyre: Good to have you here. So, before we get into some of the specific topics we’re going to talk about today, can you give the listener a quick background about, who you are? What is your history and what you doing now? Mitch Lepidus: Sure, so John I’ve been in the interactive industry for a number of years. I was one of the first folks who really helped develop it that back in my early publishing days, I developed some of the first websites and e-commerce sites out there. Before starting for Contact I was as you mentioned that chief technology officer at Gartner, where I also let the chain to recreate Gartner.com which was a very huge website of their and following that I was at Elsevier and most people don’t recognize that name but they do recognize a lot of their properties, such as Nexus and hardcore Connor and some of those and I headed up as an executive VP and I was also on the board at their scientist division, where I manage their 4 divisions. Mobile application division, online journal and reference products, as well as online training education. So it was a great background. It was not only building interactive technologies after these various companies, but it was also a lot of strategic marketing and tactical marketing and those days, early days you had to know if you got work to do, but you had actually get it done, so you had to learn a lot of technology along the way which is for contact when I founded it just ten years ago. John McIntyre: Yeah okay I mentioned it back then when the whole industry was getting going, I mean there wasn’t these websites and companies out there that software these days for every little function that you need in online. Any business that runs online, whether it’s collecting emails, setting up the campaigns was back then I imagine that the technology was quite permanent. You might have to put together the things you sell. Mitch Lepidus: Oh my gosh yes, that if we have the tools that we had today back then, it would have been amazing and we were building the first shopping carts and the first reporting tools directly of the website and trying to marry some kind of web analytics from log-files, so for trying to understand how people are getting there in and tracking through the conversions and you know the early days, you just didn’t have those kind of tools like you do today and everything was built from scratch. You had no choice but to do it that way. John McIntyre: Yeah interesting okay, so tell me a bit about “Fulltech” and how it compares to say, like I have spoken to a lot of copywriters, fairly small business owners should be interesting to find out what “Fulltech” does and what sort of clients you’re working with and how it differs say, suppose a copywriter who is just working with clients to write them emails. Mitch Lepidus: Yeah, it’s a great question. So, early on when I first founded the company I had to decide whether I want this to be a full-service agency where we built websites and ultimately social media programs and emails and everything else, and as I dove deeper into email itself, I learned how many different aspects there were to email and you doing it right and it was a great marrying publishing to marketing and that really what you’re doing in the email space is building relationships with content. So, when you talk about your copywriters the content is a critical piece to everything that we do. However, in order to do and develop an email program appropriately and the best that it could be, you have to really understand as we’ve learned early on that there are lots of factors that affect the success of an email marketing program. So, when we’re talking about an email marketing agency verses a designer or a copywriter or someone who may have apart or even do some others programs themselves, we’re typically bringing everything that you need in order to build out an effective email marketing program and that includes everything from the strategy, so what is the messaging, what are the KPIs, the key performance indicators? What does if we need to do to accomplish those goals? And, then we layout the entire program ultimately is a campaign map and layout all the different emails that are going to be part of a program and when I am talking about just the newsletter, if you’re in e-commerce, you’re talking about hov writing of emails. They could be shopping cart and replenishment email and nurturing campaigns, welcome campaigns, birthday emails, and mobile optimism. There are so many different elements that form the foundation a strong email program. So that strategic piece is a big part of what we do. Then once you figure out a strategy, then we have experts who build out that messaging into the cut-rate copy into the design and then we have to code it and then these days everything has to be coated in a mobile response way, so now you’re getting into the technology area of what we do and then a lot of companies need help getting on the right email service provider platform and we help select those and get implemented and get the right campaign set up within those tools and then once you do all of that, then you have to come back around and start to optimize everything and make it better and better and better so then we get into heavy analytics in statistics and modeling and productive analytics and all of that good stuff. So, you reach much further than just a single or even a two-person show in terms of contributors into a full set of folks where it takes a team to do email marketing right and when you get to the larger types of programs that really need to scale. John McIntyre: It’s like what you doing are like that full-service. Like a full-service email marketing and it’s might not be everything, but when it comes to email everything from the very beginning with the strategy, all the way to the end, which never for the end which is that testing and tweaking phase. Mitch Lepidus: Exactly! John McIntyre: Then give me an example of like, what sort of companies are you, because you know I get the picture that this isn’t happening for John Smith has just started a internet company and you know with that domain, you know really, really small businesses, sounds like it’s not that guy it’s more likely going to be with bigger companies are using bigger programs right. Mitch Lepidus: Yeah absolutely and we have and we still do work with some other smaller folks. You know the best companies are the ones who really want to grow and are invested in the growth and they’re kind of companies we work with our e-commerce companies, professional services companies. Education is a big market for us. Medical and healthcare given a lot of my medical publishing background, it’s kind of an area where we gravitated on early on; publishing Boston Bob the client, Dunkin Donuts is a client. We have worked with automobile dealers, you tell me the before you had some I mean for some folks you work with in the automobile space, so it’s really across the board you know the concept are similar across for everybody and it’s just a matter of building up the right messaging featured as different audiences and building up the right program but I mean this email marketing works across all of these industries which is really cool. John McIntyre: I like to come back to you. You know talking to people on this show is that marketing is a funny thing, you know business even but it’s you know lot of marketing for example just for you with doing with email is just creating a relationship in cultivating it and along the way you’re making office which is generating sales in generating growth, but ultimately comes back to that fundamental idea of you’ve got good relationship and you’ve got to communicate with people. Mitch Lepidus: Yeah! John McIntyre: So, let’s talk about the 2015 trends in email marketing. What sort of stuff you’re seeing going on right now and in the coming year and coming years and how is the industry changing or it’s going to be the same as it’s always been? Mitch Lepidus: Great question, you know my colleagues and I talk about the various trends and you know one hand, we see things like increased personalization of emails and we’ve been talking about one to one marketing for ten years with email, but it’s interesting in 2015 we see that really coming into its own, because the technologies are now catching up to the point where you can actually build out one to one, emails much more relatively with better and better tools that are out there. So, a big trend is to be able to leverage the behavioral aspects of your website in terms of time your web analytics to your email analytics and you can start to send materials and emails to people who are the visitors of certain section of your site. There are now a growing number of email service providers who are automatically building profiles of visitors to their websites from email and then you can turn around and use that information right back into your email. This say wow, this person we build a lot of articles about Google. They must be interested in Google. So who are new say that we should serve more articles about Google, when I relate come out. You can get that specific and irrelevant is one of the foundations of email and Sif Godin speaks in his permission marketing book, which is a great book, if you have to read it is a quick read and he talks about people need do expect email for it to be successful and needs to be personalized and relevant so that’s really a big trend today in that content is able to be much more relevant today. Another great point is real time content. You know having content popup, just the right content if you happen to be in Geo Proximity of a store that you happen to be on your list and their tools like movable ink and a power inbox and live quicker and you know those types of tools out there that are really great. It helps in to deliver kind of that real-time content which is pretty cool stuff. John McIntyre: I like that so it’s like if in a database restored in New Jersey for example typically US place and I’m driving through the area they might figure an email that goes to me and said hey you’ve got the upcoming US storm, you know which sell you something. Mitch Lepidus: Yeah, even better if you get their mobile number, you can actually do some mobile marketing then you can send them a text message and then you can have them respond to it and perhaps trigger an email, because with a coupon or something that’s got on the store today, you know the pair of shoe, if it’s you know clothing store or whatever, but it’s all about trying to speak to people in the context that they want to be spoken and at the right time and place and that’s just becoming more and more feasible today as these technologies really come into their own. John McIntyre: Right, one thing that I find is this idea of one to one email marketing sounds fascinating because some people ask me like how many segments should I have in my audience, like when I’m splitting up the audience, splitting up the sales from online trading how many different sales. 21 for each audience or can I use just one for the whole thing like it’s really challenge right. Often said is that in an ideal world you have one sales from one sales process every individual person but the only reason we don’t do that as it’s up until, now it sounds like that’s been completely overwhelming in terms of the amount of resources that you have to spend to create another sales process, sales for every single individual in the potential audience. Several times like with this one to one email marketing, they are talking about it, but other people doing this with when someone finds joins the email for example. Joins a database, they’re going to go through a survey. The first thing they get asked a question that put email address in and then on the next page if that a little form there is another question, another question and you could have many questions as you want and each question then get dropped into a hidden field in the email software and then when the emails go out later on they can drop in those variables throughout the email, so it starts to create much more of that one to one email marketing. Mitch Lepidus: Yeah, well you know, you just raised is actually something that I would like to emphasize. It goes beyond, that’s just a great best practice, so you talk about collecting that information right after someone signed up for an email as you probably know one of the highest open rates for emails is that welcome email, so your best chance right after someone signs up for your newsletter or your promotional campaigns or whatever it might be, is that welcome email. So, they open it up and they are already engaged and they are already excited about the fact, that they just signed up for something that you just selling them and they’re going to respond. So, the chance is that they’re going to go fill out that survey are the best from that welcome campaign, so it’s amazing how many people still don’t send out a welcome email or even a welcome campaign, but when you throw in a survey to collect really relevant information about your business don’t ask for your older stuff because if you are not using it then you are just going on annoy your subscribers of it. Then you can U turn around and start using that and people are willing to give you information in a rate equivalent to the trust that you have developed with them. So, the more trust that you build with them, the more information they’re going to give you, so asking for a few really key pieces of information at the beginning which you can then use for that one to one marketing, but don’t let that be the last time you ask from them. If you give them a little more information about something else or you’re asking about their opinion on something, if you give them some data or some information that they value and then ask them another question about what they value then you know it starts to become a compensation and you are building out their personal profile as you are sharing and building trust and getting them value a long way and imagine what happens when you build up extreme trust with them, then they want to pay you potentially for whatever you might be selling, but you’ve to build the trust first. John McIntyre: I like this too like treating in an ongoing process instead of something you just doing this welcome email and then forget about it and then even think about it again, that this the trust building process and also the data gathering process should be an ongoing organic thing that never really ends, as long as you’re in business, because everything always going to be changing in you’re going to be staying up to date with what’s going on in your industry, in your audience. Mitch Lepidus: Absolutely and it’s a great way to stay engaged with your audience. If you see that people are falling off and not opening the emails then trying to look back maybe it what they did click on early on. You know what was about them, they got interested in your program to begin with and then maybe go back into a couple of free questions survey, just see if you can re-engage them with a little information and give them some values and response to them too. So, yeah it’s really cool. John McIntyre: Okay what about replies because I’ve had few people that’s mention that when you can get someone to reply to this specific number afterwards, receiving get someone to reply to emails, so let’s say the welcome email and then another follow-up email that did you get my email. Once you get them to reply twice you’re going to get like a green pass into the inbox. Mitch Lepidus: Yeah, so that is fantastic question. I was just at a conference last week, where I was listening to a panel, the folks who manage the inbox are in effect on the servers of LOL, Comcast, Microsoft and Google and there are multiple factors that affect someone getting in, in terms of you’re getting into their inbox right. It’s not just reply. I mean that definitely helps and it’s very clear that physically replying to an email or getting reply to an email is a big positive check, the positive side of a larger service peak, but there are many other factors also. So, that’s not the only thing that’s going to drive, now you being able to get into the inbox for those to stay in the Inbox. If you get someone to reply to emails and then you … emails for the next five weeks and they mark you spam a couple times, you’re done or if they starts deleting your emails without opening another big negative mark on the negative side of the ledger. So, deliverability is something that you have to managing online. We did talk for a whole half hour just about the deliverability as well, but the reply is really an important metric that a lot of people actually do not realize, that it’s not so much about clicks but it’s about the replies and the opens. John McIntyre: Even I like it. You know, when I think about that part of it just to get in the inbox but the other part of it is that someone who is replying the email, they’re just going to be more engaged, so they’re going to be like taken the time to hit reply and type some sort of response to you. To me they are one of the hottest leads on that list. Mitch Lepidus: Totally! John McIntyre: You mentioned before we started talking about email are rely that was something you are really passionate about. Talk to me about that and why it’s so important and how you get it? Mitch Lepidus: So you know in many agencies and a lot of people who I spoken to email about over the years, they say how much is an email campaign going to cost me and we talk about all the things that go into a campaign might be just a few minutes ago and they go wow, that sounds that a lot of money. I don’t know. I have the kind of the money to do that and then we start talking about how much does one of your products costs and they say wow, you know each one cost about 25 dollars and how many does someone to get me purchase in a typical shopping cart close for you. Let’s say average is about a hundred dollars and what’s your gross margin. Gross margin is your revenue minus your direct cost of the products. So, you say well it’s fifty percent so for some for every order I get worth a hundred dollars I’m getting fifty bucks, so then we look at the cost. We need to know program okay. Putting together all those campaigns, the strategy, the messaging and the design, the coloring and everything else and then we divide that 50 into the cost and suddenly the program doesn’t look expensive anymore or we say how big is your list? And they say well, my list is about 25000 right now and how fast is it growing? We look at that and all these factors that affect will affect automatically what you can squeeze out of that list and at the end of the day what really matters is what you make as a profit, not what it cost you okay. So, then once you get people to understand, once people realize that you have a calculation for … then they say well, how do I really calculated that and I want to do it over a year’s period and oh I’ve been trying to convince my boss for years to invest more in email marketing seems to be a really strong channel for us but I just don’t understand how to get the numbers to work to show them that. So, early on we created spreadsheet that are really complicated and sophisticated and and so we figured out all the tricksters of extrapolating the numbers out and we actually have a tool now on our website. We convert those spreadsheets to a single tool that’s for free to your audience that we just go there and find it, that forcontact.net. There is a read in the zone out, it’s called gold setter right at the top and you can go in and put it on all those factors and you can show yourself what you’re actually going to get in return on your investment for your email program. So, you can say, well John what if improves my copy? Therefore, I improve my click to rate by half a percentage point. So, I go from let say two percent to two and a half percent and I play with my subject lines and I get those up from and let’s say get my open rate up to about from 20 percent, just a 22 percent on an average and you start putting some of those numbers in and it does not take long for you to get a 20, 30 percent improvement in your revenue base and you know that makes it really easy to see the value of email and is just phenomenal what you can generate with these just a little bit of improvement and that’s why our allies are exciting. John McIntyre: Absolutely and I think right here it is also what you have done there is also one of the best ways to speaking to a client or speaking to a potential client. That’s how you really talk about it. This is even before you mention the price run them through; alright let’s go through the numbers. Here is yours cost is the average purchase price is and run them through all of these different things is alright, so if we improve it by this basically just do the calculator. Do sort of like an hour like effort on paper with them on the phone or in person and it’s all right, so we’re looking at a potential return X,Y. You know X, so it is worth investing Y to make it happen and obviously Y is a percentage of whatever access and once you’ve done those numbers the client is like of course that’s so cheap, let’s do it. Mitch Lepidus: Yeah exactly, and that is very exciting, it’s very cool and I was just actually working for old set of model with a prospect just last weekend. I think that they were sitting at about 125 thousand dollars from their email program at the time and they wanted to know what could we do to get it to 250 thousand dollars and we show them and just really, really modest improvements in terms of if he grew the list a little bit and you improve that open rate and click to rate, and that’s about it, that we are there and it is not that hard. You just have to know what your goals are and then you can figure out well okay, so how am I going to get there now. John McIntyre: Yeah and especially with the company that is already getting a certain amount of leads and got software setup and they are looking to optimize it. That’s among the best position to be in, because already got the momentum behind. Mitch Lepidus: Yeah exactly, I mean if someone already has a listeners performing and they haven’t done a lot of testing and improvement and getting a stronger allies as long as you got the right programs in place typically very feasible. John McIntyre: Okay, so we’re almost at the time, so last thing is that, let’s talk about testing. You mention another thing that you’re really passionate, so when it comes to testing, you know tell me about that? Mitch Lepidus: Love it, so with testing we is always mention you before early on before we got on the call, you know a lot of marketers, you’ll see folks who are very comfortable with the creators and the graphics and they’re not as comfortable with the numbers and they want to rely on others to where they feel like they can’t do the numbers, but I want to encourage everyone who figure in email marketing that you can do the numbers. There are tools out there that make it really, really easy for you. So, for example let’s say you have a list of about 50,000 people or 10,000 or whatever the size is and you want to try and improve your open rates and if you’re trying to improve your open rates typically declining with your subject line and your funding, your preview pane, those types of things and you’re going to do try to identify what is statistically significant change between let’s say an A,B split tester, that’s when you take one group of 5000 and put it up against another group of 5000, each with a different subject line and let’s say you get a result of a 20 percent open rate from one and a 23 percent open rate from the other and you know the question is lot of people say obviously the 23 percent one. Well, they may not have one in some cases depending upon the size your sample on and so forth and you just run it through a quick calculator and ledger. There’s a million of amount on the web if you just type in statistical significance calculator and then you can see whether that difference in your specific sample is statistically significant and if it’s not, you should run a new test again and if it is then you know potentially leverage it and use it for maybe rolling up to rest of your list tomorrow. You know these types of things. So doing these kinds of tests is just tremendous. We took one client for a holiday campaign they did in the previous year versus the next year. We did it as we went in and we’d looked at their subject lines, we looked at the lists that they were using, so they had a bunch of different lists. We looked at the time of day that those emails when out. We looked at the call to action, the words in terms of the call to action that we use and we just tested and tested and tested again. We did several rounds of testing and by the end, just the holiday season we drove a 87 percent improvement in sales over the previous year and 62 percent improvement in open rates and that’s just setting up some really solid well-thought-out test and you know everybody can do that with good strategic thinking and you know obviously reasonably sized list. It’s all about testing you know there is so much this summer sign into an email marketing in addition to some of the art. The testing is this really where the rubber hits the road. John McIntyre: Absolutely, I mean one thing I tell people is that you know like I could do working through you know who’s their prospect is, what they’re trying to sell, how to connect that, what sort of messaging that need to have. At the end of the day and this is what a lot of people don’t understand about I think about messaging and the copywriting style is that, you can research it and write it and get it tied and it’s amazing this is possible, but at the end of the day you still need tested to find that you know tested with the audience to find out what works until you have done that you don’t really know what’s working or not. Mitch Lepidus: It’s so true and how many times have you thought that “A” is going to win over “B” and then the other one what, I mean it’s like you just don’t know every audience is different and the markets are different and you know the sons pass go one way one day. You know there are so many factors that you just can’t expect and can anticipate and like you say, you do little testing and the answer becomes very evident. John McIntyre: Absolutely, so right on time, but before we go if someone more interested in what you’re doing in furculmtech and maybe even working with you. What is the best place for them to go in to that? Mitch Lepidus: Well, I would point them to our website which is furclumtech.net. We have a contact form right on our website. You can also find us at info@furclumtech.net. We’d love to chat with anyone who’s excited about email. If you want about something of me or anyone else we we love to do that so why we’re here to help the world of email marketing grow and if you’ve got a project, we you know be happy talking about that too. John McIntyre: Fantastic well Mitch, thanks for coming on the show, it’s been great. Mitch Lepidus: Thanks for having us John and best yet. The post Episode #103 – Mitch Lapides on The Email Marketing Trends for 2015 & More (Gain An Insider’s Edge) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Kavit Haria makes his money with email. Who better to have on the show than someone who makes most his income from email marketing? Kavit very well could host his own Email Marketing Podcast if he really wanted to.. ..that’s how good he is. So on today’s show, we talk email marketing. We talk strategy, tactics, step by steps and more that give you a glimpse inside a true email marketer’s dragon’s layer. Step inside of Kavit’s. You won’t get burned, But you WILL come away with tons of gold. Learn how he drives his sales with email, Learn his killer pro shortcuts, Learn how he drives traffic, And learn how he THINKS Because once you learn that, Creating your marketing funnels powered by crafty, well-converting emails… …will be a gazillion times easier. Kavit believes that email is a form of self-expression. It should be fun, come naturally, And it should WORK. Listen in and learn kavit’s 3 main list-growing methods that you WILL earn money by following.. And much MUCH more.   In this episode, you’ll discover: how to launch a 6 figure business in a year using any idea you want (Kavit’s coaching program) that email length is a super-subjective thing that must be tested (are yours short or long?) Haria’s Simple Sales System that directs his readers to making sales in the masses how ideas are everywhere… fiction, non-fiction, TV, what you see on the road, etc (just weave it into your subject matter and voila) Kavit’s “Straight-Line Philosphy” email strategy that creates powerful series of emails that convert a personal touch you can end all your emails with that will eventually make you your very own wait list of clients (pick and choose who you want to work with) a theme-label email exercise that takes a HUGE load off your shoulders and get’s slick, converting emails rolling off your fingertips with ease how to get people’s feedback from your list using surveys THREE words you can add at the end of any story to powerfully link your idea to it Kavit’s 24-7 marketing machine, and how it’s all you need to get your list growth jump started the largest list growth tool that Kavit swears by: various forms traffic (learn which work best for him and why) Mentioned: Constant Contact Insider Internet Success Elance Infusionsoft Aweber Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO   Raw transcript: Download PDF transcript here. Hi, it’s John McIntyre here the Auto Responder guy and it’s time for episode 102 of the McMethod Marketing Podcast where you’ll discover one simple thing.  How to use an automated marketing system with email to convert your leads into customers on autopilot while you sleep or play with your kinds or hang out entirely and ride motorcycles like me.  Today I’ll be talking to Kaveat Harrier about a bunch of stuff actually.  He’s been doing some really interesting stuff with the business and he sent me an email out of the blue one day just saying that the way he’s generate the most amount of revenue in his business is email marketing.  I thought that was interesting, these people talk about social media and then these different things like that,  but email is still king.  You know, you have all these other things going on but email is really that device that’s—I don’t think it’s going anywhere either.  Unless we all start doing email with Facebook or something like that, but then it’s still email it’s just email on Facebook.  So email works and that’s what Kaveat’s on here to talk about.  He talks about how to get from idea to business, going from a raw idea to a six figure business very, very quickly in the first 12 months and how to do that with email marketing, how to plug it in.  And also he talks about how he’s doing it in his business right now.  How he’s using email marketing to generate huge windfalls in his business.  To get the show notes for this episode of the McMethod Marketing Podcast go to themcmethod.com/102.  Now three things, as always, before we get into the interview, I’ve got one review I’m gonna start with that today.  And the review is from The Fifteenth from the United Kingdom and it’s five stars and it starts like, “Holy Cow! So good! I found this podcast because I wanted to hear from Neville Medora but I had it on auto play so I continued listening while I was doing the chores and my God!  This is easily the best podcast I’ve found on the subject of copywriting and marketing and that’s what I do.  It has a huge wealth of information.  I’ll be downloading the show notes for many of this, it has made me rethink my marketing and inspired whole new methods and avenues for me to go down.  And it’s the only podcast in my subscriptions that I truly can’t wait to hear the next episode of.  Check it out [02:00] before you do anything else.”  That’s an epic review.  Now I hope, The Fifteenth, if you listen to this podcast you’re a great—I don’t even know if it’s a guy or a girl, you’re a great guy or a girl or both, whatever you happen to be.  And thank you a lot for the review, since I’ve got a massive smile on my face right now.  I’m jumping up and down, doing cartwheels and I really appreciate it though, ok.  If you wanna leave a review, if you wanna make my day, head over to iTunes, search for the McMethod Marketing Podcast and you will find it.  Leave me a review, leave your website too if you like.  I can even, you know, and then I’ll read it out on the show.  Make you famous, give you some groupies like I did to Sean last week.  That is that, now this week’s McMasters insight of the week is stories something I’m gonna keep coming back to.  There’s a reason for it and that is stories work, stories sell and if you don’t know how to tell stories you’re really handicapped when it comes to your marketing.  This is Gary V and this is why all these kind of guys they talk about stories being the linchpin of good marketing, ok.  So you owe it to yourself to learn how to write stories.  And that’s why I’ve got a training program inside McMasters which is all about How to Write Stories That Sell, that’s literally the name of the product.  The idea is very simple, you can start with an idea like, “Well, there’s a green smoothie next to me right now,” and that’s the start of the email and then you say into some pitch, I’m basically talking about, “That was great green smoothie, its got blueberries in it and you know what, you know, green smoothies reminds it’s all about being healthy.  ‘Cause you know if you wanna do good in business you gotta be healthy and you keep—this is gonna take a little while, but you keep following through that before another episode where you keep taking the story like that and you finish up by saying something like, “And that’s why I’ve created this three part health training program inside McMasters which is gonna, you know, show you all the hot entrepreneurial secrets to health and wealth.”  Something like that.  That is the idea. So that’s this week’s McMasters insight of the week and last but not least is if you’d like some personal one on one attention for your campaigns instead of writing it yourself, instead of listening to the podcast, I can do it for you.  But you have to email me, you have to let me know, the spots go very quickly so shoot me an email john@themcmethod.com.  We’ll hop on Skype to have a quick chat this week or next and see if it’s a good fit.  And that’s it for now, today.  Let’s get into this interview with Mr. Kaveat Harrier. It’s John McIntyre here the Auto Responder guy.  I’m here with Kaveat Harrier, a guy from London who I just got on the phone with.  He emailed me a couple of weeks back, right.  And it turns out he’s in the—obviously he’s in the internet marketing space, he’s doing some just a business space.  And he’s got some really cool stuff that he’s up to, one of the things, one of the most interesting parts of the email he sent me was that the most successful way he’s been able to generate business for or generate sales for his own business has been with email marketing.  So he’s gotten very good at using email, you know, using email to drive sales.  