Aloha,

A few chapters ago, I discussed the importance of testing your sales message using a tool like MuVar.

I used the simplistic example of selling lemonade and how saying “10 cent lemonade” on a sign would have a very different rate of sales than saying “lemonade 10 cents.”

That’s absolutely true.  If you don’t have MuVar installed on your site, you are losing sales.  That’s just a fact.  Here is the URL for MuVar if you still need to get it:

http://www.MuVar.com

It comes with the franchise offer because nearly the entire franchise system is run on MuVar ensuring constant and never-ending improvement of profit for all franchise owners. You can order the franchise here:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/services/Franchise

Let’s talk a little about the variables you should test though in MuVar.  Here are the sections I use for every sales page:

1. Headline

2. Product description

3. Product picture

4. Guarantee

5. Testimonial

6. Call to action

7. Order button

There are other things you can include to test, but those are the major areas of every sales page I always test.  I will have several alternative headlines, several product descriptions and so on.

I also highly recommend testing everything except the order button against “nothingness.”  When you set up MuVar, just add a version to each variable that is completely blank.

This is important because I have several sales letters where some section ends up having that “nothingness” win.

Everyone things they are a great writer.  They think the headline they came up with will help sell the product or service on that sales page. 

When you test everything and include “nothingness” as a version, you will often find that “nothingness” wins.  That’s just a fact.  It is just as likely that your headline, product description or some other part of your sales letter actually talks people out of buying something as it is that it helps convince them to buy it.

Test and find out for yourself.

There are two sections of every sales letter I have that NEVER have “nothingness” win though.   These are the two most critical parts of every sales letter.

The first one is obvious… the order button.  If you forget to include an order button or link, nobody will purchase.

The second one caught me a bit by surprise though.  It was the customer testimonial section.  In this section, I included a customer testimonial if I had one for the product.

Some of my testimonials were just so/so in my opinion.  They were vague or sounded too “over the top” and I was sure they weren’t helping sales.

When you use MuVar though, you don’t have to worry about that.  MuVar automatically tests everything and stops using it as soon as it has enough data to know that it hurts sales more than it helps sales.  If you have “nothingness” as a variable version, you don’t have to worry about including a “not so good” testimonial.  MuVar will find out for you and stop using that testimonial if “nothingness” would do better.

Every single time that I thought a testimonial would lose against “nothingness”, I was wrong!

Every single time!

Testimonials from customers are that important!

In fact, a single testimonial shown on a sales page causes my my sales to more than triple on average (3.237 times more sales to be more exact).

Do you have testimonials on your sales page?

If you don’t, I bet I know the reason.  I used to have this problem myself.  Testimonials come in from all different places and you mean to get them on your sales page, but you just never get around to it.

Is it worth more than triple the number of sales? Of course it is.

I finally found a solution to that problem.  I installed software called TestiVar that automatically collects testimonials from customers and inserts them into the MuVar database to test.

Here’s a sales page that I use TestiVar on:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/apply/

TestiVar automatically put that testimonial page in the middle of that sales page.  It also created this page automatically:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/apply/testimonials.php

It also provided a form where customers could add a testimonial directly.   I just give them the URL whenever they purchase (or in this case when I pay them since this is a job application page).   They enter the testimonal and it automatically goes into test in MuVar.

I never have to do a thing.  Between TestiVar and MuVar, it automatically makes sure that each testimonial is contributing to sales… AND it shows the MOST influential testimonial on the sales page completely automagically.

Do you want a copy of TestiVar?

Of course you do.  Here is the URL:

http://www.TestiVar.com

The fact is that your customers will always write a more effective sales letter than you write.  Want proof?

Go back to this URL:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/apply/testimonials.php

Read all of those testimonials and let me know what you do when you get to the bottom of that page.  You signed up; didn’t you?

That’s the power of customer testimonials… and TestiVar.

Regards,

-Diego

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Aloha,

Recently there has been a lot of talk about outsourcing to countries that historically earn less money.

In fact, I noticed right away that most franchisees immediately decided to try to hire from these areas.

I never did that.  Instead, I left it entirely up to current successful workers in my business to decide where they should hire from.  I simply want the best and don’t care where they happen to live in the world.

Of course English language mastery is important to an Internet business so there are massive stretches of geography that will never register in my statistics because there simply aren’t very many English speakers in those areas of the world.

I thought I would share with you my statistics for where my workers ended up coming from.  Here is a graph showing the country where they reside (showing only the top few countries by number of workers):

This is important information to consider.  You may be able to pay less when hiring from certain areas of the world, but will you really be able to attract quantities of workers from those geographies?

It turns out that a vast majority of my workers live in the United States.

I have a couple of franchisees who understood that, but then attempted to attract new workers in some odd states.  One said they tried Utah because they know there are a lot of stay-at-home moms in that state.  That may be true, but what is the population of Utah?

Others tried California because they believed there was a very large population in California and California is known to be more technically savvy.

My first thought was that both of those ideas showed a significant bias based on their own background.  A false bias will hurt your business.  So, here are the facts about what happens when workers are not given a geographical area nor is there any attempt to influence them to choose to recruit from certain areas:

Based on that data… if you have to hire your initial group of workers (as all franchisees have to do), what country would you start with for your first classified ad?

I would start with the United States.

What state would you start with?

I would start with Georgia, Florida and Texas.

I hope that information helps you in your own Internet business.

Regards,

-Diego

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Aloha,

A couple chapters ago,  I impressed upon you that a company is just that… a company of people.  If you aren’t hiring others, then you are just creating a J.O.B. for yourself and this isn’t the place to learn about whatever it is you are trying to do.  This is the place to learn about how to gain your freedom via an Internet business.

My first recommendation for hiring is to create a system that continues to replace employees who leave the company and increase the number of employees you have.  The more employees you have (if you have a profitable business system), the more money you earn.  It’s that simple.

Many people balk at the idea of hiring right away because they think they will lose money.  That is not possible if you are following a proven business system.  It might be possible to have a short-term cash flow issue if payroll comes due before sales revenue becomes spendable, but you can’t ever have a net-profit problem with number of employees if those employees are followng a proven business system.

Why?

Because a proven business system ensures that every single employee is doing something profitable for your business.  If you are paying them $1, they are earning you $1.50 or $2… in any case… something more than the $1 you are paying them.  That’s the way business works.

If you want a proven business system, I recommend my own franchise program.  You can buy into an Internet business franchise for just a few hundred dollars vs. the tens of thousands it typically costs to buy into a physical store franchise.  Here the URL for my franchise system:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/services/Franchise/

My franchise system has a hiring procedure already in place.  Once you kick it off, it will always take care of hiring new workers and keeping your business growing in terms of both number of workers and profits.

However, you do have to kick it off.  That means hiring!

You could apply to work as a worker in your own franchise.  This is pretty common in the offline franchise world.  When you purchase a McDonalds or Subway franchise, you will generally work in your own store for the first couple of years.

