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Turning off the Rothkos (or An Infoprenuer in Alexa’s Court!)
Turning off the Rothkos…
Sometimes information products feel like a faded, worn out Rothko to me…
Do you know about the Harvard Rothkos?
Every afternoon at four o’clock, people gather on the third floor of the Harvard Art Museums to watch them “turn off the Rothkos.”
You see, in 1964 Harvard commissioned famous painter, Mark Rothko, to paint something for them. It ended up being 5 separate canvases of work. Abstract Expressionism in all its glory.
Through the years of hanging on the walls opposite an amazing view of Boston, with curtains on the windows that were hardly ever closed, and being decorations for dinner guests in a working dining hall…
…these paintings grew faded and deteriorated, ripped and torn. This was, of course, a tragedy for a Rothko, being as his work was all about the color.
So they ended up in storage for a while. People assumed they were pretty much “dead.”
Eventually though, Harvard borrowed a solution known as “compensating illumination.”
Basically, they took five digital projectors that had been programmed to light the canvases so that the original colors reappeared.
At four o’clock every day, the projectors are turned off one by one, and the colors revert to muddy blacks and grays.
People gather to watch.
It’s interesting to me, and I wonder why…
They don’t gather to watch them turn the projectors’ on.
They don’t gather throughout the day to watch them in their “compensated illuminated” glory…
…no, they gather in the evening to watch them shut them down.
If I were to guess why, I would say it is because we as a society are still drawn to the truth.
It might not be as beautiful or as shiny, but it is real. We want to see things as they really are.
Now the glaring flipside of that is that as a society we are so fascinated with technology that sometimes it feels like things get lost. Ideas, disciplines, even entire techniques lost to the age of technology.
It has been proven that we are losing our very memories to it.
Scary. All in the name of convenience and ease.
So to swing this back around to marketing and what I had on my mind today though…
I feel like the realm of digital marketing is at a time when software rules the day. And right behind software comes DFY and PLR packages.
People don’t want to learn anymore…they want results.
Fast, cheap, and easy results.
I recently did a study of the platform I frequently launch information products from, WarriorPlus.
I found that 60% of their Deal Of The Day Awards over the last 3 months have been awarded to products that were software or had a large software component to them.
That’s a sign of the times in my opinion. The Deal of the Day Award is a reaction to the market. And although that is just a small microevent in the world of digital marketing, I feel it probably reflects the whole.
So if that is true…
…then where does that leave the solo “infopreneur?”
Where does it leave the guy (or girl) who makes a living off of education…
…when nobody wants to learn anymore?
Lou Holtz once said, “Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.”
I believe in that, and I feel strongly the “infopreneurs” that will survive in this climate will do so because they will find a way to adapt to the adversity of a market that doesn’t really want to learn anymore.
But the whole thing leaves me wondering…
…are Infopreneurs today creating works kind of like those Harvard Rothkos, lighting them with “compensating illumination,” in an effort to appeal to the market? Or…
…are the Infoprenuers today…the Harvard Rothkos themselves, with the market gathering at 4pm waiting for the lights to be turned off?
More ramblings from a solopreneur, still fighting the good fight in a world of robots and self driving autoresponders…
…but none of that really matters.
I didn’t write this because I wanted to know what I thought…I wrote it because I want to know what you think.
Is the era of the “infopreneur” almost over?
Do people really not want to learn anymore?
Will we all lose our ability to remember anything and instead delegate the task to a creepy cylindrical computer spy in our living room named Alexa?
Questions, questions, everywhere…and not an answer in sight.
Let me know what you think!
Kam
How to Get People To Care About What You Have to Say More than Anyone Else…
Want to know how to get people to remember your content way better and far longer than everyone else’s?
Better read this…(and don’t give me that tl:dr crap. Buckle up buttercup…it’s going to get weird.)
If you are a would-be-marketer, you should probably go watch the old television show LOST in its entirety, immediately, and take some notes…
…here’s why.
First, I need to point out that this all comes back to a guy named Jack Shepherd (more on that in a minute.)
But in the effort of not dragging this out…
…let me start here.
Marketing legend, Frank Kern, once said that the most important money making skill that you can learn is bonding with your potential customers. Essentially, he was saying that building rapport with my audience is extremely important for a sustainable business.
So how do you do that?
In a world where every other marketer has an opinion, regularly dishes out amazing content, and people generally have the attention spans of bees (that’s about 2.5 seconds,) it can be challenging. No doubt about that.
And that brings us back to, what I consider to be the greatest show of fiction ever created.
Lost was a television series that originally aired on ABC back in 2004, ran for over six seasons, and ended with 121 mind bending episodes. The show contains both supernatural and science fiction elements, and follows the survivors of a plane that crashes on a mysterious tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean.
LOST does a lot right as a television show and as a story. But I don’t want to talk about all that today…
…I want to speak about the best thing this show does. The real thing you need to know.
The thing that kept people coming back week after week, the thing that had everyone talking around the water cooler at work, the thing that got the show nominated for over 256 awards.
What is that thing? The fine art of open loops.
That is to say, “a rhetorical device to instill curiosity by creating anticipation for what will come next. The device is sometimes also called a tension loop for the tension and anticipation it creates.”
Example time. Let’s say you’re standing around in a park waiting on your dog to take a leak and directly in front of you a portal opens up… out of it steps…wait for it…
…you.
That’s right. It’s your future self.
So this future version of you tells you that he has come from the future to give you this cheap black casio watch. He can’t tell you what it’s for exactly, but only that it will be important eventually. Then he steps back into the portal and with a flash he is gone.
That is an open loop.
There are more things happening in your story.