And what I find really interesting that talking to all these different people like this is it often comes back fundamentals but it’s also, everyone’s got their own slight spin on how they wanna do it.  And I think it’s—you know, one thing to take away is there’s no perfect way to, you know, write an email and make money or even just to build a business.  That’s a question I get a lot—I think it’s a question anyone who’s in the business of helping other people grow and build businesses is gonna, “What’s the perfect way to do this?”  It turns out there is no perfect way there’s just a bunch of different ways that you gotta try and test and see what works. So anyway, today we’re gonna talk about some of what’s—a bit about Kaveat’s business, what he does, what he helps people to do.  Which is essentially, from what I understand, is to take someone from idea to a business and then do six figures in the first 12 months.  He’s got a pretty cool service he’s operating and I love this idea of email marketing being the biggest sales driver.  So we’re gonna go in a couple of different directions here and see what happens, have some fun.  Kaveat, how you’re going man? Kaveat Harrier: Yo, really good.  Thanks for this.  John McIntyre: Man, thanks for coming on the show.  It’s always good when I get, you know, emails out of the blue and someone says, “Hey, I’ve been listening, we never chatted before but here’s what I do and here’s, you know, something’s worked for me with email and marketing.”  It’s just crazy, man how small—not just how small this world is sort of like who comes out of the crack sometimes. Kaveat Harrier: Well yeah, as I said to you, I think I’ve been listening to this way before you developed it into something really pretty amazing.  And I remember you were talking at that time about, you know, driving around on a motor bike and also some things Thailand [laughing] and it was really quite interesting.  I got to hear a lot of different advice and insight sort of—it’s pretty cool how you’re really nicheing very well, very well as the Auto Responder Guy.  That was just, you know, whenever I’ve had time listening to some of these podcasts and they’ve been really, really good so I gotta reach out and share what I have.  John McIntyre: Good to hear, man, appreciate it.  Well before we get into like the, I guess, the nitty gritty of what you’re doing with email marketing and some of the business stuff, give me a broad picture overview of, you know, what you’re doing. Kaveat Harrier: Yeah, I mean I started online nearly eight, nine years ago and I’m a musician so I play the Tabla— John McIntyre: Nice. Kaveat Harrier: Which is an Indian drum.  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it but it’s really cool, you should Google it later. John McIntyre: I’m Googling it right now, the Tabla. Kaveat Harrier: So I had a really good musical career and I realized at that time that people were finding me, you know, playing music because learning how to gig, learning how to promote my music.  I was doing some really good stuff at that time.  I was mixing and doing music with like Western music, I mean, my background is that I’m Indian but I’m born and brought up in the UK.  So I was doing that and then I realized that I had some knowledge here and I had a couple of friends who were doing some stuff online so I started to package it all together and share it.  I wrote eBooks, I wrote video courses, I’m trying to tell this to you very quickly but I put all that information together into a business and I was selling all this stuff online.  And, you know, what happened was at that time I learned about email marketing that was the first time I ever did it.  And I remember this service called Constant Contact, I’d signed up to them, I’d set up a, you know, newsletter fellow.  I’d start sending monthly newsletters, people would read them, I’d get a lot of readership and it was amazing because I would send out one email and instantly I would get a huge amount of response because my email list was growing.  And people were responding within, you know, the first five, six hours of me sending that email and this is to people that I have no idea who they are but they were coming to me for advice.  So I guess that really, really opened my mind and it went well for the first four or five years of that business.  Which led me to do other things, I started to consultant other companies, I started to speak with lots of small businesses.  And I started to develop my own second venture Insider Internet Success which is really all about helping somebody go from any idea they’ve got, you know, they want more time, they want more freedom taken from any idea they’ve got to implement everything that’s required to build that business and then to launch it.  And then to give them whatever training that I can to help them get to six figures a year.  John McIntyre: Nice.  I like it, man, I like it.  That was very quick, you steamrolled through that.  I love it, I love it.  It’s good.  So we’ll talk to you about some of the email stuff like—that’s been working for you.  I mean, you say you’re not really doing daily emails, you’ve kind of got sense that you’ve developed a bit of your own strategy that’s working for you. Kaveat Harrier: Yeah, I mean, you know what, I used to always—I use [infusion soft 08:37] as my main tool.  And I used to write to—I have a list of about, you know, fifteen to eighteen thousand business owners and I write to them on a weekly basis, initially.  And what happened was I would write to them and I would start to tell them stories, kind of in the Chapreon/Settle method and I wasn’t really finding my feet initially.  And I found that if I could just stick to shorter emails and get across my story, I’d get a lot more responses.  That was my theory at the time.  And somehow it didn’t work, for some reason the shorter emails were not getting, you know, the same responses as the longer emails that I was doing.  I would just write now, for example, and it would, you know, for however long I’ve got to write.  I open up Evernote and write my emails inside Evernote and I’d write until I’m done.  I don’t even stop, I don’t think to shorten them, if people are gonna read them they’re gonna read them, that’s my philosophy.  But then what happened was I thought, “Well let’s see what’s happening with these emails if I do them on a daily basis.”  Because I’ve been seeing a lot of people say try emails on a daily basis, you do it a lot also you use to say I can write on a daily basis.  Although I got a few unsubscribes initially I didn’t really get that many people leave.  In fact I increased my sales a huge amount more just because I was writing more often and I was therefore in people’s inboxes more often with really good quality information.  The hardest thing of course is coming up with ideas but I think if you open your eyes and open your ears you can see them everywhere.  I mean you drive down something happens on the road, there’s an idea to turn around.  I read a lot of books so in there’s always ideas to turn around, whether it’s fiction or it’s non-fiction.  You can take any of the ideas you find weave them in into an idea.  For me, for example, I know that when people want to build a business online they wanna do it really because they want more freedom in their life, whether it’s time freedom, money freedom or anything else.  You know the time to spend with their loved ones, the time to do things, travelling and most of my clients are really financially comfortable already.  They don’t come to me because they’re looking for more money, although they’d love that, they come to me because they’re stuck in careers where they just don’t have the time even though they have really comfortable lives.  So for them it’s about time.  So in my emails I try to find out what are the things that I’m reading, that I’m seeing, that I’m looking at, that I can then turn into emails?  And then I just write.  I also try to put together a series of emails, you know, I think that’s really important for example, if there’s one, for example, this week, right now, as we’re recording this, one of the topics of the email series that I’m working on is called Straight-line Philosoview, it’s also a book, there’s a book called Straight-line Leadership and I got some ideas from that book.  And I thought, “Well let me just take this book and write about it for a few days,” and so there’s different chapters, you know, and I’m picking little things from here and there.  Literally just one line or two lines from that book, thinking about it myself and then just rumbling about, you know, how to get from Point A to Point B there’s a straight line but in this world we all seem to just zig zag and go around in circles before we get to B instead of just going the straight way.  Well it’s the same for you if you’re looking for time and money freedom how much have you done so far and why are you not going in that straight line?  Why have you been zig zagging and how have you been circling, and really the straight line option is open and clear.  If you’d like to find out more then contact me.  And I’ve always seem to end all my emails so far with, you know, here’s my phone number, here’s my personal email let’s just get in touch and that’s how I’ve received all of my business and more, more than I can handle.  And sometimes there’s even a wait list if there’s—you know, because I limit the number of people that I’d like to work with.  So sometimes there’s a waiting list because just of those emails that I write.  But for me, what I’ve come to realize that in my business even if I don’t do anything today, the only one thing I gotta do is write that email. John McIntyre: Hmm.  Would you ever consider out-sourcing that email? Kaveat Harrier: Well the funny thing is I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve been looking for people in the last, you know, couple of weeks, you know, whether it’s copywriters that I’ve been recommended to or Elance or specialist email people, I just don’t get the sense that they’ll give it a write like me [laugh].  I’m not saying that my writing is really good I’m just saying that the story and the persona that I built up and the way that I write, so long as somebody can replicate that a hundred percent then it’s ok.  Otherwise I risk losing a lot of credibility with my list, and my list is where all of my income gets generated from, ultimately. John McIntyre: Yeah. Kaveat Harrier: So most of my stuff, I can definitely outsource in my business but that’s one thing that seems to be a little bit more trickier. John McIntyre: Hmm, this is an interesting question, right, because when I first got into this and started writing emails, I go, “I wanna write emails every day it’s gonna be my thing and, you know, that’s the main—one of the most important things to do every day.  And now it’s been—I still write, I write most of the emails, actually, but there’s a couple that go out, I won’t say which ones, but there are a couple that I don’t write.  And the more I’ve been finding is that—I guess it depends on the goals, you know, the individual’s goals, where they want to grow their business, where they want to maintain it, if they’re kinda like, you know move into new territory.  But I’ve just actually hired a guy to write a bunch of emails for the McMethod which is funny because I don’t know what effect this will have, you know, [inaudible 13:30] is from a guy saying he’s not even gonna write his emails— Kaveat Harrier: [Laughing]. John McIntyre: I feel like, you know, a lot of my own journey—there was this inflection point where this point where I sort of thought, you know, I can be a copywriter, you know, and then sort of just an internet guy with like a really small business.  Or I can start to think like a businessman and an entrepreneur and think of building themes.  And really means like taking my ego out of it and going, “What needs to happen to grow the business to free up my own time?”  And more and more and more I’m like man—I mean it’s not—there’s no way someone’s gonna be able to copy your voice and personality or any of this like exactly.  But is it possible to find somebody who can get a similar result, I reckon you can.  It’s hard though, there’s this interesting like ego challenge, it’s a bit like, “Should I hire someone?”  I kinda wanna do it myself, I feel like I should do it myself.  Do you know what I mean? Kaveat Harrier: Yeah, completely.  I think that when I started to think about outsourcing a few years ago the most important thing for me was to outsource everything except email.  Just because I was responsible for writing the email because I knew that I could bring in the sales.  I could bring in, you know, three to five phone calls per email, sometimes more, that would actually convert.  You know, that’s a lot of money for me just out of one email.  So every time I felt like I could let it go I was always hesitant to doing that.  But you’re right, you know, you can find somebody to do it, at the end of the day there’s gonna be this period of time where maybe you’ll see some shifts in the number of unsubscribes just because there are new styles of emails but everybody will get used to it at the end of the day.  So if that frees you up for an hour a day or half hour a day or 20 minutes a day to go and do something else.  Whether it’s business related or not and you’re happier like that, the sure, it’s worth it.  Completely. John McIntyre: Yeah.  We’re going in sort of a different direction right now, but I find this interesting, like let’s say it takes—I’ve written emails in like 10 minutes before, you can do it in 20 minutes, half an hour, depends how involved it is.  But it’s interesting how even just the mere fact of having to write the email, yeah it takes 20 minutes but then there’s like the mental RAM, the processing time it takes you to switch into email writing mode, write the email, get it uploaded and send it.  It seems like I’ve been finding like it’s not really just the emails it’s just a lot of like stuff that I feel like I’ve taken for granted, “Aw it’s just a quick thing, I’ll just do that.”  Like the podcast, for example, I used to edit these podcasts.  And every Friday, it would take three hours, which three hours in a big day of say eight hours or maybe even ten hours, it’s not really that much.  But three hours is quite a lot of hours from another perspective.  It feels like–three hours, if you look at consulting where you figure out how much your hours are worth three hours might be a thousand dollars or five thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars and that’s like— Kaveat Harrier: Yes, it’s a huge amount of time I think.  I mean, I pretty much just do like five or six hours a day right now when I’m here.  I travel a lot so sometimes I don’t even get that, sometimes, you know, it could go a month and I’ve already done like half hour worth of work. John McIntyre: Yeah, yeah. Kaveat Harrier: So for me it’s definitely a huge thing.  I don’t actually send my emails I just write them inside Evernote and send that link to an assistant who basically proofreads and sends it off inside of VisualSoft, you know, they know what lists to send it to or what tag groups to send to and then they just mail it out.  John McIntyre: Ok. Kaveat Harrier: So for me it’s 20, 25 minutes of writing an email.  If I’m really focused and I’ve got a really good idea, I’ll knock it out in 20 minutes.  But sometimes I struggle, of course, like everyone does and I think that it can take longer, you know, when you don’t have a specifically good idea or you don’t have a focus.  Which is why I try to batch my emails into weeks, I try to set up goals of, you know, what I want to achieve in this week with this email series?  And then I just write, focused on that.  I found that sometimes when you write on a daily basis and you don’t have weak plan of writing or a weak theme of writing sometimes you basically start a thread with somebody, you know.  The reason, I’ll give you an example, the reason I did the Straight Line thing this week is because I did the first email, I had no intention of doing the whole week just on this topic.  But as soon as I sent the first email I had one call for my service at that time, I had a few calls, but this call was really, really interesting, it’s just a few days ago.  And within 20 minutes this woman said she’s been on my database for quite a while and she’s connected with me in various different ways, she knows she needs my help but she hasn’t done anything about it.  But this one email seem to struck a chord with her, which is generally how most people get in touch, but within 20 minutes of just chatting with her for the first time ever in my life she decided to spend $15,000 on service.  Now what’s really interesting for me was that, “Hey if that one email about this topic could do that, what if I just focus on turning this topic into a theme for the week and writing around this?  What could that do?” John McIntyre: Yeah. Kaveat Harrier: So that’s how I find my themes, I guess I look out for what really works, what people are saying, what people are responding to.  I get a lot of response, I try to always get people to engage with me.  Whether it’s by replying or whether it’s by completing surveys, which by the way, is not a big element of my work, and whether it’s just by reading a blog.  And so long as people are engaging and, you know, I try to monitor what they’re engaging then I know what to write about.  John McIntyre: Yeah. Kaveat Harrier: I guess the biggest challenge, John, is that you—I’ll write it, if I don’t have any specific thing to write about any theme then I just pick a topic for today and I pick a completely different topic for tomorrow, then every single day I’m having to constantly innovate.  But I’ve tried to batch it all into weeks so I think it’s made it hugely more easier, I guess. John McIntyre: Yeah.  One thing that I do I wrote a [inaudible 18:44] actually called Stories That Sell and in there I’ve got like two methods of coming up with a story to write an email.  And method number one is, I could call it like the A – B method and then the B – A method.  And the A – B method means that you start off with just anything, like you pick, “Alright, I’m sitting in a coffee shop here in Thailand and there’s an incredible vase on the table with some gorgeous flowers in there.  And, you know, so I was thinking of what to write.”  So you start off with, you know, you just start writing about anything.  Could be like something in your environment, it could be a trip you took last week, just anything.  It doesn’t have to have anything to do with the topic at all.  And then as you write, you know, it’s sort of weird how the mind links it up, as you keep writing stuff you might say, “So the flowers are yellow and they’re green and then when I look at the vase man it’s really, really intricate.  And if you look at it you can see it has an incredible amount of craftsmanship that went into it.  And you know what, I bet you that craftsman, he probably spent five years—at least five years studying the art of pottery.”  This takes practice but starting with anything, any random idea whatsoever, and then as you write, the brain gradually sort of finds its way to point B.  Which is if you wanna to be a craftsman or if you want to, you know, write great emails or if you wanna be, you know, build a business, you’re gonna have to approach it the same way a craftsman would approach making a vase.  You’re gonna have to train, you’re gonna have to study, you’re gonna have to fail, there’s gonna be problems, you know, you’re gonna make a crappy vase days.  Sometimes a vase is gonna break, but if you have a map, you know, if you have a blueprint then you’re much likely to be more successful.  Just like if this craftsman is making a vase—if he’s done it before or someone is giving some instructions, like a recipe to make the vase he’s gonna be much more successful and that’s where my XYZ [inaudible 20:22] comes in. Kaveat Harrier: Yeah, yeah. John McIntyre: You pick anything and then, you know, you sort of just weave and—I don’t know, it’s just the brain’s a funny thing but it kinda just links it way there.  And then the other way is to go and do point B which point B is like saying, you picked the moral of the story, it’s like the moral might be ‘You don’t have enough time’ because you want to build up the urgency.  And that’s like what could I say that’s gonna illustrate, what metaphor illustrates the fact that we’re all running out of time?  And then you could be like, “Well I just read a story about a lady—a 27 year old who died last week somewhere,” you know, and then you tell a story about this 27 year old who died and says, “You never know when we’re all gonna die so there’s no time like now to get started.” Kaveat Harrier: Yeah.  Yeah exactly. John McIntyre: It makes it really easy. Kaveat Harrier: That’s the thing, I always start with, “What do I do I wanna achieve from this email?  What is the one thing I wanna get from this email?”  And I know it’s to get the phone ringing or to get email responses back.  And then I lead unto, “Ok, well what are the most pressing issues right now that these people are facing?”  I also know that, you know, but this is just if I was to break it down this is how I would do it.  And then, you know, I guess they want more time, they want more freedom, they wanna generate more income, they wanna have something they can travel with, you know, a business they can run from anywhere in the world.  They wanna do something that’s meaningful to them, they wanna do something they’re more passionate about and some of these people have been trying for years.  Some of them are new to it, some of them have ideas but they don’t know where they’re going, it’s just really about finding the right stories to just, you know, share the story.  And by the way, this is how this connects to this.  I mean those three words by the way are so [inaudible 21:50] you could just use the words by the way after any story and link it back into what you’re doing, it’s really quite powerful. John McIntyre: Absolutely.  It sounds like you’re making it sound really simple, man, I reckon there might be someone listening to this who’s thinking, “Look I have to write email and I tried sending stories and it just doesn’t work.  I just don’t think it works, it just doesn’t sound reasonable.”  So it sounds like what you’re saying is that you’re gonna have an opt in page, have an email list that you’re building, as long as you’re getting traffic to that page and people are signing up.  You just gotta write some good stories, have a [inaudible 22:21], you know, and then some stuff and do the upsells and that’s it.  That’s your business, that’s your six figure business right there, isn’t it? Kaveat Harrier: Well yeah, yeah.  That’s just pretty much it, but let me break that down a little bit more.  I guess that the one thing that people look for is a business that works where they don’t have to put in a huge amount of work but it still works.  And I kind of call that the automated business system because it’s really about finding the right idea, finding the right product.  And once you’ve got those two things, then creating a marketing and sales system—I have two different parts to it, I call the first one a 24/7 marketing machine and then the second part is the simple sales funnel.  Now the 24/7 marketing machine is really all that you need to get yourself started with a list, and there’s a few parts to it.  The first part is that you need to have some kind of money magnet, whether it’s a free report, a video, something to give away that, you know, the user will find really valuable.  And in exchange for that on the landing page that you can build maybe using lead pages, you get them to put in their name and email address.  So they’ll put in their name and email address, they’ll join your list, whether it’s with AWeber or whatever anybody uses and then you start getting people into your list in exchange for the money magnet.  And of course the money magnet or the free report and the free video is really important because that conveys, you know, some advice to that person to say, “I know you’re looking for help here’s how I can help, here’s something that you should try right away.  And if you’d like to know more then join the list.”  So that’s really all the 24/7 money marketing machine is and it really—the goal of that is just to get people onto your database.  So if you do that at the most simplest level, without having, you know, later on you can have multiple reports, you can have multiple videos for different groups of people.  You can start thinking about oh, I targeted this group, you know, and this group has, for example I talk with business owners and business owners have issues with time, they have issues with their website, they have issue with maybe they don’t know how to blog but they need a blog.  Or they don’t know how to create video but they need to create video.  You could have individual guides or reports for all of these things and give every single one of them away all leading to a specific landing page right?  And into your email list.  But when you’re starting out, one report, one landing page, one email account and then you start emailing.  And as you’re emailing you then drive people through your emails, again, your stories.  It could just be how-to advice, it could be all about films, I mean, films are really, really good.  Everyone seems to connect with films and music and stuff like that so if you’ve seen something famous or funny or something maybe on Friends or The Big Bang Theory or whatever like that.  You know, you can use that in your email.  And whip that round and turn that around into what it is you’re selling, even if you’re selling something to do with gardening, for example.  Something really different [inaudible 25:00] internet marketing.  You’re selling things with gardening and you see on a TV show that somebody’s watering a plant and then they say something funny about that plant, you could use that directly into your email.  I saw this film Knight & Day on Saturday and I think it’s Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz— John McIntyre: That’s a great movie.  Yeah, yeah, I know it. Kaveat Harrier: [Laughing] And in that Tom Cruise says, “Someday is code for never,” and it was really interesting.  I heard that and it clicked to me and then I was writing an email yesterday, actually, and in that email I included the words: someday is code for never.  Because I was writing about the fact that if you don’t do something now, you’re never gonna do it and if you don’t take action today, when is someday gonna come?  Maybe, maybe, maybe is just not the way to do it.  And I just remembered that I watched that film, you know, I had written that down because I always try to write things down if I hear them otherwise I’ll forget.  And I used that.  So just by that one line, someday is code for never, five words I just wrote an email.  And I wrote, you know, I thought about that, I thought about what it meant and I try to write my own opinion of it.  And at the end of the day there’s no or wrong with email, I’ve found that you can write whatever you want.  I’ve written about radical stuff like levitation and stuff like that I’ve interest in and, you know, there’s no right or wrong.  Some people like it some people don’t but you’re writing what you wanna write, it’s your personality, it’s your life, you can write about it and no one’s gonna say it’s right or wrong as long as you bring it up and connect it up with what you feel is valuable for them.  At the end of the day if you’re just self-serving, you know, constantly, it’s not gonna work.  But anyway, so you write these emails and then, you know, you direct them to—in my process what I do is I have the second segment, I try to create different segments it just makes life easier for me.  But I have this thing called the simple sales system which is again about automating the sales process so it could be, you know, a webinar to a sales letter.  It could be a sales letter or sales video, it could be any of these things with a payment system.  And I’m using all my emails to direct people to those places where they can buy.  Just like, for example, when you write your emails you direct people to your McMasters webpage, you know, they can read everything they wanna read about and then they can sign up to whatever group they’d like to sign up to there. John McIntyre: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I like it, man.  I like it.  Talk to me about the traffic, because I lot of people like when people like when it comes to this alright I got the emails, I know what I gotta do there but—and everyone’s got a different approach with traffic.  Like someone’s got a [inaudible 27:12] have got some emails and any traffic, what do you tell them to do? Kaveat Harrier: It’s a really interesting thing and, you know, for a long time everybody seems to want to do Facebook and Facebook pages and Twitter and LinkedIn and all of the social media stuff and the thing about social media is no matter how much you—for me anyway, I guess there are people out there that make it work really well, but for me I just feel like it requires way too much time and involvement for me to actually see a result.  And at the end of the day I’m trying to build a business where I’m hands off, it’s automated, you know.  If you’re gonna sit there for hours and post some Tweets and then keep up to date and then do all of that it’s all great but you have to grow the fans on the fan page.  Nobody tells you how to do that apart from advertising.  So for me the biggest win for growing my email list has been advertising and done advertising in multiple different ways.  I’ve done advertising on Pay Per Click, so that is, you know, paying for ads on Facebook that show up and lead them directly to my free reports.  I’m always giving away the free reports, I never talk about my products, I never talk about my services, I never talk about my emails, I just talk about my free reports.  And so long as people find my free reports and sign up they’ll get on my list, then it’s up to me to write those emails.  So Pay Per Click advertising. And the second thing I’ve tried, which has worked really well for me, is Solo Email Blasts.  So I’ll go out there and find people that have databases of people that are in my target audience, entrepreneurs, small businesses and I ask them, you know, to mail an endorsement email to their database that I’ll pay them for.  So I’ll pay, you know, if they promise me a thousand clicks—I usually try to buy with the clicks, if they promise me a thousand clicks onto that link which goes to my landing page basically, then, you know, I might pay four or five, six hundred dollars depending on who I’m talking to.  And I’ll pay for that because I know that my landing page converts really well with endorsement emails. There are times when, you know, if somebody mails out for me and they get a thousand clicks I’ll probably convert four to five hundred, maybe sometimes six hundred of those people as new subscribers.  So I definitely grow my databases like that.  But I never knew at first, you know, part of doing traffic is know whether it works.  Because you can spend as much money as you want and if it doesn’t work for you then, you know.  You may be getting people into your email list but when I say if it doesn’t work I mean, if you’re not seeing sales as a result of those people that have come onto your email list then it’s pointless. John McIntyre: Yeah. Kaveat Harrier: I can say that I’ve got 600 people opt in but of those how many of those people have actually contacted me, number 1 and number 2 purchased.  So for in my business, because the stuff I sell is a little bit high ticket, the cycle is longer, it takes a little bit longer for people to get in touch with me.  So in between not only am I doing a lot of webinars or free webinars, you know, once a month or twice a month I’ll try to do a free webinar for my database.  I don’t expect to sell a huge lot from the webinar I just do it as an engagement tool so that they can hear me, they can see me, they can see my material, they can spend an hour with me learning new things, at no cost.  And hopefully at some point they’ll feel like, “Hey, this guy knows what he’s doing, there system seems to be really good and I wanna get in touch.” John McIntyre: Yeah, yeah. Kaveat Harrier: Otherwise I’m just writing email all day long and as great as it can be and as engaging and entertaining as the emails are you still aren’t proving yourself with what you know. John McIntyre: Yeah. Kaveat Harrier: So I do the webinar, I do the blog as tools in-between to convert—I write a blog every Thursday, like an article.  So essentially I guess the traffic, solo ads and Pay Per Click are the two biggest things and then what I do is I also buy databases like recommendations I buy mailing lists. John McIntyre: Yeah. Kaveat Harrier: So I buy mailing lists and I send them postcards so I send them a postcard to basically—it’s a small postcard, black and white, it really says with the color and the color is the image of the free report and it says, “We’re giving away this free report 10 things about your website that you need to fix to get working right away.” John McIntyre: Yeah. Kaveat Harrier: “We’d like you to come and get it, here’s the URL.”  And that’s it.  it’s usually a single sided postcard, the back of it just has their address and it goes in their mail and it’s delivered offline.  And the reason for this is, and it seems to work really well, and the reason for this is because in my opinion is that people just aren’t receiving that much mail anymore.  And if they are getting mail then they’re not getting mail that promotes this kind of stuff so it stands out.  And it’s really, you know, simple.  It’s a big headline with the URL and the picture of the report, there’s nothing more to it.  John McIntyre: Yeah, yeah. Kaveat Harrier: And people just pick it up and they go—and so therefore because there’s nothing much to it by the way, it’s also really cheaper for me because all I’m doing is printing a black headline, a URL with a picture on like a yellow or a white card and I’m mailing it out. John McIntyre: Yeah. Kaveat Harrier: And I mail out a thousand at a time and I’ll see the kind of results I get.  Every URL I try to keep it different I try a code and see what results I’m getting.  And then sometimes if those people haven’t responded I’ll do a second mail to the same list just because, you know, two hits is better than one.  Seeing an ad twice is better than seeing it once, which is also why daily email works really well.  So that’s what I’ll do, and those are my three methods that I really focus on to just grow my list.  And I know that if I grow my list and if I keep writing email—because it’s a system because it’s all proven to work essentially.  And everybody can do this as long as you’re growing a list, as long as you’re writing email, you’re gonna generate income. John McIntyre: I like that, I think it’s a good note to end on.  As long as you’re, you know, writing emails, generating lists, doing all that stuff, you’re gonna make some money.  Gonna make some money.  Kaveat, man it’s been good to have you on the show. Kaveat Harrier: Yeah, well thank you.  Thanks for having me. John McIntyre: Before we wrap this up though, I know you’ve got your service so tell me a bit about that and where people should go if they’re interested in learning more. Kaveat Harrier: Oh yeah, cool.  I appreciate that.  The service is called Automated Business System and it’s really about taking anybody who has a business idea or who’s tinkering with a business idea, they’re not sure if it’s profitable.  We sit down with them we work through that whole process to make sure it’s really profitable and we’ll plan out what they’re business model should be and then my team—I have a team here of a lot of different designers, developers, et cetera and they basically work together to build the entire business and launch it.  So once the business is launched within about six weeks we work together, you and I, to market your business.  So we learn about all the different strategies that are required to grow it and our goal is to get you to a hundred K in a year.  It’s very simple and straight forward.  But what I’d like to offer actually, John, is I have a CD that I recorded, it’s called How to Launch Your Business Online and Make Six Figures in a Year.  And in there I walk through this entire process in a lot more detail with a lot more, you know, tips and contents so somebody could actually potentially start a few things on their own.  So I’d like to give that CD to your readers or your listeners for free actually if that’s ok. John McIntyre: Sure it’s ok. Kaveat Harrier: Yeah, insiderinternetsuccess.com/freecd so that’s www.insiderinternetsuccess.com/freecd, you can get that mp3 as well as that CD from there. John McIntyre: Awesome, awesome.  I’ll have a link to that in the show notes at the mcmethod.com in the podcast in the show notes right there.  So, Kaveat, thanks again for coming on the show, man, it’s been good. Kaveat Harrier: Yeah, I really appreciate that, it’s really good to speak to you. The post Episode #102 – Kavit Haria on Staking A Claim As A Top-Dog Email Marketer (make your money through email) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