In my franchise system, you can generally stop working in your own store after 3-10 working days instead of 3-10 years.  That’s pretty powerful.  At that point (if you really did put in 8 hours a day and answered 113 or more application emails per day), you can generally stop working and let your new workers take over.  You will have enough momentum for your current workers to carry on hiring new workers and creating products for your business.

In my experience though, not many people are willing to even put in that kind of work.  It amazes me.  There are people out there who will invest $50,000 in a Subway franchise and work 10 hours a day in it for 3-10 years, but those paying only hundreds of dollars to start an Internet business franchise generally won’t even put in 3 solid days of hiring people.  They buy their franchise and sign up for the free classes on how to run their franchise, but most won’t actually perform a single procedure in their franchise.

I’ve heard all of the excuses.  They go like this:

1. I placed an ad on Craigslist to hire people, but it was deleted 10 minutes later.  I don’t know what to do now (would you want someone like that working for you?… why do you give yourself an excuse like that?)

2. I placed an ad in the Nigeria section of the classifieds because I don’t want to have to pay very much.  I was afraid that a U.S. ad would attract people who would want to be paid too much.

3. I placed an ad in the _______ classifieds and only 13 people responded.

4. I placed an ad on USFreeAds and only received 2 responses in three months.

It’s amazing, but that is the kind of excuses that actual entrepreneurs make when trying to justify their lack of action.

So this chapter is about how to hire your initial workers.

First of all, stop worrying about paying too much.   The system is proven.  It pays what it pays (which is the most profitable amount that encourages quality workers to stay with you for the longest period of time.)  The system has already taken care of that problem for you.

Second, stop chasing pennies with dollars.  You are paying hundreds of dollars a month for the franchise fee (or whatever system you developed to use in place of the franchise).  You can only afford to pay for that franchise fee if your business quickly starts earning enough net income to justify the franchise fee (or whatever overhead expenses you have instead of the franchise).

That means you need workers FAST.  Your goal should be to hire at least 3 good workers who complete daily tasks in the very first week.  That means putting in either time or money right from the start.

Don’t advertise on Craigslist.  That’s a great place to advertise once you have a profitable business system.  It’s either free or very inexpensive compared to the big guys.  However, you need to get your business kick started right now, not simply maintain or have a slight growth rate (which is what the ongoing business system will achieve).

If you do advertise on Craigslist, then you need to be advertising in the New York or San Francisco sections.  Otherwise, you need to be advertising on CareerBuilder.com or Monster.com or one of the other heavy hitters.

Best of all, you should do all three and more!  You can also hire people on Elance.com, Scriptlance.com, Rentacoder.com and the dozens of other project oriented services.  These services aren’t appropriate for an ongoing business because they all think you work for them instead of the other way around.   They will annoy the heck out of you if you stay with them, but they are just fine for project oriented work to get your business bootstrapped.

Best of all is the old stand-by method of direct mail.  You can purchase a list of 1,000 work-at-home job seekers for around $100.  That’s 10 cents per name.  You will spend another 37 cents per name to get a postcard out to these people via USPS.com.  The post office allows you to upload a file and a mailing list and send it directly from your computer now… no need to lick stamps or go to a print shop… you can do it right now today and have it in the mail in the next couple of days.

I personally offer several different lists of 1,000 work-at-home job seekers.  You can order one or all here:

http://kunaki.com/sales.asp?PID=PX00EAKQB3

http://kunaki.com/sales.asp?PID=PX00YN5I3L

http://kunaki.com/sales.asp?PID=PX00CW8JL2

http://kunaki.com/sales.asp?PID=PX00PXYQ15

They are already formatted to upload directly to the post office.  You just create a post card file in your favorite word processor that says something like:

—

Want to work at home?

For more information, visit:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/apply

—

It’s that easy.  Of course you would send them to your own application form.  And you need to have an application form and an automated system they can perform to make you money.  That’s where my franchise comes in.  You can still get into that here:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/services/Franchise

Regards,

-Diego

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Aloha,

You have all of the information needed to run a successful Internet business.  I just gave it to you in the prior chapters.  That’s all it takes.

Future chapters will focus on different ways to get traffic, create products and improve copywriting.  Some will also focus on building your own systems.  But you have everything it takes to create your own successful Internet business RIGHT NOW!  So, don’t wait around for that secret bit of information that you still need.  There is no secret bit of information.  You have ALL of the information you need right this second.

Some of you might claim you don’t have enough money to invest in the tools or the franchise oportunity I offered.  No problem.

In this chapter, I will give you several ways to earn the money you need to invest in your own business.  It’s a very simple process.

First of all, I would like to invite you to come work for me.  I could always use the help and entrepreneurial minded people such as you are very valuable to my business.   Don’t worry about whether you have the right skills or education or experience.  I’m a high school drop out and I can do this stuff!

I guarantee that I WILL hire you as a contractor in my own business.  It’s that simple.

I also guarantee that you need absolutely no experience or education (other than the basic education I know you have because you are reading this chapter).  My business system doesn’t require my contractors to have any particular experience or education.

You can apply and get started immediately right here:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/apply/

Don’t want to work for me?  No problem.  There are thousands of companies on the Internet that you can work for instead.  Just search for “telecommute” or “work at home” or “online employment” in your favorite search engine.  Be sure to research the opportunities carefully though.  The industry is FULL of scams.

You can also sign up as a contractor at a place like Elance.com, RentACoder.com, ScriptLance.com or any of a dozen other companies where individual project offers are made and bid on.  Check out the reviews on the project provider.  There are a lot of scams there too.  Once you find someone who actually pays though, you can often get project after project from that one person and know you will be paid.

Don’t have the time?

Are you really telling me that you don’t have the money or the time to invest in your own business?

That’s ridiculous!

That simply means this isn’t a priority for you.  You don’t care about your own financial freedom enough to make it happen.

You care more about watching TV, various entertainment venues and other junk in your life.  Or possibly, you care more about spending time with your family or volunteer opportunities.  That’s OK too.  Just realize that these are your priorities and go do them.  Stop worrying about this because it simply isn’t a priority in your life.

If it is a priority in your life to gain your financial freedom though… then stop watching the dang TV and spend that time earning the money it takes to invest in your own financial freedom.  It’s that simple.

The next step is yours.  If you don’t have the money, that’s fine.  You can earn it here:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/apply/

Get off your duff and create your future.  That’s what life is all about!

Regards,

-Diego

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Aloha,

So far I have covered how to get your first product and massive amounts of traffic to your site.  There is only one other factor that means a hill of beans to the success of your business.  Many call it “copywriting.”  Others call it “message” or “advertisement” or “offer.”

So far (if you have followed the directions in the prior chapters), you have at least one product.  If you bought a franchise, you will have several products created over the next few months.  If you purchased rights to my DVD on how to create DVDs, then you have that product you can sell as your own.  If you bought a single copy of that product for your own use, you can watch it and then crank out a new product every single day if you wish.