Your dog pees, you go home, talk with the wife, watch tv, try to forget that you possibly just had a weird hallucination in the park, other things happen…
…but in the back of your mind, there is still that thing with the black casio watch.
Eventually the story would close that loop and the truth about the watch would be revealed. It would be amazing, I assure you…
…BUT…
Until that happens it will be nagging at everyone who is following the story. A perplexing little mystery that we can’t figure out.
Here’s the thing; Our minds are hardwired to want information. We seek it out. So when you present an open loop, that makes your content more memorable. Why?
The Zeigarnik Effect.
In psychology, the Zeigarnik effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.
But that’s not all.
On top of the Zeigarnik Effect, as humans we desire something called “Cognitive closure.” That is an individual’s’ desire for a firm answer to a question and an aversion toward ambiguity,” a drive for certainty in the face of a less than certain world.
When faced with heightened ambiguity and a lack of clear-cut answers, we need to know—and as quickly as possible.
An open loop plays on both of those human qualities. It produces a Zeigarnik effect as well as a need for cognitive closure.
Lost, as a show, stacked up open loops. Open loop upon open loop, and with each one it closed it opened 3 more.
Sometimes it was so frustrating and perplexing, but they always revealed just enough to keep you guessing at what was really going on with that damn Island. As a result the show became very memorable, love it or hate it.
So why does this matter for you and building rapport with your target market?
The fact is, if you can master putting open loops in your content, you will inherently make your content more memorable. And in a world full of great to average content being puked on to the market daily…
…more memorable matters.
I want to point out here that open loops are not cliffhangers. Cliffhangers are like the ugly younger sister of the open loop. Much more obvious and clumsy.
With an open loop what you want to do is present something in your content that will tie into the content in a big way, but it is uncertain how.
Now about Jack Shepherd.
He was the main protagonist in Lost. He was the hero. In fact, you could argue that the whole damn thing was a hero’s journey centered around Jack.
As marketers, it’s important for us to remember that the hero of our story is always the customer.
Everything we do, every story we tell, is truly about them, not us. No matter how much it might sound like it’s about us…in truth, it’s always about them. That’s the true magic of marketing. It always comes back to the customer.
So even though I can teach you how to play around with the human psyche and be way more memorable in people’s minds because of it…just remember, at the end of the day…
…Jack needs to be the hero. We are here to help Jack win.
Do that, and you will see your business grow.
Betray Jack and you will probably spend a lot of time at the bottom wondering why everyone else is doing better than you.
Anyways, I hope you found this article helpful and got some value out of it. I’ll see you in the next one!
Welcome to the Launch Game…
Welcome to the Launch Game…
I call it the launch game because it’s competitive, it really is.
It’s a sport.
A blood sport.
It’s the kind of game that will test you to your limits. Make you dig deep for everything you get. Late nights, and early mornings, missing birthday parties and sending your wife to bed alone…
…the launch game. It can put you on top of the world in a day and drag you to hell in a night.
It’s made me arrogant at times and it’s taken me to tears at times (and I am not a man who cries easy or often. In fact…maybe tears was a little strong there.)
I think the launch game is a reflection of life itself.
That’s right, life is like a product launch. Never quite as good or as bad as you think.
I always tell people not to take themselves too seriously, because it’s a marathon. You aren’t going to win them all but…
It’s hard not to take it seriously. Entrepreneurs have to take shots. They have to take chances. They have to let it ride…
…it’s easy to let it ride when you win. It’s hard when you lose.
How many of you out there feel like your product should have done way better but you couldn’t sell 30 copies?
You couldn’t get any support for it but this other guy over here put out trash and pushed 3,000 units? He’s been doing it half as long as you’ve been “trying.”
That’s the funny stuff you think about on day 2 of a failing launch. The kind of stuff that makes you want to pull the plug on the whole thing and give up.
The formula is simple. It should be easy.
Step 1 – Create
Step 2 – Package
Step 3 – Release.
Step 4 – If Low conversions, good traffic, then adjust sales page
Step 5 – If High conversions, low traffic, then double down on jv recruitment.
Simple formula. Easy to master. More difficult to execute…
…like life.
I want to give you some advice for this game.
I’m a guy who can push between 300 and 700 units fairly consistently. Not the best by any means but I have mastered a degree of consistency that I can teach you.
I’m not perfect.
Consistent 5 figure launches still elude me. I’ve done it a couple of times but not regularly.
Perpetual 1,000 unit launches still elude me. I’ve done it a couple of times but not every time.
If I can be consistent with 300 to 700 unit launches though…then I know that being consistent with 1,000 unit launches is also possible for me…
…strike that…for anyone.
Possible for anyone willing to put in the dedication required. Obsession required.
Possible for anyone willing to work hard and be clever enough.
Here are some simple truths for you heading into 2019.
Simple truth 1: What got me to a consistent 100 units pushed was not the same thing that got me to a consistent 300 to 700 units pushed. It required something different. A new way of looking at things.
Simple truth 2: What will get me to a consistent 1,000 units pushed will probably not be the same thing that got me to a consistent 300 to 700 units pushed. It will require something different. Something that I have not allowed myself to see, somehow.
Simple truth 3: When I am positive and try to learn from people doing better than me, instead of hating on people doing better than me, trying to find dumb reasons why they are doing better than me…then great things happen for me. An open mind and a humble attitude can really help you see the entire forest.
Simple truth 4: The launch game is full of peaks and valleys for everyone involved. Yes, you will be down, but if you stick around long enough and keep fighting, you will be up again.
