Information Marketing Association

Weekly IMA Ezine: Piling on More Benefits Can Decrease Sales

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 05:00:00 GMT

June 18th, 2013 | Week 25 of 2013

I can clearly remember thinking, in 2008 as our country entered the recession, “maybe we’ll finally be able to get some decent service in a restaurant.”

While high employment and rising home prices gave American’s the highest disposable income in history, it made fewer people the motivation to provide great service. After all, with so many people dining out the problem was what to do with everyone waiting for a table rather than worrying about providing your guests great service.

The recession meant fewer people were eating out. A new phenomenon began; employees in the businesses I frequented became more appreciative.

So far this year I’ve been genuinely impressed with the level of service I’ve received. But, in some instances it’s become too much.

Last Wednesday evening I had dinner with a friend in a high end steak house in Chicago. The kind of place where you expect great service. The servers were attentive, but too much so.

Our server was Ryan and he had two others helping him out. My friend and I were trying to have a conversation. The server team was there every minute with some sort of question. Do you want bread, can I fill your water, can you something else to drink, can I get you more bread, and on and on. It was too much.

I had the same experience in a restaurant for breakfast the next day. Throughout my breakfast my server kept asking me, “do you want more water,” “can I get you anything else,” “is everything ok?” It was nice she was so conscientious but it was too much. (And for the record, why ask someone if they want more water, just grab the pitcher and fill the glass.)

I wonder how many of us are doing the same thing? Technology today has made it so much easier for us to communicate with our customers. Why send email once a week when you can send them several times throughout the day. And, it was one thing when it was only us that were communicating that frequently, today the technology is so easy to use everyone has it, and they are loading your customer’s inbox with hundreds of emails essentially asking, “how is everything,” “can I help you,” “do you need anything else.”

One problem is balancing the needs of new customers with long time members. New customers want more and need more while long-time customers can become bored with too much communication. For this, I have a welcome sequence for new members that gives them additional information. Plus, I’ll send additional announcements to new members about the Jump Start Coaching Calls and fewer to longer-term members for whom that benefit may not be as important.

Plus, I work hard at restricting my use of email communication. On Tuesdays, this ezine is all you receive from me. If there is a call coming up you’ll receive a notice on another day of the week. Otherwise, I work to consolidate everything you need into two or three emails a week. It’s still a lot, but I work hard at keeping it restrained.

Do you have a plan for when you distribute emails to your customers? Are you communicating with them too frequently? How can you consolidate important notices and sales offers into a schedule?

What do you think? Do I communicate too frequently? Are there further opportunities to improve? Or have you seen service levels change in the last year or two? Let me know what you think at the bottom of the page.

Best wishes

Creating 6-Figure Sales Presentations for Google Hangouts, Webinars and the Stage

Dave Dee gave a great primer on using Google Hangouts at Dan Kennedy’s recent A to Z Blueprint Seminar. Because Dave ran out of time I was able to convince him to follow-up his presentation with a special Best Practices call for you. This program delves deep into the formula that allowed Dave Dee to sell more than a hundred thousand dollars during a Google Hangout and more than half a million dollars from stage. All, from the same template that Dave has agreed to reveal on this program. This program is for anyone creating winning sales presentations whether delivered in person, from stage or through a technology platform like teleseminars, webinars or Google Hangouts. Note: If you aren’t sure what a Google Hangout is and you would like a brief tutorial, here are the relevant handouts from Dave Dee’s presentation: http://bit.ly/IMAGH.

Here is a quick summary of what we covered on this call:

The newest technology that allows you to keep prospects focused on your presentation longer and generates more sales.
What you should do first, before you create your presentation.
The critical element you must weave throughout any sales presentation.
How to structure your teaching points that moves your customers closer to a purchase.
How to structure the close and ask for the sale.

You can listen to the call online, download it for your MP3 player or read the quick-reference transcript online at Creating 6-Figure Sales Presentations for Google Hangouts, Webinars and the Stage.

IMA Easy Content Library

Are you looking for one last article for your newsletter? Would you like to have a guest column every month? Would you like to add a bunch of additional content to your website?

As an IMA member, you have access to the Easy Content Library. This is a resource library of articles contributed by other IMA members that you can use in your own publications.

You can insert these articles into newsletters, products or even books as content. As long as you maintain the author’s attribution at the bottom of each article, you are welcome to use them.

Check out the Easy Content Library today. It’s filled with a lot of great articles to read, and they may spark ideas for blog posts or other content.

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Practice Pay Solutions and IMA have teamed up for this superior offering. For more information, please visit Payment Processing With DirectPay

News to Share with IMA Members?

Robert is happen to share your news with other members. Do you have any successful product launches, seminars or first tele-seminar series that you’d like to share? Let Robert know at RS@Info-Marketing.org.

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You

One of the toughest challenges can be finding vendors who "get it." It is difficult because oftentimes you must first educate vendors about your info-marketing business and its needs before you can outline your project for them.

For the last three years, members of the IMA have nominated their vendors for the IMA Buyer's Guide. This is a quick reference directory to help you find the best vendors in the info-marketing industry.

You should always do your due diligence before hiring any vendor, but this list will give you a head start toward finding one that will meet your needs, help you implement faster and get you from the project planning stage to the profit stage as quickly as possible.

Check out the IMA Buyer's Guide today.

Weekly IMA Ezine: Tomorrow's Big Industry

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 05:00:00 GMT

June 11th, 2013 | Week 24 of 2013

He was totally baffled. He couldn’t comprehend the money you generate as an information marketer.

Let me back up a bit. I was at a meeting for the Florida tourism industry, having lunch with the CEO of a large magazine publisher. It wasn’t a one-on-one lunch; it was one of those lunches with 10 people seated at a round table where they serve rubber chicken.

I can’t tell you his name or the name of the magazine because I’m going to share some of the details of our conversation. He attended the meeting to support his advertising sales team since there were several large advertisers there.

I asked him about the other industry events he attends and some of the education programs his company sponsors. He was proud of the fact that he’d recently been a featured speaker and had been recognized for his publication’s innovative layout and design. Evidently he was well known for creating “cutting edge” magazine layouts.

When I asked him about increasing circulation and his subscriber base, he told me design is the key to building readership. And when I asked how potential subscribers know your design is any good if they haven’t read the magazine, he told me his marketing features free sample magazines. Then, when I asked him about the rate at which his subscribers renew their subscriptions, he told me it was in line with industry averages. That’s when things got interesting.

I asked, “So, you are one of the foremost experts in publication design in the country, and your renewal rates are ‘in line with industry standards,’ which is another way of saying ‘average.’ If the best designed publications get average retention, then is innovative design driving subscriptions?”

He said nothing. After a long, uncomfortable pause, he turned to the person seated to his left and started a conversation with her.

But that wasn’t the end of it. We were stuck with each other at that table for a while, so finally he turned to me and asked, “So, what do you do?”

