A journey from Internet marketing stasis to business mastery and financial freedom (I hope)

After that dissapointing first day, I’m glad to say that day 2 was really excellent. That is apart from the first hour that was wasted with a pointless introduction to all of the speakers (those that were available anyway).

1. Mike Filsaime

Despite getting too many emails from him on a daily basis, I really like Mike Filsaime.

He presented very well and had all his slides prepared for us to download afterwards (I wish the other speakers had done this). Some of them were complex diagrams so it’s probably just as well.

I made about 6 pages of notes so I’ll try to pick out some of the main points:

• Begin with the end in mind and work backwards.
• Build a business that can run without you using automation, leverage and scalability (eBay is not scalable).
• Don’t be a perfectionist (one of my failings).
• Only work on 1 project at a time. Mike spent a lot of time on this with an example based around getting 4 projects done. This was one of the best parts of his presentation in my opinion.
• Keep an ‘Idea Book’ for noting down potential future projects (but don’t start them until the current project is done!).
• 3 ways to increase profits – Traffic, Conversion, Frequency (TCF)
• Traffic – more eyeballs: buy, borrow or create
• Conversion – more profit per eyeball: sell, up-sell, cross-sell
• Frequency – more sales per eyeball
• Use a funnel model – low cost front-end product with increasing cost back-end products. Make sure you have back-end products.
• Know your metrics. It’s possible to lose money on front-end product and advertising if metrics show an overall profit. Can even offer 110% commission to affiliates.

There was some other stuff Mike talked about but I got a bit confused toward the end with information overload. I made a note at the time to review the slides and make sure I got the DVDs to watch it over again.

Pitch: Mentoring programme with lots of bonuses including Mike’s Butterfly Marketing course

Cost: $1500 + $497 per month (min 12 months)

I think it’s a shame for Mike that he was on first. With the amount of great information he gave away I think he might have made more sales if he was on in the afternoon of day 3.

2. Morgan Westerman

Morgan was good. A natural presenter and a real showman. He gave out free donuts to everyone and “Interview With God” CDs (they ran out before they got to me) and actually ended with a spectacular magic trick. Very popular guy.

Morgan’s talk was all about buzz and how to create it. He defined buzz as “enthusiastic, positive gossip”.

• Word of mouth, referral marketing, viral marketing. We trust people we know; the barriers are gone.
• Viral = pushed into marketplace
• Word of mouth = pulled into marketplace
• Buzz = market penetration
• Exponential growth, X factor: anything greater than 1.0 = buzz
• Make the product a part of the communication process (e.g. hotmail, eBay).
• Have customers interact.
• Prompt customers to pass it on.
• Effective buzz campaign needs: Novelty, Effectiveness, Economy, Dependability, Simplicity.
• Turn visitors into evangelists. Customers buy an emotion and justify with logic.
• Think like Walt Disney – create an experience for Web site visitors.

Pitch: Tele-seminar and video coaching, list building seminar, partnership programme.

Cost: $4497

3. Michel Fortin and Sylvie Charrier

These two came as a double act. They’re getting married next month and were all over each other on stage. Aaaah… Michel has a huge reputation as a copywriter and Sylvie is also very successful in her own right but I’ve heard less about her on the Net.

I think their laid back style lost the interest of many people I spoke to which is a shame because they gave out some cracking strategies and a complete business model they call “Money Magnets”.

It’s based around content but using it in 3 ways: article site, autoresponder series and ebook sales. They use the same content for all 3.

Where to get content:

• Create it
• Convert existing (own written materials, record & transcribe, products with master resell rights, public domain materials)
• Reprintable articles (royalty free)
• Syndicated content (RSS feeds)
• Buy for pennies on the dollar (eBay)

They mentioned a ‘well known’ Internet marketer that had a Tattoo site that didn’t work at all and was losing money. They bought it for next to nothing and made money from it using their techniques. In the Underachievers world, Frank Kern is continually getting ribbed about his Tattoo site that went bad so I wonder if this is one and the same. It proves that even if you choose a bad market, there’s probably still a way to make money from it.

Tip #1: Build Email List

• Turn content site into membership site
• Allow them free access to just a few articles
• Get readers to register to view rest of content
• Use AdSense to monetise site
• Use a delayed, non-blockable, pop-up opt-in form
• Get visitors to either click an ad, opt-in or go away!

Tip #2: Spread Content

• Put some on site
• Deliver same content in an autoresponder over time (easier to digest bite-sized chuncks and makes more money)

Tip #3: Tease and Pull

• Don’t deliver content in full in autoresponder
• Get them to return to site and re-expose them to ads
• Use a very short message (plain text only, no HTML)
• Leave sentence hanging…

Tip #4: Seed Your Site

• Use blogs to deliver your content (WordPress)
• Offer ability to syndicate your content
• Allow comments (extra content)

Tip #5: Sell Your Site/Content

• Package same content and sell it
• People buy convenience
• Different formats: digital, physical, audio
• Use strategic excerpts
• Harmonise sales and content sites (sounds good – not sure what this means exactly)

My observation is that you probably need 10’s or 100’s of sites to make good money but this is possible over a period of time.

Pitch: Coaching programme?

Cost: Sorry, I lost the flyer

4. Rich Schott

Rich’s entire presentation seemed to be a pitch for some kind of video email and networking product. He went to great length to tell us all about the company, how great the product was and how many tens of millions were spent developing it (that now needs to be recouped).

I don’t think the live demo went as well as it was supposed to.

I’m not sure Rich actually talked much about how to use the technology to improve our business. I don’t think that was what he was there for at all.

Pitch: Some kind of product/reseller deal?

Cost: £199 + £44 per month to start but if you’re really good then you can later pay £1458 + £135 per month. Huh?

I was confused at the time and I’m just as confused now after re-reading the flyer as to what Rich was actually offering. Was it the products to use, a reseller deal or some kind of pyramid scheme? It seemed to me as if we were being asked to pay a huge fee to become glorified affiliates. No thanks!