Simple truth 5: There are no friends in affiliate marketing. So stop getting mad at people because they don’t promote for you. It doesn’t matter how much time you spent on relationship building. The affiliate marketer and product vendor relationship is based on leverage, no matter what people might say. That doesn’t mean that those affiliates aren’t your friend outside of your launch BUT it does mean that you cannot count on that friendship to equal affiliate support. If you want to get affiliate support, you need to make your product and your funnel a win for affiliates. An easy sell and a money train (good sales funnel). Affiliates have businesses to run.
Simple truth 6: Above all else the customers are the most important thing. If you launch a product and only 29 people buy it, you better damn sure take care of those 29 people because those are the ones who believed in you and your product when nobody else would. They truly are the light in the darkness. It’s amazing how easy it is to forget that. Ride or die.
And Simple truth 7: None of this will matter in 100 years. Have some fun and don’t take yourself too seriously. Nobody else is. 😉 I have found that when I just focus on moving forward and trying to get better every launch, I do far better. Also…laugh and keep some time for your family. Critical distance is a real thing.
That’s all I got! Hope it helps. Merry Christmas from the depths of Ohio! ANd I truly hope you have a Happy New Year!
Kam
This is the most popular phrase in Internet Marketing…
Here is the most popular phrase in the internet marketing space:
“I can not sell my product please any one help me!!!”
It’s like a bad romance that plagues not just the person asking it but also everyone forced to be around the person asking it. **grins**
Let’s answer this one in 2 parts…
Part 1: A Metaphysical Explanation
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
The truth is, the fact that you threw that broad statement out there says more about you than it does about your problem. It says that you do not yet have the insight to know what you are looking for or what you are looking at.
Instead of saying, “I can not sell my product please any one help me!!!” Try this instead…
Why can I not sell my product?
What am I doing wrong?
Where is my process breaking down?
Those 3 small questions will help you a lot more than the broad statement you are posing.
Never forget that when you point a finger (looking for blame or answers) there are 3 fingers pointing back at you.
It’s true. You are in a world full of people who became successful because they figured out a whole bunch of stuff on their own, took the answers that a few other people gave them, and ran with it…
…and then to the best of my recollection you are surrounded by a group of people, in entrepreneurs, who have overcome large amounts of adversity and made scathing sacrifices to get to where they are.
When you say, “I can not sell my product please any one help me!!!” You come across in one of two ways to them. A lazy fool or a potential client. Probably both, most definitely the latter.
So what should you do? Look within for the larger answer you seek. Ask more specific questions to others…
Why can I not sell my product? What am I doing wrong? Where is my process breaking down?
If you are going to seek help…ask specific questions about specific problems. You’ll be far happier with the answers you get.
Part 2: A Practical Explanation
What’s that phrase again?
“I can not sell my product please any one help me!!!”
If you want to sell your product take these steps:
Step 1: Don’t be a coward. Fortune truly favors the brave. Be brave my friend. To make it here you need courage, consistency, and cleverness. But above all courage.
Step 2: Understand the fundamental idea that the more people who care about what you have to say…the more you will sell.
Step 3: Build an audience in a place where people visit regularly and repeatedly (i.e. facebook, youtube, reddit, quora, pinterest, imgur, instagram, ect.). YOu can achieve this by publishing regularly on said platform. Be consistent and always stay focused on your niche.
Step 4: Push that audience onto an email list. This list will represent the core of your audience. 80% of your financial transactions will come from this list.
Step 5: Sell your audience things that will help them.
Step 6: Don’t get confused and misuse your influence. (guess this is more of a rule than a step isn’t it)
Step 7: When things break, ask questions. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Don’t blame others. IN fact find a way to blame yourself so that you can control the situation.
Step 8: If you, at any point, find yourself lost or in doubt…see Step 1.
I don’t need to hope that answers your question, the truth is I know it does. When you are ready for the answer this will all make sense and you will win. Good luck out there.
-Kam
Lucky me…(or life in the online middle class)
You know, I’ve seen a lot of things in my day.
From ebay to amazon…
…from youtube to membership programs…
…from product launching to paid advertising…
…it’s safe to say I’ve been around the block.
Feels like long enough to go from the hero to the villain (blatant Dark Knight reference). Successes and failures litter my journey like notches on some old gunslinger’s belt.
“Oh great did this prick just relate himself to Batman? This should be a real humdinger…”
You’re Goddamn right I did.
Can you relate?
I admit, I don’t take back the things I say around here very often either…
…if I said it then I meant it. So I’ve burned a lot of bridges along the way.
People like to judge people. Everyone’s got an opinion. My opinion is fuck what you think, I’m too busy.
Sometimes it holds me back. Sometimes it fuels my success.
Can you relate?
Seems like I’ve been chasing that 7 figure dream online for years but I’ll probably never get it.
It appears I have found myself stuck in the “online middle class.” Just like my parents were stuck in the real life lower middle class, before me. Just like their parents were stuck in the lower class before them…
The socioeconomic road is a rocky scenic route with many detours it seems…
The “online middle class” is an okay place and far better than working for someone else, I’ll give you that…but it’s not the laptop lifestyle that sucked us all in.
I’m 42 years old and I’m still on my grind. Dream a little dream.
People say my content has gotten darker and more negative….
People say I should keep it upbeat and light. Be fun, positive and hopeful.
People are always saying something. The opinions collect like rotten leaves in my rain gutters…
…but keep it fun.
I look around and I see new dudes who aren’t new at all…
…but instead have been struggling to make money online for 1 year, 2 years, 3 years…they haven’t made a dime.
People who WISH they could get to the “online middle class.” Like I have anything to complain about. What a joke.
I don’t see anything upbeat about a dude with health issues who is spending every last fucking dime trying to make a few bucks online because he doesn’t think he’s going to be able to work at his normal job much longer…
…Nothing light or fun about that.