I told him about my work in Florida’s tourism industry and then about information marketing. He had seen info-products and was aware of coaching and seminars, but he had no idea how anyone could consolidate so many different businesses. He has reporters around the world writing stories, a nationwide advertising team selling advertising and a publishing department focused on distributing the magazine to subscribers on deadline. That, along with the design work, keeps his 85 employees really busy.

After my third attempt to describe the info-marketing business, this is the explanation that seemed to resonate:

Information marketing is a business for small entrepreneurs that’s one-quarter personality and entertainment in the same way a great radio show host engages his audience; one-quarter cheerleader encouraging your subscribers to take the next step toward their goals; one-quarter marketing expert in generating new customers and keeping the ones you have; and one-quarter publishing great information for subscribers on the web, in newsletters, through coaching and during seminars.

With that he seemed to understand, or he gave up trying and said he “got it” to avoid suffering through a fourth explanation.

Think of what you know. There are entire industries devoted to making their products look prettier. They send employees to conferences to listen to average performers describe what they do to maintain average results. That’s like seeking marital advice from Tiger Woods or Charlie Sheen. Meanwhile, they all avoid the fact that consumers are moving away from their magazines and moving toward other media for information.

You are here because you already know more than the brightest stars in the magazine publishing industry. While they “innovate” small improvements in their 1950s business models, you are building the businesses that will become their replacements.

Imagine the early days of the auto industry. There were hundreds of manufacturers. All striving to provide transportation for the masses and equipment for farmers. Back then the auto industry was full of innovation, fun and profit.

That’s the time you and I are in with information marketing. In 20 years you and I won’t be “niche publishers”—we’ll be the big players. The information you know will put those Neanderthals out of business. The innovation and education you are doing now is creating the next great industry in America.

What do you think about the future of the info-marketing business? Do you agree the industry will grow to be a lot larger and include several corporate publishers? Let me know your thoughts. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and post a comment. I read every comment and reply when appropriate.

Best wishes

Converting From 60 Hours A Week To 20 Hours And Generating A Lot More Profit

After building an $8 million dollar info-marketing business, Chris Pizzo became concerned. He was working harder than he had in his life, his 15 employees (plus 15 outsource service providers) were scrambling around, yet everyone was falling behind. He sought the help of several business experts and hired someone to take a look at his company.

While they were impressed with Chris’ ability to create a lot of revenue, they couldn’t evaluate the business because there were few fundamental business numbers. Although Chris’ accountant tracked revenues and expenses, he couldn’t create specific management metrics normally used to make business decisions. When they did, they discovered Chris’ business model wasn’t sustainable in spite of his excellent marketing skills.

Chris was forced to start over. He closed his company and started from scratch with new products, new advertising and a new company from the ground up, but this time he focused all of his attention on the 8 parts of his company that really matter. Also, he became aggressive about tracking and studying his marketing numbers to make business decisions about where to advertise. Plus, he created a set system to maximize his customer value rather than coming up with new back-end products every month to generate cash when they may or may not be profitable ventures. Now, he works less than 20 hours a week (with only one employee) in his business and it’s already more profitable than his old company with about half the previous revenue, just 1 year after start-up.

This Information Marketing Best Practices call focuses on strategies for building a business with business management and sound financial management techniques so you can get more results out of everything you do. Learn the advanced strategies for how to build a strong lifestyle business using social networking to reach new customers on this IMA Best Practices in Information Marketing call.

Here is a summary of what is covered on this call:

Creating an outline of items to focus on within your business to prevent distraction
How to make marketing results-driven decisions without emotion or second guessing
The crucial data to collect within your business, and how to analyze it to make fast and accurate decisions
Building your business with an exit strategy at the beginning, so that you build it with systems from the beginning
What is the “easy money” in your business and how to avoid chasing it so you stay focused on your goal of creating a strong, long-term company
What it means to build a completely scalable, non-person dependent "business" that has real value and equity now and in the future

You can listen to the call online, download it for your MP3 player or read the quick-reference transcript online at Converting From 60 Hours A Week To 20 Hours And Generating A Lot More Profit.

IMA Easy Content Library

Are you looking for one last article for your newsletter? Would you like to have a guest column every month? Would you like to add a bunch of additional content to your website?

As an IMA member, you have access to the Easy Content Library. This is a resource library of articles contributed by other IMA members that you can use in your own publications.

You can insert these articles into newsletters, products or even books as content. As long as you maintain the author’s attribution at the bottom of each article, you are welcome to use them.

Check out the Easy Content Library today. It’s filled with a lot of great articles to read, and they may spark ideas for blog posts or other content.

Practice Pay Solutions and IMA have teamed up for this superior offering. For more information, please visit Payment Processing With DirectPay

News to Share with IMA Members?

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You

Check out the IMA Buyer's Guide today.

One of the largest barriers for small business owners and their employees is the rising cost and burden of health care, which is why the Information Marketing Association is proud to offer its members the opportunity to take advantage of IMA Health Plans. We offer you comprehensive, affordable health insurance coverage for individuals and companies, with as much as 42% savings over other insurance plans.

The Information Marketing Association is pleased to provide our members with a national group and individual health insurance program with average health insurance savings of 42%. The IMA Health Plans’ Benefits Program is issued and underwritten by JLBG Health, one of the largest health insurance carriers in the nation.

Please visit Affordable Health Insurance for more information about this IMA members’ only benefit.

Weekly IMA Ezine: Truth about Limitations

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 05:00:00 GMT

June 4th, 2013 | Week 23 of 2013

Let me set the record straight on limitations. You and I have real limitations. Anyone telling you that you can live in a world without limitations is trying to delude you—or has already deluded themselves.

For instance, there are only 24 hours in a day. You need food and shelter to survive. These are limitations.

Also, each of us has some basic level of work we must do to “pay the bills.” It may be a job, a current business you operate or a coaching program to maintain. Each of these has a time requirement that limits how much time you have to invest in “achieving your dreams.”

I don’t know about you, but my preference is to confront reality rather than to “dream of a life without limits.” I’ve found this works well for my coaching clients, too.

One thing I would like to point out: Most of us impose a lot more limits on ourselves than really exist. I’ve had dozens of clients tell me, “My clients would never accept ‘he’s not available’ as an answer when they try to reach me on the telephone. I have to make myself available, and I better respond to their emails right away.”

As a test, I get them to try restricting access to themselves for three months with a couple of their smaller clients. Within that time, they implement restricted access for all of their clients. They quickly discover their clients will embrace the new system because it helps them get their projects done more quickly, which is what they really wanted to begin with. It even works if you are working a job. The fact that you are busy working is a powerful message to send.

This is just one small example of the obstacles we place in front of ourselves. I had a big client that sucked up so much of my time that I couldn’t focus on more important tasks. I couldn’t get rid of this client because the work was generating the revenue I needed to pay my bills. It was almost impossible for me to build a new business with scalable income because I was stuck trading hours for dollars so I could get by.

It’s the same situation with a lot of people who are working jobs. You have a full-time career while at the same time you are trying to build a new business.