I also covered getting traffic by hiring people.  I know this might now sound intuitive, but it works.  When a new McDonald’s comes to town or a new Target store in built, they rarely advertise the new store… instead they advertise that they have jobs available.  It’s actually more important to get those jobs filled than it is to get the word out to others.

Oddly, nearly everyone says they want a J.O.B.  It’s odd because nearly everyone hates their J.O.B. once they have it, but offering a J.O.B. at decent wages is a HUGE draw.  I have run ads in the local paper for an administrative position for $12 and received over 1,000 responses.   At first, I would weed through the resumes and narrow it down to the best 10 and schedule interviews.

That didn’t work.  Why?  Because people SAY they want a J.O.B., but they really don’t.  If you narrow it down to just 10 resumes, you might get one of those to show up for an interview.  If you offer them the J.O.B., they will more than likely decline the offer for some strange reason they make up on the spot when they unexpectantly actually receive a J.O.B. offer.

Do you know what percentage of respondants actually complete a day of actual work in most of my businesses?  Of those I offered the J.O.B. and gave them an application form… only 0.4% actually completed their first day of work.

That might seem discouraging at first, but think about it this way:  To hire a single good new employee, how many people have to learn about your business?  That’s right.  Two hundred and fifty people have to learn quite a bit about your business and get to the application form part of the hiring process before you can hire even one new employee.

What if you are hiring 8 new employees?  Or for an average new McDonalds… what about 20 new employees?  That’s 5,000 people who have to visit your site to learn about your company just to hire 20 people.

How many of those 5,000 are too lazy (or whatever the reason is) to actually accept the J.O.B. and do some work… but aren’t too lazy to order a Big Mac and supersize it?  How many will tell their friends about this great new job they just turned down because _______?  A lot.  That’s traffic.  If you want that kind of traffic, I recommend you check out my franchise program here:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/services/Franchise/

Feel free to check out my own traffic stats on your favorite third-party tool.

But this chapter isn’t about product or traffic.  Let’s pretend you have done that (even though 98% of you haven’t… I have no idea how you think you are gonna get rich by reading this stuff and not taking any action… but that’s a fact).

Let’s use an easier example a business to illustrate the importance of this third element of any successful business.  The third element is “copywriting” or the message about your product.

Let’s use the example of a lemonade stand.  You have the lemonade.  Your mommy made it for you and your daddy built the lemonade stand.  You set it up at a busy intersection, so you have the traffic.  Now what?

Well… there is an implied message.  Some people will look over and see your pitcher of lemonade and figure out the message themselves.  Very, very few will do that though.  Those who do figure out the message won’t know the price nor any qualities about your special lemonade.  That may lead them to drive on without asking.

Instead, let’s say we make a sign that says:

10 Cent Lemonade

Lots more people will stop and buy a glass.  You have actually made an offer.  That’s how simple copywriting can be.

Let’s say 1% of those driving by stop and buy a glass of lemonade.  In the hour you are at the corner there are 1,000 cars passing by that busy intersection.  That means you sold 10 glasses of lemonade for a total of $1.

How can you improve your profit?

There are three ways:

1. Increase the number of products you are selling.

2. Increase the traffic that sees your offer.

3. Change your offer.

Those three are multiplicative.  If you change your offer so that it attracts 2% and you move to a corner with 2,000 cars going by in an hour, then you have just quadrupled your profit!   If you also add fruit punch and a similar percentage of people are interested in fruit punch as lemonade, then you have just made eight times as much profit.

I hope you can see that you should constantly be improving all three areas of your business.

I hope you also see that you need to get others working for you on other lemonade stands because that’s yet a fourth multiplier.

But we’ve talked about the other three multipliers.  Let’s talk about copywriting for a bit.

How can you improve your offer?  Currently it is just a sign that says:

10 Cent Lemonade

It converts pass by traffic into sales at a rate of 1%.  What happens if you change your sign to:

Lemonade 10 Cents

You might think that’s a bit goofy.  It says the same thing; right?  It’s going to convert at exactly the same rate; right?

WRONG!

It is amazing the subtle little things that cause conversion rate (the rate that people exposed to a message take action on that message).

You must be testing to find out which sign works better.  It’s as simple as that.

You could put up one sign for an hour and then put up the other sign for an hour.

That has some problems.  What if the traffic during the first hour was rush hour traffic and the traffic during the 2nd hour was more relaxed?  Maybe those more relaxed would purchase more for that reason instead of the difference in the sign.

How can you correct for that?

One way is to switch your signs more rapidly.  Maybe you switch signs every two minutes instead of every hour.  That would help.  But some people would see you switching signs.  The motion would attract their attention and they might purchase just because of the motion.

Of course both signs have to be moved to switch them, so it would even out after awhile.  We call the amount of time that it takes to get accurate data that isn’t biased the “statistically significant” amount of data.

You could use the first scenario and switch hourly, but the next day switch at the opposite hours.  Then you have errors based on the day of the week.  Enough testing though will tend to equalize all of those seemingly random factors and get you some statistically significant data.

Even if you conciously try to eliminate all of those error biases, you will still have to deal with randomness.  Some percentage of the time, you can flip a coin four times in a row and it will always land on heads.  That’s just randomness.  Most of statistics is related to eliminating all of those biases and then getting enough data to ensure that you aren’t just seeing a random result of four heads in a row.

How does this relate to your Internet business?

First of all, you probably can’t sell your DVD with just a sign that says:

DVD $10

You need to tell a bit about the DVD.  We call the document that you use to do that a “sales letter.”  That term comes from the mail order days, but basically a web page that sells something follows the same general format the mail order folks used.

There are sections that are known to be useful.  They include:

1. A headline.  Catch their attention with the first line of the sales letter.

2. A product picture.  A picture tells a thousand words.

3. A product description.  This is where you tell about the product and it’s benefits for the potential customer.

4. A guarantee.  People want to know what they can do if they purchase the product and don’t like it.

5. Testimonials.  People want to know what others think about your product.

6. A “call to action.”  If you tell people what you want them to do, they are much more likely to do it.

7. An order button/link/form, etc.  After you tell them what you want them to do… give them an easy way to do it.

All of those sections can be done in multiple different ways.  Each one is at least as complicated as the above sign that says “Lemonade 10 Cents.”

How can you possibly test them all?  There must be millions of combinations for any particular sales letter.

There can be.

Fortunately, you have decided to have an Internet business.  That means you have the ability to have software that automatically figures out all of those combinations and tracks the actions (ie: sales) for each combination and automatically shows the most profitable sales letter.

I sell that software.   It is called “MuVar” which is short for “Multi Variate” testing software.  That’s the science we are talking about to improve your conversion ratio. It’s called Multivariate testing.

There are lots of competitors out there.   MuVar is simply the best of them all though.  It uses the most advanced techniques to get your more sales faster than any of the competitors I have tested it against.  It is simply years ahead in pure technology.