But I hear stories like that everyday from people. Their stories haunt me a little bit. I never know if they are telling me the truth or bullshitting me. I trust less people every year around here it seems. Feels like everyone has another angle sometimes.
You know why my content seems more dark and boring? Less pie in the sky?
I’ll tell you. Because I’m not about that bull shit.
I’m about the real shit.
When I win online it’s because I went hard as fuck in the paint (random basketball reference for you) and because I was really, really smart about it…not because I pushed some magic “easy” button.
When I make mistakes, when I get too careless, I fall short like everyone else…
…And I do. Happens all the time. I’m human.
I’m that bastard people come to on the way back down after they lost most their money to some 7 figure “guru” whispering sweet nothings of millions in their ear, cruising around in a Mclaren they bought on the hopes and dreams of every chump that came before the last sucker…
…and there’s one born everyday but…
…Now, the honeymoon is over.
When I get them, they are bitter, about to give up, and jaded as fuck. They are just trying to find SOMETHING that would prove they haven’t wasted the last 5 years of their life.
They always say the same thing about me when they come knocking too. “You just seem down to earth and honest man.”
That’s me.
Mr. Down to Earth and Honest. Mr. Non Flashy Boring Guy. Mr. Help them finally start earning a few bucks online and re-adjust expectations guy.
Not winning any ribbons for excitement that’s for sure.
It’s funny because most people have to go a long way around before they come back to a place where some disheveled dude with bad fashion sense…
…is teaching them how to start a business that will probably take about a year to really get going well.
That’s not sexy at all. Not one fucking bit.
Nobody wants to hear they are going to have to spend the next 12 months learning a bunch of shit they don’t want to learn, just to get a business going…
…spend the next 12 months building something that takes a commitment to consistency and adjustment. That’s not why they came here. Sounds too much like starting a real business. Too much effort.
…so it’s no surprise not many are interested in that. It takes heart to stomach the truth. It takes courage to embrace the work and not run from the work.
Key point in a long diatribe…Don’t run from the work, embrace the work.
Hell, I wouldn’t have been interested in that either when I first got started. I was on that easy shit back then. I wanted the push button dream.
Interesting thing about that dream…
…It’s easy to believe in because that’s the same dream that everybody tells you doesn’t exist…yet in the next sentence on their sales page, tries to sell you.
It’s that double speak you must be used to by now if you have spent at least 15 minutes of your life in the MMO space. That’s “make money online” for those not fully indoctrinated.
If you listen very closely you can hear them now, like hearing the ocean with a conch shell pressed against your ear…
“Push button doesn’t exist…want me to teach you how to make $320 in the next 20 minutes? YOu can scale it bruhhhhh!!!!”
No bruuhhh…I don’t want to scale it bruhhh…because you’re full of shit bruhhh. Your making your money off of me buying your bullshit bruhhhh…
Wake up.
And the game is rigged too. Just like that Browns v Raiders game yesterday. Fucking rigged. From the universe to the platforms…there is always something trying to keep you in your place. It’s going to take a special effort to break the loop. No doubt on that.
Doesn’t mean you can’t do it. That’s why underdogs are special. That’s why we love a good rags to riches story. Because it’s rare. You were never meant to do it. It’s going to take a special effort.
Around here you are going to get a lot of people putting a positive spin on things. Not telling you the whole story. The whole story comes with failure. I’ll tell you the whole story…
…the guy who risks it all, learns fast, and goes hard in the paint all the time probably wins. I say probably because this is life…we don’t always get what we deserve.
Does a guy win if he gets to 25k a month but loses his wife in the process, because she’s sick of being ignored? You tell me, I don’t know anymore. Sounds subjective.
We don’t always get what we deserve.
Actually scratch that…we don’t deserve anything. We get exactly what our actions dictate. And if we are good at analyzing what happened we get better and better at it.
Yeah that’s it man. What we deserve in life is in direct response to the action we take and how we adjust to our mistakes. ANd I feel like that’s important. I feel like this post is important.
But at the end of the day…what am I trying to say?
Look to the Losses For Your Truth!
Look To The Losses For Your Truth (or Why You’ve only Been Getting Half The Story And How to Find Real Success!)
People are always crying about getting ripped off around here.
It reminds me of when I was in the Navy. All the new recruits used to cry the blues about how the recruiters lied to them.
I’ll admit, I just used to laugh at them back then.
And do I laugh at the newbies now?
Not exactly. Let me explain.
I am a firm believer in the idea that none of us deserve anything. If you work hard enough, you are clever enough and ambitious enough…
…then maybe you get to win. Not because you deserve anything, but instead because you figured something out.
I think the fact that you are not rewarded because you “deserve to be” is important to remember in these dark days of mass entitlement.
None of us really “deserve” anything.
The gods of Internet Marketing don’t give participation prizes…
…not because you hung out in a bunch of IM forums and facebook groups for years and not because you doinked around, brilliantly half assing it on every low ticket product from WarriorPlus Drive to Clickbank Avenue…
What is required is a paradigm shift.
A way to break the cycle.
A loophole in the fabric of the universe…
…a universe that says you are destined to work at a dead end job that you hate for the rest of your life.
But how?
I will tell you how.
Look to the losses for your truth.
The truth is you are not being told the whole story.
Consider this…
Would it be hard to put together a 286 piece loft bed with only half the directions? I’ll answer that for you…it would be pretty damn hard, I have some experience in this.
Do you think it would be easy to understand the movie if someone edited it down to JUST the action scenes? I mean, you might get the gist of it but you probably couldn’t write the movie review.