I faced the limitation and came up with ways to overcome it. I created better processes for getting the client’s work done without my direct involvement. I limited my time and forced the client’s projects to have longer deadlines. Then I prescheduled time for me to create my new business opportunities on my own time. I didn’t allow anything to break my appointments with myself, and I worked until I broke through.

One of your limitations could be a lack of knowledge. Your problem is that you don’t know what you should do, or worse, you think you know and you don’t even realize you are headed in the wrong direction.

That’s what the IMA community is all about. Through the library, forum, ask an expert and one-on-one consultations, you can get access to the knowledge you need to prevent unforeseen mistakes, to make the time you invest more valuable and to overcome obstacles more quickly.

While we all have limitations, most of us make more of them than we should. When I’m faced with an obstacle and I start getting frustrated and down on myself, I’ve learned to stop and say, “Robert, you are focused on the obstacle; instead of thinking about the obstacle, think about the ways you’ll overcome it.”

This slight change in thinking is responsible for more of my breakthroughs than any other strategy. Rather than thinking about not having enough time, think about how you can schedule your time for maximum productivity. Rather than getting frustrated because you don’t know what to do, obtain a curriculum of training (or hire a coach/expert) to get the knowledge you need. Rather than getting frustrated with your limitations, focus on how you’ll overcome your obstacles.

This is a lot more productive than dreaming of a life without limits.

What do you think all this? Do you agree or do you believe that we should believe we have no limitations so we achieve a lot more than we ever imagined possible? Let me know your thoughts. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and post a comment. I read every comment and reply when appropriate.

Best wishes

Your Easy Step-by-Step Instructions for Creating Business Systems

I noticed something strange a few weeks ago when I walked into one of the several McDonald’s stores I frequent. On every table in the restaurant, someone had placed a vase full of fresh flowers. They didn’t break the bank. Even a flower illiterate like me could tell they were inexpensive, perhaps daisies or something. But they dressed up the place a bit.

When I sat down with my Diet Coke and Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit, the flowers actually started to irritate me a little (mainly because they were taking my attention away from my favorite snack). While I enjoy looking at flowers as much as the next person, I began to wonder why they were there. This franchisee had paid over a million dollars for the store and the systems that go into making it run efficiently. However, on top of everything else it takes to run a successful McDonald’s, this franchisee had decided the corporate system was lacking in one item: no flowers on the tables.

I became curious. I found the owner and complimented her on her flowers. I told her, “Your flowers are a nice touch of individuality in a sea of corporate sameness.” This made her so happy that she was beaming with pride.

I asked her if she had updated her operations manual to account for the flowers. Had she added maintaining the flowers to someone’s job description, scheduled replacement orders and provided procedures in case one of the vases fell off the table and broke? Her answer was “no,” and suddenly she was less impressed with me.

This McDonald’s franchise owner had made a critical mistake. A mistake many business owners duplicate every day. They introduce new processes and ways of doing things in their businesses without thinking through the goals, processes, responsibilities and control. It may be important to you to follow the entrepreneurial wisdom, “Ready, Fire, Aim” and execute a new program immediately rather than spending years of planning something before you do anything. While that’s fine, this advice presumes that you’ll go back and “Aim” later. From my experience, most just “Fire” without going back to fill in the critical planning steps that make their businesses sustainable and allow them to grow.

If you aren’t good at creating business systems, it’s not your fault. I’ve spent many thousands of dollars on resources and tools to try to learn how to do it. Even the most popular books are quick to tell you, “You need to systematize your business,” but they won’t give you an example of what they are talking about.

Finally, here is detailed information on how you can create systems for your business. This information has the power to change your life. While your business’s growth will come from your skill to generate new customers, your business’s lifestyle will come from your skill to create systems that will operate your business without your minute-by-minute attention.

Check out the rest of this article for business systems building insights, including a checklist for checklists, by visiting “Your Easy Step-by-Step Instructions for Creating Business Systems” in the Info-Marketing Resource Library.

IMA Easy Content Library

Are you looking for one last article for your newsletter? Would you like to have a guest column every month? Would you like to add a bunch of additional content to your website?

As an IMA member, you have access to the Easy Content Library. This is a resource library of articles contributed by other IMA members that you can use in your own publications.

You can insert these articles into newsletters, products or even books as content. As long as you maintain the author’s attribution at the bottom of each article, you are welcome to use them.

Check out the Easy Content Library today. It’s filled with a lot of great articles to read, and they may spark ideas for blog posts or other content.

Practice Pay Solutions and IMA have teamed up for this superior offering. For more information, please visit Payment Processing With DirectPay

News to Share with IMA Members?

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You

Check out the IMA Buyer's Guide today.

Please visit Affordable Health Insurance for more information about this IMA members’ only benefit.

Dan Kennedy's May 2013 Info-Marketing Letter

Fri, 31 May 2013 15:30:36 GMT

Resources

Dan-Kennedys-May-2013-Info-Marketing-Letter-as-a-PDF-file.pdf

Dan Kennedy's May Info-Marketing Letter was jammed packed with resources to help you build your information marketing business.

Here is a quick summary of the topics included:

New Way to Sell and Deliver Products
Disney Up-Dates and What they Mean to You
Let's Give 'Em Something to Talk About
At the Crossroads of Hollywood & Vine and Info-Marketing Boulevard
Digital Info-Marketing Deliverables

As a member of the Information Marketing Association you are welcome to download the attached PDF file. This page is active through July 30, 2013.

April 2013 Jump Start Coaching Call

Fri, 31 May 2013 15:24:28 GMT

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Robert: Hey welcome. This is your Jump Start Coaching call. I'm Robert Skrob, president of the Information Marketing Association and I'm glad you're here. Today is all about you and your questions. Do you have a little roadblock or an obstacle that's in your way or something that's slowing you down? Well today's call is your call for questions, getting answers and getting you on the path and helping you build your business or just getting you that vendor or something that you need to make sure that you don't have to wait but this is your call and these calls will typically last anywhere between 30-45 minutes, sometimes an hour, sometimes an hour and a half.

Also the call sometimes is wrapped up in 10 or 15 minutes if we don't have a whole lot of questions. So it depends on you and you pressing one to get in the queue to ask your question. So just press one now. Get yourself into the queue and we'll go ahead and take your questions in the order they're received.

If you haven't seen it, just out as the Entrepreneur Magazine Start Your Own Information Marketing Second Edition and I must say the second edition is pretty darn good. I put a whole lot of time into revising that book. And it's 98% completely brand new. So even if you had the first edition and you got the second edition it's really a completely different book. The first edition was really kind of high level going through different aspects of the information marketing business and this book is a very deep dive step-by-step on creating and launching your information marketing business using teleseminars.

A terrific tool, I am so glad that I have it now because there's been a lot of folks where it would have been very useful for me to give this prescription to say, "Hey this is a book. It's going to walk you step-by-step through this process and help you get your information marketing business launched especially for just a few, it's like $15.00 on Amazon.com. And to have this type of tool, the information that's in there could easily be a thousand dollar course all by itself. But it's yours in the form of a book for I think $14.95 something like that. Certainly less than $15 bucks or so on Amazon.com, BN.com or your local bookstore if you like to use those.

