ETR: Do Unto Others

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Issue No. 2809 - $1.00	Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Do Unto Others... By Jason Holland Sales and marketing strategies, product development, and the like are essential parts of any business, of course. But, as many of the speakers at ETR's Info-Marketing Bootcamp have stressed this week, much of your success as an entrepreneur depends on the relationships you form with fellow business builders. In fact, these partnerships will accelerate your success. You'll make more money, faster. They're not talking about traditional networking -- i.e., handing out business cards (that never get looked at again). And they're not talking about taking advantage of your colleagues through tough negotiation. It's about creating value for others. You don't ask for special deals. You don't call in favors. You give freely. You become involved in and interested in their success. You don't ask for anything in return. But you will get plenty back. Your partners will reciprocate. And just as you have helped them succeed, they will help you in ways large and small to grow your business and prosper. Clayton Makepeace gave a great example of this yesterday during his Lifetime Achievement Award speech. (More on that below.) Four years ago, when his company was struggling with search engine optimization, he asked MaryEllen Tribby for a few pointers. She brought in every ETR staff member who knew about SEO for a half-day meeting. And they helped Clayton bring his site traffic up to speed. (And keep in mind that, at that point, Clayton was one of ETR's competitors.) -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended ----------------------------------------------------- At What Stage Is Your Business? - You're working solo. Probably at home. And your business is just getting off the ground. You don't have to worry about leading a team... yet. But with Michael Masterson's Ready, Fire, Aim, you can get to that point faster than you thought possible. "A winning effort begins with preparation." Joe Gibbs Getting Joint-Venture Ready By Jason Holland Joint ventures (JVs) are a great way to get started online if you don't yet have any products of your own to sell. And then, when you get more established, they should play a major role in your overall marketing strategy and product launches. Because JVs will get your products in front of fresh eyes. A joint venture is simply two or more people working together to achieve a common goal. In a nutshell: "You promote my stuff, and I'll promote yours." That could mean selling each others' products or giving each other access to your e-mail subscribers or visitors to your high-traffic websites. But the best part of JVs, said Chris Chickering during his presentation at Bootcamp, is the leverage -- the chance to reap hug potential rewards for very little risk. (After all, the only thing you have to do to get a joint venture going is call or e-mail a potential partner. And how risky is that?) Some other advantages of joint ventures: Can be done with little to no expense. (You're simply sending an e-mail to someone else's subscriber list.) Helps you establish credibility, fast. (If you get even one industry leader on board, you have a very good chance of attracting others in your niche to do business with you. And once you can document the amazing results you've had with one partner, you can use that to get other JV partners. It's the domino effect. If, for example, you could get Cesar Millan to promote your dog-training program, how much pull would that give you with others in that niche?) Enhances product and marketing development. (By sending out your product to your JV partner's list, you get more feedback to help you improve it.) Gives you an infinite return on your investment of time. (Once you've established a relationship -- a profitable relationship -- with a JV partner, you can go back to them again and again). But you can't just pick up the phone and try to badger people you'd like to work with to do a joint venture with you. You have to prepare. If you do your homework, you'll be able to make a quick and powerful presentation. And that will change their thinking from "Who the heck are you?" to "Hey, how are you?" Establishing that first deal can be hard work. But once you get the knack of it, it will became easy -- even automatic. Here are Chris's four steps for getting ready to make your first JV deal: Step 1. Establish yourself as having a quality product or service AND quality marketing. If you want to succeed with joint ventures and have explosive results, you need a great product or service, yes. But your marketing has to be phenomenal, maybe even better than what you're selling. If you don't have quality marketing, said Chris, it's like having a Ferrari with no wheels. Don't skimp on the amount of time, money, and effort you spend on perfecting your marketing, especially your sales copy. If you do, you won't have success, you'll have trouble getting more JVs, and, most important, you won't make any money. Step 2. Get your operational stuff in order. The first part of this is to have great customer service and support. You must provide your JV's customers with your e-mail address and phone number. And follow up on every refund request and complaint. The whole point of a joint venture is to improve your partner's relationship with their audience. You want their customers to have the best possible experience with you. If they don't, that will be your last JV. You not only have to make your partner's customers happy -- you need to make your partner happy, too. And that means having a reliable sales tracking system -- one that your JV partners can access themselves. And when you send their commission checks, send a detailed report of their sales as well. They shouldn't have to call you to get that kind of information. Step 3. Develop the heart of your message. What's your mission? What's your company's reason for being? It should show in your marketing and with any contact you have with potential JVs. Your potential partners won't want to hear a long, dragged out explanation of who you are and what you're all about. So before you start making phone calls or sending e-mails, boil it down to a 