Remember when you were in elementary school and you were supposed to read a book and do a book report? You had that amazing idea to just write the book report from the “back of the book” summary?
That shit didn’t work did it (lol).
Well, many times in the world of internet marketing it is the same thing.
Marketers are a prideful, arrogant lot who like to win.
It’s embarrassing to lose. So like anyone else who is embarrassed by something, many marketers do not speak of the losses.
I’m not saying there is anything wrong with speaking on the wins and focusing on the positive. It’s good to be positive and focus on the positive…
….but as marketers we don’t just focus on the positive.
We do full blown courses on the positive. We create giant blog posts on the positive. We construct megalithic case studies and turn them into grand products that focus on the positive…
We sell the dream.
But the dream is not the whole story.
ANd without the whole story…it’s a little hard to achieve the same results that the story is showing.
I mean, think about it. Could Dorothy ever have gotten out of Oz if nobody bothered to tell her about the Yellow Brick Road? What about those shoes? What if she would have never gotten those ruby shoes?
It might have been a different story right? Maybe not such a classic?
Do you know what happens to new people who get sold the dream and only understand half the story?
They walk away with their brand new, shiny step by step actionable instructions and they tend to fail quite a bit.
After that, they curse the stupid “guru” who sold them the dream and they move on to the NEXT dream.
Eventually, their bitterness turns introspective and they begin to wonder if perhaps they themselves, might be cursed…
…afterall, everybody seems to be winning and making money except them.
What is the problem?
I’ll tell you what the problem is.
You only got half the story. You only saw the action scenes. The negative aspects of the story were purposely withheld from you in an effort to make the story…
…more sexy. More convenient. Easier to swallow. Like a nice dose of “tastes great, less filling…”
But not the whole story.
I once spent 5 years in the United States Navy as a Hospital Corpsman.
Before I left, the Navy told me they had given me an education worth about 100k and I had enough field experience to test out for my Nursing license (lpn)…
…and I did what any blue blooded 24 year old American Male who was sick of the military life would do…
…I moved to Rhode Island and got a job unloading trucks. After I got sick of that, I went on to working maintenance at McDonalds with my 100k education.
While at the Golden Arches, sweeping floors and living up to my Generation X background of squandering my education masterfully and wasting my full potential…
…I noticed that all these old timers were always hanging out there all the time talking about their trips to Foxwoods (nearby casino.) It was a daily thing. A ritual.
These old guys always lounged around at that local McDonald’s like a bunch of salty dogs in good ol’ Rhode Island talking about their wins.
As I swept the floor each morning I would begin to wonder if these old bastards ever lost. I mean…
…what the hell am I doing sweeping this floor…these guys seemed like they were winning every single time they went to that casino. I mean…I want to win too…I like easy money…
I started thinking…”Hell, that must be the winningest Casino known to man because these old timers are striking it rich daily!”
And then I visited that damn casino for the first time.
It looked like the goddamned Emerald City as we rolled up. Literally, glistening in the sun a bright jade green color. Parking lot full of people, shuttle busses to give everyone a ride up to the place.
I thought, wow, this is awesome. It was all systems go for me. All green lights!
The place was beautiful inside with everything you could think of to do in there but no clocks and the main attraction?
Gambling. And off I went…time to get MINE!!!
It took me about 2 hours to figure out that those old dudes at McDonalds were not telling the whole story.
There was a lot of winning going on in there all right…for the casino.
I quickly realized why this place was so amazing looking. It was all built on the dreams of it’s “guests.”
It does not take long to lose lots of money in a Casino. They know all the tricks.
So people leave many times feeling like fools for losing a ton of cash.
They aren’t interested in reliving that and they definitely aren’t interested in telling other people about how they just lost their ass at the casino last night…
…no thanks.
No sir, they are going to keep going back until they get a win. And then they to will have something to talk about. Something cool and awesome that makes them feel good…like a winner.
Now, I’m not saying that marketers are like addicted gamblers who don’t know when to say when. But I am saying that embarrassment is real and most people are not too interested in talking about losses.
It’s a paradox though…
…I mean, how does someone win if they don’t have the whole story? How does someone understand what to do if they don’t know about the losses AND the wins?
They are going to have an unrealistic expectation from only being fed half the story.
Maybe, they puzzle it out for themselves by exploring multiple strategies from multiple people, until they stumble upon something that is working for them.
Or maybe they give up feeling like a fool.
Kind of like throwing a bunch of stuff against a wall and seeing what sticks. It leaves a lot of people in frustration.
When I started Epic Conversions in 2016 I adopted a strong “share the losses AND the wins” mentality.
I didn’t want to be like those old salty dogs at McDonald’s all those years ago. Fooling people with the wins and hiding the losses. The losses are just as important as the wins.
If you don’t believe me, go ask anyone who’s ever been married.
Yeah, it would be embarrassing to share the losses.
Yeah, I would be perceived as probably less successful than some.
And yeah, my business would probably grow a little slower because of it.
I mean, do you want to be taught how to succeed by the seemingly “mega successful” lambo driving dude who appears to really have his shit together?
Or do you want to be taught how to succeed by the middle class, sleeveless shirt wearing, redneck who talks about messing up his last sales page on facebook?
If we are being honest…people go for the sexy dream most times.
I usually get them on the way back down when they have sworn vengeance on all things internet marketing, made like 20 guru’s their mortal enemies…
…and are now just trying to figure out how to make a little extra money online (lol at that imagery…been there.)
I am the practical guy who will tell you about my mess ups. It’s important to me for you to understand I am a real guy and this is a real business that you can do…and it’s okay to mess up.