It also happens to be one of the least expensive and IS the easiest to use.  It is the only “set it and forget” it software of it’s type that I know of and I’ve searched the market far and wide to check out every single competitor.

You can get your copy of MuVar here:

http://www.MuVar.com

You need it for your business.  It’s one of the three basic elements of any successful Internet business.  It takes care of constantly testing and improving your copywriting.

BTW, if you own a franchise of mine, you don’t need this.  You will receive a free copy in the mail within a couple weeks of purchasing your franchise.

If you really want the full system instead of piecing together all of these pieces on your own, that’s what you need to be doing as well.  Get a franchise of my proven business system.  Here’s the URL for that again:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/services/Franchise

Regards,

-Diego

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Aloha,

Do you have a product yet?

Three of the five chapters I wrote talk about how to create your own first product!

Still I know that a vast majority of those reading haven’t yet taken action and actualy created a product to sell.   As I mentioned, this is critical to your business.  You simply don’t have a business until you have a product you can sell.

Today, I’m going to give you another option to get your first product created.  If you don’t want to create products, why not hire someone who will create products for you?

This turns out to be a very simple process.  You can have an ebook written for $300 on Elance.com or a similar site (although I don’t recommend that for various reasons).  For $1200, you can have a professional video recorded.

One reason I don’t recommend that is that you will have to manage those people.  It takes a lot of time finding someone who will actually do the work and then getting them to complete the project.   Sometimes it takes more of your time than it would take you to just create the product yourself.

I’m a big advocate of systems (as you can see from the last chapter).  Why manage someone when you can have a system manage them?  You just write a procedure complete with training videos and assign it to a contractor.  People don’t like bosses.  You don’t like wasting time managing.  So why not solve both problems by completely automating the management process with a system?

Where do you get the procedure?  Well…  you could develop one yourself.  Once you have a profitable procedure to create products, that can become a product itself for you to sell.  There is a huge demand for step-by-step procedures to get important business tasks completed.

Of course that can be a lot of trial and error before you have a procedure that can create a new product profitably.  I know.  It took me over two years to create that procedure and get it to be profitable.

My procedure is available to you if you want to join the franchise service.  It is included in the base price.  You not only get the hire procedure so that your business is constantly growing, you also get the “Create A DVD Product” procedure so that your business is automatically creating new products to sell to customers.

Here is the link to the franchise system if you are interested in taking that route:

http://www.diegonorte.com/services/Franchise

We have already covered how to create a product in several different ways.  We have also covered how to get traffic in one way (the hire procedure).  In the next chapter, we’ll dive into how to improve your copywriting which improves the profitability of all areas of your business.

Regards,

-Diego

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Aloha,

Do you plan to be a slave for the rest of your life?

I expect not since you are reading about how to create an Internet-based business.  Most people want to start a business so that they can eventually earn their personal freedom from a J.O.B.

Most fail though.  They read instructions like these and then go out and actually perform those instructions themselves.  That leads to creating a J.O.B. (just over broke) for yourself.  You trade in an employer who works you like a slave for 40+ hours a week for owning your own business and slaving for yourself for 80+ hours per week.

That’s a mistake.

You don’t need another J.O.B. and you certainly don’t want one.  So what is the solution?

These instructions are meant for you, but they are NOT meant for YOU to carry out.  They are meant as a roadmap to start a company.

Let’s look at the Wiktionary definition for “company”:

A group of individuals with a common purpose.

Isn’t that interesting?  It doesn’t say anything at all about becoming a slave yourself.  A company is a “group of individuals”, not a single individual doing all of the work themselves!

If you eventually want to earn your personal freedom, then you have to not even be one of those individuals!

How do you get a “group of individuals” to become your company?

There are a lot of ways that have been done in the past.  They even have names associated with them:

Partners
Shareholders
Employees
Contractors
Interns
Vendors
Agencies
Volunteers

Some of them aren’t paid.  Some are paid in cash.  Some are paid in less direct means (such as co-ownership in the business).

I’ve used all of the above methods to build companies.  My current favorite is paid contractors.

A contractor is someone who owns their own business and provides services to your business.  There are massive advantages over having employees.  You don’t generally buy office equipment (or even provide an office) or tell contractors what hours they can or can’t work.  You never pay overtime (unless you create a contract where you offer that).  You never have to fire anyone.  You can just stop using one contractor and start using another.  Lot’s of taxes (such as unemployment insurance and social securty) are non-existant in a contractor relationship… or they pay for them.  The same goes for health insurance.  They run their own company and you run yours.  You aren’t responsible for paying health insurance in someone else’s company.

There are lots of contractors who are actually one-man companies (doing exactly what I don’t recommend… but it’s very popular out there).  Your relationship with a contractor can be very similar to employee with some major exceptions:

1. You don’t control their hours.  You can ask for a guarantee of a certain number of hours per month or something like that, but they don’t work for you in the way an employee does.   You don’t get to call them into your office and chastize them for being 5 minutes late to work.

2. You can’t provide them an office and office equipment.  That is strong evidence that your relationship with them is as an employee and not a separate company.

Neither are big enough disadvantages in an Internet business to use contractors vs. employees.  Of course you can also try to attract interns and volunteers.  At one point, I had over 25% of the work being performed in one company by unpaid interns.   I benefited from free labor.  They benefited from learning how my business ran.

Most of us struggle with getting paid help right away for two major reasons:

1) You don’t have money to invest.

2) You don’t have a good “hiring” process.

Most would actually state that #1 is the reason.  The reality is that #2 is the real culprit.

You see… every human resource you add to your business should increase net profit.

Let me say that again.

Every human resource you add to your business should increase net profit.

Hiring isn’t an expense!  It’s a way to build your business.

I recently met with four coaching clients who were supposedly following what I teach to build their business.  They were all profitable, but their profit was tiny.  It basically just added some extra spending money every month instead of providing a real income and true freedom.

I went through their metrics to find out where the problem was.  I assumed it was one of those three things I always talk about:  Traffic, Conversion, Product.

Those are the three things that contribute to the amount of net profit, so I carefully review those with each one and asked about the procedures they were using for each part of the equation (which we’ll cover in future chapters).

Their answers were all consistent.  They were following good business practices as I taught them and it was working… but only with a result of a tiny amount of profit.

I didn’t get it.  These are the same procedures that I run in my own businesses.  I didn’t understand how it was possible that they weren’t making more profit.

I thought maybe growth was simply somehow happening at a microscopic rate of speed for them, so I asked them how many human resources they had.

All four gave me a blank stare.

I thought maybe they didn’t know how to answer because it’s not really the number of human resources you have that counts.  Some types of human resources only work 2 hours per week.  Some work 80.  Some (like vendors that are a group of people) can work 2,000 hours in a week.   Hours doesn’t really count either.  Some will be less effective with their time than others.  Some you can’t even measure in hours (like vendors).  They don’t even tell you the number of hours.  You pay for results.