How would you like to NEVER run out of breakthrough ideas ever again in your life? Imagine how EASY emails or content would be to create.. Or how simple your consulting sessions would go.. And how smooth your business conversations would roll. THIS my friends, ..is the result of your business really clicking on all cylinders. How do you start revving up your business? Easy… be yourself. A natural ran business is entrepreneur-heaven (maybe even more heavenly than passive income?). It’s the type of work that you were meant to do. So is this episode full of feel-good, rainbows and sunshine talk? Would you think it mattered if the result of what’s being shared today is, MONEY? When you run your business how you want to, …you won’t believe how much more you can make. Let Megan Macedo tell you. Megan runs a marketing agency in London that cranks out sales funnels, copy, consulting, and direct response web design. Today’s episode is not strategies, tactics, and stuff you want to bust out a fresh GDoc page and a hot cup of joe for (although it gets deep and very noteworthy). Megan really opens up and shares today. This episode is one for you to sit back and enjoy, But at the same time, reap in MASSIVE benefits. It WILL make you think, So switch into sponge mode, And soak in the expert insights and stories on today’s show.   In this episode, you’ll discover: how being yourself in your market will allow you to choose the best growth tactics for your business that a killer USP is not manufactured.. it is in you right now and it’s your job to discover it  how a perfect USP is like a fingerprint.. there’s no other like it in the WHOLE world (and it’s impossible to copy) The Rule Of Six videography rule that will put into perspective how important personal insights in business really are a mighty useful reminder: marketing is about building relationships (there are humans on both ends) a little nugget of gold insight about how to best connect with your warm leads and give your business a boost through new relationships Megan’s Venn Diagram example that will make a bright lightbulb appear over your head (get ready to be thinking BIG) how to find your empathy zone and draw on point marketing messages out of it (the single most important thing to learn about becoming yourself) the dangers of drawing marketing messages outside of your empathy zone (over-sharing is just one of the consequences) what all bad copywriters worldwide are doing that limits their income potential and stunts their client outreach (and what the good copywriters do to NOT have these problems) what Perry Marshall taught Megan and the actions she took afterwards that enabled her to discover that little voice inside her and crank her business and life up to 11! Mentioned: Perry Marshall MeganMacedo.com/be-yourself Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO   Raw transcript: Download PDF transcript here. It’s John McIntyre here, the auto responder guy, it’s time for episode 101 of the McMethod Marketing Podcast where you’ll discover how to get more customers with less effort on auto-pilot.  Today I’ll be talking to Megan Macedo about how people can be themselves in their marketing.  Basically it’s about being authentic, letting yourself go and being real.  And this sounds a bit fluffy and a bit woo woo but as lot a people find when they get more experience in the game, being yourself, and this applies to freelancers and consultants as to be with much bigger companies, be yourself.  You know, you look at a guy like Gary Vaynerchuk, sells wine, built quite a sizable company there and you can tell he’s just being himself.  As he’s getting on stage, he’s talking, you know, social media is the same, he’s just being himself.  Obviously you want to be your best self and there’s a few things in there and you want to find out how you appeal to the market.  But there was an element where you have to learn to just relax in your own skin and be your own thing and this is also going to help with getting your own positioning and uniqueness said out there about you.  Instead of learning a bunch of strategies and tactics and then on dealing with it focus on the fundamentals which is what’s gonna fit you as a person, what’s gonna fit your personality and your unique set of who you are really.  So this is more or less stop basically trying to be someone you’re not.  Learn to be who you are and funnily enough it will actually help you in your business.  To get the show notes for this episode of the Email Marketing Podcast go to themcmethod.com/101. Now a couple of things before we get into the episode with Megan today, number one: if you like, you know, you’ve probably been listening to this podcast, you know the benefits of email marketing.  You know you need to get more customers, you know you need to build a sales funnel but you just don’t have the time and you’d rather just hire someone to do it for you.  If that sounds like you then we should talk because this is what I do, you know, alongside the training that I sell on the podcast and all that stuff I actually work one-on-one with clients to set them up with, you know, also to sales funnels and email conversion campaigns.  Exactly the sort of stuff that I’m talking about on this podcast but to guests, I’ll do it for you personally, ok.  Now if you wanna learn a little more about that or you  wanna have a quick chat on Skype to see what it would look like in your business, shoot me, john@themcmethod.com and we’ll set up a time to have a quick chat.  Now this week’s McMasters insight of the week is a really simple formula that I like to call the DAP Formula.  Great for sales letters, it’s good—go and do all your research, get your empathy down, understand who you’re trying to talk to and then it’s really simple, use this formula.  Number one: you describe the problem.  It’s like saying, “Well, are you overweight?”  You go, you’ve described the problem.  Next thing you agitate the problem.  So that’s where you go, “You overweight?  Man life sucks when you’re overweight, doesn’t it?  You know you can’t fit in airline seats and people laugh at you and smirk.  You know, it’s really hard to find clothes that you can fit into, life’s really tough, isn’t it?”  That’s rubbing salt in the wound, that’s agitating it.  And then number three is step three, so describe the problem, agitate it and then present your solution.  So you kinda go—so that’s where you might say you’ve—first you present the problem, describe the problem, are you overweight?  Then you agitate it, man, being overweight sucks.  Here’s why, you know, on one likes you, no one’s attracted to you, blah, blah, blah.  And then you present your solution, where you say, “What, that’s why I created the three step system to seven minute weight loss,” or something like that.  It’s that’s simple and doubt you can go really deep into that formula but at the end of the day most—I think all marketing often comes back to that idea of the problem, rub some salt in the wound, give them the solution.  It’s that simple.  There’re also to ways like digging down into this.  But that’s the insight of the week for this week from McMasters and that’s actually—it actually comes from one of the videos there’s some one hour training session inside McMasters.  There’s a private training community on how to basically go—going deeper into this formula on how you can apply it in your business and generate more sales.  And this applies with emails, with sales pages, with the entire sales funnel as a whole, it all comes back to this.  Hitting the problem, rubbing salt in the wound, giving them your solution.  And doing that over and over and over and over again.  You’ll see what I mean if you watch this video inside McMasters.  So McMasters’ private training community, it’s at themcmethod.com top menu, there’s a link to McMasters, go check it out if you’re interested.  And that’s for people who wanna, you know, create their own email marketing themselves.  And, number three, I’ve got one review to read out then we get into this interview with Megan.  Today’s review is from Sean Douglas, “Five stars, so much more than a cocky guy with his tongue hanging out.  Attention podcast listener, don’t be like me and make the almost fatal decision of passing up John’s podcast because he looks like a cocky guy with his tongue hanging out on his iTunes photo for the show,” that’s funny.  Yeah, I know what you’re saying, Sean, if I had to choose a show to listen to and knew nothing about the various podcasts out there on email marketing, John’s would be the last I would go with because of his pic.  That’s really—you know, it makes me laugh because I never thought someone would think that, I thought the pic was cool, you know.  Maybe I was wrong.  I hear yah, but let me save you the wasted time of searching through those losers and just tell you to look down the long list of interviews with world-class marketers and it will be enough to go to his website, themcmethod.com and buy his stuff, even before you listen to one show.  Sounds crazy?  Well you’re probably right but that’s what I did.” Tell you what, first impressions can be powerful and you may still hesitate to listen despite what I just told you so don’t take my word for it.  Here’s what marketing legend Brian Kurtz has to say about joining episode 66 at 46 minutes in, “I can just tell by the way you ask questions and prepare for an interview that you’re someone that really gets all of this email auto responder marketing and that you really want to teach your audience about anything they need to know about email marketing.”  That’s from Brian Kurtz.  Now is the time to drop what you’re doing and listen to the McMethod Email Marketing Podcast.  Sean Douglas, “PS, thank you John for a terrific show and I sure hope I’ve reached rock star level for your show, I could really use a few groupies while listening.”  Sean, the groupies are on the way, I’ll put them in the mail for you this afternoon and they should arrive in 24 hours.  Thanks to this review, you are a legend, I love you, I’ve a huge grin on my face right now and there’s people looking at me weirdly because I’m in a quiet little café and I’m not meant to be smiling like this.  Anyway, that’s it for now, that’s it for that review.  Let’s get into this interview with Miss Megan Macedo.  Hey it’s John McIntyre here, the auto responding guy.  I’m here with Megan Macedo, now Megan is another copywriter, another direct response marketer and she came to me via, once again, like some of the other guests I’ve interviewed for via, you know, somebody recommended her, Julian.  My man Julian, he’s probably be going to be listening to this at some point so hello Julian.  He basically pointed out that Megan’s been doing some really cool stuff and he’d heard like a teleclass or like a webinar that she’d done in the past on customer empathy and really understanding who you’re trying to talk to.  So go ahead, let’s get Megan on, let’s find out what she wants to talk about and let’s make a podcast and have some fun.  So I’ve got Megan here and it’s kinda cool little testimonial that she’s got on her site from Perry Marshall who’s a [inaudible 06:37] but also the testimonial says, “Megan is the Brené Brown of marketing,” and Brené Brown isn’t actually—she’s, I mean, she’s like a PhD researcher she’s got one of the most popular Ted Talk videos online of all time, not Ted access the real Ted and Gravity on vulnerability.  And, you know, she also wrote a book which is worth reading if you’re interested in shame and in man and woman, sounds a bit like ,you know, woo woo but it’s actually fascinating, the whole thing.  But that’s a different story.  But anyway, Perry is saying that Megan is the Brené Brown of marketing and, you know, that’s actually funnily enough what we’re gonna talk about today, it’s not so much about the strategies and the tactics and, you know, another little trick you can plug into your business to make some more money.  I asked Megan what she wanted to talk about because I find that’s the best way to get a good topic, get some good content happening.  And as you’ll find out in a minute, we’re gonna talk about instead of the strategies, instead of the tactics it’s [inaudible 07:26] how to be vulnerable, how to kind of—instead of trying to like create a fake thing that you’re trying to put out there.  I’ll let her explain in a minute, but instead of you putting like a fake persona out there learn to be yourself, open up and create your own sort of persona.  Just be real.  Which sounds kind of scary and also a bit loose.  People need a framework but we’ll get into that in just a minute, Megan, how’re doing? Megan Macedo: Pretty good, John, thank you very much for having me on. John McIntyre: You know, it’s good to have you on the show.  Good to connect.  Now before we get into the topic for today, can you the listener a quick background on who you are, what you do and what you’re all about. Megan Macedo: Yeah, sure.  I’m based in London in the UK and I run a marketing agency so we do consulting and copy and we build sales funnels and direct response web design.  But really what we do is, you’ve kind of touched on it, we help people be themselves when they’re marketing and get paid for who they are without a bunch of hype and gimmicks. John McIntyre: That sounds crazy, this ‘just be yourself’. Megan Macedo: [Laughing] It’s like Vegas [inaudible 08:26]. John McIntyre: Just be yourself, you know, smell some roses, you know. Megan Macedo: Yeah, yeah.  But it’s like—I guess it kind of came from my partial journey because I, like a lot of marketers discovered direct response and just like went on an education binge and like learned everything I could.  And I was already doing web design so started applying what I was learning for clients and stuff like that.  And it got to the stage where I realized I know tons about direct response marketing and I know everything I should be doing, I’m doing it for a lot of clients but for some reason I’m just not really making it work for myself.  It was like I knew everything I should do but I was stuck and that’s when I kind of realized that it’s not about strategy and tactics, it’s not about all that stuff.  There is like more fundamental stuff that I hadn’t figured out which was like how to actually become prolific, how identify what my core philosophy was and how to like actually kind of like get the guts to put myself in my marketing.  Because it was like I had every excuse under the sun for not sending out an email.  And a lot of it’s fear driven, I think, and kind of like overwhelming confusion.  Because it’s like there’s so many things I could and should be doing but because I wasn’t starting from who I was and what was unique about my business.  It was impossible to choose what to start with so I ended up not really doing anything. John McIntyre: Ok, ok.  Tell me about like—could we do this before, what I always like to do before getting to the nitty gritty of someone has to do to be themselves, which [inaudible 10:03] it’s funny once you get used to it you go, it is pretty [inaudible 10:07] just be yourself, there’s not much to it.  But why is it worthwhile doing this?  Like what’s the reward, what’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for someone who figures out how to be themselves? Megan Macedo: I think it’s all about energy and longevity so like if you are following [inaudible 10:21] and templates, that’s hard work because it’s like you’re kind of learning someone else’s system and you’re consciously having to work at it.  Whereas if you figure out how to be yourself and you’re marketing, it just becomes this really natural thing.  So like running out of ideas isn’t something that really happens, creative blocks aren’t an issue, it’s not a case of like, “I sat down today to do an hour of marketing and I just couldn’t think of anything to talk about,” like all that stuff goes away when you’re doing it in a natural way.  It’s kind of the difference between having a conversation with someone who you naturally get along with really well, you share a lot of things with in common, and having a conversation with someone who you just have absolutely nothing in common with, it’s like that’s really hard work. John McIntyre: Yeah. Megan Macedo: So it’s kind of like that, so and if you find a way to put yourself in your market and then it’s, you know, it’s the long game it’s like it’s never gonna run out.  That’s a long-term thing whereas if you’re trying to be something that you’re not really or trying to be something you don’t really care about, then that burns out eventually, that’s a short-term thing. John McIntyre: Ok, ok.  It’s [inaudible 11:27] some people are gonna be like “Well, what about the money?”  Tell me about that, like is this just a strategy to kind of make yourself feel better and kind of get a bit more excited and not run out of ideas?  Or does this translate into revenue and sales? Megan Macedo: It totally translates to—it’s not a case of be yourself in your market or apply strategies and tactics, it’s a case of be yourself in your market and then choose the strategies and tactics that work for you.  So there’s a thing and a film [addendum 11:57] called The Rule of Six, I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he worked as a film editor on like Apocalypse Now and a bunch of big films.  So he has this thing called The Rule of Six and he’s like the things that are important whenever you’re editing film together and the first two things that are most important is the story and the emotion of the scene.  But he says when you go to film school the things that they start teaching you about is all the technical stuff, like how to not break the line position in the room and all that kind of stuff.  So it’s like he has that stuff on his list but they’re like five and six, story and emotion is what they maybe talked to you about an hour in film school but that’s the thing that really makes the difference.  So it’s the same thing, it’s like being yourself in your marketing and figuring out what your core message is and all that kind of stuff.  Like that is the stuff that no one really teaches you because it’s hard to teach, it’s a little bit ethereal, it sounds a little bit woo woo but that’s the stuff that is the most fundamental important stuff.  It’s like the top 20% of if we’re gaining 80/20 on it.  So it’s not a case of, “Just do that and forget about everything else,” it’s like get clear on that and then drill down to, “Ok, now I have a filter from which I can choose which proven strategies and tactics will work for me and my business.  So it’s a case of you don’t have to run around like a headless chicken looking at every shiny object, learning every new strategy and tactic.  You have a filter where you can see something, you come along and you’re like, “Is that relevant to me or is that not relevant to me?”  So you just pick and choose what’s gonna work for you. John McIntyre: Right, right.  To be like, you know, everyone’s personality is a car—would you say is a Ferrari and what is this—everyone’s personality is as cool as a sports car and then the fuel is the strategies and the tactics that they’re gonna use because you can’t—some cars take diesel some take gas, natural gas and some take, you know, petrol or fuel and the difference tactics and strategies they’re the different fuels that you can put into a car but really without the fuel you’re not going anywhere.  So you can’t just be personality, but without the car the fuel’s absolutely useless so you really need that [calf 14:02] and if you are being yourself, probably much more likely to have the Ferrari.  Whereas if you’re just a carbon copy of someone else then you’re probably just a Honda Civic, you know, there’s millions of them out on the road, whereas if you’re being yourself you’re like one of a kind, you know— Megan Macedo: Yeah. John McIntyre: Or if you’re trying to be one of, you know, there’s a hundred of you out there somewhere in the world. Megan Macedo: Yeah, exactly.  And I think that you’ve touched on a huge thing because it’s like having an unshakeable USP on being unique is something that people obsess over and they think it’s like something that they engineer and make up but it’s not, it’s something that you uncover.  If you look at all of the, you know, anybody who think like has a really awesome USP and it’s really allowed them to rise up to the top of their game.  It stands from everything about them, it’s who they are as a person, what their experiences have been, their values and voice, all of that stuff and then the reason it’s so strong is because it’s like virtually impossible to knock-off someone’s entire life experience so, you know, it’s impossible for competitors to come along and steal your USP. John McIntyre: Yeah.  I mean, the good thing to it is like it’s a bit like a reputation where—you can’t steal a reputation off someone.  If they’ve got a reputation for something well they’ve got a reputation for it and it’s unique because it’s their reputation.  To steal a reputation you’d have to steal their entire history which you can’t steal someone’s history.  And so it’s interesting from that angle too. Megan Macedo: Yeah, yeah definitely. John McIntyre: And one thing I think someone’s gonna be wondering about here is this is great for a personal brand sort of business where you have a, you know, small business owner where there’s a face at the front and that kind of thing.  And I bet you someone’s gonna be sitting here go on look, “This works for small players, what if you’re a big company, you know, what if we get a team, what if it’s even a corporate company, does this personality stuff even work for those kind of companies? Megan Macedo: Yeah, it definitely does.  I mean we have clients who have, you know, they have teams and it’s not—so there’s someone who acts as the face of the marketing and it doesn’t really matter who that person is, they don’t have to be the— John McIntryre: Does it have to be a real person? Megan Macedo: It does have to be a real person because it’s like if you’re not using a real person you’re into the realm of you’re trying to fake it, you’re trying to make it up and it becomes incredibly.  So we have clients who the business owner is the face of the marketing but they don’t write any other copy.  They just sit down with someone, maybe like once a year and the person will ask the questions they need to get the material for the stories and stuff like that.  So it doesn’t matter the size of the company, and I actually, in the past, tried to convince one or two big—like really big corporates to try it.  I haven’t and successfully convinced anyone yet but would totally work.  Because, you know, people are always buying from other people, there’s always a name in the company that they know and that, you know, I think in marketing people forget sometimes what we’re doing.  We’re trying to form real relationships so there’s always a human being on the other end and there’s always a human being on the business end so that’s all really what we’re talking about. John McIntyre: Yep, yep.  I like it, I like it.  Let’s get into the nitty gritty then.  How does this actually happen?  So this is like, I mean, you can tell someone who’s really awkward and socially incapable to hey man, just be yourself go talk to that girl, you know, go talk to that boy.  But it’s not as simple as that, it’s not as simple as just relaxing and being yourself especially when you haven’t done it before and you don’t know how to do it.  So there’s a certain art to bringing this out and getting comfortable with so do you have a process that you follow? Megan Macedo: Yeah, so there’s like an in depth process that we probably don’t have time to go through but I can give you the nutshell and it’s actually not as—it’s more scientific probably than you might think and it’s not as daunting as you might think because it’s not about unbridled self-disclosure, it’s about understanding who you are and who your customer is.  So it’s about—the best way to explain it is probably to go back to like marketing basics which is we all know that people buy from people they know, like and trust and the marketing community is massively obsessed with the ‘know’ part of it.  Like how do they know about you?  Traffic and traffic’s like this easy and vulnerable thing so everybody’s obsessed with traffic.  But the ‘like’ and ‘trust’ part is where it gets vulnerable because you have to share who you are.  So how do you get people to like you?  Well people like people who are either like how they are or like how they aspire to be.  So you have to show your customers that you are both like them and like how the aspire to be.  And in this realm, you’re kind of getting to a stage where like you have to view your marketing as art.  It’s like, I think, a big problem that a lot of business owners and marketers have is that they still—even if they’re completely onboard with marketing, they believe in it, they do a lot of it, still somewhere at the back of their mind there’s this belief that like marketing’s a little bit dirty.  It’s like, “Well, I don’t wanna to bombard them, I don’t wanna hassle them, I don’t wanna send too many emails, I don’t wanna put too many messages out there.  John McIntyre: Yeah. Megan Macedo: But you have to flip it around, you have to elevate your marketing in your mind because, as I said, what we’re doing is we’re forming real relationships and so when I say you have to think of your marketing as art it’s like your ideal clients are going through their day, every single day and they’re reading a bunch of stuff and they’re watching a bunch of stuff.  And the reason that people read the books they read or the articles online or the emails or watch the films and TV that they watch is for exactly the same reasons as they will end up liking you.  It’s either they see something in those books or in those films, they see characters that remind them of how they are or how they aspire to be.  So if you view your marketing messages in that same way then it’s like, you know, when Vince Gilligan is writing Breaking Bad he wasn’t thinking, “Should I write another episode?  I don’t know, I don’t wanna annoy them, I don’t wanna bombard them.”  In fact he knows that people are on the edge of their seat waiting to consume more of his stuff.  So you have to get to the stage where that’s how you’re approaching your market.  So the way you do that is you start with the customer first, so we’re not talking about just like machine gun self-disclosure of like, “I’m gonna put myself out there, put myself out there,” start with who your customer is.  So if you think about a Venn diagram, you have three circles.  One is you and you’re made up of all your life experiences, your values and beliefs, your hopes dreams and fears, basically how you see the world.  And then the second circle is your ideal customer, their values and beliefs, their life experiences, all that stuff.  And the intersection point between the two is what I call the Empathy Zone.  So this zone is where you draw your marketing messages from, it’s where your USP comes from, this is where all of the being yourself stuff comes from.  John McIntyre: Yeah. Megan Macedo: So a big mistake that a lot of people make is they hear like, “Oh you should just be yourself in your marketing,” and they go out and they just start writing stories about themselves and they’re pulling from like the entire circle [inaudible 21:15] is them and two things happen.  One is it can turn off a lot of your potential clients because you’re over-sharing and you’ve gone to zones that aren’t relevant to them.  The second thing is it can feel kind of vulnerable and it can feel kind of, “Oh, this is uncomfortable I don’t know if I want to do this.” John McIntyre: Yeah. Megan Macedo: So what they don’t get is that you tell your stories and you show yourself, but really what you’re doing is you’re telling your customers their own stories. John McIntyre: What do you mean by that? Megan Macedo: So you you’re pulling from the empathy zone which means you’re identifying something in your ideal customer.  So you’re like, “Ok, well I know that my customers have a lot of fear around this area and so like something I might write about is I know that a lot of business owners out there, just because of the nature of what they do and their [inaudible 22:05] all have this kind of fear of—they feel a little bit like a fraud sometimes, they feel a little bit like an imposter.  They’re always like maybe just like one or two steps ahead of their clients and they fear the day that a client comes along and asks them to do something that they don’t know how to do.  So I know, ok my clients have a kind of weak spot around this, so what I’ll do is I won’t tell a story about a client feeling like that.  I’ll be like, “Ok, when’s the time that I felt like that, when’s the time that I was afraid of being found out or I felt like an imposter?”  So I’m telling a story from my own life but really I’m reading down a page from their diary. John McIntyre: It’s interesting because one thing that’s going on here is it like the story is not the important part, it’s the emotion that happening.  So when you tell a story about the time that you [fear 22:55] or the time you were scared of saying something, that kind of thing.  What it does is while—I mean this is how we all communicate, is when you’re telling that story, yeah you’re telling it and they’re hearing your story about you.  But they’re imagining the story, you know, we all imagine ourselves in a story.  So if you tell a story like that, they’re putting themselves in those shoes and imagining the same thing happening to them.  Just like when we go to the movies the reason the movie’s interesting is because we’re living through the actors on the screen.  Megan Macedo: Vicariously? John McIntyre: Vicariously!  That sells.  I can’t believe I couldn’t think of that, I want to be a writer.  Megan Macedo: [Laughing] John McIntyre: But yes, so living vicariously through the actors on a screen that’s what’s happening when you tell that story.  Megan Macedo: Yeah, so it’s exactly the same thing in your marketing and you should think of it in those terms.  You should think like you’re writing a mini movie, every email you write is like a mini movie so you have to be sure and ok, “Well how can I let them live vicariously through me?  Not just to see how their life as it is but also how they aspire to be?”  So I like tell—so usually what I do is I’ll tell a story that relates the emotion.  So it’s like I’ve identified, “Ok, they feel like fraud and these scenarios, I’m gonna tell a story of a time when I felt like a fraud.”  And then the resolution at the end is usually kind of—it’s not like it’s cheesy but everything’s great but it’s usually like a positive affirmation of their identity in a way.  So it’s kind of like saying, “Yeah, this stuff happens.  I’m sure you felt like this before and if you’re in business, if you’re an entrepreneur you’re out at the edge, you’re a leader, you have to go into these rounds.”  And this is just like sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it doesn’t feel good but this is part of the game, this is who we are, this is what we signed up for. John McIntyre: It’s funny, one thing I really think it’s kind of interesting is like when people think about like being themselves it’s kind of like we think it’s something you can’t script out, you know you can’t turn into a formula because it’s unique and it sounds like sketchy.  But one way I think about it and the way this makes a lot of sense is when I’m gonna write an email or when we write a sales letter, yeah it’s about, you know, you think about the benefits and the [hooks 25:02] and all that kind of thing.  But when it comes to the story you’re absolutely right on this idea that the story has to be told, like I can’t just tell any random story, the story has to be something that’s gonna resonate with the person on the other end and they’re thinking, “Man, this person gets me, it makes so much sense.  I wanna be…”  You know they wanna be you or they’re thinking, “This guy’s just like me, he understands exactly what I’m going through,” yeah. Megan Macedo: Yeah, totally.  And most people or the bad copywriters will stop, they’ll do that but they’ll stop at a really kind of superficial level.  So they’ll stop at the problem that the product solves, so it’ll be like, you know, “Ok, what problem has this product solved?  Ok, I’ll share with it, I’ll tell a story that demonstrates that I also had this problem and now it’s solved.”  But the really good ones dive deep down into the psyche of the customer.  So it’s almost like, you know, the customer comes, we’ll read the sales page and they’ll watch a video whatever and they’ll come away being like, “I don’t really know why I like that guy but there’s something right with him, I trust him.”  So it’s like—you almost like, because that’s something that I hear a lot from people as well.  It’s like, “You know I sell, I’ve a client who sells natural slate, it’s like I sell natural slate.  How many times can I write an email about natural slate?”  And it’s like— John McIntyre: [Inaudible 26:20] what? Megan Macedo: Natural slate, you know like for slate roofs? John McIntyre: Oh, slate, like a slate roof.  Ok, ok, ok.  I didn’t know what you’re saying slate, natural slate. Megan Macedo: My accent.  