We all mess up. And if you are like me you mess up over and over again, each time adjusting and getting a little better at what you do.
This last product I launched, The Easy 23, was a solid launch. But I did make a pretty big mistake.
I got too cocky with my sales page. Too overconfident, and when it didn’t convert like I wanted it to, I had to make another one.
I literally spend the afternoon of the first day of my launch penning a brand new sales letter/page because the one I had in place was converting at a miserable 6%.
I was wasting a ton of traffic. I was losing a ton of money. This is what was buzzing through my head as I cursed my stupidity on that first day furiously typing a 3rd sales page.
So finally, I got my new sales page in place and by the beginning of the second day I had my conversions up to a blazing 31%. The product launch was getting salvaged and things were looking up.
However, how many affiliates mailed for me once that first morning and when the product did not convert, moved on?
Plenty.
I estimate I probably lost around 2k on that little mistake.
So the lesson there?
Always work from a template on your sales letters and pages. Don’t get TOO creative in that department. Always roll with a back up and make sure that backup is hitting on a different angle.
This is real marketing and I am a real marketer. If you want to know the whole story…
…if you want to know who you should follow and learn from?
…take this small piece of advice to heart.
Look to the losses for your truth.
Find the marketers out there who are putting their losses on display for the world to see.
And I don’t mean some long lost mistake they made in the beginning of their career back when they were still living in “a trailer.”
I mean, Jesus, it’s like every internet marketer now started their journey in a trailer with a bunch of drug addicts…
…but that was a long time ago…before they bought a Bugatti.
Now, shit is different right? Now that you have a super car and live in a mansion…you don’t mess up anymore right?
No mistakes are ever made?
Here is what I am saying. Finally, to the point.
Everyone messes up. Even when they win at a high level, they still mess up. To be fallible is to be human.
If you want to win here you need to see the whole picture. Look to the losses for your truth.
That’s all I got! Good luck out there! If you can make it here you can make it anywhere!
Kam
How to go from ZERO to LEVEL 60 DRAGON SLAYER…
How to go from ZERO to LEVEL 60 DRAGON SLAYER when your wife hates you, your kids ignore you, and your family laughs at you!!! (or 23 steps to running with the big dogs)
First let me just say something…
…I want you to adopt a strong “fuck what you think” mentality throughout this process. You’ll thank me later. Half the people you know don’t give a shit about you and the other half want to see you fail so seriously…fuck what they think.
Alright you got it? Cool…let’s do this.
Step 1. Pick a niche
Step 2. Go to your favorite PLR site and find 3 special reports on said niche. Download them. Make sure you have Master Resell rights on these reports.
Step 3. Break apart all the chapters of all the special reports into individual articles. These articles are very synergetic and flow well into each other.
Step 4. Turn the articles into emails. Be sure to lead into the next email at the end of the previous email. Now you should have a package of at least 30 to 50 emails on one subject. This is an autoresponder sequence that can be packaged as a product and sold. It is utilitarian in nature.
Step 5. Come up with a title and subtitle for your new product. Hit them in the mouth with the title and tell them why you did it with the subtitle.
Step 6. Go over to Canva(dot)com and create a cover for your new product.
Step 7. Create a license for your new product. YOu can model this license after the ones that came with your PLR special reports. But in your case only give [personal use] rights.
Step 8. Zip the emails, and the cover, and the license into a zipfile. Call this file [FE PRODUCT] Congratulations, you now have a finished product.
Step 9. Copy file [FE PRODUCT]. Rename this file [OTO1]. Create another license but this one will give the user PLR rights to the emails. Replace the personal use license that is in OTO1 with the PLR license. Congratulations, you now have an OTO for your product.
Step 10. Go over to wix(dot)come and create a new free website. Call it something that makes sense for your niche.
Step 11. Create 2 new pages on this website. One will be called FE-sales and the other will be called OTO1-sales.
Step 12. On your FE-sales, you need a sales letter to sell your product. Go back to your favorite PLR website and see if there are any PLR sales letters you can use. FInd one that you like and adapt it to fit your product.
Step 13. Go over to WarriorPlus and look at the top 10 selling products today. Find one that resonates with you and model your FE-Sales sales page aesthetically after that. It won’t be perfect. They probably used clickfunnels or leadpages and you are using wix. DOn’t worry about it. The road to success does not go through perfection. It goes through effort and productivity so your good.
Step 14. Put on a clean shirt, point a camera at your face and record a video in which you tell people:
- a) Thanks for picking up [name of FE product]
- b) As a special bonus to you I would like to offer you PLR rights on this same package of emails c) That is going to give you the ability to sell these emails as a product yourself
- d) So you can not only use them personally but now they will become an asset for you and your business to use as you see fit
- e) Thanks again for picking up [name of FE product]
- f) Click the buy button below and grab your PLR license on this amazing asset.
Step 15. Start a youtube channel and upload that video as an unlisted video
Step 16. Embed that video on your OTO1-sales page.
Step 17. Create product listing for FE PRODUCT and OTO1 on WarriorPlus. Upload the zip files directly to warriorplus.
Step 18. Create a new offer on WarriorPlus with FE PRODUCT as the main product and OTO1 as the upsell.
Step 19. Put the buy buttons on FE-sales and OTO1-sales pages (be sure to put a “no thanks” link on OTO1-sales right below the buy button)
- Open up a free MailChimp account. Start a new list for [FE PRODUCT] and then integrate that list with your product listing on WarriorPlus. This will allow you to automatically build a list when people buy your product.
- Set a launch date. List it on mucheye(dot)com. Recruit some affiliates. Make some money. Build a list.