So I clarified by telling them how I measured that metric overall.  I asked… “How much did you spend last week on all of your human resources combined?”

A received another blank stare and then some stuttering.  Then the truth came out.  There were working a J.O.B., not running a company at all.  They were doing all of the work.  They worked 80 hours the prior week, but didn’t pay any kind of human resources to do anything!

That’s a problem.

You can’t build a company without the company part!

You need to hire employees or contractors or vendors or in some other way get some human resources at work in your business or you simply don’t have a business.

The first excuse really doesn’t cut it.  Everyone can come up with a $1 if it will make them $2.  Everyone would do that all day long if they could.  Wouldn’t you buy as many $2 bills as you could if they only cost $1 each?

The 2nd excuse is the real culprit, not a lack of money.  You’ll find money if you know you can easily turn $1 into $2.  The real problem is the hiring process.

I realized that several years ago.  I tried various ways of building a company and found out quickly that people are flaky.   Actually, they simply don’t care about your business as much as you do.  That gives the appearances of people being flaky, but the reality is that they simply have other priorities.

It takes a long time to build a hiring process that is profitable.  Of course key to that whole concept is having profitable things for them to do after you hire them, but we’ll have to cover that in future chapters as well.

Fortunately, I now have a “hiring” process that is quite profitable when teamed up with my other business procedures.  I use it over and over and over with every single business I start.

A client asked me for my hiring process and I promptly began selling it.  It’s a very simple written procedure with a video.  I also use some software, but I didn’t include that.   Some customers of that procedure were able to implement it without the software.  Others weren’t.  They fell victim to the fraud problem (another part of the reason I previously said that people are flaky… people will say they want a job and then claim they performed the job… but they really didn’t).

My software solves the fraud problem in my business.  I tried giving my customers the methods I used abstractly.  I couldn’t tell them exactly how I had solved the fraud problem using software because then my contractors would find out and possibly be able to get around the fraud prevention methods I used.  We would get into an escalating war where I had to constantly change the fraud prevention methods and then unscrupulous paid contractors would openly see what I did because it was released to customers… and then they could get around those new procedures.

So I was stuck.  I couldn’t share my software and so some of my customers weren’t able to duplicate my success.

Then one day a customer said… “why don’t you franchise it?”

It’s an obvious solution.  It’s how McDonalds became a multi-billion dollar company.  Every McDonalds franchise follows the proved procedures and much of it is embedded in software that they can never actually see, but never-the-less practically forces each franchise to be profitable.

I’m now going to do the same thing.  I’m going to start with my “hire” procedure along with all of the infrastructure behind it.  I’m not willing to sell my software for the above reasons, but I am willing to franchise it for a monthly fee.

Here’s how you will get access to the software and maintain control of your company while I continue to maintain control over the software any my company:

1. You pay the basic monthly franchise fee for hosting, access to the hiring procedure and access to the infrastructure that makes all of the other procedures function.  Later there will be other procedures that will be offered as plug-ins for a much lower monthly price, but for right now you start with the hire procedure because that’s what EVERYONE needs in EVERY business.

2. You register a domain for your business and point the name servers where we tell you to point them (so we can host the site for you at no additional charge).

3. You choose a password to access the email, blog and various other administrative areas of the site.

4. You choose the amount you wish to pay people for performing the hire procedure itself.  Or you can use the defaults we use which have been optimized for profitability (recommended).

5. Daily you will receive an email with a file you can upload to PayPal to pay your contractors.  They are only promised that they will be paid weekly, so you can choose a day of the week and upload all 7 files that were emailed to you that week.

6. Optionally, you will have a blog on the home page of the above site.   You can add links for new products that you have created and can blog about things happening in your company.  Otherwise, you can put up a single blog post welcoming people to the site and leave it at that.

There are other optional things you could do that we’ll teach you about once you are a franchise member.  These things help your business to grow faster, but aren’t mandatory.  In the end, you want your freedom.  The only thing in the above list that is mandatory and is done more than once is uploading your payroll to PayPal to pay your contractors.  Obviously you can hire someone local that you can trust with your PayPal password to do that for you, so this can become a 100% turn-key business.

I know.  I’ve done it several times now.  I currently own 3 businesses that are 100% turn-key and I do absolutely nothing with them.  I just spend the money they earn.

Here’s what we will do when we receive the above information and your first payment:

1. Provision hosting for your company site.

2. Install the blog software using the password you provided us.

3. Install all of our software using the password you provided us (so you can access the administrative screens if you wish).

4. Give you an email where you can send suggestions for future releases of the software.  The software works.  It is what we use in our own business.  However, we would love to hear your suggestions and we will implement any that make sense for everyone and are proven to be profitable.

5. Tell you how to launch your business (by running the hire procedure yourself a few times… or by hiring someone locally to do the same).

After that, it’s a machine.  The machine assigns new hires to hire more people.  You can slow down the process by paying less.  You can speed it up by paying more.  I recommend maximum growth by leaving the payment amount at our optimized level for maximum growth.

How do you make money?   Well, I already mentioned that you control the blog.  You can put links and articles about your products on that blog.

You will now have some significant traffic to that blog.  People who are interested in working for you are visiting the blog.  If you followed the advice in prior chapters, you have a product that is attractive to a large segment of the population… including those now visiting your blog.  Some will purchase.

More importantly though… you receive the email addresses of every contractor who actually performs a task in your business.  You can assign them new tasks that are different than the hiring task.

I will be providing new procedures in future chapters that allow you to increase your traffic, improve your conversion rate and even create products.  You can then just plug them right into the franchise software or you can assign them manually outside the franchise software by sending emails to the contractors who are actively working for you.

Are you ready for a true turn-key business?   It all starts with the hiring procedure.  Any company that offers franchise opportunities has a perfected hiring procedure.  You can go get a McDonald’s franchise (not very attractive to me) or you can buy in this much less expensive and much more turn-key solution.

Here’s the URL to get started:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com/services/Franchise/

Regards,

-Diego

P.S. We are only offering five franchises right now.  We have beta-tested our franchise system with four others already so we are ready to roll… but we would like to roll out the franchise slowly to see if there are any scaling issues.  If there is no subscribe button on the above URL… that means all five slots have been taken.  Thanks for your understanding.  We’ll open it again later.

P.P.S. If you want to see how our system works from the perspective of paid contractors, you can apply here:
http://www.DiegoNorte.com/apply/

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Aloha,

Have you developed your first product yet?

It’s where a lot of people get stuck.  In fact, I would guess that over 95% of the clients I coach get stuck at this step.  They think they just don’t have anything to offer… or they think it will be too difficult to create their own product.

That’s what they tell me anyway.  I happen to know the truth.  It’s really a fear of success.  I know that sounds crazy, but a ton of people have a fear of success.  The real reason that is holding them back is that they know if they create their own product… they will be well on their way to having a successful Internet business.

But we’ll talk about that later.