So he’s like, “How many emails can I write about slate?  Like people who need don’t care that badly about slate.”  But it’s like you can, you know, when you’re doing your marketing this way you can almost ignore what you sell in a lot of ways which is like incredibly freeing.  Whenever it comes they’ll have them gather your emails so I can stop because you’re connecting with your customer at an upper level.  So you know like whenever I’m talking to clients, whenever I’m writing emails about you feel like a fraud I’m not talking about marketing, I’m not talking about websites but they read the story and by the end of it they’re like, “I wanna buy, what are you selling?  I wanna talk to you, you know, it’s like you get me.” John McIntyre: Yeah.  It’s interesting because like for the empathy to work the empathy has to, you know, really is that story.  It’s not enough to be like, “Well he’s a phrase that’s in my head.”  But it’s that, you know, I know it.  And it works, this is the funny thing, it works that you’re the copy writer and like I’m a copy writer and I know it, it works on me when I land on a page.  Because I have, unless I was completely desireless, of course it’s gonna work.  Because if I’m going through the day thinking, you know, I’ve got low energy and I’ve been eating too much bread and I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning, I couldn’t make it to the gym.  And then someone told a story about how that exact same thing happens it would be like, “Holy shit.  There’d be like whoa, whoa this guy is like exactly—he just nailed it right there.” Megan Macedo: Yeah, yeah.  Totally.  And if they talked about the emotion of, you know, I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning then go to the gym and I felt like a complete piece of garbage.  And they describe that kind of like this real emotion that you experience then you’re completely sold.  You’re like, ok, it’s like they’ve been inside your head.  John McIntyre: It’s incredible.  So I’m curious then, I’m gonna call you out on it.  What’s the story about you then that you share when it comes to this kind of stuff? Megan Macedo: Wow, there’s been so many.  Ok, so something—I don’t know if I’ve ever written about this but from a copywriting perspective I definitely went through a phase where I was writing— I was a copywriter I was writing copy for clients and, you know, clients would ask questions, why’re you doing this, why’re doing that?  And I still—so outwardly I had the kind of [inaudible 28:45] like, “Ah, I know exactly what I’m doing,” and yes, you ask me questions I’ll tell you the answers, I’m talking to clients on the phone it’s like whatever their question was I had an answer because I had to have an answer.  But really behind the scenes I was like frantically, anytime I saw a new product about copywriting or book that I hadn’t read I felt like I just had like this tension and this kind of like massive sense of scarcity that like, “I have no idea what I’m doing here, look at all this stuff that I haven’t learned about copy writing.  And maybe the answers that I’m giving clients are not right.”  And I always had this like fear of other copywriters seeing my copy.  Because it was like, “Oh my God if they see my copy maybe they’ll see that, you know, it’s like oh no actually this is not good copy.”  My biggest fear was like maybe I’m making like really obvious small mistakes.  Because it’s like as you learn to become a copywriter you [spot 29:47] like certain language and it’s like, “Oh God, why are they talking about, what are they saying?”  It’s simple things like don’t say price say investment and it’s like maybe there are things like that that I don’t know that other copywriters are looking at.  And, you know, saying like, “Oh my God she’s not a good copywriter,” and like I’d spoken to clients where they’d be like, “Oh, I spoke to this copywriter and he said this other guy who I thought was good is rubbish,” and it was like, “Oh God, maybe this is happening about me.”  And it was all entirely in my head but it was like there was a period of time where I just couldn’t shake that sense of [inaudible 30:26] and that sense of like I don’t know if I’m any good.  And I think that all copywriters go through that because it’s only natural.  And also when you live in a world where there’s like a new copywriting product that comes out every 30 seconds, you physically can’t digest everything. John McIntyre: Yeah. Megan Macedo: So you’re getting over that kind of [inaudible 30:49] so it’s a huge thing for me and that happened at the time when I went and did the Be Yourself marketing stuff because really what was going on was I was trying to be all things to all men and it was like I was trying to be an expert in every tiny little aspect of copywriting and it was like, “You know what?  That’s not who I am and that’s not what I wanna do.”  And it’s like when you go into being yourself you get this like kind of confidence that comes with it.  Where it’s like this is my area, this is what I do, this is what I’m good at, this is what is naturally a great fit for me.  And you have this new kind of confidence and also it gives you permission to be like, “Oh that thing over there, that’s not really my area, let me put you in touch with someone who’d be better to write copy in that niche or whatever it is. John McIntyre: Yeah, yeah.  Nice.  Ok, ok.  So then what happened?  Was there a turning point where you—because I think this is really interesting, this is really relevant.  What was the turning point that triggered like to going from the scarcity thinking to, you know, “I’ve got this.”  Was there a single moment when it sort of clicked or was like a very gradual process that will, you know, confidence that built over time? Megan Macedo: It was kind of a gradual thing but the moment where it solidified was I did a day’s consulting with Perry Marshall, he came to London a few years ago and he hot seated me.  And this was what I kind of wanted to work on where I was like, “Oh God, I feel like my business is doing one thing but I really care about another thing and there is an overlap but I haven’t quite made it all work yet.  And so we talked through it for the day and didn’t come away with anything like crystal clear, ok this is what I should do, but I had more clarity in my head like where I wanted to go.  But I decided, soon as I’d spent all that money on the consulting, then I should at least do something.  So Perry had kind of flippantly suggested that I should do a 30 in 30, 30 emails in 30 days.  So it’s like, ok I’ll do this 30 in 30 and I didn’t really have an outcome for it, it’s just like oh, I’ll start putting myself in [inaudible 32:58] it’ll just be a way to make sure that I do something with the stuff I’ve learned.  And that 30 in 30, I think you can still get on my website, I call it 30 days of self disclosure and that was where I started putting myself into my marketing and basically kind of practicing what I had been quietly preaching.  And that was when—when I did that and I started to see the response it was getting from my list, that was like whenever it kind of like clicked.  Then it was like ok—like the sense of confidence came from there.  It was like, ok this is the thing, this works, I don’t need to worry about it I just need to go with it. John McIntyre: Nice.  Yeah, I can see it on your website right here.  That’s very cool.  So we’re right on time here but it sounds like one of the best ways for someone to—next steps for someone to go check out would be this course.  But if people want to learn more about you or about the self-disclosure thing or even about this general idea of being vulnerable, where’s the best place for them to do that? Megan Macedo: So the best place to go, we made a lot of film at the Amber last year which kind of sums it all up, it’s like 12 minutes long, you can see it on meganmacedo.com/b-yourself. John McIntyre: Great.  What I’ll do is I’ll have a link to that in the show notes at the mcmethod.com.  I just found the video here, so this looks interesting.  A film about one business owner’s journey from entrepreneurial blog and personal crisis to freedom fulfilling marketing that matters.  Very cool.  Megan, thanks for coming on the show. Megan Macedo: Thanks for having me, John, it’s been fun. The post Episode #101 – Megan Macedo on Smashing Goals and Kicking Ass In Business By Being Yourself (develop the ultimate USP and much more) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

A couple years ago Ian was living at his parents house trying to make his first dollars online. Today Ian is not only successful, He’s shot himself up the copywriter rankings and is kind of a big deal now. Because of Ian’s success, and the fact that he’s got an email marketing course out right now, He’s the perfect person to share the microphone and help me turn the tables for the big One Zero Zero podcast: In this episode Ian interviews me on my journey way back from pre-McMethod days of misled youth, ..to finally discovering a purpose… and flat out going for it. There are tangents. And stories. And tons of great advice and nuggets of wisdom. This interview illustrates how sucking it up and moving forward with purpose in life is a transformational process. How it completely transformed me.. It shows that when you want something in life, You CAN attain it. The McMethod Podcast is proof of this. Ian’s journey is another wonderful example, and proof of this. Because luck and opportunity don’t just fall on your lap. Sometimes you have to power forward until you find those opportunities and force luck to find you. This episode has a lot of mine and Ian’s thoughts on getting started, growing, and handling the inevitable ups and downs. After hearing it, You’ll be able to apply the same strategies, And in the long run you’ll be on top.. You’ll benefit from now having the necessary mindset needed to keep yourself going until you succeed. In this episode, you’ll discover: how success in internet marketing and business in general is 90% mental (master your thoughts and you’ll master life) how I mastered the back and forth struggle of questioning and doubting this entrepreneurial path I’m on (never think that you can’t control your every action, because you can) the origin-story behind my “The Autoresponder Guy” name (learn where it came from and why) how to position yourself as an expert (in unique ways) to bolster to your credibility & grow your business faster that getting it done is far more important than getting it perfect (this philosophy has carried me this far and will carry you too) the extreme dangers of having a fear of failure (always welcome failure.. brush it off your shoulder every time if you truly want to be successful) a mindset shifting tip that will jumpstart your entrepreneurship takeoff and reduce your business growing pains how to choose your ideal identity, and then anchor that choice to all the actions you make in line with that person (put your actions in line with your business) how I would go out there today with a clean slate (no resume, samples, or case studies) and find clients right away without doing advanced and daunting strategies like cold calls and email the importance behind building a list as a freelance copywriter (make sure you do these things now so that a year later you can reap the benefits every day) the mighty goals that The McMethod are reaching for today (learn what type of clients I want and how I plan on getting them) the godsend metric that ROI is and how you can use it to catapult your asking rates tricks of the trade that will turn your part time freelance income into a full time copywriting career Mentioned: 80/20 Email Copy CopyHour As A Man Thinketh (Want to change your life? Read this book) Positioning Daring Greatly Lifestyle Business Podcast Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO Raw transcript: Coming Soon The post Episode #100 – Ian Stanley Interviews Me on The McMethod Podcast’s Journey of 100 Episodes (discover the mindset & lessons I learned along the way) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Have you felt the client search struggle? Do you know that struggle all too well? Has the client search beaten you up lately? We’ve all been there. It’s part of the game we play called entrepreneurship. No matter how effective your service is, Or how much money you make for your clients… …gaining new contracts is never an easy gig. Rare is the the client that just lands on your lap. And rarer is the PERFECT CLIENT that comes looking for you. That’s why we cold call, cold email, network and more…. That’s why we develop lead generation strategies and scripts that close deals. So how’s your client search gone lately? Unless you’re completely flooded with work and have no means to keep up the prospecting, You MUST listen to Rob Williams. Rob lands clients like it’s peanut butter and jelly. And he enables you to do the same. Whether it’s through his Done For You lead gen service, Or with his client landing cold email strategies that you start implementing for yourself, Rob has nothing but value to offer all types of professionals and entrepreneurs that service clients with anything from web design to copywriting services and find those clients through email marketing.   In this episode, you’ll discover: how Robert went from having no clients, and scrambling online to find just one… to having a successful consultancy with constant work and cash flow the fact that referrals are gold in freelance, but not always possible to get (learn how to not need or rely on referrals) why too much copywriting can be just as bad as not enough copy in your cold client-outreach emails how to have compassion for your readers, and maybe win them over by being kind enough not to send them a book’s worth of writing (your prospects are busy, stressed out people.. don’t exacerbate it with daunting emails) the difference between a cold email and a broadcast or autoresponder email (these are not the same) the few things to do when getting started with writing a client landing cold email (don’t worry over blank screen syndrome ever again) the number one way you can avoid getting into your destination’s trash can why as a freelancer, you shouldn’t ever rely on scripts (you never have more than a handful of clients at a time, so don’t write to the masses when cold outreaching) how to actually connect to others as a real authentic person through cold emails (not usually the easiest gig, but not as hard as you might think to accomplish) example emails I use in my client outreach.. the dumbest thing you can say in a client outreach email (..sure to not land you the job) the fact that pitching people is not bad or resented… unless it’s un-targeted email Mentioned: EmailsThatWin.com Let’s Workshop Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO   Raw transcript: Download PDF transcript here. Well, hello, it’s John McIntyre here, the autoresponder guy. It’s time for Episode 99 of the Mc-Method Marketing podcast where you’ll discover how to get more customers with less effort by using automated email marketing techniques and strategies. Pretty bad-ass stuff. Now today I’ll be talking to Robert Williams. Robert came here a couple of weeks ago, he’s actually just released a book on Emails That Win Clients. Simple as that, right? A lot of people who have services to offer, get online, go and get a list of email addresses from companies that may need their help and then email them. Cold emailing. Contrary to what a lot of people think, it actually works, but you have to do it right, okay? And a lot of people who’ve been in this game, and trying to get copywriting clients, trying to get sales funnel clients or whatever it happens to be, is, you know, they struggle, you know, it can be really, really hard and you sit down and you do a hundred emails, and get one reply, and the one reply says, “Stop sending me emails.” It happens. And so I thought I’d get Robert on the show to kinda talk about, well, what’s his strategy, what are the mistakes that people are making when it comes to cold emails and what can they do to rectify those mistakes and start increasing their close rate when it comes to those cold emails. So if you’re looking for more clients, or you’re using cold emailing your strategy whether as to get guests for your own podcast, multi-fine business deals with [The Go] and LinkedIn, this is gonna be a podcast that’s really, really useful to you. To get the show notes for this episode of the Email Marketing podcast, go to themcmethod.com/99. We’re one week away from the 100th celebratory episode! And we got something cool coming on next week. Anyway, now, our first thing is just a reminder that if you’d like to work personally with me to help, you know, if you’d like my personal one-on-one attention to help create your email autoresponding campaign, create a wholesales phone for you, and uh, just depending on whatever you need, uh, I can certainly do that, yeah, next thing, or next step, send me an email at john@themcmethod.com, tell me what you’re looking for or what you need, and uh, we’ll get on to skype in the next few days, or next week, to discuss your projects, and then we’ll have some fun with it, we’ll get you some customers. And this week’s McMaster’s inside of the week is a pretty boring one, to be honest. Accountability, and uh, this is huge, it takes a long time to understand, but if you don’t have someone that getting accountable with your goals, with your vision, you’re just not gonna follow through, okay? It’s as simple as that. You need to find some accountability, whether it’s with a friend, a mentor, a business partner, you need to get it sorted. And this is why one of the things inside McMaster’s, inside the forum is an accountability section where every week, you post an update on what you’re gonna do in your business this week, what goals you’re gonna accomplish, and why it’s important to you, and uh, we’ll follow up and keep you accountable to make sure that you’re following through with your tasks. Keeping you accountable is the secret to success. Now we’ve got one review today, it’s 5-stars, and it’s 5-stars with email marketing, this one’s from Hugo S. Marino from the United States, “Love the podcast, mate. The information is jampacked with knowledge you only get if you actually hired some of this guys, keep up the good work. P.S. cool radio voice, cool radio voice. P.P.S. you owe me a beer.” And that’s fair enough, that is fair enough. Hugo, thanks for the review, mate. You’re absolutely right with, when it comes to the podcast, you know what, the great thing is I can email someone like John Carlton, or you know, one of these big dogs, one of these gurus and be like, “Hey can we get on the phone and just have a chat about my business and I can ask you questions?” then you’re like, “No way!  He’s my paypal buying [inaudible, 3:13] for 10,000 dollars.” Meanwhile, if I go to them and say, “Hey, I’ve got a podcast, do you wanna do an interview and I’ll ask you questions about my business and we’ll create a whole episode about it,” they go, “Yeah, sure!” So that’s one of the great things about podcasting. Free coaching is one way to look at it, and uh, you get the benefit of that by listening to this podcast. So that’s that. Thanks again Hugo for the review, now let’s get into this interview on cold emails with Mr. Robert Williams. It’s John McIntyre here, the autoresponder guy. I’m here with Robert Williams. Now, Robert uh, has really interesting stuff going on, he’s gonna make a great podcast, a great interview. He’s just launched a new book called Emails That Win You Clients. So what I like about that is very simple, very straightforward, and uh, I think it’s very applicable to, to a lot of listeners to this podcast. Even me, I’m really looking forward to this conversation because, because I do a fair bit of client work myself, with uh, creating, you know, autoresponders, and sales pages, and sales funnels, and split testing, and all that kind of stuff. So this is gonna be, basically this is, Robert’s gonna share a strategy or a few different strategies, a way to kinda use cold emails to get clients, basically. Not just you know, tiny little measly clients that don’t pay much, but big deals, you know, proper deals, that can build you a very very decent income. So uh, things like, what should you say first, what if you sound spammy, how do you frame yourself, how do you get the right tone for the email, we’ll get into all that stuff today, and you’ll also get a chance to buy Robert’s book. That’s at emailsthatwin.com. He also, he’s also got a great site called Let’s Worskshop, and as far as I understand, he basically sends you freelance leads that you can email today and make money. So instead of you going and get the leads, he gets the leads for you and just gives them to you, and you can email them yourself, which is a pretty cool service, he’ll probably talk about that too. So Robert, how are you doing man? Robert Williams: I’m doing good, man. Thanks for having me. John McIntyre: Good to have you on the show, man. So I did like a very quick intro there based on you know, what we chatted about before I hit record. Can you give the listener a bit more of a background on who you are, what you do, and uh, what this whole cold email strategy is all about? Robert Williams: Sure. So I think like, probably a lot of listeners, I went to uh, I went to an art school, and once I graduated, I kinda came out dreaming of like an agency job, or maybe like a start-up job, and I was prepared to do that. Have a nice portfolio and I emailed, you know, a bunch of different agencies,  I ended up working at one and realized that it was not my, you know, the ideal dream job that I have been dreaming of. Uhm. John McIntyre: Why is that? What’s wrong with working a job? Robert Williams: Well for me, it was not controlling my future, not controlling how much money I was making, or even the work that I was working on, it was somebody telling me what to do and stuff. John McIntyre: Yeah. Robert Williams: And so o that’s when I started looking at freelancing, a little bit more seriously. Uhm, and so, what I ended up doing was going out on my own, and looking for freelance clients online, and kinda building a consultancy based of, basically no clients, and uhm, looking for them online, uhm, and I ended up doing that for a year and a half. And so starting kinda from scratch like that was a, was a kind of a unique experience for me. A lot of times you hear on the internet, like, freelancing is all about feast or famine, and you know, you go from one extreme to the other, of like having tons of clients and having zero the next day. And a lot of the mean out there on the internet is like, the only real way to get work is through referrals, which, which, like I’m not gonna lie, referrals are huge, and it’s great if you can get them, but uhm, I just knew that there was like, other ways to get freelance work, you know. You can’t just start out getting referrals all the time. So, John McIntyre: This is true. Because that’s, it’s so true. This is why, when people start, it’s just like, “Well I don’t have any clients, I don’t have any case studies, so I can’t get any, what do I show people? So I can’t get referrals.” It’s kinda like, “I don’t know where to start.” Robert Williams: Exactly. And so, what I ended up doing was like looking for leads online, looking for uhm, different opportunities I could kinda contact, cold contact and what ended up working for me was a few different things I noticed was, and we can get into all of it a little bit later, but uhm, what basically came from that, was I noticed I can get clients on my own, uhm I don’t need referrals, I don’t have to at least only rely on referrals, and I don’t have to just be sitting and waiting for work to come to me. And once I realized that, it was just about taking the time to kind of find the opportunity to call through all of them and kind of realize which ones were gonna pan out and be successful clients for mine, of mine. And once I did that, uhm, I realized it was taking a lot of my time. I wished I could kind of hire another web designer to do it for me. Because I had tried like a VA, I had tried getting my girlfriend to do it for me, and they were just like, kinda lost in it because they weren’t web designers themselves and so they couldn’t really identify the clients. So that’s why I started workshop was uhm, I was noticing it was taking me a really long time to do it, and uhm, and I wished I could hire like a web designer, or like another freelancer to do it for me, because uhm, at that time I was trying to get my girlfriend to do it, or get my VA to do it, and they just really didn’t understand what a good client looked like. Uhm, and that’s why I had the idea for Workshop, which was me basically taking this over for freelancers and looking all over the internet for the best opportunities, and sending out the ten best ones every day, and so that way the freelancer can only focus on contacting them and winning the work, uhm, building the relationship with the client, which is what freelancers really wanna focus on anyway. Uhm, and so, so that kind of brings me to the point of the book, which is Emails That Win Clients, Win New Clients. In the past year and a half I’ve been working with all these hundreds of freelancers, that they get the leads I send them, and I’ve been able to kind of extract the patterns of like, what, the people who struggle, and the people who land client after client in the service. And what I’ve noticed is like, the people who don’t succeed with the Workshop, the people who struggle, the people who keep having kind of the famine, the feast or famine flagpole, they all do the exact same, almost word for word, tactics in their emails. So I started working with them, I worked with, you know, over 50 different uh, freelancers and sent out hundreds, maybe thousands of emails by now to all these different clients and what I ended up noticing was like, I was just basically repeating the same thing over and over to all these freelancers, uhm, and that’s when I decided to kind of put it all in one place, in a book that could be, it could be referred to and I could send that out instead just because I was getting kinda tired of repeating it. John McIntyre: Yeah. Robert Williams: And so, so that’s where it came from, and I think, do you wanna get into like what the book is about, like specific tactics and everything, or, John McIntyre: Give me a rundown, like tell me, first talk to me like, is this, we’re talking about designers and developers, but as a copywriter I know that these kind of strategies like with, it’s about the, who are you trying to talk to, so what are this, what are you trying to sell, design stuff or develop, Robert Williams: Yeah.  John McIntyre: Or copyrighting. It’s all, Robert Williams: Exactly. John McIntyre: In your work. Robert Williams: Yeah. But I see it, this will probably all resonate more with your, with your, with copywriters, because copywriters kind of understand some of the fundamentals, and so like a basic rundown would be, you know, I kept seeing the same mistakes happening which was, emails were extremely long, emails were focused like completely on the purpose of writing the email, they didn’t provide like a single call to action or a single next step that could be done, they were kind of all over the place, kind of typical copywriting errors, I think. John McIntyre: And it’s funny too, like cause I’ve seen, I got a friend of mine who’s [inaudible 10:49], who’s doing some of this, uh, some of this like code average stuff,  and he’s not a copywriter, he does some different kinda stuff, but he’s right now, he’s really trying to build that, like that marketing process to bring on new clients. Some sort of reliable way that he can, you know, bring on new dills. And uh, you know, you know, we used to work in an office together, so you know, once a day, you know, once, twice a week, he’ll come over to me and say, “Well can you check out this email, what do you think?” And often, it’s funny, cause he’s trying to think like a copywriter, which is interesting, cause he tries to go in there and tries to have some benefits, and tries to make it interesting and compelling, and that kinda thing. But when I look at it, I’m like, “Dude, if this is a cold email, you can’t write them 200 words and give them a whole story and explain everything.” All you really wanna say is, I mean, you can correct me if I’m wrong, cause you’re this, you’re the [guy that’s busts out of it], you’re the cold email guy. But I think it’s like you sell it, it should be like two or three sentences, like just checking in, here’s, you know, do you have this problem if so, let me know and let’s have a chat. And uh, what I’ve seen, or the mistakes I’ve seen is when they go into that, here’s what I do, here’s all about this, here’s all the reasons why you should probably contact me. And like the thing could, the one mistake could be like not using copywriting at all, and the other thing is thinking that, the other mistake is thinking that you need way too much copywriting. Robert Williams: Yeah, exactly. And, and, and those are probably the two biggest, uhm, issues I see is like there’s, the, there’s on one hand the extremely long email that nobody’s gonna read ever in their entire life cause it’s sucks the life out of you, and on the other hand is like the one sentence email that’s like, hey I’m a freelancer, you know. And so the two extremes you definitely wanna stay away from but if you’re gonna, I mean, a shorter email, I just, is way more uhm, compassionate for the reader, like, everybody’s busy, everybody is focused on themselves and they, you know, everybody is stressed out, they don’t wanna read this huge long email. So, considering that, it’s a little different for like, email newsletters or like, autoresponders, stuff like that. When you’re cold emailing somebody, you definitely have to cut, uhm, keep it as short as possible. John McIntyre: Yeah. Yeah. So talk to me about that, so what’s the, do you have like a framework, or a strategy, or some sort of blueprint that you use when you cold email someone? Robert Williams: So it’s, yeah, there’s a few things I always do when I , you know, getting started with writing the email, uhm, and I think it’s, the key is you wanna stay away from getting put in the trashcan, alright? And the number one way, like, when you check, when you check your email, the first thing you’re looking for, is how can I, you know, throw this, this email in the trash, and the first thing you think is, is this email spam, right? And that’s something that I’ve, I’ve noticed a lot too. In the book I go into like, I don’t think freelancers should use scripts, or at least they shouldn’t fo-, they shouldn’t rely on scripts too much because, you know, a freelancer only needs a handful of clients, they don’t need thousands and thousands of clients or customers, so focusing in on like a one-to-one basis, like the way you write your emai.l it should be in order to not be spammed. Like the definition of spam is like an email that you can send out to thousands of people right? And so if you write the email in a way that you’re focusing on the person that you’re writing to, as opposed to yourself, that tells the person opening up your email, like, this person took good time to like, understand who I am, first of all, he knows my first name, you know, it’s obvious it’s not spam at that point. And so I think that’s the first thing you have to do is like make sure that there’s no way that this email can be misconstrued as like, spam, and uhm, it’s authentic, and, cause, everybody’s inboxes is full of spam, that’s the number one, I think, thing that freelancers don’t do either. Freelancers kinda focus on themselves. They send an email out that could literally be sent to anybody because it’s all focused on themselves, like, I went to, you know, college, I had this job, I had these clients, this is my website, this is my work, I do this, you know. And so, so that’s the number one thing. John McIntyre: Okay, okay. So how do they do that though? Like it’s, it’s one thing to kinda, to, to understand that idea. Robert Williams: Yeah. John McIntyre: Well, how do you actually do it? How do you actually connect with someone and come across as a real person? What like, down to like, how do you kinda script this, cause, well here’s an example, alright, I’ll give you an example of some emails that I’ve been sending out to people, and you tell me if this is, let me see, I’ll bring them up right now. So what I do is I get a list of people who use certain soft wares online, you know, email marketing software like infusionsoft and ontraport and that kinda, we got their first name, I have the software platform they’re using, I have their website, their company name, so what I did with it is, I’m bringing the email up. So I emailed someone basically saying that, “Hey names, hey Robert, I just know, I just saw that you’re using infusionsoft on your website emailsthatwin.com, just wondering if you’re happy with it. You’re paying a lot for it, are you happy with the results you’re getting with it? Let me know.” Robert Williams: Right. John McIntyre: That was more or less the email. I was kinda like trying to be personal, be quick and to the point as well. Robert Williams: Yeah and the, that email is focused on me the reader, it’s not focused on you or anything about what you’re doing or you know, anything in terms of that way right? So that’s, that’s great. And that’s uh, I think, you, have you seen success with that email? Have you sent it out? John McIntyre: I have actually. I mean, one got a reply and he’s just like, “Man that was an amazing cold email”. So it’s working. Robert Williams: Well, yeah. I mean, the other thing too is that you’re providing a very clear question there. A lot of times people end like they get down to the bottom of the email after they write this 4, 5, 6, paragraph email, and they don’t know how to close it because at that point, it’s like, this huge brain dump of an email, uhm, and so like, they don’t know one thing that can say, they don’t know you know how this kind of all ties together and so what they end up doing is they end up leaving it to the person they’re emailing, so what they’ll say is, they’ll say, they might even literally say it like, “Hey, let me know if there’s a fit here,” like, “let me know if this all makes sense,” or “let me know if you think I can help you.” And at that point, it’s like, if you don’t know if you can help somebody there’s no reason you should be emailing them. The only reason you should be emailing them, is if you know you can help them, you know? As somebody who gets emailed, like that’s the only reason why I wanna get an email from somebody, or if they’re gonna be pitching me something, you know? John McIntyre: Yup. And this is the thing, I mean, people think that pitching is bad. And uh, but you know, I’m tired of pitching when you don’t actually know much about who you’re trying to pitch is bad. It’s just not gonna work, but if you go in there and you’re like, like we’re all business people, so you’ll have problems, and you know, everyone in the marketplace has problems that they need to solve, so if you’re cold emailing someone all you really need to do, I mean, they’re looking for solutions, and if you come across as like, tell them, well, you