- IMPORTANT: Repeat process several times being sure to mail out to your list when you have a new product for sale. Find a coach to get to the next level once you have made enough money with this to afford one. There are two places people will fail the most. First they will never get started or second, they will fail to repeat. Don’t let that lame fate be yours. Be a baller not a crawler.
- AND FINALLY… Tell your wife to go to hell, your kids to learn respect, and your family DEUCES because your moving on up to the east side BITCHES! PEACE!
#bosslevelthinking
What is The Empire Strikes Back Effect?
Do you know about The Empire Strikes Back Effect?
You see, The Empire Strikes Back is a really funny movie…
…not ha ha funny either.
I mean it’s the kind of funny that leaves you thinking you’re not quite sure how you feel about it.
It drops you off at a really dark point in the story with all these cliffhangers…all these open loops.
Sure, from 2018 we might look back on it as one of the greatest films ever created but in 1980 when it was released…
…people didn’t feel like that.
Think about it…they had waited 3 years from the original Star Wars until The Empire Strikes Back came out.
And it would be 3 MORE years until Return of the Jedi closed all those storylines that Empire left people hanging on.
From Luke losing the duel, his hand, and maybe even his mind a little bit to Darth Vader, to Han Solo being encased in carbonite…
…let’s face it The Empire Strikes back ended our heroes on a dark note.
It was met with mixed reviews too.
People weren’t quite sure how they felt about it but honestly…I think they were mad because they got left on all those major cliffhangers.
They got no closure.
Years later, we love The Empire Strikes Back. We hail it as maybe the best Star Wars movie EVER! But we get the luxury of having a 3rd movie to watch.
They didn’t have that back in 1980.
So what the hell is my point here?
Why am I talking about The Empire Strikes Back for God’s sake and what the hell does that have to do with making money online?
It’s something I discovered when I started mentoring people.
A weird phenomenon.
You know how people always say that once they figured out they could make their first dollar online they were off to the races and they never looked back???
Yeah, that’s not true for everyone.
Some people experience a little success online and when it comes time to rinse and repeat they run into all kinds of trouble.
It’s like an effect that comes over people after they have achieved a little bit of success, but not as much as they had pictured in their minds…
…and now they know what they have to do to truly win.
A whole bunch more of what they just did.
Only now…nothing is new…or at least it doesn’t feel new anymore. The novelty is worn off.
Now comes the rinse and repeat portion that you always hear marketers talking about.
You know…”let me show you this easy way to make money online…then you just rinse and repeat until you’re RICH!”
Nobody tells you what that’s like, “rinsing and repeating.”
It requires more discipline and dedication to stay with it, than when you had never done it before and everything was brand new.
The truth is there is MORE to learn and there is another frontier. The place you were trying to get to…
…only to get there you have to slog through a bunch of stuff that you have already done before and that isn’t exciting.
It’s kind of just a bunch of work.
That must be how Luke Skywalker felt at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.
Here, he thought that he was going to go duel Darth Vader and save the galaxy…
…but all that happened was he lost his hand, got his butt kicked and figured out that Darth Vader was actually his dad…
…He must have been hanging from that antenna thinking…
“damn…this is going to be much harder and take way longer than I thought…I have really underestimated my task. And on top of that my dad is a freaking Level 60 Douchebag!!!! Damn it!”
(wait until he figures out Princess Organa is his sister lol)
Anyways, to me…
…the greatness of Empire Strikes Back is that the fans watching the movie were left in a similar emotional state as Luke and the rebels when it comes to the story.
They wanted to know what happened. Instead they got left with a bunch of crap where NONE of their heroes won at all!
It sucked. Zero Closure.
It’s a lot like the first time someone launches a product. They might have won a little bit…
…saw maybe a little profit and put some valuable buyers leads on their list…
…but for the most part they are hanging from an antennae thinking…damn now what the hell am I supposed to do…
…I have to do ALL THAT AGAIN???
It’s the Empire Strikes Back Effect and my friends the struggle is real.
This is a point where many newer marketers give up.
They have experienced a little success but they have worked hard for it.
And now they think they know what’s behind all the hidden doors. How everything works and why everything happens.
Now they are left with the…”rinse and repeat.”
That can feel frustrating and boring.
And many times they go running into the warm and waiting comforting arms of the next shiny object sitting in their email inbox.
And the cycle begins again. It’s ironic and paradoxical.
ANd this is how people get demoted and stay at the bottom of the “marketing pile” for years.
BUT…
I want you to take comfort in something here.
Luke Skywalker did not give up at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.
He went on to become a badass Jedi Knight and defeat Darth Vader.
Many of you set out to accomplish something online.
Learning how to do something and seeing a little success with it is a great benchmark for the future.
It proves that you are on the right track.
But you have not accomplished what you set out to yet.
Do not fall victim to The Empire Strikes Back effect and give up here.
True success online has allies.
Consistency.
Ambition.
Positive thinking.
Courage.
The ability to learn from failures.
And The ability to adjust strategy.
These things have gotten me further than anything else.
As a coach and mentor to quite a few people now I can tell you without a doubt that…
…lots of people give up after they have seen a little success. They lose a few of the critical allies of success, namely ambition and consistency.
Don’t be that person.
Knowledge is power and now that you know about The Empire Strikes Back Effect, you can be ready for it.
Go forth, conquer, come on back whenever you need another Star Wars analogy lol!
That’s all I got!
Kam
Are you Ignoring the Holy Trinity of MMO?
Have you ever noticed that the longer you do something the more you either consciously or even sometimes subconsciously develop a set of rules for doing what you do?
It’s almost like part of how you get better at what you’re doing.
If you do it long enough you can basically develop your own rule book of what to do and what not to do for success at almost anything.