For now, I want to completely destroy this excuse.  You don’t have to create your own product.

Some might expect me to launch into a discussion about affiliate marketing at this point (marketing someone else’s product for a commission). 

I’m not going to talk about that at all.  I think that’s rubbish. 

I’ve been there and done that.  If you are willing to work 80-120 hours a week to earn $50K-$100K per year… be my guest.  That’s what I did and I was the 3rd best marketer on the #1 affiliate marketing network at the time (years ago). 

That means there were perhaps two people in the entire world that figured out how to make more than $80K (the average I made during those horrible days of sweat-shop slavery).  I’m guessing they worked 150 hours a week or more.

Affiliate marketing is NOT the answer to having your own freedom business!  Let me repeat that.  Affiliate marketing is NOT the answer to having your own freedom business!

I know from experience.  I would never lead you down that path.

You need to have your own product to sell if you ever want to earn your freedom with an Internet business.  That’s just a fact.

But… you don’t have to create that product yourself!

In fact, that is extremely important to understand.  You don’t have to do ANYTHING yourself.  You MUST stop doing things yourself if you ever want to earn your freedom.   There are literally billions of people in this world who are willing to do the work for you.

But I digress again.  We’ll cover that also in a future chapter.

Right now, I want to give you a way to have your own product in approximately three days from now without you having to do any work at all.

The method is called “buying rights.”  There are millions of products in this world that are being successfully sold.  I introduced you to one of them in the prior chapter.

The owners of those products often know about a semi-secret way to increase their income.  They can sell the product.  That’s great bread and butter income.  If they really want to increase their income though, they can sell the rights to sell the product to other people.

Yesterday, I offered you a DVD product.  Today, I’m going to offer you the rights to sell that DVD product as if it were your own product.

In fact, I will even change the masters to have your name and URL on every copy you sell.  You will have complete (not non-exclusive) control over the product after you purchase the rights.  You can sell as many copies as you wish and never pay a royalty.

Why would you have to pay a royalty?  It will be YOUR product to do with as you please.

Do you see how huge of a shortcut this is?  You simply click an order button and tell me your name and the URL you want on the cover of the DVD.  That’s it.  Then I change the masters and upload them to a great DVD manufacturer and then give you the password to the account.

When you get that, you change the password (taking ownership of that account and barring me from ever accessing it again).  Then you start selling YOUR OWN PRODUCT.  It’s that easy.

There are no excuses.  You know you really want success even if you fear it a little.  Do this for yourself.  Take this shortcut to having your own product so you can get started selling it to customers this very week.

Here is the URL:

http://rights.dvdprods.com

Regards,

-Diego

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Aloha,

How have your dreams been?  Have you settled on a product yet?  If not, then go back to the last chapter and read it again.  Set a date when you will decide on a market and your first product regardless.

That is a common attribute among successful people.  They are able and willing to make a decision even if they know they don’t have enough information to make the very best decision.  Just make a decision and go for it.  That’s what successful people do.

We also talked about information products and why they are the best place to start.  They are cheap to produce and sell for many multiples of their production cost.  You can make a lot of mistakes and still make a profit with an information product.

What kind of information product should you start with though?

Let’s list the different types:

1. Book.

2. Ebook.

3. Audio.

4. Video

5. Software

6. Membership site

7. Newsletter

8. Live consultation service

9. Seminar

There are probably others.   Let’s look at three areas and rate the above:

a) Cost to produce

b) Average sales price

c) Personal time taken

The first two factors go back to the rule of “buying low and selling high.”  The third factor has to do with the fact that you are probably doing this because you want more freedom in your life.  That’s the #1 reason people try to make more money.  However, a huge number then forget the real goal and end up creating a 120 hour a week job for themselves.

I want you to always keep the real goal in sight.  So we’ll look at the factor of personal time involved right from the start.

Here are the information product types again along with the above three factors listed:

1. Book. Cost to produce is about $6.  Sales price is about $12.  Personal time is about 300 hours.

2. Ebook. Cost to produce is $0.  Sales price is about $20.  Personal time is about 30 hours.

3. Audio. Cost to produce is about $2.  Sales price is about $20.  Personal time is about 2 hours.

4. Video. Cost to produce is about $2.  Sales price is about $100.  Personal time is about 2 hours.

5. Software. Cost to produce is about $2.  Sales price is about $300.  Personal time is about 40 hours.

6. Membership site.  Cost to produce is about $20/month.  Sales price is about $25/month.  Personal time is about 40 hours per month.

7. Newsletter.  Cost to produce is about $1/month.  Sales price is about $25/month.  Personal time is about 1 hour per month.

8. Live consultation service.  Cost to produce is about $400/day.  Sales price is about $3,000/day.  Personal time is about 100%.

9. Seminar.  Cost to produce is about $60,000.  Sales price is about $300,000.  Personal time is about five days. 

Of course there are a ton of assumptions in the above numbers and most of those numbers can become 1/10th or 10 times that number depending on how you implement them.  Those numbers come from my actual experience though, so as long as you are following my methods… they come fairly close to being comparable.

Study them for a bit.  Do you see why you should definitely avoid books, ebooks and audios for your first product?  Unless you have $60,000 to invest, do you see why you should avoid seminars for now?  Do you see how consulting will never earn you your freedom?

The sweet spot for your first product is a video.

That’s what I’m going to encourage you to create for your first product.   Now don’t freak out because you don’t have thousands of dollars of equipment and can’t even imagine trying to film yourself.

The kind of video I’m going to propose has you doing the talking, but the video portion is simply your computer screen.  Here’s what you need:

1. A copy of Camtasia (costs anywhere from $25 to $300 depending on where you buy it).  This is software that records your voice as the audio and your computer screen as the video as you show someone how to do something.  You could use a slide show or go to sites on the Internet or show how to use a piece of software.  The options are endless.  Think about your market and what you could teach people in a video.  Then get a copy of Camtasia.  Look on Ebay and if there are no copies there, then Google “camtasia” to find other sites that sell it.

2. A USB headset.  A Logitech USB headset that costs anywhere from $7 to $39 will work just fine.  You can get one on Amazon.com or at your local computer or office store.

3 A copy of the following DVD:

http://dvdprods.com

That DVD shows the exact method it was created from start to finish.  It shows you how to use Camtasia.  It shows you how to encode your video and burn it onto a DVD.  It shows you how to upload it to a service provider that will help you sell your DVD.  It even shows you how to get it on Amazon.com so you can start making some sales.

You’ve been thinking for awhile.  Now is the time for action.

That’s another thing that successful people do.   They make decisions and then they take action.

If you want your own successful Internet business, you will now stop thinking about what to do and you will make a decision and take action by buying the above three items and following the directions on the DVD.

I look forward to hearing about your first sale.

We’ll talk again soon about how to get more people to buy your new product.

Regards,

-Diego

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Aloha,

Yesterday, I talked about the three components of every successful Internet Business: Traffic, Copywriting and Product.