10- to 30-second "elevator pitch." That same pitch can be used when meeting people at industry events. It's easy to blab on for 10 minutes, said Chris. But it's tougher to make your message concise. Here's an outline. Ask yourself: Who am I/what is my company all about? What do we do? What makes us special? Why am I calling? That's the basic structure. But you should be prepared with several different pitches, depending on who you'll be talking to. Step 4. Do your due diligence. Before you contact a potential JV partner, make sure their product, message, and business mesh with yours. Do your homework. Know who they are and what they do. And be prepared to show them exactly how a joint venture with you will be worth their while. Joint ventures are a key element of online marketing. And they can be the perfect way for a start-up business to get noticed in its niche. But before you make your first phone call, you have to be prepared. You can't wing a JV deal. Most people have only a short amount of time to pay attention to your "pitch," said Chris. And if that initial contact doesn't go well... you might not get a second chance. [Ed. Note: This is just a small sample of the profit-producing JV strategies Chris Chickering shared at ETR's Info-Marketing Bootcamp. You can get them all, along with nearly a dozen other presentations from the Internet marketing world's top experts, with our Bootcamp home-study program. Check it out here.] -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended ----------------------------------------------------- $4,000 an hour "Internet Guru to the Gurus" agrees to reveal his most powerful money-making secret Not long ago, a well-known online entrepreneur was making $10,000 to $15,000 a month. Not bad. Not bad at all. But once he met up with "The Internet Guru the Gurus", he discovered he was doing something completely wrong. So he applied a simple secret to his business. Soon, his revenues soared to $180,000 a month. Shortly after, he was making $300,000 a month. And twelve months later, he was bringing in over $1 MILLION a month! That may sound like an unimaginable figure to you. But what if you could use the same powerful money-making secret to build your own online business? The good news is, you can. What's more, you can start using this secret without paying "The Internet Guru to the Gurus" his usual $4,000 an hour consulting fee. Here's how... The X-Rated Case Study By Jason Holland Many of Ryan Lee's websites look like porn sites. He admitted as much during his presentation at ETR's Info-Marketing Bootcamp. But Ryan is not in the porn industry. One of his major niches is fitness. And that's where he's applied what he's learned from porn sites -- specifically, how they market their ... um ... products. You can do it too. Here are two of the many examples Ryan gave to Bootcamp attendees: Offer members-only websites. Have a range of niche products to satisfy all the interests of your buyers. A third "borrowed" technique has given Ryan an unexpected source of monthly cash. He has begun applying monthly charges to his fitness websites. (In the marketing business, this is known as a "continuity program.") The point isn't for you to start checking out porn sites. As Michael Masterson has pointed out many times in ETR, you should constantly be looking at sites and businesses in other industries to get fresh ideas that you can try out in your market. If they don't work, you've lost nothing but a quick and easy test. If they do work, they can dramatically improve your sales. If You're Overweight, Now You Have Something Else to Worry About By Jason Holland As if heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes weren't bad enough... A study shows obese people have a greater risk of losing their vision. Harvard researchers studied 261 patients for an average of 4 1/2 years. They found that the bigger your waistline, the more likely you are to have vision loss due to age-related macular degeneration. All the news isn't bad. They also found that exercising a few times a week cuts your risk by 25 percent. Same Old Same Old By Jason Holland Do you find yourself recycling the same promotional copy... the same ads... the look and feel of your sales letters and e-mails? If so, Clayton Makepeace has news for you. It's costing you... big time. As Clayton said in his Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech at Bootcamp yesterday: "Everything you say to your prospects and customers is part of a continuing story. Every promotion is a new chapter. If everything looks and sounds the same... if the offers and guarantees are the same. You're losing money." This was just a sneak peek at what Clayton spoke about later in the day during his Bootcamp presentation. Check out tomorrow's issue for my full report Latest News ETR's Info-Marketing Bootcamp ends today. Have you signed up for your home study program? It's like "being at the event" in the comfort of your own home. And you can watch the expert presentations as much as you'd like. Check it out here... "Thanks for presenting Dr Rao and his work. The bonus videos are awesome and already having a profound effect on my daily life." Andrew Joy -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended ----------------------------------------------------- "If a picture truly is worth a thousand words, we're about to make a hell of a lot of money!" - The multi-billion dollar "home shopping" industry got its start on cable access. It was a low-budget public access "operation" run by three guys in Clearwater, Florida. Before they had even made their first dollar their success was a sure thing. They had the "Billionaire Mindset"... Today's Words That Work: Badger To badger (BAJ-er) is to harass or nag. The word is, of course, derived from the badger -- an animal known for aggressively defending its burrow. The badger's name may have originated from the word "badgeard," an allusion to the white mark or "badge" on its head. Example (as used by Jason Holland today): "But you can't just pick up the phone and try to badger people you'd like to work with to do a joint venture with you." We want your feedback! Let us know your thoughts on today's issue. Email us at: AskETR@ETRFeedback.com
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