So I appreciate you joining us today. Press one to get yourself in the queue. Hey Josh anybody jump in yet?

Josh: Sure is. Our first question is going to going to come from Michael in Utah. Michael your line is open.

Robert: So while I'm talking to Michael you're welcome to jump in yourself by pressing one on your queue. Otherwise hey Michael. Welcome I'm glad you're here today.

Michael: Thanks Robert. It's Michael Smart. Don't know if you recall we had a chat a few months ago and I actually have four questions for you but I'll just ask one at a time to give other people a shot. But if they aren't aggressive maybe we can circle back and get to those.

Robert: Yeah.

Michael: A little bit of background, I have a program that I modeled after your Info Marketing Association where I do Best Practices webinar a month and a question and answer call a month and I have a forum. And I chose to sell that in a launch type situation where I restrict the membership and then I gather e-mail addresses and build up to a period where I make it available for about a week and then sell out those slots and then close it again.

Obviously you have the Info Marketing Association open for new subscribers at any time. What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of those two approaches and why do you choose the one that you use?

Robert: I guess my crazy idea is that if I keep it open that I can build the Information Marketing Association to 2,000 or even 5,000 members over time and with a lower price point that that would be possible. Not saying that that is absolutely the way to go. Certainly having a defined size helps you provide exclusivity. It helps also with fulfillment because it's a much more reasonable in terms of costs. But I think if I did a closed coaching program or kind of a, I guess it's closed for a better, for lack of a better term, then I would make sure that I increased the price.

Michael: That's good input. I'd just sell it for $99 a month just like you. The benefit that I've seen is people don't drop out. I wondered your thoughts on that because they know they can't get right back in. My retention rates are really high. Your thoughts on retention.

Robert: Yeah there's probably a lot of reasons why your retention is high and it certainly does help to have that exclusivity in order to get them to say, "Hey this is just a turn style thing." So I think there's probably other reasons than just that but that certainly could be one of the factors.

Michael: With your knowledge of the market out there is there sort of an average number of months that one could expect their members to stay in a membership program if it's open?

Robert: Yeah it depends a lot, even within different membership programs because even when you have a program where you have a certain average retention the difference sources of members will have vastly different retention. If I run an ad, just for IMA's sake, if I run an advertisement in a business opportunity magazine and sell them a training class out of that magazine the retention on those are a lot shorter than the retention on a member because they attended the Info Summit. And so it's very dangerous to take somebody else's numbers because even within your population the numbers are going to vary drastically based on source.

Are you selling on it a free trial basis? Are they buying and paying with month one? How are you…?

Michael: They pay month one. They pay $99.00 and get in and then they're billed 30-days, every 30-days after that.

Robert: Okay. That's also going to really increase your retention. When continuity programs are sold with a free trial either as a forced on some other purchase they make or even as a free trial plus shipping, some sort of offer like that, it's very common to see something in the neighborhood of 60 to 50% actually take that first payment with it ending up being somewhere in the 35 to 40% taking the second.

Michael: Okay.

Robert: So if you do a two month free trial very often you're going to see a good 40% dropout before they take that first payment. But very often you can sell three or four times as many into the program with a free trial then you could without and say you end up, you net more than you ever would've netted with selling it without a trial. If you're measuring, you certainly want to test that yourself either way but that's what most people find.

Michael: And final follow-up on that Robert, is there a way to run a campaign where you're testing two different offers like that and it appears consistent and truthful to the prospects where some of them come to a landing page where it's $99.00 right away and the others come for a free trial?

Robert: Yeah and maybe it's also, there are and the other, what I would do is maybe have a special offer, you can do this, a special offer for a segment of your list. Maybe it's people who have been on your list and haven't responded to the current offer and you don't really have anything to lose with them anyhow to try to bump them into a free trial. And then the people who haven't gotten the free trial won't even necessarily know that there is something like that out there.

Michael: Right.

Robert: If there is crossover and somebody complains give them two months free so that they benefit from the free trial.

Michael: Right.

Robert: Generally they'll say, "Oh okay." This is a special promotion but we certainly want to take care of somebody who has been a loyal member. We're going to extend the free trial to you by giving you the next two months complimentary on your membership. So if you get caught you can simply provide that as a second, as a way of appeasing the person who somehow got the other promotion.

The other would be based on source. So if you're running a particular banner ad promotion or a particular promotion to some affiliate's list then that person can have a special landing page that other people don't see.

And finally I think it is fair, first to have a free promotion for some after you've been in business for some period of time. Now if you told them it was closed door and now suddenly its open door I think that's a little bit of a different story. But if you are now running, because people are used to seeing that all the time. The iPad II used to be $499 but now that the new iPad came out it's three something or it's even at Sam's Wholesale for some sort of price. I can't quote off the top of my head but I think it's $349 or something. And the folks that bought it for $499 when it came out aren't really rioting the streets. They understand that prices change over time.

Michael: Okay. Well thank you. Okay get back to the group and like I said I'll be here if there's more time.

Robert: I do have another question in the queue but we can just go ahead and knock you out while we got you. I'm sure I can get you what you need.

Michael: Okay. Switching gears. Thank you. Looking at building an e-mail list and driving website visitor to sign up for your e-mail list. Obvious benefits there, proven benefits, contrast that with the SEO benefits that come from keeping a blog updated.

Robert: Yeah.

Michael: How can one have the best of both worlds without thinking oh I don't need to sign up for the e-mails. They tell themselves, "I'll come back and check out his blog." And we know they don't.

Robert: You would think of them and what is it that they would want so much that they would be completely willing to give you their e-mail address to receive it? and then on your blog and everywhere else make that the offer in order to…so on the blog there'd be this little side bar and it would flaunt this thing that you've got that somebody who would be visiting the blog would very much want and that would encourage them to go ahead and click through and opt-in.

On your other landing pages that you're driving traffic to from paid sources, banner ads or what have you that's the offer is you don't necessarily even link to your blog or what have you but if you're driving traffic from affiliates or ads or what have you you just have that landing page with that thing that they want that they would be eagerly willing to give you their e-mail address to receive.

Michael: Got it. All right. Thanks a lot Robert.

Robert: All right that was easy.

Michael: All right.

Robert: Thanks a lot. So if you would like to jump in the game you're welcome to. Just press one on your phone and that gets you into the queue to ask your question. And at this point we go to Raj in California. Great to hear from you Raj.

Raj: Hi there. Thanks for taking the call. I'm actually a new IMA member. So I want to thank you for all the material I've gotten so far and actually got the Get Rich Guide to Information Marketing last week and I actually have a question about one of the tactics in there. I get my customers by direct mail and I've been doing postcard mailings and so after reading this book last week I already have something split test on running a survey and I'm going to drop a bunch of those probably next week. So a new direct mail lead generation piece with a survey in it.

