AM(A)A: How I Make Money.



Yes, I knew you were from Springfield. We stick to Chinese Chef for drive through as well. However, since we grocery shop at Hyvee we usually grab our Chinese there.
 
What drove you away from creating your own products (including hiring someone else to do the actual labor)?

You mentioned learning from the people hiring you if you're selling coding/writing/designing services... so what is the pain point that makes you prefer marketing for others instead of doing like in your $1000 e-book example and running the show?
 
Unarmed Gunman said:
Except I wouldn't have their phone number. For instance, let's say I'm running a PPC campaign to drive customers to the site. They click the ad, they bite on the presell and they go to order, but then decide rather than make a $3,500 purchase online they'd rather go to the physical store and see it in person to make sure that's what they want. At that point, I have captured zero personal info from the customer, so there is nothing for me to follow up on.
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Would a giveaway via QR codes maybe work? Have the site generate a unique QR code for each visitor, and tell them to save it to their phone (or print it out), and bring it to the store for their chance to win a free prize.

Then give something small away weekly or monthly. This way if someone shows up in store with a QR code, quite obviously they found the site first. You could even convince him to allow you to setup a QR code scanner in-store that links into your own database, so you can see how many people have scanned QR codes even without being in the store.
 
what kind of transition do you think a traditional CPA affiliate could/should make for more of a long-term business? ad agency? etc??

thanks!!
 
Do you do what you do because you like it or because you're good at it (or both)?

If you were starting from scratch today and young (straight out of school / college), do you think you'd do the same thing again?
 
pinchyfingers said:
What drove you away from creating your own products (including hiring someone else to do the actual labor)?

You mentioned learning from the people hiring you if you're selling coding/writing/designing services... so what is the pain point that makes you prefer marketing for others instead of doing like in your $1000 e-book example and running the show?
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I'm interested in hearing the answer to this as well.

What made you decide to do these JVs with other companies vs. churning out clickbank offers?
 
pinchyfingers said:
What drove you away from creating your own products (including hiring someone else to do the actual labor)?

You mentioned learning from the people hiring you if you're selling coding/writing/designing services... so what is the pain point that makes you prefer marketing for others instead of doing like in your $1000 e-book example and running the show?
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Dude, ha.

I started a reply to this last night (great question), wrote a novel of a post explaining everything in detail and lost it when I realized I wasn't logged in before hitting "reply". So pissed.

I'll give you the cliffs below.

bizkiller said:
what kind of transition do you think a traditional CPA affiliate could/should make for more of a long-term business? ad agency? etc??

thanks!!
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I think that you should apply what you're good at and what you enjoy (usually these are similar) and do something that you find exciting.


Nick90 said:
Do you do what you do because you like it or because you're good at it (or both)?

If you were starting from scratch today and young (straight out of school / college), do you think you'd do the same thing again?
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Both.

I would have started earlier. Knowing what I know now I would have made some different decisions along the way, but for the most part yes, I'd be doing something at least very similar to what I do now.

mpbiz said:
I'm interested in hearing the answer to this as well.

What made you decide to do these JVs with other companies vs. churning out clickbank offers?
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I do have products that I sell.

If you look at Gary Halbert, he had a very successful publishing business. But the top of his funnel was always consulting/services. The same goes for Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham and a ton of other guys.

Think of a guitar shop that also gives guitar lessons. That's no coincidence. Both sides of the business compliment the other, the business as a whole is much more effective as a result.

So as a guy who wants to help businesses with marketing, I created products that would attract my ideal clients. The products serve as lead gen, they pre-sell me and build trust with prospects. They allow people to buy from me at various price points. But they're an extension of my consulting business. They're part of the funnel.

I have a lot more fun doing what I do than I do talking about it or teaching it.

So up until now the products I've created personally were designed to build my business as a whole. If I sold them, and didn't actually do what I teach, it'd be like the douche on Clickbank selling the "Ultimate SEO Instant Traffic Loophole" while driving nothing but JV traffic to the offer. I'd also be cutting out my back-end, which would defeat the purpose that the products were designed for.

I really enjoy working with business. I meet amazing people. I work with and learn from incredibly successful people. I get to see all kinds of businesses from behind the scenes. I learn lessons that you can't learn anywhere else without experiencing them.

In six months I may be marketing a software product full-time. Or I may jump into a niche like supplements. I have no idea. I don't plan that far ahead. But it keeps me excited about the future, anything can happen.