know, here you go, you’ve got this problem and I know exactly how to, you know, solve this problem for you. Robert Williams: Right. John McIntyre: Let me know if you wanna have a quick chat about it on skype sometime. It’s really hard to ignore an email about that, cause it’s got nothing to do with, like, at the end of the day, and I, teach people this in uh, in my programs, it’s got nothing to do with you as a business, you as a copywriter, you as whoever you are, it’s all about what’s in it for them. And, Robert Williams: Ex-, yeah. John McIntyre: Whether you like it or not, it’s what people are gonna be thinking consciously or unconsciously when they read your emails. Robert Williams: Totally and not only does it not have anything to do, they, they don’t wanna buy you as a copywriter, they don’t even wanna buy the copy that you write. John McIntyre: Yeah. Robert Williams: What they wanna buy is like the outcome of what the copy is, or like you said, the solution and the benefit of that solution, so, that’s why I think you shouldn’t really focus on your portfolio, to like, sell your, sell your work for you or to sell you know, help you win more work. Portfolios are usually like pretty boring for anybody who’s not the freelancer of sending it over. And so, I don’t know, that’s uh, that’s, actually that’s a really good point to make is that the solution is what people are buying, the benefit of the solution. John McIntyre: Yeah. Robert Williams: And not the work, not the, you kno, this, the, the first part, right? John McIntyre: Right. I mean, this is, this is nothing too, it’s like if someone wants a website, or they just want, you gotta avoid presenting yourself as a commodity. Like if you’re just another copywriter and there’s no reason for them to get on the phone with you and have a chat or even hire you, I mean, they, you’re one among tens of thousands of copywriters. So worse if you go out and that was part of you know, the reason, the reason I, you know, started calling myself the autoresponder guy, cause the idea, was you know, when I go on the phone with someone, when I was having a conversation with someone, I could be like, well, yeah I would say this explicitly, but the, the, I would imply, that well yeah , you can go and hire, you can go and hire a copywriter to write your emails, but wouldn’t you rather hire the autoresponder guy. Robert Williams: Right. John McIntyre: It’s more like, would you rather hire a generic web designer or would you rather hire a, you know, web designer who only works with gardening companies, and you just happened to be a gardening company. Well of course you’re gonna hire the gardening web designer. So, part of this comes to, you can’t just go in with an unsolicited pitch and you’re just like, I’m a web designer and I’m really good and I’ve got a great portfolio, cause that’s what everyone says. You’d have to have something different in the email or on the phone. Robert Williams: So like, last year, I was uhm, there’s this time, there’s this, I have a story that kind of talks about to what you’re saying. Last year I was looking for a used car, and I did, I did a bunch of research, I, you know, I, I, even bought this book on like how to negotiate for used cars and all this stuff, and I, once I started the process like, I emailed a bunch of people, I, uhm, I found, well first, I found like a few cars that kinda match what I was looking for, and I emailed them all, and we all started to kinda  the negotiation process with like 5 or 6 different peo-, different car dealers. And then a few days later I found, I found like the exact perfect car I wanted to buy, uhm, Honda Accord and it had like, every-, the car I wanted, and everything else I wanted, I know the guy and I told him, “Hey can you lower the price?” At that point, he had like exactly what I wanted, right? He emails me back and says, “Hey man, I would love to lower the price but I can’t because our dealership prices is low at possible at all times and our customers love that about us, and so I hope you will love that too about us.” And that may or may not be true, he might lower prices for some people, but at that point, you know, as opposed to, like, I might have been able to even get him down a few thousand dollars, or I might have been able to get another car for cheaper, but it wouldn’t be the exact car that I want, right? And so what this kinda ties back with you, is like, you niched down and you became the autoreponder guy, all the other cop-, if somebody wants autoresponders, all the other copywriters no longer, are no longer you, you know. It’s no longer about choosing between these five copywriters, it’s between choosing these 5 copywriters and the autoresponder guy, you know? So, I think, once you have something that you know people want and it, it, it sets a different game up, right? Have you seen that since you’ve, since you made the change? John McIntyre: Absolutely. That was one of the best things I’ve done. Uhm, the, you know, something I’ve done from, that was a year and a half ago, two years ago, I mean, it’s, it’s probably changing and morphing right now. But, niching down, it’s not like nich-, people think niching down is like, you know, you exclude yourself from the rest of market, and that’s partially true, but I mean, really what’s, you just in a way, you differentiate yourself, it’s not like, it’s not rocket science, all you’re really saying is like, what makes you different, like, you know, if I’m talking to a web designer or a copy writer, and I’m like, look, there’s a hundred thousand copywriters, there’s thousands of copywriters out there, why should I hire you, what makes you different? Robert Williams: Right. John McIntyre: And it’s really just what’s your answer to that question, you know. People go with the unique selling proposition you can say like niching down, or positioning, like a positioning statement. But at the end of the day, it’s kinda like, why are you different? Because if you’re not different, then it doesn’t actually matter whether I go with you or any of the other, you know, 10,000 copywriters out there, any other web designers out there. Or you know, if you’re just buying that car that you want, that car instead of just being one of a kind, you found the one that you wanted, there might have been, you know, 50,000 of that exact type, like if there was, if there was 50,000 copies of that exact car that you wanted, then there’s, you wouldn’t have needed to go with that car. Robert Williams: Yeah, exactly. And, but because there was only this one and it was you know, it only came up and it had everything I wanted and I couldn’t find it anywhere else, price at that point becomes less important, you know? Price, it’s, it’s no longer, you’re not comparing apples anymore, you’re comparing something you really want, and that’s far and above everything else versus something that you know, you’re gonna haggle, you can haggle down a little bit. John McIntyre: Yeah, yeah. So it’s  interesting how this stuff, how much this stuff applies like to positioning and having the USP, having the unique selling proposition applies to, applies to cold emailing in the sense that, really what’s good to offer here, if you don’t have anything good to offer, then cold emailing is gonna, gonna struggle with it. And by good to offer, you better have something that distinguishes from, you know, from everyone else. And if you don’t have that in place, then cold emailing is gonna be an uphill battle. However, if you can nail that down, it’s gonna make going and reaching out to people a lot, a lot easier. Robert Williams: Yeah. And I think you definitely, if you’re a freelancer you definitely have something people wanna buy, I don’t think you necessarily have to think of it in terms of like, niching it down, or like, in terms of like getting really specific about one thing, I think just becoming really clear about the benefits of the work that you do, and I think that’s almost enough to, to kinda dominate because most people, really have no idea what the true value is of their work. And so if you can present that kinda clearly, and like in words people understand, for example, in design and development, there’s all these terms and even copywriting, there’s all these like, vague industry terms, like for example, those new [exs], there’s you know, uhm, Ruby on Rails, PHP, there’s all these different, this jargon, right? And it’s the same in copywriting, like uh, headlines, you know, subheads, and all these other industry jargon, and what I find is like a lot of times the people who are struggling, they kind of rely on this stuff, like as a crutch, like, hey I’m a U-ex researcher, and to the client you’re not that thing, you are, you’re the person, that like, updates their website, or like decides what to put on their website right? And so I think becoming a lot clearer about like the way you communicate with people, like realize that that client hasn’t studied copywriting for five years, so they, so if you try selling them in a way that talks about copywriting, it’s gonna go over their head, and you’re not gonna present your value. Uhm, so yeah, I mean, I don’t think it has to be quite so like, you have to niche down and only focus on one thing, but if you do that it does allow you to kind of uh, anchor on that, and if it’s something people understand like autoresponders or uhm, if they’re looking for that thing in specific, it is gonna, it’s gonna help you a lot in terms of, of, of the value you present. John McIntyre: Right. Robert Williams: Uhm. John McIntyre: Right. So this is the question of empathy of like, people are gonna take, before you, you know, if you’re gonna talk to someone you really have to communicate on their level which requires, what is the fast thing you know, like, copywriting, cause writing a cold email, which essentially is copywriting,   it’s not so much the words you put in there, it’s about understanding, there’s not like a perfect set of words or a perfect template. Robert Williams: Yeah. John McIntyre: It’s just about understanding, having empathy for who you’re trying to talk to and really understanding them, and the language they’re gonna use, and what their needs, wants, dreams, and desires are. Robert Williams: Yeah, exactly. That’s, that’s kind of the key to unlocking any type of customer, right? It’s understanding them and what I always say, anything that you come up with is not gonna be as good as, at selling to selling to a customer, than as something they came up with. So if you’re contacting somebody like with a job posting, that wrote, they literally wrote what they want, and what they’re looking for in the job post, so looking and pulling phrases from a job post, is almost always gonna be, resonate with the people you’re emailing ten times more because they wrote those words and said, I want this, or this is, you know, or extracting form their words what they’re looking for, uhm, that’s often times like enough to uh, to kinda go off on a cold email. John McIntyre: Yeah. Robert Williams: Cause a lot of times freelancers kinda get hung up, there’s no, there’s no business name, there’s no blog, you know, I don’t know enough about the client to email them, I don’t have enough, uhm, it’s too vague, and if you look at their job post, they’re saying, okay I want this website because of this, and uhm, can you help me with this specific issue I’m having. It’s like, if they’re having this technical issue, or they’re not getting enough uh, uh leads coming in the door, then it’s pretty clear like what the, what the benefit is that you’re gonna be selling them, and that’s all you really need to have in the email. John McIntyre: Interesting. Robert Williams: And kind of reflecting their words is always gonna be uh, more powerful. John McIntyre: Absolutely. That’s the key. That is the key. So let’s sum it up then, and uh, then we’ll wrap it up. Sounds like, you’re gonna write email, obviously, you need to figure out what, how you’re gonna stand out. Basically, you’ll just be solving your own problems, so go and figure out what your clients want, what your prospects want, what those leads want, and work those things into the email, and if you can, you can get the actual phrases that have used in ,you know, job advertisements, that kind of thing in there. And then when it comes to actually writing the email, you need some sort of attention getting headline, which is pretty standard, and then the email should be fairly short and to the point, and have a very clear call to action on what they should do next, if they’re interested in talking with you. Robert Williams: Yeah, yeah. And I think one big key here, that we should, we should kinda go over or kinda mention again, is removing you from the email, so it’s not at all about you, like, I almost always recommend that any sentence that starts with like, “I” or that has “me” in it or “my company” or “what I do,” uhm, that be replaced with the word “you” in it, and it kinda forces you to no longer talk about yourself, and talk about the other person, or if you’re gonna talk about yourself, talk about it in terms of what the other person’s gonna get. And there’s a few examples in the book, there’s actually a ton of different, like, every kind of concept we talked about it, there’s a specific example for each one. And so, so yeah, that’s kind of the, the, the one thing I think we should underline here is taking yourself out, like it’s not about you, the email you’re sending isn’t about you, it’s about the person you’re emailing. And the only goal you have in the cold email, there’s one thing you want, and that’s for the person to reply to the email. Anything that doesn’t help get a reply to the email is a, is a, is, should be eliminated completely from the email. So if you’re showing your portfolio, if you’re, you know, if you’re trying to exhibit like some charm or some wit in your email, you know, all these different things people feel like they have to do in an email, like introduce my company, uh, link my website, none of that stuff is gonna help you get a reply to the email, so it should be eliminated uhm, completely. John McIntyre: Nice, nice. I love that. So let’s wrap it up. Hey man, we’re right on time. Before we go though, tell me uh, tell the listeners a little bit about Emails That Win, Emails That Win New Clients, and what they’re gonna learn in the book. Robert Williams: So it’s basically what we talked about today, but uhm, it’s kind of like in chronological order, so it’s like, how to start writing an email, how to, you know, write your first few words down, how to write the subject is at the beginning, and then how to close the email is at the end. How to, how to end it, and how to have a real strong call to action is at the end, so you can basically uhm, open it up with, you know, if you’re on Gmail writing your email, you can open up the book, and kinda go step by step, kinda like a checklist of like, okay here’s how I should start it, here’s how, here’s what should be in the middle, kinda work it off of that. And it talks completely about everything we mentioned today and it breaks down every concept we’ve talked about, uhm, and how to do it specifically. You know, how to start an email, how to start,how to not babble, how to not send unsolicited crap emails, how to get to the point, how, how to not uh, ramble, how to write very clearly, how to come up with the call to action that’s gonna entice them to reply, and uhm, all the different stuff you should focus on when you’re writing it. So uhm, I designed it basically for the freelancers in, on my list, that I’ve worked with for the past year, uhm, on writing better emails. And I think, one thing we don’t really notice is that how many, how much time we dedicate to writing emails, so I always think back to like, if you saw a 5% increase in the quality of the emails you send, that would mean like, 5% more replies, that would mean 5% more clients, 5% more upsells, it would kind of just explode your business because we kind of think emails happen behind the doors, or behind the scenes, and it’s really not the case, like most business happens through email. And so yeah, so I think a 5% increase in the quality of emails you send, is, would be very modest for, for reading the book, and if you applied every principle in it. Just because the quality of emails that people send are so bad, uhm, I know copywriters are a little better, but it’s uhm, I think you know, as far as what I’ve seen with the freelancers I’ve worked with, they’ve started sending you know, 50, 75% better email and they get twice as many replies as they were getting or more, so, uhm, so I mean, yeah, that’s the basic uh, gist of the book and everything. John McIntyre: I like- Robert Williams: Uhm. John McIntyre: I like-, emailsthatwin.com right? Robert Williams: Yeah, it’s on emailsthatwin.com and the other service that I have is Workshop, it’s on let’sworkshop.com. John McIntyre: Yeah. Robert Williams: Uhm, and that’s the newsletter. So I appreciate you letting me come on and discussing this with me, I think it’s something that needs to be talked about a little more, so I appreciate this. John McIntyre: Good stuff, man. Well I had a blast, it’s very interesting to talk about. Thank you for coming on the show. What I’ll do is uh, I’ll have links to emailsthatwin.com and letsworkshopcom on themcmethod.com and the show notes for this episode, so uh, feel free to get the links. They’re very, they should easy to remember, so hopefully we’ll get you some, people should go in, and yeah, if you’re struggling with cold emails, you need a hand, I will go and get Robert’s book for sure, and I’m also interested in checking out this letsworkshop, that gets leads mailed to you. Cool, man. Thanks for coming on the show. Robert Williams: Yeah, thanks again. The post Episode #99 – Rob Williams on Nailing Down Perfect Cold Emails That Land The Best Clients Out There appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

What’s one of the best and worst things you can find or achieve as a business owner? Rapid growth. I’ll just give you the answer there. Because we all know that rapid growth means goals are being reached in every way (and that money is being made). So how can it also be the worst thing? Well, if you’re not ready for it, it can sink the ship… …but I take it you are ready for rapid growth, and that’s why I’ve got Matthew Pollard on the show today. Matthew’s a fellow down under native, But where I excel at email marketing, Matt excels at taking your business, …and turning into a money-generating-machine. He takes your business, Packs it into a tiny snowball, Then pushes it and YOU down the hill, Quickly turning you into a rolling MONSTER of a business. Snagging clients or selling your product left and right with ease. How’s Matthew so good at what he does? He’s a natural money-pulling niche finder. He knows the unique angles to look for in business, And he teaches you how to find yours too. So if you’re ready to take advantage of these strategies and finally GROW, fast, Then you’re gonna be stoked after this episode. And you’re gonna want to get out there and show off your new skills (and make more money at the same time). Make sure you catch the special offer for McMethod Podcast listeners only.   In this episode, you’ll discover: Matthew’s all-star USP discovery techniques that lets you separate yourself from the pack your brilliant elevator pitch that you’ve always had… but could never figure out why you must put yourself out there and not shy away from becoming THE go-to person or business why the “why’s” are so much more important than the “how’s” in anything you sell a fascinating 3-step conversational elevator pitch perfecting process (and why you need to use this pitch EVERYWHERE) why and how to dominate networking conferences (use these rapid growth tips to network with a purpose) the blueprint structure that frames your perfect elevator pitch and explodes your sales to triple what you have now what the actual term “to sell” translates to (this fact might turn your whole world upside down) the reason why Matthew always calls himself a consultant instead of a salesperson (this reason will force you to be better at your business) 4 questions to ask your customers that will enable you to craft a killer USP from their answers exactly what you need to do as a business owner before you go out and hire a coach (do this first or else you might waste a lot of money) how business owners need scripts just as much as actors do Mentioned: Google Startup Weekend Microsoft Better Business Coach Podcast PayPal MatthewPollard.guru betterbusinesscoachpodcast.com Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO   Raw transcript: Download PDF transcript here. John McIntyre:  Hey, it’s John McIntyre here, the auto-responder guy, it’s time for episode 98 of the mc-method email marketing podcast where you really just getting actionable tips tricks and strategy on how to convert more leads into customers and just make some more money, so if you like money, keep listening, today we are talking to Mathew pollard. Now Mathew is actual fellow, so I am really enjoyed this episode its always refreshing to get on the phone with someone who sound like I used to sound like, I have been told I sound a bit more American these days, and just have a chat, you know have a chat like two guys in a bar having a couple of beers that’s what today is about and you know Mathew is really cool, Mathew is really cool because we have talked about, he have talked about rapid growth and niche marketing differentiations, this is really, how to stand out, because if you aren’t standing out, if you just fading into the background its going be really hard to make sales. And this applies when you are doing you know face to face staff with client or if you are selling products you have to differentiate so you must do it.. Okay, now to get the show of the email marketing podcast go to the mcmethod.com/98. Now, one thing I want to mention is I think, a lot of economic sometimes they talk about a for example McMasters where the community where there is a monthly fees to get access to training, all that kind of staff, sometimes people council obviously, I have asked a few people why they cancelled and sometimes they are like woo, I hired a copywriter so I don’t need training anymore and a like oh! Did you know that I write      copies? and you what is surprising is that you know a half of the business you know I can say , the good half of the mc-method business is hard of work so a will get on the phone with you and we will have a chat about your business, we will talk about what you need in terms of the emails or sales or split testing or sales page or whatever happens to be that you need and I will make it happen for you, so if you like work with me personally one on one where we get Skype we talk about your projects you pay me and am going to do the work for you, you should email me, because that’s what I do and a do damn good job, so if you want to email me, its john@themcmethod.com and we will chat about that we will get on the phone and talk it out, so that’s that. Now this week mc-method inside of the week is just copywriting now I have mentioned this plenty of times, this is a podcast that I have talked a lot about copywriting before, I just want to wrap on a real quick again because I have a friend this past week who has been trying to email people, trying to get them on the phone, redoing some of the messaging on the website, he knows he should learn copywriting and he knows its holding him back but he is not doing it, he is not putting in all the time all the effort to go and  learn how to write a copy because its hard work you know , I have got to spent a half an hour to an hour every morning leaning how to copy, read the books , you have got to study, he just doesn’t want to do it and for better or worse whether he likes it or not it doesn’t change the fact that its holding him back so the insight of this week is that, learn copywriting even if are the business owner you are not planning on writing too much,  it’s going to change you look at the business it’s going to change the way you look at sales and marketing staff and it’s one of the most valuable things you can learn, seriously it pays off in so many different ways, and this is way a lot very successful entrepreneurs and business people are sales people, that’s really what a copywriter is, a copywriter is a sales person who does it by hands or write it down instead does it face to face, so copywriting you have to learn it. Now what is mc-musters, you might be wondering what the hell is McMaster’s, it’s a private training community that I have, there is a monthly fees but that monthly fees get you access to me inside the forum, and the other members in there and you also get a variety of different training including the flight-ship mc-entice training method on the course on the four to 4 weeks program and by the end of it you will have written the 10 email auto response sequence business that you have written you control you can change update modify and improve it anytime, so there is bunch of other staff which you will love. So, that is that, if you want to learn more about that go to mcmethod.com and follow the links in the menu to the McMasters sales page, that is that foe now let’s into this interview with Mr. Mathew pollard. john McIntyre: its john McIntyre here and am herewith Mathew pollard, now Mathew is a rapid growth consultant he’s got a sweet title am trying to read it without stuttering, he is a niche marketing differentiation and sale systemization coach and he basically helps you work out  how your product and services are different so in other words he is a coach and he has worked out how to differentiate himself by tagging a certain angle in the marketing I that’s why I thought he will be interesting person to chat to he’s got some cool I think some quite unique idea on how to come up with that your basically a USP, how you are going to stand out and differentiate yourself from all the other copywriters or all the other business coach  or all the other business that sale the same thing that you sale and this is a really  key thing, whether you are going to an event trying to network with people whether you are in a building business trying to sale kitchen knives  doesn’t matter what you are doing, you have to stand out Unless you want to compete in price and that really the fastest you know race to the bottom, so that’s what we are going to talk today some of how to do this elevated pair chat come up with the unique angle and differentiate yourself and sort of the way that has led Mathew right now to go and do what he does with business which is helping work this out do some of this growth staff and do it rapidly, so are going to have some fun today and  he is Australian so you are going to hear some another razz accent we getting a few of this lately and it’s always nice, I speak to a lot of Americans and its quite refreshing to get in the phone with an Australian funny enough he lives in Texas which I will be there in a few weeks, anyway, Mathew, how are you doing man? Mathew pollard: Am doing well mate, yourself?  John McIntyre:  fantastic, good to have you on the show man! Mathew pollard: yeah, am excited to be hear men, thank you very much for the                                                                                   awesome introduction, am glad you got it out without the stuttered  John McIntyre: I just read it slowly and carefully just to make sure it worked. Mathew Pollard: you did well, you gave it justice and you even managed to catch me out in the differentiation in my title. John McIntyre:  I think what I do too I don’t know if you do this in your podcasts bit one thing friends have caught me out on is like I put on they might be out here now, I put on this podcast voice like slightly different to the normal voice because it’s sort of like when  you are doing a show and you are interviews you are doing anything recorded you need to be a bit better with your dictionary, I bit better with your you know  the way you phrase things and speed and all those kind of things. Mathew Pollard:  you are an Australian; you have got to learn these things slowly. John McIntyre:  The other day too men, its if we are talking like this and how you got and that Australian accent no one understands anything we are talking about so works way better when you kind of dissing  Take your Australian accent out of it a little bit. Mathew pollard: well, you can’t otherwise you have to call yourself the brogan podcast and again if you are an Australian isn’t to explain that so,,, John McIntyre: a brogan, anyway we should explain that sometime but before we do that lets give a list of a bit of your background on who you are what you doing and why you are special. Mathew pollard: Yeah sure, so I guess my core I guess when you talked on the US pays, what I am really good at is taking any idea and creating rapid growth on the method so done that and I have been responsible for the 5 multimillion dollars start up myself anything from telecommunication back when telecommunication was Citra I created the fastest growing independent communication breakage for independent mobile in the country and Australia and then just recently I worked in a marketing platform that I actually got to train a half shares of student into an atria which is American version of college, yeah, anything from national credited education to telecommunication I want to turn something into rapid growth vehicle and something like education especially you would have thought that their people working in education are intelligent people working in education because they have a lot of teaches a lot of marketing strategies and it takes year and years and years to get the first few hundred client in education yet we are we train a half theirs in three years and its purely because i look at thing from a different angle and I can teach other people to look at thing in different angle and allow them to differentiate in such a way and target a niche market that no one has thought of and that’s why we get such growth. John McIntyre: nice, I like it. That was a great pitch. Mathew pollard: well, you sold me as differentiator and a sale strategy I felt that if I didn’t sound good at the job people are probably going to think that I don’t quite know what I am talking about. John McIntyre:   that’s true that’s true one thing I have noticed talking to  the Australians and the Americans and different people from different cultures is Australians typically a lot of Australians have trouble selling themselves more a bit more of like we do it in the background that puppy syndrome you don’t want to be better than anyone, while a have noticed that Americans particularly when you spend time with I spent time with them and they are much more forthcoming about what they are good at generally, I could be wrong but the ones I have met ate like that. And that was…. Mathew pollard: I would agree with that, I mean I think that especially in Australia you always down place yourself because everybody one to be the oozy battler if you like to use the equoloqualism but everybody doesn’t want to seem better than their friend everybody just want to fit in. but what actually happens is that they are not promoting themselves and a lot of times for instance when I put myself forward on what I do a lot of times people say, oh! Good am glad you mentioned that because I am really straggling I have a business, it has been running for ten years and you know matter what I do I don’t seem to grow and am always straggling suddenly I have lost customers that am just surviving and am actually glad you you’ve just put yourself forward because now I can utilize your service and some advice where by not presenting yourself in right way you actually doing people injustice because you know you good at what you do, why wouldn’t you tell people so that they can use you? John McIntyre: mmm! Mm! That’s such a critical mind set issue that it takes a long time to get this idea that if you are in business or if you are selling anything assuming your product is good and your service is good then you really awe to not just to yourself to go and make money but to the market place to go and help because if it’s a great product they are missing out if you don’t sell it right. Mathew pollard: look I agree with you and it’s funny because over the last few weeks I was a pitch coaching judge at Google style up weekend just this weekend and the weekend before that I was a pitch coaching judge  at the Microsoft event and the amazing thing is some of these people that are involved in this events have unbelievable ideas, like, I wish I could be shareholder in some of this ideas this people are coming up with, but when they tell me about them, am not interested at all and then they tell me about  who it helps and how it helps them am like wow! This idea is amazing, how do we get involved in this, how do we get moving with this and all it is  they are talking to me like a coach would am a business coach they tell me about the feature of the services that they offer they are not telling me any story of how it works and over the Google style up weekend is a great example I spend you work with over three days weekend and by the end of it they had this clean cut pitch and I was one of the judges for that as well I got to see the transition for when they first tell me the ideas where you know they were excited about it but a half the team didn’t even understand what they were doing to the last day where the audience of one 150 people in the back end were like oh my God this ideas are unbelievable and it’s really just about learning how to present it in a away where are demonstrating need or tell the story about a specific customer rebellion you know, who it helps and then take them through a story of how you came up with this idea to help this person and the you know I like to say this in chapter, chapter three, talk about how you created a certain product, and show them the product and step four or chapter four, talk about the financial and how big the market is to get the investors excited, and by follow up I simply you know I gave them a full state process which is very basic descripting I pitch yet for them it made such a phenomenon difference that you know the one that follow those stepping stone or process correctly it actually meant that I mean one of the groups that I worked with won the event you know but I worked with 12 intern so that’s not really saying much but you know such a major difference and it’s all about knowing how to present what you are doing in a way that isn’t selling isn’t pushing, it’s just educating by telling stories. John McIntyre: I like, so let’s talk about that them, how to do this I mean because you got that elevator pitch you know when I am a conference when I bump into someone that might be a potential client, I have to find a way to get that across that basically am a copywriter I have marketing agency for example, but I have to find a way am in a plenty marketing agency and the copywriters and consultants and these kind of things out there I have to find a way to differentiate myself and that applies in that situation but it also applies in every level of marketing process  whether it’s you know a one on one thing or on a website or you know or even on a