And my question is to incentivize or not to incentivize on a survey type of piece. So I'm offering someone to get a diagnostic survey result and I was thinking about and was inclined to offer some additional incentive like get a Starbucks gift card or something else to kind of increase compliance. I wanted to get your thoughts on that about lead quality and response rates and how I should think about that.

Robert: Well thank you for grabbing a copy of the book and I appreciate the feedback and look forward to working with you. So welcome. Glad that you're here.

Raj: Thanks.

Robert: I do like giving incentives for completing diagnostics. I prefer, however, to make them related to the offer. So I guess I would be concerned that somebody would fill out my diagnostic because they won a Starbucks gift card, not because they want any information from me. And so I would rather it be a report that they want, a book, a gift that is somehow related to what you are offering.

Raj: Okay.

Robert: An info graphic, a tip sheet, a front and back thing they could have at their desk that reveals the eight tips or some sort of thing that's related to what you are offering that helps solve their problem so that the person that you're getting is eagerly motivated to solve a particular problem and on all bases that that's a guy or a gal that you're looking for. And so I would be motivating them with things that get at that problem you're promising to solve rather than something that's not related.

Raj: Okay. So I guess my follow-up question on that is I'm trying to think through the psychology of someone receiving this. So to date I've been sending essentially a get a report style lead generator. So the only people who respond to that are, presuming they didn't get lost and they actually saw it and they actually read it and they actually got around to it, the only people who do that were people who are fundamentally interested in the subject matter of their report which is directly related to my product. Now I'm doing something slightly different. I'm saying, "Take the survey and," let's say I use your suggestion and say, "Take this survey. I'll give you some diagnostic results and I'll give you a report." Help me think through the compliance factor on that when I'm actually, I am giving them something more because I'm giving them diagnostics. But I'm also asking for more. In a broad sense does that get a better response because I'm giving more and it's personalized or suppressed response because now oh crap I got to enter a bunch of stuff to get my diagnostic?

Robert: I think that a diagnostic, the report that you are delivering is I think positioned as useful and valuable and something that they would want as it stands. My guess my sense, and I get the sense from your question that also you don't have a lot of stuff laying around.

Raj: I could make it but yeah I don't have it.

Robert: Yeah it would take some time to pull this thing together. I think for you at this point I probably would not offer a secondary gift but instead…who is this customer? What are you looking to solve for them?

Raj: They're attorneys and I show them a different way of issuing, invoicing and billing to increase profits.

Robert: Okay. So I wonder if there is some sort of chotchkey or promotional product that could bare your name that would sit on their desk. Throwing out coffee mug but that would be pretty trite. But if there was some sort of legal related thing that would be pretty cool to have that…I don't know if you remember but back in 2002 they came out with a deck of a cards that had all the people that they were looking for in Iraq's and the photo on them.

Raj: I don't remember that.

Robert: One side was camouflage and the other side had the photos of the people that they were searching for in Iraq. That had nothing to do with it but we were looking for lost customers and so I was able to turn kind of lost customers into that sort of theme and that kind of thing worked. I guess I don't like the gift card in particular.

Raj: Okay.

Robert: And so even if it wasn't related then I guess I just don't want something with…you need to make it something a little bit substantial because the lawyer could buy his own cup of coffee so it would need to be $10 bucks I would guess. And for that I just don't want people, I don't like that.

Raj: Right.

Robert: So if it's a promotional product that's somehow related great. If it's a little chotchkey great. If it's a report or a two page thing that they keep on their desk of key terms about billing, the six questions you should ask yourself as you complete your timesheets everyday, the 19 ways you can maximize billable hour cheat sheet that you could have sitting there. Something like that, that would be really cool.

But in the interim I would just run it without a gift and knock it out. Make it happen, get it done and then you can introduce a gift later and see how it changes response both number of people who respond as well as quality of the lead. And then in the meantime position the report as the big gift, the big wonderful thing that's going to finally reveal the opportunities they have for maximizing their monthly billing.

Raj: Okay. Got it. So that's good. I've got two more splits to run excellent. And if we have time I do have another question.

Robert: Sure.

Raj: The product I'm selling right now as I'm kind of building it, it's a hybrid product. I have half of the product built and it is positioned as a virtual workshop. So I provide them with kind of a traditional information product, which is a binder and DVDs and online access to same. And they have Q&A call ins every month for a number of months and the reason I'm doing that is because I'm kind of rounding out the product for specific lawyer practice areas.

The issue I have is actually with credit card declines which seem absurdly high to me. I'm getting probably 25% of the cards that I'm getting are being declined. So I positioned as you have to pay an application fee to be considered so I can review them to make sure that their practice is appropriate for the offering that I have and there's a $50.00 application fee and then if they're accepted into the workshop then I charge the $2,000.00 fee for the workshop.

Now I have a lot of customers where the $50.00 charge goes through fine. The preprocess for the $2,000.00 goes fine and then the 25% of the customers they get a decline on the actual $2,000.00 charge and that's trying two different payment processors – PayPal and Intuit. I'm getting the exact same result which seems bizarre to me that I get a 25% decline rate. And I call the attorneys and they're like, "No, no it should go through." So I'm wondering what else might be going on here, if you have any ideas.

Robert: Yeah why don't you try…so the merchant processor rejects it although the attorney says there's plenty of credit on there. And how much time expires between the charges? You have $25.00. You have $2,000.00 and then another $2,000.00?

Raj: No I have $50 bucks and then five days later $1997, $1,997.

Robert: And then it's that $1997 doesn't go through?

Raj: Correct.

Robert: And PayPal doesn't work either?

Raj: No. Well actually the credit card's paid through PayPal don't work. PayPal itself works.

Robert: But it gets declined.

Raj: It gets declined and I'm getting that. So I thought it was PayPal being annoying. So I got a different merchant account and the same thing's happening there. It's just very odd to me unless people, the only thing I could think of is people are using debit cards with daily charge limits or something.

Robert: Right. There are a lot of metrics that merchant processors have and if the person really does have available credit it could be the merchant processor. And I guess I would probably try to work with, a merchant processor that would look at your offer and to help facilitate exactly what you're trying to do.

The company I know that does that is called Practice Pay Solutions.

Raj: Okay.

Robert: Here's a link. They're at Info Marketing Merchant Services. It's InfoMarketingMerchantServices.com.

Raj: Merchant Services, okay.

Robert: InfoMarketingMerchantServices.com. So that's going to take you to a form. Fill out that form and then engage in a conversation with them. Show them your offer and what you're trying to do and they're going to be a lot more helpful in helping you collect all the money long term. This is a boutique merchant processor. They understand the info marketing business, card not present, they understand what you're trying to do. And will work with you to get it done. They might have changes. They may say, "Oh well you go to do your offer this way or that way."

But when you follow what they ask you to do they will help facilitate to make sure that those charges aren't declined as often.

Raj: Okay, okay.

Robert: So the working, and Intuit might be able to help you if you gave them a call and kind of pursued. I don't know if you have a sales rep or…

Raj: Yeah I've been on the phone with them for a long time and they're decidedly unhelpful.