Where should you start?  I say the place to start is with a product. 

If you have no product to sell, you simply don’t have a business.  A product could be a service, but I recommend that you not start with a service.  You’ll see why when we get to the end game… which is freedom.   You can earn your freedom with a service, but it’s much more difficult to set up.  Start easy.  Get your business profitable… and then you can play with the more advanced stuff if you want.

What kind of product?  This blog will focus on information products, but you will see where you can expand that easily.  Why?  Because information products are very inexpensive to produce and sell for quite a bit of money if you choose the right market.  When you are ready to branch out, you might play with things like supplements which are also very inexpensive to produce and can sell for quite a bit depending on the market.  You could also sell tools and gadgets.  You could even eventually graduate to services if you wish.

But always remember the general rule to wealth:

Buy low and sell high.

Information products fit this formula perfectly.  A CD costs less than $2 to produce and can sell for $100 or more.   That’s what I’m going to teach, but the principles still apply for other kinds of products if you get the urge later.  But I urge you to start with a guaranteed plan of action and get your business profitable before you go on to experiment with the more difficult kinds of products.

Your next question would be… What should the information product be about?

I covered that a bit in the last post with my one minute marketing research method.  In that post, I told about a mind exercise where you ask 100 random people if they would be interested in _______.  Then you ask them if they would be willing to pay $100 for ________.  If 30% or more say “yes” to both questions, then your _______ is a good market to start in.

Let me give you another method that might get your brain juices flowing.

Make a wish.

You’ve heard the story about the genie popping out of the bottle and giving you three wishes.  What would they be?

Incredible wealth?

To live forever?

Incredible strength?

The power to pursuade anyone to do anything you wish?

The power to become invisible?

The ability to fly?

Make a list.  What excites you?  What would you wish for?

If you are like most people, the wishes you make are on the above list or could be.  You’re just a person like the rest of us.  Most people probably want the same things you would wish for… and they would be willing to pay for them.

Pick up a copy of the National Enquirer if you are a U.S. resident.  Look through the full page ads.

Isn’t that bizarre?  They are offering the things on the above list!  But some of those things are impossible; aren’t they?

No they aren’t.  Nothing that you can conceive of is actually impossible.

Now it’s true that a majority of those ads are promising (or at least implying to promise) things that they don’t actually deliver.  That’s great.  That’s an opportunity for you.

Look for an area that really excites you.  Do you want to lose weight and look like a bodybuilder?  Great.  Do you already look like a bodybuilder (probably because you are)?  That’s even better.

That’s magic to other people (and may be magic to you right now).  That’s what people want and they will pay good money to learn how to do it.  Trust me.  I have staked my very life and livelihood on that very fact… and guess what?  I’m still alive and have a very nice livelihood.

So what do you do if the magical wish that caught your attention isn’t possible (at least within your imagination yet)?

Simple.  You do it.

It’s what you want to do anyway.  It’s what you would wish for if a genie only gave you one wish.  So do it!

Impossible you say.  How can I possibly learn to be invisible?

Well.  First you just throw away that first part.  Remember that absolutely nothing is impossible if you can conceive of it.  You can conceive of becoming invisible, so it’s simply not impossible.  It is not only possible, but it is probable and actually certain that you will learn how to become invisible if you throw away the “impossibility” thought and focus on answering the question until you have an answer.

Go to bed tonight realizing that it is possible to achieve your #1 wish and asking the question about how to do it.

Tomorrow, you will get to work researching.

Now researching is NOT purchasing every product on the subject.  As I said, most… if not all… of those products are going to be scams.  They won’t teach you how to fly or lift cars with a single hand.  They will only promise that, but not deliver.

Here is what it means to research:

1) Make a theory.  In fact, make several.  Always consider the opposite of your theory and include that in your list of theories.

2) Make an experiment with a measurable result.

3) Perform the experiment and measure the results.

4) Repeat until your wish comes true.

It’s really that simple.  Let’s say you want to learn how to become invisible.  FIrst, define what that means.  What do you really want?  Do you want to be able to walk through a crowd of people and never be noticed and even later when people in that crowd are shown a picture of you they will all deny absolutely that you were there?

Good.  That’s the first step to having some measurabilty.  What’s a good measurement in the above case?  That’s right… the percentage of people who absolutely deny seeing you when shown a picture of you after you do walk through that crowd.

Do you want to look like a body builder?  Pick out the one you want to look like and get their measurements.  That will be what you measure.

Do you want to learn how to fly?  A good measurement would be distance from the ground multiplied by length of time since last touching the ground (unless height isn’t part of your goal… in that case it could just be length of time since last touching the ground).

It’s really that simple.  Everything that you think is impossible is actually possible.  You just follow the simply formula I gave above.  I know.  I’ve done it over and over and over again in many, many areas of my life.

Want to marry a beautiful girl 15 years younger than you are?  I’ve done it.

Want to get a top secret security clearance?  I’ve done it.

Want to be a fireman, author, inventor, politician, medic, computer programmer, entrepreneur or surgeon?  I’ve done it.

Want to lose 1/3rd of your body weight and be slim, lean and good looking?  I’ve done it.

Want to run a marathon?  I’ve done it.

Want to learn to read minds?  I’ve done it.

Want to learn to fly?  I’ve done it.

It’s all possible.  You can do anything you believe is possible and can conceive of doing.  That’s just a fact.

Choose something and start that process tonight.  Keep good records of your experiments and the measurements.  You’ll need them for your product.

In the mean-time, let’s also realize that you have already done many impossible things in your life.  Have you done anything on the above wish list of others?  Have you made a ton of money?  Have you been a bodybuilder?  Have you run a marathon?  Have you been in orbit around planet earth?  Have you been to the moon?  Have you been obese and lost a ton of weight and look and feel great now?  Have you stopped smoking?  Have you quit using alcohol or illegal drugs?  Have you found the perfect spouse?  Do you have the perfect family life?  Do you have the perfect job?  Do you have a relationship with God that is so close that you regularly speak to each other in audible voices?  Have you conquered a fear of heights?

Think through your life.  What is the most incredible thing you have every done on that master wish list that almost every human has?

That is going to be your first product.  In fact, it will probably also be your second, third and fourth products.

Later, you will accomplish your new dreams and share how you did that in new products, but for now… you need to teach something that you already know… and something that at least 1/3rd of the population also wants to know how to do.

If you haven’t signed up for the announcement list, please go to this URL:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com

And sign up in the upper-right corner.  That way you’ll be sure to never miss the next lesson.

Until the next lesson… dream big.  Go to sleep tonight knowing that your biggest dream is possible and asking your brain to figure out how to do it while you are sleeping.

We’ll take the next step soon.

Regards,

-Diego

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Aloha,

The purpose of this blog is to teach how to run a successful Internet business.

I have personally created four different very successful Internet businesses.  When I say “created”, I mean just that.  I did not create four different jobs for myself to do.  I created four different businesses that run completely on their own.  I do absolutely nothing except to spend the dividends I earn from those businesses.

