Learning by feel or learning by book? I'm actually having success in business.

Jameel

Jameel

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Feb 14, 2007
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I'm starting to do well in my business after taking some great advice someone from this forum gave me. I moved away from trying to sell on eBay and just used eBay as a tool to get views to my private email and Youtube channels. From there I'm doing the sales and having fun figuring things out as I go. Are there any books I should start to read at this point or just keep learning as I go along?

I'm interested to know if the things I figure out are true because I'd like to know as much as I can. I get this feeling that once I get someone to buy something once they are in the door and their orders just keep piling in afterwards. I want to know why, any psychology behind this, that sort of thing. I want to know business and the lot inside out.

How do I begin to do this?
 


So you're traffic leaking into your own funnel where you're capturing emails or other contact information to continue soft-selling and eventually hard-converting? Sounds great. You'll know it works when your bank account starts filling up. Most of this requires you to actually offer value every step of the way. The beautiful thing is you have 1000 variables you can tweak until you convert at the most insane rate possible.

Sounds good to me. Read AND do. Don't just do one or the other. Don't fall into the false dichotomy of authoritarian decision making. The world isn't black and white. There's an entire continuum, a long dimension of grey in between wherein you can find your balance. Definitely don't just cast a wide net and hope to catch something, or toss shit at the wall and hope something sticks. If you read, you'll know how and where to take action. Don't just read without action either. Nobody gets paid to just read.

Sounds like you're ready to kick some ass. Rock on, broseph!

EDIT: As always, read Cashvertising. It's your copywriting guide from heaven. Also, you aren't just dealing with buyers in one mode. Your job is to capture them at every stage of intent and slowly guide them down the funnel, shaping their perceptions and thoughts and desires as you go, until they are so hungry for it they can't do anything BUT click the "buy now" button. And you aren't done there either. Then there's upsells to maximize revenue. You can even convert people trying to exit your funnel and bring them right back in. It goes on forever and ever. But yeah, psychology is what it's all about. You don't really need a book, but the ability to pretend and empathize with the person in the funnel. What do you need to hear at that point? What are your fears at this point? Desires? Are you running from something? Moving towards something? What problem are you solving and what's the mind state of the person barely interested? Insanely interested? Ready to commit? Ready to bail?

YEAAAAH BOYEEEEEE you got me hype now.

EDIT 2: Don't just read and do. Read, Think, and Do. Think about what you read and what you did and what you're going to do.
 
Jameel said:
I'm starting to do well in my business after taking some great advice someone from this forum gave me. I moved away from trying to sell on eBay and just used eBay as a tool to get views to my private email and Youtube channels. From there I'm doing the sales and having fun figuring things out as I go. Are there any books I should start to read at this point or just keep learning as I go along?

I'm interested to know if the things I figure out are true because I'd like to know as much as I can. I get this feeling that once I get someone to buy something once they are in the door and their orders just keep piling in afterwards. I want to know why, any psychology behind this, that sort of thing. I want to know business and the lot inside out.

How do I begin to do this?
Click to expand...

You can begin buying subscriptions to Inc, Forbes and so on. This will keep your mind fed through breaks and downtime. Just a suggestion, I love reading.
 
Johnathan said:
You can begin buying subscriptions to Inc, Forbes and so on. This will keep your mind fed through breaks and downtime. Just a suggestion, I love reading.
Click to expand...

Stuff like this is very helpful for getting timely ideas and to see what other companies are doing and having success with. A few more I would add to the list...

Fast Company
Website Magazine
Target Marketing
GD USA
and a few others I can't think of at the moment.
 
Fiver said:
Can you expand on this technique?
Click to expand...

I sell adult items, ebay is very pissy about removing my listings. I get close to selling an item after it has bids up to nearly $300, then bam ebay removes the ad with 10 hrs to go. I changed my ads over to be very plain and bland and just started linking to youtube videos in the ads. You can link to youtube videos.

I put up youtube videos and put a call to action slide at the end of the clip and details in the description. The call to action in the slide is different from the one in the description. So I can figure out which one people respond to more.

People usually email me and want to purchase my goods. The niche is very small and targeted and I have a rough outline of the metrics but I'm not sure how to really measure them but I'm excited.

So by me listing one item I get somewhere around 500 views on youtube, 25 of those people will subscribe to my channel, 3 of those people will email me and 1 of them will buy something. I'm making $50-$300 on each sale and it's nearly pure profit, cost me around $5 each item.

I'm selling very common items but my sell is that fantasy of buying it from my shop. It is personalized. Others are selling the same items for 10 bucks.

Right now I need to figure out some of the following

1. What my customers want. I email them regularly to test out ideas and see what they want. I get tons of nice ideas and suggestions that turn into instant money once I produce it for them.

2. Some sort of database to track all of my customers, who bought what, I have noticed trends like once people buy they keep on buying and their order price increases. From $9 to $25, big leaps often!

3. How to effectively capture emails onto a list so I can further target those interested. Shouldn't I offer them something free? Does offering something free cheapen it and make people uninterested? Will it impact my overall product if they realize that 50 people got it for free? How do incentives work best?

4. What should I include in the upsell? Should I include things in the physical package I send them? Coupons? Items with direct action? I wonder if I can get people on a monthly membership cost!

This is all very exciting :love-smiley-013:
 
thehobbster said:
So you're traffic leaking into your own funnel where you're capturing emails or other contact information to continue soft-selling and eventually hard-converting? Sounds great. You'll know it works when your bank account starts filling up. Most of this requires you to actually offer value every step of the way. The beautiful thing is you have 1000 variables you can tweak until you convert at the most insane rate possible.