Robert: They're in a different business. They're in high volume, helping lots of different businesses. And so they've got their, they just don't want to take any time to try to understand a unique business. They just want the big, broad brush normal businesses where these kinds of charges aren't happening.

Raj: Right. Okay. I will check out the Practice Pay Solutions then.

Robert: Excellent. All right Raj great to hear from you.

Raj: Thank you very much for your time.

Robert: All right. And if you would like to jump in the game you are welcome to do it. Just press one on your phone. Press one gets you into the queue to ask your question. And in the meantime we'll go to Charlotte in North Carolina or is that someone from Charlotte, North Carolina?

Charlotte: Hey Robert. It is Charlotte from Wilmington, North Carolina.

Robert: Oh welcome Charlotte. Glad you're here. Glad to hear from you.

Charlotte: Thanks. Good to see you a couple weeks ago. And I am progressing with this launch for this new product and new info marketing business. But had a question and wanted to get your input. I've heard and I understand the concept of not creating the product or too much of the product before you start getting out there and doing the teleconferences and getting things marketed and seeing what people are interested in. But I'm a little leery of going out and not having anything done because I don't have full time to devote to it. I've got retainer clients that I'm doing copywriting for. I've actually got two of those that are doing launches in the next couple of months. So I don't want to put myself into a position where I've got all this work to create a product and not really the time to do it. So my thought is that I would start with a pre teleconference that would then drive people to, I was going to do a webinar series but I'm becoming more convinced that a teleconference series would be better. That would be a forced continuity into a coaching program.

Robert: Okay.

Charlotte: But then the question is how much of the teleconference series that's going to be paid, I feel like I should go ahead and have that prepared before I did the free teleconference even though I'm not certain people will buy or will pull people into it. And also at least the first month or so it would be the continuity program kind of laid out ready to go. What are your thoughts on that?

Robert: Maybe it's sketched out or maybe you have your notes prepared. If you wanted to go ahead and record the calls so that all you had to do was broadcast them when it becomes time then you could certainly go forward and do that. But really one of the beauties of the teleseminar series that you can, you sell the program and then you take the day or the morning that you're going to deliver the first call to go ahead and get prepared, make sure you have all your notes and you got everything planned out and deliver a great program and now you've got a whole week to find the time necessary to plan and prepare for the next session in the series.

Charlotte: Right.

Robert: You're welcome to do, you could prepare notes. You could write scripts. You could record them in advance but all of those completely valid and could be part of your part of your preparation and making sure that you have what you need to deliver on your promises. But the other thing is when you have their money and your checking account you're a lot more motivated to make sure that you're fulfilling your promises.

Charlotte: No question.

Robert: And so what I found is that what I would do is I would schedule the calls and schedule your sales program. And if you can prepare in advance then prepare in advance. If it turns out that you're not able to get as prepared as you would like just have your sales call and see how it goes. If you've got to wake up a couple hours early or stay up a couple hours later to try to knock it out because you sold a bunch of them then that's a great opportunity to have.

Charlotte: Okay. And I certainly understood the concept of not creating a large info product and spending months on that before you know that it's really viable on the market. This is a market that I know…I have had an information business in it before and done some work for other information marketers in this niche. So I feel like I've got a pretty good grasp on what their hooks are and what their interest is. So I'm not really paranoid about putting something out there and they go, "Well I'm not interested."

Robert: Right.

Charlotte: So I did want to find what the balance was between being completely unprepared and being over prepared unnecessarily.

Robert: Really one of the other features of the teleseminar series is that you're able to have people push you to get it done. And what I find most of the time is that when somebody does not have an outside imposed deadline that they almost never find the time to do that planning and preparation work that's necessary to create a new product from scratch.

Charlotte: It does add urgency.

Robert: But if you give them the call and the date then they will find whatever time and resources are necessary to make sure it's fulfilled. And then sometimes they'll even make sure it's fulfilled really, really well. And so that's the other thing is that I would just caution if you are trying to prepare and you're finding that it's just not happening just throw the dates on the calendar and make it happen.

Charlotte: All right.

Robert: And let the customers dictate how the thing gets created by them paying you money.

Charlotte: Certainly doing a teleconference series is much less of a burden than a webinar series where you they do Power Points and the technology and everything has to be aligned.

Robert: Right. There's a whole lot more…

Charlotte: Less threatening.

Robert: Yeah. A whole lot more work to do to prepare for a webinar for sure.

Charlotte: All right. Super. And thanks so much for your book. I really, really am using that to help make sure I stay on track this time around. So thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

Robert: Oh good. Oh well thank you for that feedback. I appreciate. And hey if it does help you feel free to make a comment on Amazon.com. I always love those. Those are wonderful.

Charlotte: Okay. Sure. Yeah I've recommended it to several people so I'll definitely do that and hopefully see you at the Super Conference.

Robert: Sounds good.

Charlotte: All right. Thanks so much Robert.

Robert: All right. So if you'd like to get in the game this is your last chance. Just press one on your phone. I know there's a bunch of you that are listening in but we'll go ahead and wrap in just a couple of minutes unless I hear from you.

Your Best Practices and Information Marketing call is coming up on May 7th. And that is all about creating presentations to sell. At the A to Z Blueprint Dave Dee gave a presentation about Google hangouts and he went through a lot of the technical aspects of getting on but we didn't have time to get into how to create a presentation to sell during a Google hangout. And so this session is all about creating that sales presentation within a Google hangout or a teleseminar or a webinar or even from stage. So you definitely want to mark your calendar for May 7th. That's 3:00pm Eastern, Noon Pacific and if you haven't gotten your chance to ask your question today you can still jump in by pressing one or if we wrap up and you haven't asked your question then you can get in next month on May 21st, 3:00pm Eastern, Noon Pacific.

And of course I do help via e-mail. So if you have a question in the interim and you'd like to shoot me a question feel free to send me an e-mail. Just hit reply to any message that you have received from me.

So that does it for today. Thank you very much for joining me for this Jump Start Coaching call. I appreciate you joining us and asking questions. I appreciate it and till next time. I'll talk with you then.

Creating 6-Figure Sales Presentations for Google Hangouts, Webinars and the Stage

Fri, 31 May 2013 15:18:51 GMT

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Dave Dee gave a great primer on using Google Hangouts at Dan Kennedy's recent A to Z Blueprint Seminar. Because Dave ran out of time I was able to convince him to follow-up his presentation with a special Best Practices call for you. This program delves deep into the formula that allowed Dave Dee to sell more than a hundred thousand dollars during a Google Hangout and more than half a million dollars from stage. All, from the same template that Dave has agreed to reveal on this program. This program is for anyone creating winning sales presentations whether delivered in person, from stage or through a technology platform like teleseminars, webinars or Google Hangouts. Note: If you aren't sure what a Google Hangout is and you would like a brief tutorial, here are the relevant handouts from Dave Dee's presentation: http://bit.ly/IMAGH.