Is that something that interests you?

Good.  You are in the right place then.  I suggest that you start by signing up to get blog announcements up there in the right hand corner of this blog.  If you are reading this somewhere other than the blog, you can get to the blog by going to the following URL:

http://www.DiegoNorte.com

I’ll keep your email address safe and won’t share it with anyone.  You’ll receive only emails about this blog and the teachings here.

OK; let’s get started with the basics.

There is a formula up there at the top of the blog that explains that there are three differnet areas you must master and create systems for if you wish to have a successful Internet business.  Let’s define them:

Traffic

Traffic is an industry standard term that really just means people.  You need to be able to put a message in front of people in order to have a successful Internet business.  Sometimes that activity is called advertising or promotion.  This, like the other two areas are absolutely critical.   You simply can not have a successful Intenet business without traffic.

Someone once said that if you build a better mousetrap, the people will beat a path to your door.  That’s just plain nonsense.  It is easily disproven.  Go to your grocery store and ask for a mousetrap.   It looks and works almost exactly like the mousetraps you used as a kid; doesn’t it?   Can you think of a better way to catch a mouse?  I can.  Lots of people can and have designed better mousetraps.   Did people beat a path to their door?  Nope.

It doesn’t matter how great of a product you have if nobody knows about it.  You can have the best mousetrap ever devised (and there are a bunch of people who have literally done that) and you won’t make a dime if you don’t figure out a way to tell people about it.

That’s the first part of the formula.  You must get traffic (a fancy name for people) to hear your message or you will never sell a thing.

Let’s go on to the next critical area.

Copywriting

This is another industry standard word that really just means “message.”   In the last section, I talked about getting a message to people.  Copywriting is that message.

Let’s say you have devised a better mousetrap and you have also figured out a way to be a keynote speaker at the next convention of mousetrap users.  Over a million people will be attending.

You certainly have the traffic.  What are you going to say?

What you decide to say is called copywriting.  It’s just words, but words are very powerful.

In copywriting, we measure the effectiveness of the message with something we call a “conversion rate.”  That’s a fancy way of saying… What percentage of people exposed to a message ended up taking the desired action.

It’s called a “conversion rate” because you are converting traffic (people) into prospects or customers or employees or friends or partners or subscribers or whatever.  You decide on what you are converting your traffic into.

In this example, you want customers.  You want to convert your traffic (the 1,000,000 conference attendees) into customers (purchasers of your mouse trap).

The words you use to inform them about your mousetrap will have a direct impact on how many of those conference attendees will purchase your mousetrap.

You could stand up and say…

“I have a better mousetrap.  It only costs $1 and you can buy it right here.” and then sit down.

Some percentage of those conference attendees will make a decision to purchase your mousetrap.  Maybe that message will make 10,000 or 1% of the conference attendees purchase your better mousetrap.  Maybe if you added some more information to your message… like a 100% guarantee and a picture of your mousetrap and an explanation of how it works and a list of ways that it is better than other mousetraps and a list of people who have tried it and what they thought about it… maybe more of the conference attendees would purchase it.  If 100,000 purchased it, then your copywriting had a 10% conversion ratio.

This factor is just as critical as traffic.

It doesn’t matter if you can reach 1,000,000 people if your copywriting can only convince 1 out of a million to take your desired action.  That’s only one sale.  It is ten times better to have a message that reaches 1 out of 10 people and give that message to only 100 people.  That means 10 will take your desired action.

Both are important.  The formula shows a plus sign between them, but that isn’t accurate.  It is actually a multiplication sign that should be there.  Each time you increase your traffic or your copywriting conversion ratio, you multiply your profits.

If you have 100 people visiting your web-site every day and a 1% conversion ratio on your traffic, you will be making 1 sale per day.  Let’s say that sale is worth $1.  You will be making $1 per day.

Let’s say you increase your traffic by doubling it.  Now you have 200 people a day reading the same message and 1% purchase so you have 2 sales per day.  Each sale is worth $1, so you are now making $2 per day.

Instead of increasing traffic, let’s say you improve your message so that 2% purchase.  You still have 100 people visiting the web-site, but 2 of them purchase every day.  You make $2.

You can see that copywriting and traffic are equally important.

However, let’s see what happens when you increase both.  If you increase your traffic to 200 visitors per day to your web-site and you increase your copywriting to have a 2% conversion ratio… all of a sudden you have four sales per day!  That’s $4.

As you grow your business, you will always want to focus on the weak factor among the three items in the formula.  All three items multiply against each other so improving the weak factor will always have the most benefit.

If any of the three factors are so weak that they are zero… you will NOT make a dime.  You MUST have all three factors to have a successful Internet business.  When you multiply by zero… you get zero.  That’s just a mathematically fact.

The last factor is…

Product

In the example we have been giving, the product is a mousetrap.  When I say “product”, I am including services.  There are a lot of different kids of products.  You don’t have to have a box.  You can offer a service to get traffic… or a service to provide copywriting.  In my various Internet businesses, I do both.

Some people like to get started with affiliate programs.  These are programs that pay you when you sell someone else’s product.  In this case, you should realize that the above formula still applies.

You just need to understand that the product you are selling is actually a service to the other company to get them qualified traffic.  It isn’t the actual product.  The product belongs to that other company.  Your product is providing a service to that company.

Your choice of product is very important.  I hope you recognized that my example above was a bit silly.  There are no conventions of mousetrap users that have a million people attending.  That’s important to recognize before you choose a product to sell.

I recommend that you start with large markets.  Don’t worry about competition.  I’ll teach later about why competition is a good thing, not a bad thing.  If you don’t have massive competiton, you are probably in a market where it is very difficult to make money.  Otherwise there would be lots more competitors.

I recommend that you imagine in your head going to some public place with a lot of people (the mall, a fair, etc) and in your mind… ask them the following two questions:

1. Are you interested in ______________?

2. Would you pay $___ to ______________?

I like markets where 30% or more answer yes to both questions and the blank after the dollar sign is something over $25.  I also like to make sure that the costs involved in creating the product or service are extremely low… on the order of 10% or less of the product price.

Some examples of good markets are:

1. make more money

2. lose weight

3. look better

4. live longer

5. have a better relationship with a significant other

If you went to the mall and asked 100 people if they would like to make more money, more than 30% would say “yes.”  If you asked them if they would be willing to spend $100 to learn how to make $1,000 more per month, more than 30% would say “yes.”

That’s a good market.  The same goes for losing weight and the others listed.

Start in one of those markets.  Don’t try to make your break selling to Norwegian alpaca farmers who are also fans of South American skiing.  All of the above numbers work against you.

OK; those are the basics.  I’ll go into more detail in future blog posts.

For now, start thinking about a product you could sell that meets the above criteria.

And be sure to sign up for the blog annoucement list so you can get each new lesson.

Regards,

-Diego

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