billboard. So, am assuming I mean, correct me if am wrong, sound like this idea is a way of coming up with call of the elevator pitch, you know you can apply it anywhere. Mathew pollard: you really can, and it should be really applied everywhere because realistically, you create a business to provide a cool benefit and an elevated pitch is really talking about the benefits you provide, you also provide that benefit to group of people and in the elevated pitch, you talk about the group of people that you helped and generally the customers that you had in the past, probably had a few objection that they needed to answer before they take you on as a consultant. So why not put that upfront? So now it’s funny like in the better business coach podcast which we will talk about in the second, you know I break down a full level elevated pitch and in the next session a conversation level elevated pitch but its really quite simple, a basic elevated pitch and I always start with the client teaching them these because they I need to understand the foundation a little, how basic it is and how simple it is to implement and just how mind blowing the change that you get from the response from the client can be from something that is purely scripted and obviously scripted so when we are to the next stage a little bit harder and put more work and you can see that it’s going to add so much value in business that makes it worth the effort, so the primary function of an elevated pitch is you say I do x for this group of people and what segment do I work with so am basically saying that I work with straggling business and I then talk about the benefits of  all the problems that I solve so you know I help straggling business create rapid growth or avoid having huge numbers of customers complains depending on what you are pitching even if and this is where the common objective is, even if they suck at sales, or even if they couldn’t manage to process the to save their lives you come up with something that works and what is funny is its very simple I work with this group of people to fix this benefit or problem so that it would achieve this benefit or fix this problem even if most common objection, it’s a 3 step very simple process but as result of doing that a customer basically will almost feel forced to how do you do that t because I didn’t tell them how, I didn’t tell them why I did that I just said that I do this specific thing and it forces them to say how do you do that you know is I say, I work with straggling business to obtain rapid growth within their organization even if they suck at sales if somebody have a struggling business they will say, how do you do that? As opposed to if I say that am a business coach they will say to me, that’s nice, I had a business coach before yet it didn’t really work out or hallo it’s nice that you are doing business coach and I do this and a good example of this the best example I can give is somebody saying I sales insurance, how does that make you feel? I have already got my insurance sorted out please don’t talk to me that’s what happen, it’s the same when you say you are a coach this days because there are so many coaches out there and everybody knows that 95% of them their biggest problem is that they can’t get clients, so as soon as you hear I am a coach, you know that’s a new code word for a sales person so you run for the heels, so when you say I help business obtain rapid growth even if they suck at sales they are like, that’s different, I haven’t heard that before how do you do that? and it just converts it completely into on their invitation now I get to explain what I do where going back to the insurance sales person and I have to say but if you try this or have you thought about this what about if you look at it this way now am pushing my product and services on someone which I know realize that American hate pushing themselves on people and by doing it wrong you are forcing yourself to do that. And I get people all the time saying I don’t like networking events you know, you never get anything good out of them and its funny I go to networking events all the time and I really enjoy the experience I get lots of customer out of it because I ask people what they do, to be interested on what they do, they tell me that they are business coach and they tell me that they sale insurance and I say oh! That’s cool like they expect to hear and they and then they reciprocate by say what do you do and I respond with three part elevated pitch well actually now I respond with this conversational elevated pitch that I talk about in my podcast but effectively if they then respond with how do you do that? and then I get to sales to them on their invitation, so it’s not that the networking doesn’t work and its purely is, that people are doing it wrong, and if learn how to do it right it makes such a change and you and I were talking offline about the elevated pitch and its effectiveness of it and a lot of people know that the elevated pitch exist. Yet it still works so well because even though I know I am being elevated pitched, I still can’t say something like how do you do that? Because it’s kind of difficult when somebody says those three lines to you, you decide, that’s cool, you feel like you have to follow on and when you go into a conversation where you laid the pitch later, where you say do you know how many people sort of go out to start business because they are looking to leave a legacy or they are looking to create something for themselves and have that freedom so work on a beach in berlin if they want or Thailand in your sake. And then they wind up straggling financially or straggling to get client and starting to loose confident on themselves and as a result they really start wondering whether or not they should go back to work you know anybody like that? Then they are going to l say I know somebody like that, am like that and then you get a conversation again on their invitation because they thought that they have the problem and then you can move on the conversation of the pitch so that was just the test of you know what else you can do to make it better but focus on that three parts first because if you are not doing that trust me that is going to straight x your sale straight away. John McIntyre:   interesting, there is a couple of thing to point out here, but I think one of the first one is a to do that feature verses benefits idea is that to say am a business coach or a copywriter that’s really just a feature, and my feature is well I coach people or I write copy or I sale staff. No one really cares about the feature, in a perfect world where there is no competitive no market and advertising at all and there is only one person who did each specific thing in the world, people would be like 5  am looking for the coach, he is the coach, am looking for the copywriter, he is the copywriter whereas in a competitive market place, there has to be that differentiation and that’s why feature doesn’t matter anymore because there is thousands of people who have the same feature, there is thousands of coaches, so what’s the different between them, no one is really looking for a coach, they are looking for something specific and that’s where that benefit comes in which is when you say that it’s kind of interesting that’s why I love sales and marketing because when it’s done well people know what’s happening they know it’s an elevated pitch and it’s not as though you are so good at manipulating him, it’s of case of sale went down right, it’s perfectly natural because you are just tapping into like, if you have a problem, if someone really want to quite there job and build a business and move to Thailand then if someone says that I know how to do that and he a trust worthy he have some case study there is know why they shouldn’t do it if that’s what they want to do, and there is nothing wrong with being sold at because that what they want at the first place so there is issue of sales not a bad thing at all and doing that elevated pitch, if that’s what someone wants, they are going to feel great, they are not going to be resistant to it at all because that’s what they want. Mathew pollard:  that’s exactly right and I mean people forgotten and people think sale is a dirty word I mean, in PDTOs book 1, 0-1 one of the creators of PayPal, he talks about the fact that even though this organizations know that sales is the life blood of their organization, they almost hide the fact that they have to sale in any of their presentation like it’s  their sleazy thing they do behind the cooperative branding and that is ridiculous, the term to sale means to serve and what you really doing is presenting people with something that they may need to improve their lives, the problem is you are not serving somebody by providing business coaching , you are serving somebody by helping them as you said learn the discipline and or the skill set that they need so that they can go and work from a Beijing toilet, to truly serve someone and I always not call myself a sales person, I call myself a consultant and the reason for that is that if I don’t truly understand what you need and what benefits you are looking for, and I start presenting the product and services that I offer then I am not being a consultant a being a sales person so I always start by asking a lot of questions. Because to truly serve somebody, I need to know a lot of information so the elevated pitch is one thing because what I am really saying is you are kind of in a straggling business and kind of wants to excel by getting lots of customers and you really don’t think you can sale then come talk to me because I will help, now you are interested on how do that, let me ask you a lot  of questions first to make sure I can serve you, that’s what a consultant does while a sales person, would say am a coach and say well am not interested in coach but have you thought about this, let me read you the brochure of features that I can provide  you know I can increase your productivity, your profitability, okay cool, every coach says that what unique message do you have that you can deliver that will actually help people and provide a benefit? John McIntyre:    I like it, so one direction that that, one thing I want to know and I think the listeners are probably a bit curious about is going to be the example so you talked about a lot of example for if you are a business coach and how you can how you can have that elevated pitch that puts you in differentiate that niche differentiation, so what about some other examples that are from like unrelated niches of business? Mathew pollard:  yes, sure, let’s look at the insurance just because we had that one on the table before, for instance for, people in Australia they would understand that the massive flow that happened in Brisbane and a few month later we found out that a lot of those post cards own their insurance policies and they found out that they well they should for flood damage that came in from the ocean and they proved that it came from the ocean and this people found out that they weren’t ensured so they couldn’t get their houses done. So if I was an insurance sales person, I might be saying something like, I help people with that are trying to save money on insurance, find the right policies that are going to give them the security that they made the right choice even if I don’t have a lot of money. Right so what I am really trying to do there is am trying to highlight, every part of about what I do so it’s all about saving money but they still want that security, that safety in it and everybody knows if you get one you lose the other one and so they’re  going to be forced to say how do you do that and because they are to be assuming that’s not possible, when I bring it up as a conversation I will be like there are so many people who really want to save on their insurance but they have seen what happened in Brisbane and all the floods and they are just not willing to take that risk and loose there family home and but they don’t have that money do you know anyone like that? You know what I mean, you get people in that conversation and yes I know everyone is trying to save money on insurance but there is no way am going to take that risk, now we can have that conversation. Another good example, am just trying to think in the industries that, I will give an example building is a good one, in Australia and in a lot of country now the builders are in short supply, okay they are building lots of houses, and if I want to talk about selling buildings, I would say, do you know how most people want to build their families home or do you how most people want to do sub division they always find and identify problem, they always find that most builders never get back to them or never get a quote, now what they are really looking for is somebody who can really help them achieve you know getting it done on time. Do you know anyone like that? If we are doing it as an elevated pitch we would say I help people that can’t get there houses build even if they had three or four builders already and they haven’t called them back John McIntyre: mmmh! Mathew pollard:  right? So you know very strict guidelines in the elevated pitch is 3 steps, I help all people, help them find somebody who can do there sales for them even if they had no success before, right? So you really putting it in finite guidelines and we can go through lots and lots of example but the core ideology is, when I said all people obviously I just picked this on the cuffs helping all people is not a specific message, it’s like saying I sale us, it doesn’t give you that anything unique, like if I want to sale ice and I want to put it in elevated pitch, I could say, I help snow cone server shop get the best ice possible for their consumers even if they seem to always have machines that doesn’t work. Because everybody now well I have already consulted with the snow cone sales company, the common objection I had is my machine, it’s my machine problem and machines are too expensive to replace and funny enough you can actually create ice that is easier to shred John McIntyre:  mmmm! Mathew pollard:  so you know there is a lot of different ways to do it but it really about following the 3 steps strategy which is I help segment and the smaller you make that segment the less people it speaks to but again if you speak to everybody you speak to nobody, so speak to that unique segment and obviously if you go to different networking event you can have a few networking skills and you want to make sure that your networking skill is the applicable to the event that you are going to but pick a few segment don’t pick more than a few, the, what is the unique benefit that you provide them or what is the unique problem that you solve and what’s the most common objection that I have, okay, and it’s not one of the thing that you just think of and cough like you can say for business couches, the most common benefit that guess we can talk about is that you help create systems within the business and the core benefit of that is the is you increase productivity, okay, now increasing productivity how differentiated is that compared to most business coaches talk about? It’s not that differentiated so you want to get that one step further for instance if I sit on the sales coach and I help people create a sale system or feel comfortable with the sale system, people aren’t going to see that as exciting, so I talk about the fact that I create rapid growth and for all my client I mean i have got a ghostwriter this is how you get to tell the story when people ask you how do you do that, I have a ghost writer that I work with who made $25000 last year out of one ghostwriting gig within 6 weeks of working with me and $80000 out of three jobs  so as long as you can deliver that core message you know that create rapid growth is what they want, you are doing them a service you need to break into those elements, you just want to speak to them properly. John McIntyre:  Am Loving this, am actually making note right here, after this am going to head to star box, I was already planning to do but this is important I want to sit down and until I map out this elevated pitch, I like it. Mathew pollard:  it’s funny, I learned this at a seminar, I can’t even remember who I was listening to, but I would have been 16yrs and my parent took me and made me sit on the seminar, I went one of those 3day weekend am sure everyone received those free tickets to the seminar, where they speak for an hour them they try to sale you something, and I got rogued in sitting in one of those and funny enough I actually enjoyed it, but I learned the networking skill at that event and I had no use for it because I was a little introverted kid I had a reading skill of a sixth grader when I was in high school and I never thought I would ever have a need for it but I had written it down and years later worked out and started my own business I was like I need to talk about this and I remembered that it was written down somewhere and some reason I kept it and all over sudden I now tooled it for so many people and but you know, I don’t spend so many paper when I need to create an elevated pitch, I sit down with a pen and paper and I write it down, would be surprised if I say I spend probably less than 5min figuring it out. And I use this elevated pitch at every networking event for the next 10yrs without working on it another time, how many hours do you think they spend delivering this pitch or this elevated pitch? Hours and hours, so one rule that I had is spend more than 5min doing it, sit down work out how true benefit you deliver and if your customers, the best people that matters are your customers, feel free pick up the phone and say john listen, I really appreciate the fact that you have been my customer for the last 10yrs and I really appreciate that we have a great friendship and we have been working together that long, however, there are so many other sales niche marketing differentiation organization out there, why exactly do you work with me? And they will respond with something like you are always so energetic and inspiring or because you really help me write a great copy, I wouldn’t know the first thing about what you would say and neither will most when they sit down writing this elevated page, however what I can tell you is when you think about who you help, genuinely, your best or the people that you help when you look at the customer sale, it would be those people because they are still your customers so you will probably find they come from a few different industries but not that many wide ranging or they will have similarities, so that’s who you help that’s step 1. Step 2, what benefit do you provide, pick up the phone and ask them, so many people are scared to ask thinking there customer are going to decide not to, every time they pay your bill they decide whether or not they are going to pay you, so pick up the phone and ask them, appreciate them, they will appreciate they will probably up the spend on you next month, so ask them why, that’s your benefit and then ask the next question which I love the most which is, when you first sat down with me, what were you thinking, what was the one reason in your head for why you didn’t want to work with me? There is your even if, what you will find is most people don’t want to ask their customer that it’s also the reason most people give them for why they don’t buy the services in the first place. So it’s a pretty simple strategy I mean this is not rocket science I would love to say it with 27 steps but then people will have to pay me for hours and hours and hours, realistically we can do this in an hour session of customization and you guys have now got the formula you could do this with yourself as long as you spend the hour I will spend with you, if you only spend 5min because am not there with you telling you to spend the hour, then it’s not going to be as good as I can make it for you. John McIntyre:  one thing I have notice being in business for a few years now is that with this marketing staff it’s one thing you are going to sit down for 5min or an hour and do an exercise like this or even go and talk to people but what happens is you come up with something and what you do it by just sitting in the star box or going and having a conversation with people, but what’s going to happen over time is that it’s going to shift and it’s going to evolve and as it bring in more data and feedback just by working with people you are going to get a clear over time if  staying on the same business and the same market, you over time you are going to get the picture of who you are and what you are doing and who you help is going to become clearer and clear so what happens is that message is going to get more and more refine. Mathew pollard: look, definitely I agree with you, however I would say one proviso, if you stop for a second and reflect on what you do because so many people are busy and working day to day and they never look outside that, they are so busy working inside their business not on it, and what I commonly say with a lot of business coaches is they worry when they are first starting about whether or not they will be able to help their client, I can generally say depending on what they charge that they can more than pay for themselves by actually just physically being there and making the business work on their business other than in it that there and there for that hour there. They don’t have to do any more than that than be the person’s baby sitter and make sure they work on their business and this is the advice I give to all business owners.  Before you get a coach, or even though you have coach spend some time yourself physically working on your business, write the elevator skill, think about whom you work with, I mean you talk about US paid, sale proposition, when you are doing that most people don’t know what that is like when I talk to peoples goals in an organization and what their vision and they are like that’s something fuzzy I didn’t really work on, no, that’s is something you want from your customers, something you want to get from your employees and it’s something you want to get behind, and we get right through smart goals and setting those visions because it’s going to be something that will make you wake up every morning and want to go to work yet most people don’t have one. When I ask people about sales strategies and the sale system and they say am just going to talk whatever comes out of my mouth is what I say because I am trying to be unique with customers, what you are basically saying is that you have no strategy you have no process for doing it but you are happy to go in hours and hours going out and seeing clients and writing proposal and all the rejection that come with that being told No just because you don’t want to spend a few hours writing a script and then learning it, and then embracing it like an actor would do when they portray a  script so that you can deliver sport on every time. John McIntyre:  I like it, so, right on time hear tell me about the podcasts and what you are up to and the next step is if someone wants to learn more about you or wants to work with you. Mathew pollard: well funny I look primarily on the sale niche marketing and differentiation coach that’s what I do however I get so many organization ask me to come in and work with them and this is for over a decade now, they want me to come and create a rapid growth and the first thing I do I come and I have a look at their business they are got customer complaints, they maybe sighing up a thousand clients but 20% of them have got paper work errors, they send wrong product to 5% of them, the business is all over the place there is no solid foundation so what I have to do is I have to say hold on a second let me coach you on how to build your business on solid foundation first, ones we will create a rapid growth it doesn’t  take very long but we have to do it first, the next step is ones we create that rapid growth I still have to coach them as a business coach to how fix all the things and issues  that come along the way when you get that rapid injection of sales in your business, so because I was an introverted kid, I had $93 before I made my first sale I was not an extrovert I definitely didn’t have the gifts of the God and I learned by systemizing every single part of what I did, into a protest and I tool that into business coaching as well, over decade, every time a customer called me and said I want to talk about this tomorrow, I would change what I was doing the next morning before I went out and see them, I would create a work sheet or a template to run though with then because I felt that you should never have to do thing more than ones and if you have a business coach who sits down with you and says what will you like me to go with you today, you should get In control, how would I know what am supposed to do to fix my business isn’t that what I pay you for? So I would have a template. so, over the last 10yrs I spend, I have created a bout 155 templates that I perfected over that time, and during this podcast which I call betterbusinesscoachpodcast.com you will found in how to be a better business coach, what I have created    is basically all the ideology and all the training you need to create the most client session you could possibly have, basically because I understand what it’s like to have to learn all those thing you need to learn and create all of the things you need to create while trying to go out and find customers so am doing all the work so you don’t have to, but on top of that am also giving away all of the worksheets that I use actionable worksheet that you can physically take out and use it with your client and they are all downloadable from my site mathewpollard.guru or betterbusinesscoachpodcast.com and I have also talked about special offer that am doing for your listeners which is if you type in mathewpollard.guru/john you will get access to the 5 worksheets that I started with, it’s the ones that you use when you are trying to transition a prospects into a client it basically take from I don’t know a one business coaching to oh my God please help me you can see I have a lot of problems and the first 4 worksheet that you will use with your client to open up all those problems and start helping them, for business owners, these are great work sheets as well, because they also allow you to start you know, there is a lot of business before you should get a business coach because even I have one because just talking about your business and utilizing the for different perspective is awesome but for those people who can’t afford business coach just yet, it’s a great opportunity to actually step back and work on your business and coach yourself until you get to that point John McIntyre: I like it, so, mathewpollard.guru/john all the link to that is shown at the mcmethod.com under the episodes, Mathew thanks for coming man. Mathew pollard: you are more than welcome man, I had a ball. The post Episode #98 – Matthew Pollard on Rapid Growth and Shining Bright Over All Your Competition (never be a “me-too business” again) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Derek “the level-up master” Pankaew is on the McMethod Podcast today. And we’re not talking video or Facebook games (sorry Candy Crushers), We’re talking BUSINESS level up.. ..the best kind of leveling up there is, right? From freelance copywriting and content writing (and cool ways to get gigs), To info product success, To Facebook marketing SUPER DUPER success. That’s Derek. But not only has he progressed with each new venture, Derek’s got a strategy behind this massive new progress leading him to where he wants to go… Because TeeSpring won’t always be Derek’s vehicle to success. But what he IS doing, ..is something FAR BIGGER. Because TeeSpring does one thing very special for you… …it makes you a data king. And what can you do with data? If you’re reading this, then I’m sure you’re already salivating at the idea of having intense-targeted data ($$$).   In this episode, you’ll discover: how to get content writing clients consistently (and how to scale this too) the social-proof client snagging technique that works every time (use this on your sales page and more) the most valuable lesson on positioning you will ever hear how Derek makes 5 figures income, monthly, with TeeSpring (learn how he makes it so profitable) that Facebook Marketing has MASSIVE data accumulation abilities once you get in there. the Street Fighter Blanka-type power of an email list (but you already knew that.. right?) a pricing technique that will make you pissed that you didn’t use or know of it before now the scaling potential that only a team can give you Mentioned: Warrior Forum Odesk TeeSpring Amazon DerekPankaew@gmail.com (contact him here) Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO   Raw transcript: Download PDF transcript here. Hello, It’s John McIntyre here, the auto responder guy, it’s time for episode 97 of the McMethod email marketing podcast where, we talk about one thing and one thing only and that’s how to be awesome at life really, and in the context of the email marketing. Whether you wanna write these emails yourself, or you wanna grow your business with email marketing, sales funnels and all that stuff, this is the place to come, this is the place to learn about that, and as i’ve said recently, this is fundamentals right ? So you can take everything you’re learning here and apply it in so many other ways, in so many other traditions, whether you’re doing this stuff on radio, sales pages billboards, all of that. These fundamentals are things here, marketing fundamentals. So, I’d like to come back to that. I’m very big on simplicity, which is is to say that, I think, you know being good at life excellings and then success comes back to it, can really be simplified to a couple very ah small ah you know very short list of things, which is that you know, these fundamentals whether it’s sales or hails or any of these different things. And I find ah you know thinking that way makes it really easy to figure out what to do, because it’s just like was any of like a couple of things here, have empathy, talk to your customers regularly and make offers, that’s it, that’s really what we’re talking about here. Talk to you customers regularly with that email auto responder, and make offers, regularly, make an offer and tell them hey, look, give me a call and for a $100 we’ll do xyz for you, that’s an offer, just make offers regularly. This is that’s it, that’s just business right there, that’s your whole sales form. Now we’re just getting more complex by saying ”well, you wanna have 10 emails in the sequence here, and you wanna have some special advanced auto responder software here ” like forget about all of that for a second, talk to your customers, talk to your prospects, talk to the market place, regularly, and make them offers, that’s it. Anyway, today we’re talking to Derek Pankaew, okay, now Derek is a friend of mine, he lives here in Chiang Mai right now, though he’s taking off soon, off to uh going to build a galavan take around south these days, it was all he really liked to do, and anyways he’s here. Now a year ago, I bumped into Derek, I met him about a year ago, and he was making a couple grand a month doing some freelance copywriting, he actually had a, an information product in the, he was in the dating market okay, and then fast forward one year to now, and, he’s got a nice little business running on Facebook doing one to 2000, oh he’s doing one to two grand a day right now, and this is why I was gonna record the interview, but you know now it’s been about a month, and I spoke to him recently and it’s even you know gone quite a bit higher than that, so he is, he’s doing quite well for himself right now, good old Facebook. And today we’re gonna talk about that journey, now, it’s not just about the Facebook thing he’s doing, though you will hear about that, why I really wanted to get, part of what I really wanted to get Derek to kind of talk about was just the how to level up consistently, because what Derek has done is gone from sort of being like he was a freelance copywriter originally doing stuff in the warrior forum of all places, then he ended up with this dating uh this product, information product in the dating market, and now he’s got this decent business running on Facebook which you’ll hear about in a second. So what I really like about Derek is that he keeps taking what he has and using it to get to the next big opportunity, using that to go to the next big opportunity, he’s really really good at doing that, and so we’re gonna talk about that, how to level up consistently, what the Facebook stuff is, and also some of the freelance copywriting stuff because he had a really nice way of finding uh finding clients, finding freelance copywriting clients, and I know that there is a decent amount of people who listen to this, maybe it’s you who, want more clients, so any time you can find out about how to get more clients, well, this is gonna be one of them. So to get the short notes for this episode of the email marketing podcast go to themcmethod.com/97. Now this weeks McMasters insight of the week, very simple, how to write emails fast? I’ve got someone working for me right now and he emailed about a week ago, he had just done some work for me and he wanted to know how to write emails quickly, because the emails he had written had taken him quite a while and it was a bit exhausting and things like that, so we go on the phone and we had a chat about it, and um it’s really simple. I think it’s simple but it, part of is, it’s just gonna come with time, the more you write emails the more you practice it the faster you’re gonna get. However, you might wanna get fast like today, or maybe even yesterday, okay, now here is a couple things you can do, set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes, and just blast out the emails as fast as possible, okay, don’t, like if you can’t if you can’t think of anything to write just start writing, just say yo, so, I’m meant to be writing this email here in this text editor, but I can’t think of anything to write at all so I’m just gonna write about nothing until I think about something to write. You know what’s interesting about nothing, well nothing, because there’s nothing there, like you can just, I would call this talking shit okay, it doesn’t mean anything, but what it’s gonna do, it’s gonna unplug that, you know, that hole in your brain while the writing can creativity comes out, if you can’t write, force yourself to write nothing, by nothing write about nothing and talk about how cool nothing, alright whatever you get the point. And, another thing is streaming consciousness, you wanna like, don’t sit down and try to be really calculated about what you’re writing, like what I’m doing right now it is podcast and we’re just talking, this is the stream of consciousness, I’m not thinking about what I’m saying and just blasting out, right just, and hopefully it’s not too crazy or anything but the idea is you that wanna do this with your writing, you don’t wanna sit there thinking about it and think oh man what’s the best way to express that word, um, I need to use a better word, like that stuff you should do after you’ve written the email, before