It’s like that for me in the Make Money Online space.
I’ve been in this niche for a while and I’ve had my share of successes but I’ve also had my share of failures (or learning moments lol).
Over the course of all that time I have developed a kind of personal “handbook” of do’s and don’ts for myself. Things to help me not embarrass myself so much as I move forward on my journey.
I’d like to share 3 of the big ones from my handbook with you today.
I call them the Holy Trinity of MMO and I can safely tell you that every time I have ever ignored one of them I always paid for it. I’ve never walked away unscathed when I didn’t respect the MMO Holy Trinity.
So…okay, obligatory build up over. What are they?
The Holy Trinity of MMO is as follows:
- Cheap
- Easy
- Free
Let me explain.
Rule Number One – Cheap
Is the product you are trying to sell cheap or reasonably priced in conjunction with what the market perceives the price should be?
Just because you are the best email marker in the world and your email marketing book is the best because you have made a billion dollars with email marketing…
…what are comparable email marketing books retailing for?
If yours is listed at a moderately higher price than that, then generally you are now fighting an uphill battle because of it.
First rule of the MMO Holy Trinity. Make it cheap.
Rule Number Two – Easy
Make sure the tactics and strategies you teach in the product are easy to grasp and make sure you have convinced them of this on the sales page.
If they are not then you better address it on the sales page and you better fix it in the product. What do I mean by address it?
I mean make sure you break the information down and make it easy in the product. Use analogy and storytelling to help people understand and relate to complex ideas. AND on top of that, make sure you let them know it is going to be easy on the sales page.
If you violate this rule of the MMO Holy Trinity, I assure you, there is a painful burn in your future lol (I wish I did not speak from experience).
Rule Number Three – Free
The third and final rule of the MMO Holy Trinity is this;
Make sure your product is teaching free methods to achieve the outcome or solve the problem and if it isn’t then make sure you provide free alternatives.
Example:
If you are teaching people how to write viral content and you use “buzzsumo” as a place to start strategy wise…
…guess what…
Buzzsumo has a free trial and then it costs money. Now you have sold people a product that teaches them how to do something that won’t work unless they buy something else (and in this case something very expensive).
That’s in direct violation of the Holy Trinity of MMO. You will definitely feel the refund fire if you go down this road lol.
If you are teaching people how to do something and you use a paid tool to accomplish the outcome…
…always, always, always….
…always…
..always…
…include a free alternative for those on a budget or just starting out. Trust me, this is important.
In fact all 3 of these rules are very important. They didn’t end up being called the Holy Trinity of MMO in my personal handbook for nothing.
All three of these rules earned their place by burning me and/or my peers every single time we tried to ignore them or not respect their power.
I can take you on a walk through some of my launch history.
Affiliate Command 2017 – launched at a price of $197 on the front end, thereby violating rule 1 of the Holy Trinity of MMO. It did not sell well.
Free Funnels – launched at a cheap price, promised and delivered easy to follow training, and utilized ALL FREE methods and resources to accomplish the job. It was a 5 figure launch.
Launch Levels VOL1 – launched with a promise of showing people a case study of EXACTLY what I did to produce that 5 figure launch. Guess what. The perception in the market is that launching products is very hard and involved. I didn’t address that in my product or on my sales page. That was a direct violation of rule number 2 of the Holy Trinity of MMO. And I got burned for it.
Cloud Money – launched with an idea of teaching people how to make money online, with nothing…not even a real computer to do it. It was cheap, it was easy to understand and take action on training, and it was utilizing ALL FREE services and methods. Another 5 figure launch.
Talk Show Empire – launched with the promise of showing people how to start a complete business utilizing the power of interviews.
Guess what…the perception in the market is that interviews are hard to do because you have to be on camera to do them, and also they are kind of a pain because you have to talk to other people and be social. I didn’t address those concerns on my sales page and it put me in direct violation of rule number 2 of the MMO Holy Trinity again. I got burned…again. Ended up not even finishing the launch cycle on this one, sales were so poor (I don’t recommend that btw, I should have at least finished the launch cycle).
I could go on and on here guys.
The point is what I am telling you is the absolute truth.
It doesn’t mean you can’t violate the Holy Trinity of MMO and win. This is the universe we are talking about…it prides itself on exceptions to the rule.
But what it does mean is I promise you, if you ignore these rules, you WILL have a massively more difficult time winning online in the MMO space. LIke running uphill versus running downhill.
Trust me, you can see the difference pretty fast once you go live.
Now look, all of this assumes you have a great product that will really help people and bring value to their lives and businesses.
Can you use the rules of the MMO Holy Trinity to sell garbage?
Sure you can. And people do…every day.
But…
Remember this…
Email marketing is the core of every sustainable online business. Good luck with your email marketing when your selling people garbage and ripping them off.
Anyways, that’s the Holy Trinity of MMO and it comes directly from the Kam Fatz personal “rules so I don’t embarrass myself…too much” handbook.
If you like this one and would like to hear more from my “don’t lose too much” handbook let me know in the comments below and I will have my team of highly trained mice get the message back to me…
…and I will seriously consider it. Lol.
That’s all I got. Hope you are doing awesome out there and may the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows!
Kam
How to Have a More Successful and More Fulfilling Business in 367 Words
We live in a time where options are boundless but clarity is in short supply.
The truth is no one ever succeeded at anything by having the most options. By knowing the most ways to do something or having the most tools…
…You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room to succeed. You do need to be the most certain. The most clear.
Success in business and in life is earned through clarity of vision and purpose.
On social media, everyone has an opinion. I do, you do, your neighbor who judges you because you don’t cut your grass often enough does…
