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The 4 ESSENTIAL Keys to Building an Internet Business:
1. You need to build a list
2. You need to have a backend and multiple front-ends
3. You need to be working with at least one other individual (partner), or in a team
4. You need to build a business with continuity income.
You need to begin with the end in mind and build your business based on the basic principles of marketing that have been around for hundreds of years.
So, how are the gurus making big, big money online. How are they constantly entering new markets and extracting huge profits from them?
They're using a very consistent, tried and true model.
It's actually a very simple model that they use over and over again, and it's easy to copy.
There are no secrets when you know the model. You only think there are secrets now because you haven't been able to piece the model together yet.
So, here it is:
This model (the KEY to online wealth), consists of multiple front-ends leading to a backend, which is either a high-ticket item or a continuity program (something where someone is billed automatically each month).
This is the foundation. Every major online success has been a result of implementing this model properly.
Look at the most successful companies in the world, and you'll see the continuity model in action:
- Credit card companies
- The phone companies (cell phone and regular)
- Gas
- The grocery store (you HAVE to eat!!!)
- Cable TV
Even certain retail stores, like Costco are member-based. Costco charges an annual memembership fee to even allow you to shop at their store!
Of course, they can do this because of the way they've presented their product offering: buy in bulk and save.
It's no accident that these companies lock you into a subscription, and sometimes even a contract where you HAVE to pay them for a certain length of time.
Successful marketers often use a technique called forced continuity. This is where in order to buy something, someone absolutely MUST join the continuity program. The brilliant part is that the continuity program is positioned as a bonus, and on top of that the first month is free.
So, conversions on this are very, very high. And, once you have someone in your continuity program, there is a good chance they'll stay for awhile — possibly for years.
Watch the progression:
1. Customer comes in though a $30 front-end (ebook, cd, etc)
2. Customer is funneled into an email list where they are hit multiple times over the next few weeks (or even months) with autoresponders.
3. Customer is upsold into a $49/month continuity program.
4. From within the continuity program, customer is upsold to a $1000 home-training course.
5. From there, customers are upsold into a $7000 mentoring program including personal coach and teleseminars, plus other tools and bonuses.
If you didn't catch what I just wrote, read it again.
This is how the big names are making BIG BUCKS online. There are also many, many people who you've never heard of who are making insane amounts of money using this model.
Ever heard of Agora Publishing? Their model is based on continuity - they are one of the largest newsletter publishers in the world. At this point, they're bringing in $1,000,000+ per day using the model I described to you above.
With that said, let's take each of the bullet points I listed further up the page and break them down.
I want to tell you exactly what you need to do starting today.
- List Building
Building a list (with either email addresses and/or snail mail), is CRUCIAL if you want to succeed online.
If you don't do it, you will probably never reach your income goals, much less your income potential.
Start building a list now, in whatever niche is most appealing to you.
Now, once you have that list, keep in touch with your subscribers. Send them free content — build a relationship.
- You need to have a backend and multiple front-ends
This is one of the golden rules of Internet marketing.
Do you think guys are Armand Morin are making their money selling their little software scripts and eBooks? Heck no! These products are front-ends.
Armand's big backend is his BIG SEMINAR, which he holds annually. He not only charges people to be there, but he also takes a cut of whatever commerce takes place between people there. It's his seminar, so he can do it!
Remember, a backend can be a high-ticket item or a continuity program.
In this case, Armand's seminar is a high-ticket backend.
If you don't have a backend, you are seriously limiting your income. You're not following the model I've laid out for you!
Just remember, a backend is useless if you don't build your customer relationships. So, I urge you to go back again and read the 4 bullet points I've listed above.
You need to have ALL of them to make this work.
Here's a suggestion. In your everyday life — shopping at the store, taking the kids to school, etc — just pay attention to the businesses around you and ask yourself how they are utilizing the continuity model.
You're going to start seeing examples EVERYWHERE because this is a model that the rich have been using for many years. It's so freaking obvious, yet so many people miss it.
As you're observing the businesses around you, you're also going to see examples of businesses that have no backend whatsoever and you're going to wonder what the heck they are thinking.