The thing about products is that if you want to do them right, you have to give 100%. Even if you're outsourcing everything, just putting all the pieces together is a full-time job.

I had such a better/well thought out reply that I lost. The short answer is I really love marketing. I like working with different businesses. I'll probably continue to do it for awhile. I'm certainly not opposed to focusing 100% on a product, but it'd have to be something amazing, something I can throw myself behind completely and the timing would need to be right.

I'd say it's pretty likely that it'll happen soon. I have some stuff I'm cooking up, and depending on how things play out I may decide to give them 100%.

I hope that helps (the post I just lost was more detailed, I'm kicking myself right now).
 
butcher said:
Care to elaborate on your dating experience? (Online, not your personal relationships) :)
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Years ago (guessing 5ish, maybe less) I did a lot of just direct traffic to pre-sell for free dating signups. Usually did pay-per-lead. I mainly used Adwords/Yahoo/Facebook.

I had a few other ways I promoted them too, but they wouldn't work today.

The money was good but eventually dried up.

I've also worked with a couple of clients on some pretty successful "seduction" type of sites, Clickbank launches. That's a fun niche to work in, surprisingly hungry buyers with deep pockets.

There's one I REALLY wish I could tell you guys about, but I can't. It was a very unique twist on the traditional PUA type of product, it did pretty well.
 
Just want to say I've known scott since like 2006 and watched him go from writing articles on DP to being pretty damn successful.

He's also done some work to help us launch some of our supplement products and mailings. Smart as fuck.

Find a way to party that doesn't leave you in a hole bro!
 
scottspfd82 said:
Did you know I'm from Springfield, Mo?

Hard to say, I eat Chinese Chef or Korea House more than any others. Chinese Chef is good for drive through, Korea House is close to where I live.
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Both of these places use kittens for their main ingredient in their cashew chicken.

Only place I feel comfortable at is the Silk Road.

Also, inb4 this turns out to be the greatest "Abraham/Kennedy style" presell thread on WF. :p
 
Alltimed said:
I literally live a block from Silk Road and have never eaten there.
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LULZ!


37580092.jpg
 
scottspfd82 said:
I want to add one more thing before I head off for awhile. Why I'm not a fan of affiliate marketing or SEO.

I'm actually a big fan of both, but not for the long-term. I made my first real money online as an affiliate back in 2005-2006. Campaigns exploded and collapsed just as quickly.

My problem with being an affiliate is that you're just doing traffic arbitrage. You lose that edge you lose your business. It's MUCH better to own the offer. To have affiliates driving traffic to build your buyers list. To piggy back off of all of the hard work SEO's put into ranking and drive that traffic to build your business.

These days when I think of being an affiliate, it's in terms of adding another revenue stream to an existing list. Not buying traffic and hoping to earn short-term income off of arbitrage.

You never own SEO traffic. You never own paid traffic. You own lists. You own buyers. You own products. Everything else can easily disappear overnight. Again, I'm not against affiliate marketing. It's a great way to learn the business. For the guys who play it right, it's a great model. But at the very least you should be building your own list, your own assets, off of that traffic.
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The problem with being an affiliate is simply not getting paid ,even if you follow the TOS. So many scammers and shady networks in this biz. I have been deprived of nearly 150k in commissions over the past three years from networks that for whatever reason didn't want to pay. Thankfully i keep margins at near 100% or I would really be fucked. If you're doign arbitrage and spend 60k for traffic and the network doesn't pay, you're out 60k with zero recourse. after that you might as well go to www.fns.usda.gov/snap‎ and get on snap
Some networks are more reputable than others, but the leverage is decidedly not in your favor as an affiliate.
 
cpauser said:
The problem with being an affiliate is simply not getting paid ,even if you follow the TOS. So many scammers and shady networks in this biz. I have been deprived of nearly 150k in commissions over the past three years from networks that for whatever reason didn't want to pay. Thankfully i keep margins at near 100% or I would really be fucked. If you're doign arbitrage and spend 60k for traffic and the network doesn't pay, you're out 60k with zero recourse. after that you might as well go to www.fns.usda.gov/snap‎ and get on snap
Some networks are more reputable than others, but the leverage is decidedly not in your favor as an affiliate.
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Everything you post is worthless. Wouldn't even wipe my ass with your posts.
 
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