you’ve written anything, you wanna blast out that email as fast as freaking possible which means setting a timer and just, don’t even pause, don’t take a breath, just go rrrrrrrr just, you know maybe you’re gonna have to learn how to touch type if you need to okay, that’s really gonna help, and if you’re committed in that way and committed to doing it fast you will get fast and you can do this stuff in 10 or 15 minutes once you get good at it. In light of simplistics, I like to simplify things I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, you wanna simplify this, so I think about emails as first thing get their attention okay, because if you don’t have someone’s attention well they’re not gonna listen to you you know, they’re not looking at you, they’re looking at the you know, the Facebook screen, step two, say something interesting, right, you get the, you know, you’ve gotta tell them a story, say something funny, whatever, say something interesting, it’s like you’re at the bar with the friend and you’re like man you’re never gonna believe what happened the other day, got their attention, now use it to tell the story and that’s where you get them interested, and then eventually like you know use to say into like some sort of problem of this, then you just rub salt in there just like you don’t have to write emails right? And then like, and then you start rubbing salt In there and then like well you don’t have to like It just kind of sucks because it means you can’t, you can’t make money, you can’t control your cash flow in life, you can’t make more sales for your business and maybe one day you’re gonna be bankrupt because you never took the time to polish your skills with writing emails to get customers for yourself and for your clients. I’m rubbing salt on it. But, this is where the solution comes in, if you want to, yeah, if you wanna learn how to write emails you need to buy my amazing product here for 10 million dollars, okay, so get their attention, get them interested, come up with a problem, agitate the crap out of it, and then rub salt in there well basically, and then present them with the solution. That’s an email, right there, and you just blast it out, blast it out, blast it out, okay. That’s it for now. Let’s get into this interview with Mr. Derek Pankaew. John McIntyre: It’s John McIntyre here the auto responder guy, I’m here with Derek Pankaew. Now, Derek came to me, uh, I think it was this week actually with a really interesting story and I gotta rewind just so you understand the context for this. I met Derek about a year ago when he first came to Chiang Mai, I think it was roughly about a year ago, and Derek told me that uh, you know he was a copywriter, he’s been doing some freelance stuff, so, sort of a similar position to me and then he ended up in Chiang Mai, and I mean but he’d stopped doing the freelance stuff because he was focusing on information product and at that stage he was making about, I think it was about 1000 dollars a month, there was a couple partners in there, but it was uh, you know, it was doing ok, it wasn’t amazing but it was better than say slogging it out in a corporate job back home, uh, and then I asked him at the time, I said how about you wanna do a podcast sometime, we can talk about how the marketing your doing the copywriting your doing for this information product, and we can just make a podcast out of it, I’m always looking for new content, and he was like no I don’t really feel comfortable right now, it’s not, you know, he just wasn’t interested at that stage. And then what do you know, one year later, I bumped into him a couple different times, at conferences, and he’s been around Chiang Mai as well, and I mean this is a, just to wrap it really quick on Chiang Mai, there is tons of people who are doing this kind of stuff, so this isn’t some far flame place of the world though it might sound like it, there is internet publicity commerce guys, there is sales funnels, there is just everything. So then Derek comes to me like a week ago and says hey, are you still doing your podcast? I’m uh, I’m having getting some really good results and I’d love to get on there, I’ve started doing some marketing and, on Facebook ads, and I’m doing, now I’m doing one to two k profit per day. So now, so one year later he’s doing more than double than he was doing a month before but now he’s doing it every single day, which is pretty damn impressive. So, I was like yeah, hell yeah let’s do this, let’s make a podcast out of it, so we just had a chat about what we’re gonna talk about and we’re gonna run through the journey, the transition stages, a bit of how to get clients and also long term thinking, so this is, I think this episode is going to be pretty packed with, uh, with goodies. This is quite a long entry. Derek how are you doing man? Derek Pankaew: Hey, How is it going? John McIntyre: It’s good to have you on the show man. Derek Pankaew: It’s good to be here. John McIntyre: Yeah, yeah. And you’re like, you’re about, so we’re both in Chiang Mai right now, Chiang Mai for those of you like if you don’t know is about an hour north of Bangkok in Thailand. And it’s, it’s in the mountains, in the north, and the people up here are a little bit different than the people that are in Bangkok, the language is a little bit softer, there is even a northern Thai language up here. But it’s civilized, there is coffee shops and bars and restaurants and offices and all that sort of stuff, but actually Derek is about 5, I think it’s about 5 minutes, 10 minutes away on a motor bike, at one coffee shop and I’m down in the office in another area, and, so it’s a small town and he’s basically on the other side of town, but it’s only 10 minutes away, so it’s a small town but there is lots of stuff here. Anyway, so, so Derek, I know we’ve had a chat about what you’ve been on to what you’re doing right now. But I think the broad stroke is right there you know, so when we met a year ago, you were doing like a 1000 dollars a month, and now you’re doing one or two k, one or two thousand dollars per day which is really impressive. But so, what I’d like to do is rewind back to, because I know you’re doing copywriting, tell me before you even got into freelance copywriting, what, were you a corporate guy? Or were you working for a company? Did you have an office job? Derek Pankaew: No, I think uh I’ve always been interested in entrepreneurship so the kind of job like a high school job to college, trying to start my own businesses, which didn’t really take off, you know I tried something when I was 18, some like random ebook or something that didn’t really work out, and I ended up working for a few different internet marketing and dating companies from 18 to uh I don’t know 21, 22 or so and then managed to, and that’s kind of when the freelance writing started taking off. John McIntyre: Ok, ok. So, It’s kind of interesting, there is a lot of people out there in the world who, there is this shift going, they’re sort of rippling across the west right now where people are boarding, you know you gotta have university degrees and office jobs to really make a career out of ourselves, and in some ways that’s a valid path, but in other ways, it’s you know it’s really not, there is actually a, you know, there is a bit of a hassling to kind of try some new stuff and get to know people, and really just hassling gritting all that kind of stuff. There is a lot of opportunity out there for someone to make something of themselves, so it sounds like that’s exactly what you’ve been doing. So tell me about like you getting into the client stuff, you were working for some of these dating companies, you probably got a taste of what marketing copywriting was like, and then at some point you decided you were gonna to quit, basically to up and leave like and go I’m gonna do this on my own, now I don’t have, so I don’t have to have a job, so I don’t have to have a boss so I can kind of be my own man. So what happened then was probably a bit of a transition period, and then you said you actually had a pretty cool, pretty simple process for how to get clients. Derek Pankaew: Yeah, so I was doing both freelance copywriting and freelance content writing. For me the copywriting always, I never figured out a way to make that consistent, you know I’d meet someone in person and we’d talk about copy and sometimes I’d get a game for one or two thousand dollars. But I never managed to get that stream of income consistent, what did work for me was content writing where I was eventually , I was able to get to a point where it was able to consistently generate between 30 and 60 dollars an hour and it was pretty easy for me to scale it up and down whenever I needed, so if I was in a cheap country I could just scale down to where I’m working one day a week or an hour a day in an expensive country I could scaled up whenever I wanted to, and yeah essentially I managed to just build a really simple to run sales funnel for my own writing services. John McIntyre: Right, right ok. So it sounds like it’s pretty cool I think there is a cool thing there, because there is people out there like they said that they’re trying to make that break, and I don’t really, I don’t have to go out of this room for this podcast but there is that issue I’ve mentioned the hero’s journey which there is a lot of people who aren’t happy, who wanna make that change and I don’t really know anyone who’s done it, I don’t really know how to do it, so I think there is so much value in hearing a story from someone like yourself about sort of how that happened, so tell me a bit more about like the warrior forum stuff, because I know you said that you had this, this, how to get clients consistently, I know you said you can get it but how did you do it? Derek Pankaew: Yeah so, I, for those who don’t know what the warrior forum is, it’s basically an online forum where a lot of internet marketers hang out, so everyone from copywriters, to website owners, to people doing SEO, to just kind of like, it’s like a giant gathering place for the people in the internet marketing community. So I’ve decided to offer writing services, I tried you know using my own social network, I tried using Elance, Odesk which really just, uh, like , the amount of money you can earn on those sites is just really low, and then I was on the warrior forum and as I was looking through these threads most people are trying to compete based on price, so the medium price per article was about $7, uh, and most people were just trying to bid lower and lower and reading through the samples, reading through the, you know, through the different threads I just wouldn’t hire any of these guys personally, like you know, I’d worked for a few companies at this point and I know that nobody that I’d ever worked with would hire these guys, it just felt so cheap, so I decided ,you know , I’m gonna position myself as the upper hand of the market instead of charging $7 a piece, I started off just charging 15,16 dollars a piece, and then I booked myself really quickly and then you know I just basically I’ll up the price until the clients didn’t wanna pay me anymore, so, yeah my position, my headline was the most expensive writer on the warrior forum and then the whole sales letter was just social proof, of proof that I could get them right, I sent screenshots of articles that I had ranked before, I had names of people that they’d recognize or companies or the people, or people I’ve written for who worked with companies that they’d recognize, so I wrote for a real estate agent who worked for Remax ,so I just, It kind of worked out in there, someone else who’d worked withTony Robbins, they just kind of use as much social proof as possible, yeah and then just, I just position myself in a different way from the whole market and I think that was actually what, actually fulfilled the need that a lot of the people on the warrior forum were looking for but just couldn’t find anywhere among the other writers, so I think I was one of, when I first started doing this I think I was the only person positioning myself this way and by the time I had finished I think there were maybe two or three other people, but yeah I was, I was literally charging four or five times what the market was charging and completely booking myself out whenever I needed more work so yeah. John McIntyre: Yeah, Yeah. I think that the interesting thing there is not because it’s not really, I think it would be quite difficult for someone to listen to this and then go straight back to warrior forum and do the same strategy, but I think the really cool take away from that is that you don’t have to compete on price, and, not even that it’s kind of this, I love this idea, like the headlines like the most expensive copywriter on the warrior forum, because some people are gonna, everyone is gonna look at that, what the hell who even sells that and so you get their attention, and then they’re gonna go down and think why is it the most expensive guy, so I think one of the lessons here is that people, I think it’s just that when you get into some of these games it’s like I can’t charge too much, you know like everyone else is doing this so I’ve gotta do it that way and you really don’t, you do it anyway, I mean you can charge way more, you can charge a little bit more, you can diversify like your position in a different way, so this is the whole thing with positioning. I remember a, it was like the middle of last year or so, or maybe the start of last year was when I had to go on this auto responder guy, And there is all this copywriters out there and they all are pretty standard, they’re not really, they just copywrite, and so if you wanna hire a copywriter well you hire a copywriter, generally it’s not like this, but generally like they situate , a copywriter is a copywriter, It’s not like that but that’s sort of what it can start to feel like and I was like what I wanna do is I wanna find a way to get people so they think that when I wanna, when I need some emails, who’s the guy I think of, and so I wanna be the auto responder guy so then if someone just will say I’m looking for a copywriter to write a sales letter, it means I don’t get recommended, but if someone says hey I need an email auto responder do you know anyone, they might be five copywriters out there that they know that they can write emails, but there is one auto responder guy, so that person is gonna go hey I know this guy whose name is John he specializes in emails even though I’m the exact same thing as the other copywriters, by calling myself something different, by positioning myself as different, it creates a, it changes the frame and it’s such a valuable lesson and it really changes everything is different, you know everyhthing is different than me. Derek Pankaew: Totally. John McIntyre : So alright, so you did that, so that’s how you got the clients, that’s how you did that, and, I mean one thing that we were talking about too is like if someone wanted to go and get clients like that, there’s probably an opportunity of going to the warrior forum or even other forums, and I know I’ve been quite a, you know In the past I used to post a little in the DC, you see which is a community weibo thing and I ended up getting a lot of clients out of that just by posting in the forum and making it known that this is what I do, so there are, there are quite a few ways to, just kind of like you put yourself out, you kind of figure out a way to position yourself and then you really just gotta put yourself out there, and it is quite an easy way to consistently get clients. So, moving on, you did the clients stuff, you were doing that and then you decided to get into the info products, so you had an info product in a dating space, it was doing about a 1000 dollars a month and then what’s changed now is you started doing some marketing on Facebook, and now you’re doing one to two thousand a day, now one thing I wanna point out here before we kind of dive in is that some of this is gonna be, it’s big numbers but somewhat on a quite short term, so it’s a bit of a grand, we’ll be talking about this in a minute, but it can be a grant and it can be on a short term so one thing that we’re focusing on for the listener is the long term, how to, you know, short term thinking and long term thinking and how it’s ok to get something for what it’s worth in the short term but it’s also wise to have a long term plan, to have a, not so much a backup plan but to have a strategy, where that the short term play fits into the grant strategy, so, and I think that’s what you’re doing beautifully here. So tell me about where are you at right now? What are you doing? And what’s the game plan? Derek Pankaew: Yes, so right now I’m selling mostly T-shirts, uh, through Tee Spring and through Facebook advertizing. Basically the way it works is that I look for, um, small markets that tend to be underserved and create interesting looking T-shirts that might be funny or sassy or just kind of epic, and then how those shirts displayed directly in there news feed and get a really high percentage like between 4 to 10% of the people who see the ad would click on it, and then between 8 and 13% of the people who see the shirt, who land on the landing page will end up buying , so just creating very very targeted T-shirts and then getting them in front of the right people using Facebook ads. John McIntyre: Nice, nice, I love it. So one thing is that, because we’ve, you know I’ve met a few people doing this and there is some big numbers going through, but tell me, like is it a grant like, number one is easy because I know that someone is gonna listen to this and think wow that sounds really easy I’m gonna do it, so tell me is it easy? How much time are you putting into this? Derek Pankaew: I think it’s not easy, like it’s actually, to do this business model is, requires so many different skill sets, I think it really like if you’ve been in internet marketing for a little while it’s a great way to make some really quick money, but if you’re just getting started I think it’s actually a terrible business model to begin through, because you really gotta understand pay traffic, you gotta understand analytics, you gotta understand photoshopping design, uh, you gotta understand like all these different things and be able to put them together. And yeah even, and even, even with those skill sets I’m currently working at least 12 hours a day, I mean yesterday I got into the office at 8am, I left at midnight, and I mean, I’m okay doing this because I’m only gonna be doing it for two or three months. But yeah it’s definitely, it’s definitely a lot of work, and it’s, like, because you don’t stop running your campaigns on the weekend so even on the weekends, I mean I’m not launching any new shirts but I’ve still gotta check, because I’m spending between 700 to 1800 dollars a day on Facebook right now, and I find spending $1800 a day on Facebook, I’m not gonna not check it, it’s just, that would just be stupid. So yeah even on Saturday Sunday I’ve still gotta spend, you know, a couple of hours just looking over the data, am I leaking money anywhere, did anything stop making money that was making money before, like I just, I have to keep my finger on it so it’s, It is kind of, it’s a somewhat stressful business to be in definitely. John McIntyre: Um, and I think there is an interesting side like I actually tried, I actually tried this I have a friend, another guy who was doing similar numbers to you, this was, uh, maybe 3 or 4 months ago I think, 6 months ago, and I’ve tried for a long time to shut down that sort of opportunistic like chase, chase the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but he told me about it and I was like man I’m gonna go try that, and I remember I spent about two hours one afternoon to set up 10 campaigns and I was like this sucks, so I didn’t, you know I still I tried but I didn’t have the I guess the persistence to, there is no way I could’ve done it for ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day, I got bored so fast which is, it’s sort of like that’s the interesting thing about this situation that you’re in, we’ll be moving on to the long term stuff in a second because there’s been a lot of smart people in my life that if told don’t go chasing the short term stuff you know, if you mention like a teaspoon idea to a season business person a lot of them are gonna say don’t, like it’s a waste of time in so short term, that’s before you try, if you get to the point where you’re making say 50 grand a month it’s gonna be a different story, but there is that, there is sort of this aversion in the business world to short term stuff, once you’ve progressed from beginner to intermediate, intermediate to advanced, if we chase the pot of gold at the rainbow I feel like there is a bit of a, I feel like there is a bit of like a guilt that we put on each other for chasing these things but then there is an argument to be had and I think that this is where you come from, there is the argument to say that if you can find something like that and make it work, it can very much cash flow or bankroll a bigger strategy, so it sounds like that’s what you’re doing, tell me about the long term play here, you’ve obviously got the short term you’re grinding out for twelve or fourteen hours a day, and you don’t really get a day off because so much money is going out the door, but there is big money and there is a lot of profit and there is a way as you’ve told me is how you’re making this into something that’s gonna be a lot bigger than just T-shirts, so tell me about that. Derek Pankaew: Sure yeah, so what I really love about doing the Facebook ads is that it gives me a lot of data, so we’re launching about 8 to 10 T-shirts a day right now so that’s about 40 to 50 shirts a week, 200 shirts a month something like that. And across all those shirts I’m betting on a number of different targets in Facebook advertizing. So I get to see exactly what markets are converting, and not only what markets are converting I can see which market’s share the most which markets are the most viral and which types of people within those markets tend to buy and tend to share, so is It women, is it men, is it, what age groups, what type of things are they interested in, so if I’m targeting someone who’s interested in golf is it the type of person who watches golf on TV is it the type of person who buys, hires golf clubs, is it the person who’s reading golf magazines right ? So I can see what kind of person is helping make things go viral, what kind of person actually buys things. And then out of the 200 markets that I’m doing per month I might pick just three to five that I’ve decided to develop more, further, and I’ll use those markets to help build up fanpages, build up email lists in the market for now more T-shirts and the not too distant I’ll definitely be marketing other products, trading courses, info products, and eventually launching my own physical products, I think my ultimate end game with all this is to build up really big fanpages really big email lists and using those to launch products on Amazon, because I think that’s, you know that’s where huge money ,long term money, passive money, that’s where that could really happen and I think having a strong user base to help get you know a hundred reviews right out the door, drive all bunch of sales, that’s kind of it, so I guess my end game or my long term plan is to develop different markets, different place for pages and email lists and then I start launching my own products especially Amazon products. John McIntyre: I like it. One thing I think is cool here is that this highlight on this goal sort of, maybe like a key tenant of business, so just sort of how the game goes, which is where you, business is really taking, there is a funny it was a French guy who said it that it’s basically taking results from a lower area of view to Ohio, so that’s like going from my Tee Spring which is a decent area of view because it’s short term you’re gonna burn out a life time value on a Tee Spring costumer one T-shirt’s worth you know probably 10 bucks you get like 8 bucks profit for example. But if you can say take that, the result is generated within that arena which is also generated from probably copywriting, marketing skills, pay traffic skills that you’ve built up before that, just kind of like each stage, on one stage you’re doing freelance, on one stage you were kind of working for the dating companies themselves they give you an idea of how to sort of be a copywriter, take that result so that asset that you’ve built, which is both tangible and intangible in the sense that it’s in the brain, take that and become a freelance copywriter, take those skills and then launch an information product, take those skills and then launch a Tee Spring campaign, and take the skills that you’ve built up all the way to that point to launch the next thing. So there is this evolutionary process that I think it’s the one of the most inspiring parts in like stories like these like it’s not like this is only relevant to begin this, because I don’t think it is, I think the metaphor here is sort of like to read between the lines and kind of see that, that the game is not to go from, not to make a specific amount of money, but to really get, to get really really good at taking resources from wherever they are now, resources and assets, assets is probably the better word, to take assets from one area and move them into a higher area, so as a freelance copywriter you might wanna, you might be able to make say $2000 a month, same skills with bigger clients might be able to make 10, same skills with your own products and some pay traffic skills might be twenty or thirty, the same skills say, obviously well say Tee Spring and then you can turn that into what you’re talking about where if someone buys a golf T-shirt if they’re buying a golf T-shirt well they are probably a golf fan and golf fans buy huge amount of stuff. So you may find these raving let’s say raving hot markets, which are just, just buy markets right. Markets that love to get their credit cards out to buy stuff, because there is a lot of them out there, but sometimes they’re hard to find, and sometimes what appears that it’s getting, what appears that it’s going to be one of those markets like being like that so what you’re getting I think is one of the most valuable parts of this Tee Spring stuff, is you get your building a list of buyers, I think that’s the coolest part. Derek Pankaew: Yeah totally, a list of buyers as well as a list of markets that convert, and I’m getting paid to build this data as well.John McIntyre: Yeah, yeah. I mean it’s a pretty badass position to be in. Tell me what are some of the lessons that you’ve been maybe some of the lessons or some of the mistakes you’ve kind of worked through on your way with the Tee Spring stuff and what we expect to going forward. Derek Pankaew: Um, a lot of the time I’ve learned a lot in terms of pay traffic and paid ads, uh, I don’t know how much detail you want me to get into that, but definitely one lesson that I’ve learned is, yeah, is being really focused on markets. Because I used to be focused on the designs, the templates, the phrases on the shirts, and now I’ve just learned like a fantastic slogan and fantastic design to a market that doesn’t buy, that doesn’t do anything. And even like a so-so shirt that’s targeted towards a market that’s hot, will buy, so um, so yeah I’m really just focusing on the markets which changed, which really did change how I ran my business , because I used to just launch all my shirt from one fan page and then I’d build separate fan pages for everything I’d launch, that way if one does take off, and people start, if I run a shirt on one page, they’re gonna like the page even if there is nothing on it except the shirt, and that already starts to give me a few hundred people on the fan page to whom I can bounce ideas off of or ask like hey we’re thinking about launching this shirt, or hey these are three designs that we’re thinking of doing vote a, b or c and we’ll make the one that you like the most, or hey what are some of your favorite lines that you’d like to see on a shirt, the winner gets a free shirt sent to them, so I get free ideas that way, so just like focusing on markets instead of focusing on the product that was, that was a big lesson for me. John McIntyre: Um, that’s a keen one, that comes up in other than, I think everyone kind of finds out at some point in the journey, is that you realize, somewhere along the line that the product, I mean the product matters but what matters more than anything is the people actually, I mean there is a problem in the first place. How bad is that problem? It not even just about problems, I mean with golf people, there ain’t so much of a problem because they have passion and they’re just so passionate about that it’s more or less they’re in a sort of a pain until they buy stuff. And it’s like I can that right there what you just said that’s a key thing that maybe it takes a certain amount of experience to get it, but the sooner someone can understand that, the faster they will go, like the further and the more money they’ll make, and I like just to give I mean one example for what I’m doing now is I’ve taken, typically, uh you know auto responders for say you know from one to three thousand dollars, but the same stuff applied in different market, because if it’s an email sort of can monetize someone just buying a set of emails, a copywriter writes them, iy’s you know it’s not a big of a deal, but you take the same the exactly same thing, a lot of these are small, you know, small businesses, maybe they have a product that they’re selling maybe they’re about to launch, and on the other side of it though, is you’ve got say a company that sells luxury bathrooms for example for 40 thousand dollars a pod, and they’ve got a 10 thousand dollar growth profit Marge alright, so then and they’ve got a list of fifteen hundred leads that ask for cords but never got closed, and then we go like why don’t we sent out an email campaign of just six emails add to that list, we convert say 1% out of the whole think which is 15, 15 leads, which is a pretty terrible conversion from a fairly warm email list, you get fifteen leads at 40 grand a pod and you can make 600 thousand dollars for that company at 10 grand growth each, you’re making 150 thousand dollars growth profit to the bottom line of that business with 6 emails, so then the question is how much is that email sequenced with? Because the funny thing is if I’m talking to the CEO, the director of the company like that, he doesn’t wanna spend, if I told him oh you know I’ll charge you two grand for this he’s gonna laugh at me and tell me he’s gonna hire someone who actually knows what he’s doing, because two grands is way too cheap for what I can actually do for him, so by changing, so what I can do to make a little more sense he’s about to make say 150 dollars growth profit it’ll make more sense when I charge him 20 or 30 thousand dollars for him to make the six hundred thousand dollars. That would be more in line with, you know with the offer, and so the only thing that’s changed there is that it doesn’t cost me anymore to get those emails written, but it makes because of the market’s change from like a small business, a small online business like you know say someone selling an ebook to a company that’s selling to make forty every time they make a sale, forty thousand dollars, and so just by changing that one thing that that market with a different or different situation, the money that they can, the money that’s gonna come in from there is absolutely, like utterly different. It’s crazy. Derek Pankaew: Wow! I guess so I mean, Yeah I’ve never really heard of copywriting being discussed at the corporate level. John McIntyre : Yeah, I mean I’m having a lot of these conversations lately because, yeah, I’m starting, I’ve started to realize that a number of people on my back saying that I don’t charge enough and, so it’s clicking, to be honest, it’s starting to click for me, and you know, in many ways so I’m having a lot of these kind of conversations, and the only thing that matters you know when it only comes to marketing consulting to go how to get clients stuff, for the only thing that matters is , so you know when you’re in a non business market like golf it’s a little bit different, but we’re on the business market, you might sell, you can make somewhat a million bucks, then why, there is no reason why they wouldn’t pay 100 thousand dollars for them. It’s like a it’s a 100 thousand dollars to make 900 thousand dollars, there is no, it doesn’t matter if the campaign that you have to create to make that one million dollars and it takes you, you know five hours work, that’s completely relevant, right, so I think that’s another thing that I’ve learned, you know recently this whole idea worked goes into something, once you start playing in a bigger level it doesn’t it’s sort of a relevant to the whole thing, the real thing is the skill or the money, the value is you knowing how to take anything, like something like this, like emails, like a sales letter or a sales funnel or a Facebook campaign, and apply it in a bigger context. Because there are a lot of copywriters who could write Tee Spring campaigns right? Like, but, like, so I could probably write about that but right now like I just don’t have, I don’t know the process, I don’t probably don’t have the persistence to sit down for 12 hours a day and do it, or the discipline, but see there is that aspect like I’m gonna have similar, sort of like, similar to the main expertise. But I can’t make, like right now I can’t do what you’re doing because I don’t think I have that knowledge right now, so there is the value in business is often just knowing when to apply certain things, knowing how to apply a sales funnel, or emails, or you know Facebook ads, in an explosive context. Derek Pankaew: Can I share one more lesson that I’ve learned? John McIntyre : Go for it man. Derek Pankaew : Cool. So I learned, so I actually learned from Tony as well and I got to about 400 dollars a day within say about 3 or 4 weeks of getting started. And I just held steady at 400 dollars a day for two or three months, and I really didn’t, I never really broke about the 500 dollar a day mark, and then I was at DCBKK, the conference that we were both at, and I talked to a guy and said yeah I’ve got a system you know that’s working, I think I’m gonna hire someone when I get to Chiang Mai so that I can start scaling this and he said why would you hire just one person if you have a system that’s working for you, you know, if you’re gonna scale this then scale it, why would you hire one person. So you know that really got me thinking, so I landed I hired two people right out the gate and then hired a third person a week or two after, and it was basically within two weeks of hiring these three people that I broke through a thousand dollars a day, and then the same week we broke through two thousand dollars a day. So it was just, I think there is a tendency for me to wanna be cautious with like, Okay I wanna move forward try one person get everything ready and then take on the next person. When really like, and I mean, this might not be a, might not be a factor if I was staying in one place for a long time but you know realistically I’m only gonna be in one place for three, four months at a time, so if I only have three four months to make as much money as I can, and I really do have to just like hire three people right away, scale it and then move on to the next phase of the business once I’m done here. John McIntyre: Yep,Yep. It’s pretty badass man. It’s kind of funny that we’re talking about scaling like I wanna find some software or set up the text and set up the scale properly. But then what you wanna do is often like it comes back to things just like hire a couple people. Derek Pankaew: Yeah. John McIntyre : Like hire like people scale a lot better, if you google it, it probably would be a little bit different, but hiring a couple people is one of the quickest ways to scale, at least initially. Derek Pankaew: Totally yeah, as soon as I’m doing something, I wanna look for ways to not be doing that think. Ever again. John McIntyre: Yeah. Yeah. It’s in I mean it’s the other side of the business I guess you kind of, I guess level up and move up the food chain. That’s usually what happens, is you get better and better at doing a task once and then giving it to someone else, never touch it again. Derek Pankaew: Umm, yeah. John McIntyre: Cool man, alright we’re right on time so, right exactly right on thirty minute. So what’s the best way, if people wanna get in touch with you, maybe wanna, maybe they wanna ask you questions or just reach out and say cool story. What’s the best way for them to do that? Derek Pankaew: Uh yeah, I guess my email DerekPankaew@gmail.com. That’s De r e k P a n k a e w @gmail.com. John McIntyre: Cool. Fantastic man. I’ll have a link to that in the short notes, some of the notes as well at the mcmethod.com. Thanks you for coming on the show Derek. John McIntyre: Cool, sure. Thanks John. The post Episode #97 – Derek Pankaew on Facebook Marketing Ballin’ and How To Go From Zero To Hero appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Does the following phrase sound familiar? “Why Content Marketing Is Bullshit” That’s because that’s the exact line I have on one of my email optin forms. Well today on the show we have… …Mr. Content-Marketing himself, Neil Patel. Neil is here to counter my statement. And with good cause. Because content marketing is NOT bullshit (if you do it the right way). And that’s what Neil is going to do: Teach you to do it the right way. So who is Neil Patel? Well, the Wall Street Journal calls him, “the top influencer on the web,” And Forbes calls him, “one of the top 10 online marketers.” Shall I keep going? (because I can!) So tell me, Are you trying to get more eyes onto your site? What about turn those eyes into dollar signs? Perfect. That’s what this show is all about – Through proper content, Neil’s mastered traffic generation… you’ll see what I mean in the interview.   