As a final note, I want to stress that you don't need your own product to do what is described here. Some people make it online with one affiliate site.
The model is dead simple — it's the model described above. The only difference is to use other people's products as front-ends. A successful marketer gathers email addresses, and upsells his customers to teleseminars, personal coaching, and his community subscription site.
- You need to be working with at least one other individual (partner), or in a team
I'm not going to devote too much time to this bullet point.
I just want to stress that if you're working alone right now, you're going to move much more slowly than if you find a partner who understands this model.
As entrepreneurs, we have a psychological condition where we think we know everything and can do everything better than anyone else.
This is perhaps our greatest downfall, because it is serious self-delusion.
You are going to be severely limited until you find a partner. This is a universal rule.
- You need to build a business with continuity income.
I think we've pretty much drilled this point into the ground, so I won't talk about it anymore here.
I hope that at the very least this letter has made you think.
I hope it's jolted you and caused to take a step back and really think about how you're spending your time online.
For some of you, what you're reading here will seem like nothing new.
In fact, a lot of people will say: " I already knew all that stuff…"
But the astute marketer, Frank Kern, does not seem
to think that everybody knows this. Frank Kern wrote in his email to his list
"Listen - some idiots out there will say you don't
need a list …and if you're like me you're sick of their
B.S. HERE'S PROOF THEY ARE LYING.
Think about this.
How many gurus do you know who don't have a list? None!!
How many big launches have you ever seen where email
marketing wasn't the NUMBER ONE method of promotion?
How many super affiliates do you know without lists?"
Please leave your comments and questions below.
Thanks,
Angela Wickenberg
Spread the word
At least once each day I get a call from someone trying to sell me outsourced development services. It's difficult to not be frustrated with these calls and it is increasingly hard to be polite, because they come so frequently. Yet, more than frustrated, I am just puzzled. Does this tactic still work? Who in this day and age would give business based on a cold call? These companies could definitely use a dose of business development 2.0.
The reason we all hate cold calls so much is because they are very intrusive. A stranger interrupts our flow, and takes precious seconds away from our lives. But maybe even as recently as 10 years ago we did not feel it so acutely. Why? A few reasons. First, the pace of our lives was not as fast, the minutes did not feel as precious. But more importantly, today we have a much less intrusive form of solicitation - email. True we all hate spam, but an unwanted email doesn't feel like as sharp an interruption as an unsolicited phone call.
LinkedIn is a business network that has emerged as a substitute to the rolodex. Because it is online and self-managed, LinkedIn offers a much more robust way of maintaining your business connections and seeing what they are up to. But beyond that, LinkedIn has become an indispensable tool for business introductions.
Beyond connecting on LinkedIn there are other modern means of connecting with people. Facebook message, Twitter @response, a comment on a photo or blog post, etc. These are ways of getting someone's attention that are creative, but you need to be careful when employing them because they can be unwelcome. People do not use Twitter to get unsolicited business pings, nor do they post pictures for strangers to comment on. Facebook is probably somewhat acceptable because a lot of people are mixing business contacts with friends there. But the most solid way of connecting with someone outside of LinkedIn is via their blog.
Let's suppose you've found the right way to connect and you've got your meeting. Now you're looking at the whole sales cycle. Particularly, if you are small startup aiming to sell your product to a big company, has anything changed? Not really. You still have two fundamental hurdles - the time and the risk. Between startups and big companies expectations of how quickly the deal can get done are completely misaligned. Big companies are scared of the startup speed. Startups are frustrated with big companies' turtle pace.
How can a small start up that has no capacity to knock on doors sell to big companies? A possible answer can be via a web service or an API. The model is applicable to a whole range of services - from data plays like del.icio.us to messaging systems like Twitter to infrastructure like Amazon Web Services and semantic web services like Open Calais from Reuters. The basic model is to have a web service which is accessible via API (application programming interface). Clients sign up to use the service and have to agree to the terms in order to obtain a key. Using those keys, clients can use the service programmatically to send and get data from it.
And so is Digg.