Open Coaching Call for IMA Members - June 2013

Fri, 31 May 2013 15:03:15 GMT

To help info-marketers grow their businesses, avoid obstacles and get questions answered, Robert Skrob is hosting a special tele-coaching call for all IMA members. This call is an open question and answer format. In this format Robert is able to provide detailed answers to ensure members have everything they need to succeed. This is your time, dedicated to helping you make money within the information marketing business fast.

Call Dates	Call Time	Phone Information	Listen Online
June 18, 2013 (Future IMA call dates, mark your calendar now.) July 23, 2013 August 27, 2013	3:00 p.m., Eastern 2:00 p.m., Central 1:00 p.m., Mountain 12:00 noon, Pacific	At 3:00 p.m. Eastern, dial 512/597-6012, Enter pass code 726012# (Music plays until the call begins.)	Instead of using your phone, listen live over the Internet at: http://bit.ly/IMAonline

Weekly IMA Ezine: Quick decisions with limited facts

Tue, 28 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

May 28th, 2013 | Week 22 of 2013

I experienced a hilarious contradiction of ethics. Hilarious at the time, but now that I think about it more, it was actually pretty scary.

Each week I teach entrepreneurship classes to high school seniors as a Junior Achievement volunteer. Junior Achievement supplies the curriculum, solicits interested high school teachers and puts them into contact with volunteers like me to teach the courses to their students.

The entrepreneurship course is an hour a week for seven with topics including market analysis, differentiation, product development, marketing, ethics and business planning. Ethics is always my favorite because of the fun discussions it elicits.

One of the activities this week involved role play. I approached each student and said, “I’m your co-worker. I have discovered how to hack the time clock to add 45 minutes to everyone’s pay without getting caught. Now what do you do?”

The students’ reactions ranged from “Hook me up” to ignoring me. Not one student was ready to turn me in for stealing, and this was at a Christian school!

After a few of those exercises, we role played that the student was the boss. I told each one that he or she owned a store and had caught an employee stealing a $100.00 bill from the cash drawer. I asked each student, “What would you do?” All but one was ready to fire the thief.

I asked the students who were without mercy if they were sure, and one girl became adamant, saying, “I don’t care if it’s $100.00, $10.00 or even $1.00; if you steal from me, you are out.” I found this hilarious considering 10 minutes before she was ready to hack the time clock when it was in her favor.

But that wasn’t the point of my question. In the end, only one student had the best answer. This student said, “Before I fired an employee, I’d want to find out why he stole the money.”

The exercise continued, and after interviewing the employee, the students found out he had a sick mother. He had spent his last four paychecks on medical care for his mom, and he was stealing the $100.00 bill to buy groceries. Even with this new information, most of the students were still ready to fire the employee while others wanted him reassigned away from the cash drawer.

The role of the ethics exercise was to encourage the students to gather more information rather than make quick judgments based on limited facts.

I’m all for being decisive, making decisions quickly and avoiding wasted time by rehashing yesterday’s choices. However, I’ve seen too many info-marketers spend a lot of time and money creating the wrong info-marketing businesses. They believe that because they’ve done something successfully in a particular way that a huge percentage of their niche or industry will want to know about it. Or, because they are a plumber (or a doctor or a businessperson), they think they know what plumbers (or doctors or businesspeople) are like in general as well as what they want. Even worse are those who have been operating in a niche for a few years. Based on their experience with coaching clients, they make generalizations about what the average person in the niche wants.

Most often, these are false assumptions. Successful info-marketers will make the following practices ongoing habits: surveying, asking questions and intense listening. It’s easier to generalize, and since the work of listening is often a challenge and doesn’t usually produce immediate revenue, it’s easy to put it off. But surveying, asking questions and intense listening will make everything else you do more productive.

What do you think of the ethical dilemmas? Have you been surprised by your market, either good or bad? What came to your mind as you read this? Let me know your thoughts. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and post a comment. I read every comment and reply when appropriate.

Best wishes

Dominating the Search Results for the Largest Search Engine for Buyers

Google is the search engine for “free” information. While there are good strategies for turning those searchers into buyers, wouldn’t it be easier to sell your products on the search engine for people who are looking for something to buy? The site the largest number of people turn to when they are looking for something to buy is Amazon.com. This Best Practices in Information Marketing program focuses on how you can ensure your book moves up Amazon’s best seller lists and is provided as an option whenever someone is looking for information within your category. This program is important whether you currently have a book or not. It could completely change the way you think about books as a product within your business.

Here is a quick summary of what we covered on this call:

How you really can generate some decent revenue selling books.
Super-advanced Amazon marketing strategies.
How to turn Amazon.com customers into buyers of your other products and services.
New Kindle reader strategies which can instantly boost you into Amazon’s recommendation algorithms.
Strategies for generating customer reviews

Listen to the audio program or read the transcript by visiting Dominating the Search Results for the Largest Search Engine for Buyers. Feel free to add comments and your own experience within the comments box at the bottom of the page.

IMA Easy Content Library

Are you looking for one last article for your newsletter? Would you like to have a guest column every month? Would you like to add a bunch of additional content to your website?

As an IMA member, you have access to the Easy Content Library. This is a resource library of articles contributed by other IMA members that you can use in your own publications.

You can insert these articles into newsletters, products or even books as content. As long as you maintain the author’s attribution at the bottom of each article, you are welcome to use them.

Check out the Easy Content Library today. It’s filled with a lot of great articles to read, and they may spark ideas for blog posts or other content.

Practice Pay Solutions and IMA have teamed up for this superior offering. For more information, please visit Payment Processing With DirectPay

News to Share with IMA Members?

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You

Check out the IMA Buyer's Guide today.

Weekly IMA Ezine: The past can hurt you, if you let it

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

May 21st, 2013 | Week 21 of 2013

Members often tell me, “I wish I had known about info-marketing before; I would have made a lot more money.” This type of thinking is a symptom of a larger problem.

When we look back on an unpleasant situation in our lives, thoughts like these often occur: I wish I hadn’t said that; I wish I had done things differently; I wish I had stayed home that night. A lot of us have lost our heads in the heat of the moment, and then, looking back, we have thought of the one thing we could have done differently that would have changed everything. That is exactly the wrong way to think. Instead, we should recognize that we created those bad circumstances because we weren’t focused on the present moment.

It’s like driving down the road in your car looking only through your rearview mirror. At least that isn’t as bad as never getting into the car at all, afraid of what might happen to you if you ventured out.

During Brett Farve’s NFL career he was considered a brilliant competitor. Farve was able to improvise, to react to present circumstances in new ways. In 1994, playing in the first Division Title game for the Green Bay Packers in 25 years, with no time outs, no time left and on the 10 yard line, Coach Holmgren told Farve to make sure he didn’t run the ball because the game would be over if he didn’t get into the end zone. Farve dropped back, saw an opening and dashed toward the goal line. He dove into the end zone in front of two defenders for the game-winning touchdown.