In this episode, you’ll discover: why Entrepreneur Magazine says that Neil created one of the 100 most brilliant companies in the world the traffic gen, content marketing, and social media conglomerate strategy that get’s you not only traffic, but HOT traffic the fact that traffic generation is always changing… and how Neil sees it through his marketing eyes (find out what’s working best now) the advantage that creating exceptional content provides you with (traffic, comments, royalties, and much, much more) how great content sells (if people love your content, they will buy your products too) the content creating process… it’s BIG (never just throw content on your site, podcast, etc. Let Neil tell you why not) how to find the exact problems your marketplace need solved (clue… Survey Monkey is just one of many ways) how to use Google Analytics to confirm which content marketing tactics work best for you the best content strategy when going for keywords versus quality, heartfelt good content (should you chase keywords?) exactly how to overcome mistakes that you face when tackling a content-marketing strategy for your business why you should write for relevancy… NOT traffic what is more expensive… paid traffic or time spent for creating content yourself? (find out Neil’s expert opinion on this controversial subject) how to “test the waters” as you’re in process of content marketing starts out (with long term strategies it’s harder to gauge ROI.. find out ways around this) how much actual quality you need to put into your content marketing (we’re talking design here) how and why converting visitors into customers is becoming more expensive why objections overcome improve conversions (and why this IS) Mentioned: Crazy Egg KISSmetrics Survey Monkey Buffer App Neil Patel QuickSprout Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO   Raw transcript: Download PDF transcript here. Hey, it’s John McIntyre here, the auto responder guy and it’s time for episode 96 of the McMethod email marketing podcast, where you’ll discover, how to get more sales in life? That’s pretty much, it’s basically how to make money every time you send an email to your list, how to convert more of those people had activate that database. All of the above, and have a great time doing it and really automate the whole thing. So, you can chill out, go to the beach and catch some waves or climb a mountain or do whatever you like to do. Today, I’ll be talking to Neil Patel. Now, finally enough, Neil’s a content marketing guy and interestingly, I use to say and it’s still on my website on the email option, why concert marking is bullshit, okay. In many ways just to believe that because, the way content marketing is done by most people, it just doesn’t work. People think, I’m gonna set up a blog and I write some blog posts and I’m gonna get rich. I’m gonna yeah, I mean, let’s say actually read that formula.  There are lot of they’ll say, I mean it’s little bit more complex and now on maybe they, this is bit more good idioms behind it, that’s just above. As some people out there, are doing blogging profitably, right you know they content marketing profit. They’re putting out the right kinds of content, to get the right kinds of thing that I am gonna buy their stuff. But a lot of people aren’t, they just think well! I just write lots of articles on my subject matter and that’s gonna work. But that’s not how it works and that’s why, I got Neil Patel on the show, because I wanted him to spill the beans on content marketing. Why it works and what you have to do, to make sure it works properly. When you know what stuff and mistakes to avoid and how to do it properly, because once you learn a bit about it, it’s actually not that hard. Just to correct some of those starter mistakes. Neil Patel is a massive guy in this field. He’s got a couple big companies’ crazy egg is one and KISS metrics is wow, this is also. So, that’s Neil Patel for you and we get into that in just a minute to get the start for this episode of the email marketing podcast. Go to the micmethod.com/96.  Now gotta an interesting Mic-master inside of the week, for this week. It’s got nothing to do with email marketing, nothing to do with marketing, nothing even to do with sale. Not even anything to do with the computer. The easiest thing, why we all spend too much time on a computer, I know I too. How someone will spend all day on the computer and that not the end, the day I can’t sleep. So, today’s insider of the week is to eat healthy, right. So much exciting and say and how he’s had a 10 actual sales and he is had a double your conversion rates and all that sort of stuff, but look likewise pretty similar when it comes to getting healthy, people think that you go to devote sorts of  you know you have to get on the right diet, right exercise plan and really complex you get a plan on that and count the calories and all this stuff right and it’s really not that complex you know when I talk to people about this, is eat more good food, eat less bad food, get some exercise, that’s it and you’ll be blown away when you get in the habit of eating right and getting bit exercise and also sleeping. Sleeping is another bravo thing about those parties you die. Better eat some sleep. When you do this right you will be amazed at how much energy you have. How much vitality you have and how much more optimistic you are about life. This is gonna make you better in business, this is gonna make you even write more emails if you’re writing in yourself or you just can make better decisions when it comes to hiring other people to doing the stuff for you. And, I know this is the sort of thing that appeals, I wanna know. I know it will be healthy. Tell me something that I don’t know, tell me something exciting but this is a stuff that you gotta do like this is common sense, its fundamental and it’s really easy to understand, but how many of us actually do it. How many of us actually take the time to be healthy to cook the right food, to go to the gym, to do all these things. But this is like 80 % of the game, if you can be healthy and strong and well slept its gonna make everything else in your life better, okay. That’s this week insider of the week. Now, Mic-Masters, if you wanna learn more about that, that’s a private membership community that I have. VIP training community, if you will and inside that community you get access to bunch of training products, that’s on how to write emails, how to write stories, how to write a landing page.  It’s gonna get you turn in sales. All these different things like that’s, pretty simple and there’s also a private training form and some webinars. So, you can get in there, you can engage with me, the other members and solve your sales and marketing problems with email. So, that’s, if you wanna learn more about that, go to the micmethod.com and in the top menu bar there is a link to members. Click that, last but not least please, please, please if you can, if you have just thirty-seconds, jump over to watching and leave me a review. It doesn’t have to be 5 stars. Though, I will appreciate it, if it is. But if you have a second and you have enjoyed the show and you have been getting a lot out of this podcast, I would really appreciate it if you jumped over there. Leave the review, all we did out on the show and I’ll buy you a beer or coffee or even a bunch of flowers if you prefer, when we meet one day we get some shop, that’s enough, for that anyway, let’s get into this interview with  Mr. Neil Patel.   Interview Begins:   John McIntyre  It’s John McIntyre here. I’m here with Neil Patel. Now, Neil is the co-founder of crazy egg, kiss and kiss metrics and he helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP invite him grow their revenue. Now, at the Wall Street Journal call him the top influence r on the web. Forbes says he is top 10 online marketers and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies in the world.  Now, when I think of Neil Patel because I’ve you have a I know a lot of people in this the online market but when I think of Neil, I think of traffic and its all stuff to be puts out, from what I can see is very much about traffic and how to get more people to your site and not just people with credit cards, people with money in their wallets that they’re ready to spend and ready to buy stuff. So, what I wanted to do is to get Neil to come onto the show, the email marketing podcast and to talk about not about email but about some other traffic generating stuff working these days. So, that’s what we’re gonna chat out. Hey! Neil, how you going? Neil Patel: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me. John McIntyre: Thanks for coming on the show. Before we get into some of the traffic stuff, can you give the listener, may be a bit more of a background on who you are and what you’re up to? Neil Patel:  Sure, I’m just a Entrepreneur for the few software companies, crazy egg and kiss metric and on these companies I help people to get more conversion rate and understand how people behave on their website.  I’m also a marketer by heart and what I do is, I teach people or companies how to get more visitors to the website and how to convert those visitors into customers. John McIntyre:  Easy, that’s really good. Well!  Let’s talk about that first is you are teaching companies; how to get more visitors to their site that are gonna buy stuff. Do you do it primarily with content marketing or you’re doing all you know like paid traffic and content you do with the whole thing?  Niel Patel:  I did the whole thing. I did paid content, content marketing, social media etc. So, I do the whole thing. John McIntyre:  Okay, Okay. So, what I’m curious about is, it is lot of people who listen in this podcast and they’ve got a website, they market some the modes doing a bit of paid traffic. You know most talked about paid traffic before. I’m curious to find out what you think? What sort of working right now, because like I’ve spoken to a number of people, I have been running my own stuff and advertising and marketing in some ways to fundamentals you know also the fundamentals that we’re going away but at the same time it’s changing very rapidly as the more and more people come online and more and more going on ad words. So, it’s timing to you know the approach that’s working seems to be changing so, that everyone want to take a different approach now. So, what are you saying? Neil Patel:  So, the big thing that I’m seeing right now, just working in marketing is content marketing in which people were writing exceptionally good content. Now, I’m not the certainly average blog posts that break something new. There is something that’s happening or some general tips. But, people are giving like specialized. They are sharing something unique that others aren’t.  They’re not only getting in term of traffic exactly, they’re generating comments, they’re generating loyal key from potential readers and eventually few small percentage of those readers, whether it’s one percent, 2-3 percent  are like it. What is coming, it’s creating great content. The content is good. Their product is so much is good, I wish you check that as well! And that’s actually what causing into generate sales. John McIntyre: Because one thing, like when I first started content marketing a couple of years ago, I noticed that there’s a lot of people who, this is mindset when I write content marketing. Why does write the whole bunch of blog post descent then I’m gonna stop making the whole businesses explode and its gonna be wonderland but what I noticed is that it’s content marketing works but it takes a little bit more finance than just a post but you know person’s good articles. So, like you have to understand where exactly your prospects sits and say like a levels of awareness chart and then start creating content that’s going to, like strategic content that’s gonna move them from where they’re right now to the next step which is when they’re ready to buy.   Neil Patel:  That’s true, that’s right. so you can just … your content. You can actually concentrate on your external and someone tries for projects service and in the trial phase you can actually, great contents are actually help some better understand how to meet things they’ve cost you this. Well, get more of better result and to actually encourages the people to spend more money with your blog. John McIntyre: Okay, So, what like when we talk about content marketing, how do you when someone ask you how to explain, how to actually do it? Always you sit down and write something, create some content. Now, this podcast would be an example of content marketing but how do you go about it, when you think about alright, we’re gonna create some content and we’re gonna get some traffic, you just create an article for someone and put it on the website or you go through a process, I help you do to go through a process where you always you create the article, put it on the site it is probably some marketing that goes into it. Neil Patel: Yes, so, there is a big process, it’s never decided to run content on a site, right? And you’re specifically looking for the process of being used and you’re wondering, what that specific process is that I’m using? John McIntyre: Yeah. Neil Patel: Okay, so to clarify what are the processes being used, let’s begin with the beginning of the content marketing process and getting traffic in conversion. John McIntyre: Okay. Neil Patel: So, what we’re trying to do is, if you want successful content marketing is. One medium is to find out what are the readers and potential customers wanna learn about. Even if it’s not related to your product, it’s okay. As, long as it is around the same industry,  a sector. Helping himself with problems within your space eventually does call finance. But, we can find out what problem they’re facing by paid surveys. Looking in Survey Monkey, email out people or just call people. You know, when your website runs, you can add some quick questions to your caller’s worldwide. Well if you wanna learn about what companies help you solve etc. Once you do that, then when you need to do is outline the post so, enough people explaining hey! I have this problem. The problem is that I can’t get enough traffic on my website. Can you help? Teach me about that. So, you may say alright. A lot of people face that problem. One near percent they should be looking at is content marketing. So, I would actually outline the post on content marketing, how companies collaborate. You make, you know pretty welcome the post pretty detailed and thorough. Then you start writing it, once you write it, you publish it, see if there is no errors etc. When’s and where, what you end up feeling is anyone who you read out see what’s in the post, you email them saying Hey! Just want you to follow email to appreciate your audience etc. And the rejection key that, what you wanna do is email out to any potential users or website owners that may have a audience of development of your article left the knowledge well, usually share it like it on Facebook, whenever it may be and last thing what you wanna do is see who keeps repeating articles, there has some work in paradise, email those website owners. Talking about how you feel that you’re linking to someone else article and how this article provides a different perspective and they should also consider adding a link to it. And then from there what you analysis, you get traffic and may be some of the people convert it into customers. May be none of them do. May be the articles doesn’t do as well. Once you’re done with it, you can look at the analytic’s and determine, alright these type of post do well, these one’s don’t. I should like left on this kind of stuff and I should like ones, the similar kind of topics. John McIntyre: Hmm! I like it, I like and in order to when nothing like content marketing is intends, it seems to be it to me anyway like a fairly slow process where you don’t put up an article and then whole bunch of traffic. Maybe you get lucky in this one article,  that happens with, but usually what seems to happen is you stop with, well obviously stop with nothing and helps you start gradually adding more and more and more articles and overtime each article brings in pulling a small amount of traffic and this probably some sort of  80-20 split in terms of small amount of articles bring in the majority of the traffic, but it seems to build up, if you build up the site with tons of blog post and podcasts and pieces of content, over time, over a year or two years that’s when it really starts to kick in. What are you saying in terms of the speed in which someone you can grow their site, grow their traffic with content marketing? Neil Patel: It will take six months to year and content marketing within it fair typically. Start to create some majority of their traffic. John McIntyre:  Okay, I’m wondering like examine when I was getting the online stuff, when I was came there writing blog posts and articles, it was right keyword influence, jump in the Google keywords, so you searches some keywords relevant in that. Then go and create an article for each keyword and that worked to some while and obviously it did work but it ends up being that you, the articles some comes the bit dry or bit almost to not very inspired because you are just writing it for a keyword. Where is, I’m not sure how much you bring that in but I find when I just taken article that i like the topic that people keep asking me about and then I write that it has nothing to do with keyword and the article got you know it’s inspired. This probably bit of passion in and then and it’s tapping under that need that people have. Usually, that gets more traffic than going down to keyword focus first. So how much do you bring in keywords. How much do you try to game it versus trying and just, I just doing inspired article.  Neil Patel:  I actually don’t used keywords one day within my blog post or content marketing. Naturally, I need keyword, what I mean by that, I don’t do any researcher etc when I can’t find these keywords  or let’s say the word content marketing 10 times in my blog post, just to being I’m writing on content marketing. I instead write some fresh piece of content for the person reading it. Because, if I do that eventually the search engines will exchange your ad words and in the long run and the RD working on it in which the best content, what’s most valuable to the user is why should be at the top. And, they really are trying to do that, they are getting way better of that over the years. In addition to that people like this are great. I mean I subscribe on the page you made etc. But it’s just all about writing great information. John McIntyre:  I like it, I like it. What about someone mistakes that people, because in these kind of situation people get hint if they would tend to get into a lot of trouble at some at point. That’s lot of like challenges that people face. I think one big line is people have writer’s blog, to sit down and try and write something and it’s just pretty difficult to write instead of the curiosity they write a few lines and then it’s a exam any goods they go back. Everyone challenge, but what are some other challenges all the mistakes that people have and what they make and how do you suggest to overcome them? Neil Patel:  So, the big mistake people are making in content marketing is they’re focusing on writing content that generates the most traffic verses writing the information that’s most relevant to your ideal customer. It’s not a quantity game, it’s a quality game you can get a million visitors in a month but that’s not really likes the content. A good example of this is I was talking at Leo from bufferapp.com, the greatest product and their blog is extremely popular and I was like hey! How can we get too many conversions? Seems like why I’m like, you talk too much about productivity, your social sharing tools and you’re trying to get businesses to pay for your social media product. You think they care or read about productivity. Now productivity brings in way more traffic then social media marketing topics. But to conversions I’m gonna be there is [No Audio]  John McIntyre:  Yeah, drop down one fuzzy for second. You just are trying to talk about the buffer app. It just been like oh yeah no, we don’t actually seeing many conversions.  Neil Patel:  That’s great because they were writing about productivity. How many social media business owners that are actually going to social media traffic care to read about productivity, because they read about social media marketing, that’s right it’s more relevant. Productivity is way more popular and generating a lot of traffic but little to no conversion. So, as it’s trying to shifting the strategy, they started seeing more signups in it. John McIntyre:  I’ve got you notice that when I’m saying that the above has been a little on that. Their articles at pop-up and I’ve used the app once or twice in the past but they come out with these articles that like on meditation a bold things.  Then has almost nothing to do with sharing my content on a social media sites.  Neil Patel: It doesn’t matter one bit, right. Don’t get me wrong I don’t have anything at meditation. Reading this meditation is not going to commit me the signup for your social media marketing product. They’re smart so they are shifting strategy in their habit and it’s a work and I love. John McIntyre:   Yeah, was funny though is I mean the articles for them, they were really high-quality articles even if they weren’t relevant, they were like running a buffer and the articles without putting at, they might not have been relevant at the time, they were pretty high quality.   Neil Patel:  Get there, the exceptionally good writers and it just goes back to shown that just writing good information and good content is enough is not relevant, it’s not gonna convert. You can’t go after quantity without go after quality.  John McIntyre:  Right, right. I mean that’s one thing that I’ve mentioned to people that come to me.  So, I was, it’s a you know it’s a side of email marketing. People sign up at daily email tips and one of the bulletins the sign up form. Actually, says why content marketing is bullshit and the reason why? right there was a while I given write that but it was because if this this issue where people come at internet they got content marketing, been around for a while and gets a lot, people read about into how content marketing is this massive thing that’s gonna totally change their business but yes if it is not relevant, if it’s not content it’s going to appeal to that target customer then it’s not gonna work.  Neil Patel:  Totally and you gotta right and I think a lot of companies still have to learn that they are all conceptually understand that when one comes to practicing it they are not getting it. John McIntyre:  I think because when I speak to people, one thing that I go on and on and on about is empathy and taking the time to understand your prospect and your customer who you really trying to connect with and then creating not just content but creating like everything being influenced by the core idea of you know what person you’re trying to attract, but it’s amazing how many people here that and I do this myself, done this myself, where it’s easy to hear that and go why that’s a great idea and they go to the opposite thing, where you should be surveying people getting on the phone with them and talking on and then finding it what they want to hear about but instead it’s probably easier to sit down and write a blog post live disc pay someone else to write a blog post, so even just go paste someone else to write a blog post without doing the research. Neil Patel:  Yeah, and it’s like when you do it without doing the whole process and the research etc. on your audiences, what to provide to them, what they want to read etc. Like you can end up spending in terms of time and money on content marketing that won’t convert, right? Any other form of marketing if you don’t write doesn’t mean it can be effective just throwing money at something doesn’t solve it. John McIntyre: One thing I’m curious about is, people getting in this internet thing, when they think it’s gonna be at least at the beginning that you know when go to paid traffic but they’re not going to pay a dollar, three dollars, five dollars, ten dollars wherever per click on Facebook or ad words and that’s really expensive. So, I’m going to some content marketing because, it’s free. That stays in the boots-trapping state, so that began and write the articles themselves and put in the other and like it’s hot free articles, free traffic and one thing is this not because they miner we’re paying money to write the articles or put them on the site or get the traffic. But they’re paying in that time and the time may that might be more valuable. So, what do you think in terms of like what’s more expensive when it comes to getting traffic is going down to paid traffic or going down to content marketing from when you add up like the time, the money, the resources that go into it. Neil Patel: Yeah, the way I look at it all on forms of margin your expenses, whether you’re paying with time and money. One or another you’re gonna pay, so you just got a buyer where your first thing goes from there. John McIntyre: How do you like we do in content marketing, how you attract when it’s gonna take you 6 to 12 months on average. So, you know for the traffic to kick in with the articles you’ve been putting out. Neil Patel: Well! What you wanna do if you want to test the water so, as you’re doing it. You would wanna see all right, to getting relevant comments from people could be potential customers. Am I, getting relevant traffic. All of these things helps in determine if you could potentially convert those visitors into customers later on, it’s how I could leap of faith. We only at ten thousand visitors a month you know you can up converting or make you much money from it. These gonna take some leap of faith. John McIntyre: Right, right so it’s a little bit less in the intense of tracking it’s a little bit, like it’s less precise than say it is even not going to paid traffic. Spend a thousand dollars get a thousand visitors and you know very quickly if that ad campaign works.  Comes with content marketing you say you testing the waters, you see what happens and after a set of meta time will have 10 thousand visitors, it looks like it doesn’t really work. Can’t be100% sure, but you’ve gotta, I guess caller. Neil Patel: Yeah, exactly right and that’s why this thought why paid advertising is going more popular. It’s easier at CRI. There is a direct order line and not one. John McIntyre: Okay, and how important is the quality when it comes to writing an article. Some sites go all out with the way it’s put the flow, the design the images in that. Just everything looks amazing in the other size. Its super basic like Steve Pavlina, I don’t know if you know him, the personal development blogger. His sites like notoriously born in terms of the design and the way it’s put together it’s from a design perspective it’s pretty average. Yet, he’s probably one of the biggest personal development bloggers on the Internet and gets huge amount of traffic and so it’s far as the quality I mean, the article, the written quality is quiet high  but other than that it doesn’t look like anything special. Whereas, other sites go all out with the design and stuff. So, how important is that so the quality. Neil Patel: I think having a good design is important but not that important. It doesn’t affect the traffic. I see the same thing when my boss started to have an ugly design and they got the traffic. A blog is a blog; people go there for content not the design. Having that better design can’t help you get more traffic. It’s not that biggest requirement. I recommend it’s a minimal version. Something that’s like get on like not fancy etc. Throwing it out there, as a blogger actually get more attraction than invest dollars in it. Neil Patel: I like it, I like it and one last thing I’m curious to know because I have done podcast. I do when if doing and sometimes people come up with this question. I love this question but it’s for you wish you are asked that’s a content marketing in traffic or even when marketing in general. This probably gonna be stuffed, you don’t get asked about very often because it’s a standard questions that comes in my all we talking about today. But what something that you don’t get ask very often that’s really important that maybe you wish that you were asked more of them. So, one thing is known really talks shows are these days, how to convert visitors into customers and I think that’s important because if you look at marketing trends, it’s becoming more and more expensive, not just from the aspect that paid advertising is increasing on your cost per click over time because it is more competitive. Even content marketing is increasing in cost. So, I because you’re putting in time and eventually you even hire someone to attend the blog. Any, content marketers on cheap rate. They’re going up in price, quarter over quarter. So it’s like I feel so many companies are focusing on getting traffic to their site versus just converting what they have into customers. John McIntyre: Alright, So put some resources into doing the content marketing, doing the traffic but also invest in the convergence. Neil Patel: That’s correct and there’s no one trick in proving conversions. It just comes down to solving objections, right? Things with this, you go website you don’t buy. There is a reason you don’t buy and you didn’t care to buy right now. Maybe you don’t have enough money, maybe the price is too high and you don’t trust the site you are on. Whatever the reasons are they all considered objections. So what you have to do is you have to find out what are the common objections which you can usually get from callerview.com. Just throw a survey on your site and as you start noticing similar patterns and multiple people with the same objections. So, you can ask a question like: why didn’t you buy from us, right. You get enough responses or you could ask what could be have done to complete the purchase and their technology will figure out probably technology will figure out what to show people the question, right. Once you get the responses then you can say okay everyone a is complaining that they don’t trust our site to put their credit card in and then maybe getting their PvP feel and you know hacker safer McAfee Virus secure seal or whatever it may be may give people more trust and that could help with your conversion rate, right. But you won’t know unless you get these objections and then you a/b test if your solution actually helps or not. John McIntyre: Right, right, I like it. So, it goes back to this,  gotta find out what the basic find out what’s going through your prospects said, the visitors have when they are on the site. Together I say an empathy really understanding who they are and what they want, what they don’t want and then tailoring the site to them. Neil Patel: Yes, just like sale, that you go and tell salesman you’re trying to close the deed, you try to figure out the physiology behind the person that you are selling to, what they’re thinking. You keep your figure that out. You’re more likely to call the deal. John McIntyre: Absolutely, it’s funny how simple this stuff gets when you really get down to it. You don’t need like tons of you know you read whole bunch of books of courses ran like that to do this stuff it comes back to some very simple ideas. Neil Patel: yes  John McIntyre: Before we I’m going about to wrap it up here but before we go if people want to learn more about you, can I get a little more about Neil Patel and find out what you’re up to. What is the best place for them to do that? Neil Patel: They can either go to quickstart.com or Neil Patel.com John McIntyre: Okay, I know you have a a training course for a product on  traffic or content marketing, that’s on quick start. Neil Patel: That’s on quick start, yes. John McIntyre: Alright, Well! Thanks for coming on the show Neil. What I’ll do is I’ll have the links to your website in the show in micmethod.com. So, the listener didn’t hear them, they can go to micmethod.com. Get those links and got check that out. Thanks again for coming on the show Neil. Neil Patel: Thanks for having me. The post Episode #96 – Neil Patel on Traffic, Content Marketing, & Getting BUYERS To Your Site (traffic gen at it’s finest) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.