Sounds good to me. Read AND do. Don't just do one or the other. Don't fall into the false dichotomy of authoritarian decision making. The world isn't black and white. There's an entire continuum, a long dimension of grey in between wherein you can find your balance. Definitely don't just cast a wide net and hope to catch something, or toss shit at the wall and hope something sticks. If you read, you'll know how and where to take action. Don't just read without action either. Nobody gets paid to just read.

Sounds like you're ready to kick some ass. Rock on, broseph!

EDIT: As always, read Cashvertising. It's your copywriting guide from heaven. Also, you aren't just dealing with buyers in one mode. Your job is to capture them at every stage of intent and slowly guide them down the funnel, shaping their perceptions and thoughts and desires as you go, until they are so hungry for it they can't do anything BUT click the "buy now" button. And you aren't done there either. Then there's upsells to maximize revenue. You can even convert people trying to exit your funnel and bring them right back in. It goes on forever and ever. But yeah, psychology is what it's all about. You don't really need a book, but the ability to pretend and empathize with the person in the funnel. What do you need to hear at that point? What are your fears at this point? Desires? Are you running from something? Moving towards something? What problem are you solving and what's the mind state of the person barely interested? Insanely interested? Ready to commit? Ready to bail?

YEAAAAH BOYEEEEEE you got me hype now.

EDIT 2: Don't just read and do. Read, Think, and Do. Think about what you read and what you did and what you're going to do.
Click to expand...

Nice, is all of this covered in cashvertizing?
 
The Warrior Forum's Private "War Room"

Best $20 life time subscription I've ever signed up for in 2008.

See that list of names of 40 year old rock star IM whiz kids? Well I won't say who I am exactly, but my name is on there, that's how I can stand by this claim.

Anyway... I won't beat around the bush, if you want to take your business to the next stratosphere and start earning REAL $7 commissions straight to your Paypal account, I highly recommend you borrow $20 from a friend and get a War Room membership, it will change your life.

P.S. Cashvertising really isn't that good, find the cliff notes or a review somewhere. The book is like 95% filler. There are probably 5 pages in that entire book that you actually need to read, I swear to Allah I'm not even exaggerating. I'll bust out my copy and give you the page #'s even. It's like someone published a fucking WSO on copy writing.
 
Jameel said:
I sell adult items, ebay is very pissy about removing my listings.
Click to expand...

Jameel said:
People usually email me and want to purchase my goods. The niche is very small and targeted and I have a rough outline of the metrics but I'm not sure how to really measure them but I'm excited.
Click to expand...

Jameel said:
So by me listing one item I get somewhere around 500 views on youtube, 25 of those people will subscribe to my channel, 3 of those people will email me and 1 of them will buy something. I'm making $50-$300 on each sale and it's nearly pure profit, cost me around $5 each item.
Click to expand...

Jameel said:
I'm selling very common items but my sell is that fantasy of buying it from my shop. It is personalized. Others are selling the same items for 10 bucks.
Click to expand...


Jesus christ, Jameel is selling his used underwear to gay webmasters.

EricVonDoobie said:
See that list of names of 40 year old rock star IM whiz kids? Well I won't say who I am exactly, but my name is on there, that's how I can stand by this claim.
Click to expand...

I'm gonna figure this one out, I can already rule out about half of that list.
 
Try Reading some books on direct marketing. Otherwise read Weapons of influence, Words that work.... etc. Try to read books that teach you about human nature and understood how we think and why we act...
 
Cashvertizing is good, but Claude Hopkins is where it's at. CH invented a lot of the techniques covered in the Cashvertizing book, and was obsessed with finding ways to reach the common man.
 
1. Weapons of influence - I dont see any author or book named this

2. [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Words-That-Work-What-People/dp/1401302599]Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear: Frank I. Luntz: 9781401302597: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

3. [ame=http://www.amazon.com/CA-HVERTISING-Ad-Agency-Psychology-Anything/dp/1601630328/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397847895&sr=1-1&keywords=cashvertizing]CA: How to Use More than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make Big Money Selling Anything to Anyone: Drew Eric Whitman: 9781601630322: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

4. [ame=http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?ie=UTF8&field-author=Claude+Hopkins&search-alias=books&text=Claude+Hopkins&sort=relevancerank]Amazon.com: Claude Hopkins: Books[/ame]

5. https://generalassemb.ly/online/videos/growth-hacking
 
Bros I need suggestions for how to track my sales. I get sales as a mixture of Paypal and Cash payments in the mailbox. I'd like to know how much I made this week, last week, this month, etc, quarterly, and tallying in the expenses.

Microsoft Excel?
 
Jameel said:
Bros I need suggestions for how to track my sales. I get sales as a mixture of Paypal and Cash payments in the mailbox. I'd like to know how much I made this week, last week, this month, etc, quarterly, and tallying in the expenses.

Microsoft Excel?
Click to expand...

Accounting Software | Online Small Business Bookkeeping Services - Outright

It'll import everything, you will literally be up and running in about 5 minutes. It's like Mint except it's good and it's for small biz. Can record cash transactions via mobile app or browser.
 
EricVonDoobie said:
Accounting Software | Online Small Business Bookkeeping Services - Outright

It'll import everything, you will literally be up and running in about 5 minutes. It's like Mint except it's good and it's for small biz. Can record cash transactions via mobile app or browser.
Click to expand...

What do you use to keep track of orders are as far, shipping, pending, received, etc, I'm sloppy as fuck because I get tracking numbers from USPS but I just keep them on my desk and in gmail
 
I hope you're reinvesting all of your income and running this as an actual business and not a job... Your operation relies too heavily on ebay not realising what you're actually doing... once/if they do - it's lights out.

But until then young grasshopper, you must milk them for all you can.. milk it aggressively until the titty is sore.. only THEN will you reach your destiny
 
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