Brett Farve made a decision in the moment. He was aware of present situations and opportunities, and he didn’t let his or someone else’s past mistakes dictate what he did when he needed to do it. A lot of Dallas Cowboys fans criticize Brett Farve’s mistakes and interceptions. He made a bunch of them. However, the Dallas Cowboys never had a quarterback that won as many games and had as many playoff victories as Brett Farve did for his teams. Farve built a career by living in the moment.

We all make mistakes. Some cost you money, others cost you injuries and others may get you into legal trouble. But the biggest mistake is letting your past dictate your future. You cannot feel bad about mistakes you made 10 years ago, 5 months ago or even 2 minutes ago. Repair what you can based on what’s the most productive action you can take right now to build your business and your life.

And about wishing you had discovered earlier the best ways to run a business? Yes, I’d love to have learned how to run my business better a long time ago. I wish I had all that money back that I lost, all those missed opportunities. However, that kind of thinking only distracts you and me from our focus on the present.

What’s worse is a worry about the future. What’s going to happen if when we launch our new product? What’s going to happen when I deliver this brand new sales presentation? What’s that knock-off artist doing in my niche stealing my ideas and customers?

It’s important to look at trends, but we all must act in the present, working right now on the most important tasks to move our business forward. Anytime you catch yourself regretting the past or worrying about the future, snap yourself out of it by asking yourself “What am I doing NOW to grow my business?” If you can do something that’s constructive about the future or the past, then do it. If you can’t, then focus on the things you can do.

Do you agree, disagree or have an experience to share? What came to your mind as you read this? Let me know your thoughts.

Best wishes

Dan Kennedy's Information Marketing Special Report

Dan Kennedy's most recent Information Marketing Special Report was jammed packed with resources to help you build your information marketing business.

Here is a quick summary of the topics included:

Selling mastermind groups over the years
The two basic structures of mastermind groups and meetings
My format for each person’s turn
3 key logisitical issues for large coaching groups
The importance and inside secrets of maintaining the disapline of your mastermind members.

As a member of the Information Marketing Association you are welcome to download the attached PDF file. This page is active through June 30, 2013.

As a member of the Information Marketing Association in addition to receiving the report in the mail you are welcome to download a PDF version to archive or use with your favorite electronic reader. Grab a copy by visiting the page: Dan Kennedy’s Info-Marketing Letter. Feel free to add comments and your own experience within the comments box at the bottom of the page.

IMA Easy Content Library

Are you looking for one last article for your newsletter? Would you like to have a guest column every month? Would you like to add a bunch of additional content to your website?

As an IMA member, you have access to the Easy Content Library. This is a resource library of articles contributed by other IMA members that you can use in your own publications.

You can insert these articles into newsletters, products or even books as content. As long as you maintain the author’s attribution at the bottom of each article, you are welcome to use them.

Check out the Easy Content Library today. It’s filled with a lot of great articles to read, and they may spark ideas for blog posts or other content.

Practice Pay Solutions and IMA have teamed up for this superior offering. For more information, please visit Payment Processing With DirectPay

News to Share with IMA Members?

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You

Check out the IMA Buyer's Guide today.

Weekly IMA Ezine: A 141 year old info-business...

Tue, 14 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

May 14th, 2013 | Week 20 of 2013

Few info-businesses have more longevity than the one I’m about to describe. Launched in 1872, it’s 141 years old, predating the telephone and the electric light bulb. You may be one of its million-plus subscribers or never pay it any mind, but Popular Science magazine is worth studying.

The point of your and my info-marketing businesses is to provide value by helping our customers get results. But Popular Science isn’t trying to make its readers into scientists. So, why would someone read it? The fact is 1.2 million “someones” read it, and the magazine has maintained its numbers over the last five years, a difficult time for the publishing industry.

Popular Science attracts its large audience because curious people want to know how things work. The magazine provides a lot of illustrations and charts to demonstrate various interesting things, such as how jet engines, stem cell therapies and airline flight cancellations work. These charts help to satisfy the curious mind.

Before you dismiss the importance of a curious mind to your business, consider this: How many times have you purchased a product because you wanted to learn how something worked? (And once you learned how that something worked, you were satisfied—even though you had no intention of ever implementing it for yourself?) For each of those purchases, your primary goal in buying and consuming a product was to figure out how something was done.

No one in the info-marketing world seems to realize this is a huge driver in his or her business. Your customers aren’t necessarily buying so they can implement themselves. That’s our assumption, but it’s not theirs. Instead, many of them want to know how things are done. They want to know and understand how something works.

As info-marketers, we get frustrated by our customers’ fascination with what we call “bright shiny objects.” But that’s how info-marketing customers are wired. That exact impulse drove them to buy from you to begin with. And if you don’t provide them the next interesting thing, they are going to move on to another info-marketer.

Popular Science has perfected the business of providing its readers with the next thing. It is the magazine of “bright shiny objects.” You may assume Popular Science readers subscribe to learn; however, the magazine’s research clearly shows its readers enjoy the periodical as downtime, a leisure activity, an escape. With this understanding, Popular Science made its magazine more fun. No reason to provide encyclopedia-type articles; instead, make them entertaining for the readers to enhance their downtime experience. The content is geared to prepare readers to be the smartest persons in the room. By knowing about new technology and being able to explain things to their friends, readers increase their self-image.

An important point about products created for this type of customer: You don’t need detailed implementation guides. Instead, keep these products simple; a page or two with a few charts will suffice. Your customers want to understand how something works and are less interested in the step-by-step details they would need to implement it themselves.

How many of your customers buy from you to learn how things work? How many buy for entertainment and as an escape? My guess is the customers in these two categories outnumber those who buy to implement.

Of course, the typical info-marketing product is geared in some way for people to implement. So, is it wrong to assume that some customers buy for reasons other than implementation? Should we create all of our products solely for the implementers and then allow the other customers to tune in when (and if) they want? Let me know your thoughts.

Best wishes

Selling Products Implemented by Others Combining Delegation with Done-For-You

Your customers and prospects are busier than ever. They are barraged with things to do to improve their lives, exercise more, read more, and spend more time with family, all with similar promises of a happier life. Now you come along trying to sell them products to read and things to do and you think they’ll be glad to hear about what you have to offer? Consider a slight change for your business owner prospects. Rather than selling them products for them to implement, what about products for members of their staff to implement? This program is all about creating products, coaching programs and offers for the buyer’s staff to implement combined with done-for-you services.

Here is a quick summary of what we covered on this call:

Marketing delegation along with implementation.
Structure your products and services for staff rather than the business owner.
Changes in the sales presentation and delivery.
What you must always deliver to the owner, even if the owner says he or she doesn’t want it at the time of sale.
How to talk with staff to build rapport without violating your responsibilities to their boss.

Listen to the audio program or read the transcript by visiting Selling Products Implemented by Others Combining Delegation with Done-For-You. Feel free to add comments and your own experience within the comments box at the bottom of the page.

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Selling Products Implemented by Others Combining Delegation with Done-For-You

IMA Easy Content Library

News to Share with IMA Members?

Faster Implementation = Faster Profits for You

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You

Faster Implementation =
Faster Profits for You