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De 17H à 20H, l'Happy Hour FG, Avec Antoine Baduel, Stars, Mixes Live, cadeaux. L'Happy Hour, c'est le son de la DJ radio, des interviews, des voyages de rêve, et les bons plans de la rédaction.
The Star Report
It's not a secret that organic reach on Facebook, Instagram and others is at an all time low. What's worse, even if you've mastered a platform or two, it seems as if every week or so, there's yet another algorithm update that threatens to destroy all the work you've put into it. Pinterest users are even feeling the pinch. The platform is often referred to as a search engine rather than a social network, and as such it's been the go-to traffic source for bloggers in many niches for years. But now, even Pinterest has left some content creators feeling frustrated over a dramatic drop in traffic. But what can you do? How else can you get the word out about your latest course, or your new opt-in offer? Turns out, there are plenty of ways you can market your business without social media, and in this week's episode, I'll give you my top 21 suggestions. Prefer a transcript? Here you go! What you'll learn in this episode: Why I finally (mostly) left social media, and how I'm making Facebook work on my terms today. The single most important marketing channel all small business owners should be prioritizing, and why. How to leverage search (and not just from Google) to get in front of your ideal audience. The strategy I used to launch my business and quickly grow to six-figures in revenue. What Steve Martin can teach us all about getting noticed in a competitive world. Resources mentioned: Debbie Gartner's SEO guides are worth every penny. Start with this one if you're brand new, or this one if you've been blogging for a while. Stupid Simple SEO is the best full-featured course on SEO I know of. I took it two years ago and it's well worth the time and money investment. Start with Mike's free class to learn more about the topic and his teaching style. Affiliate Program Success was not mentioned, but it's a helpful resource if you're interested in creating your own affiliate program to sell your courses and products. Medium.com has a built in audience and it's easy to get started syndicating your content there. HelpAReporter.com is a great resource if you want to get quoted on high-traffic sites. Sign up as a "source" and then choose the types of notifications to receive. Meetup.com makes live, in person networking easier. Just search your area for your topics of interest. UpViral makes hosting a viral contest as simple as filling in a few details. Steve Martin has the best advice you will ever hear about finding success, and it's not just true for show business. In episode eight I talked more about participating in bundles and giveaways for list building.
Hello #naturallybeautifulfam!On today's episode, Sabrine interviews Taryn Delanie Smith. Taryn is a digital content creator and TikTok Star, and also was crowned Miss New York 2022 and Miss America First Runner Up this past December. In this episode we discuss:Taryn's natural hair journey as a biracial womanWhy it was important to compete for Miss New York w/ her natural hairHer pageant journeys from Miss New York to Miss America First Runner UpBeing an advocate for housing and social services needs for local communitiesBTS of pageants and advice for those interested in pageantryThe sisterhood of pageantry and finding your peopleWhy it's important for her to take up space, be loud, and goofy on TikTokOvercoming "no's" in your lifeand much, much more!This episode of The Naturally Beautiful Podcast is proudly sponsored by Credit.comTo sign up for ExtraCredit, go to credit.com/naturallybeautiful and get started there.For more information about Taryn Delanie Smith visit:IG: @taryndelaniesmith / @missamericany Tiktok: @taryntino21For more information about Naturally Beautiful visit:www.naturallybeautiful.coIG: @naturallybeautiful.co
In this episode, Brian Nittayo of Rose City Pizza sits down with Alex to chat about the inception of some of the viral culinary creations to come out of the kitchen at Rose City, such as the elote pizza, the birria pizza, and the lasagna grilled cheese. Brian shares the challenges of building out a restaurant and running 2 restaurants at the same time. The conversation ranges from restaurant culture to hiring the right people, to getting punched in the face at a Primus concert. Don't miss this episode of PIE 2 PIE. Rose City Pizza opened in Rosemead, California in 2009, and in 2022 they opened a second location in Covina. Despite the blood, sweat, and tears over the years, ”there's nothing else I'd rather be doing.” says Brian. http://www.rosecitypizza.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/rosecitypizza/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/RoseCityPizza/
William Vanhout is the Head of Marketing at UpViral, the #1 Referral Marketing Software on the planet. William is truly passionate about Digital Marketing and loves to inspire other marketers and entrepreneurs with ideas that will help them grow their businesses. Screw The Commute Podcast Show Notes Episode 662 How To Automate Your Business - https://screwthecommute.com/automatefree/ Internet Marketing Training Center - https://imtcva.org/ Higher Education Webinar – https://screwthecommute.com/webinars See Tom's Stuff – https://linktr.ee/antionandassociates 02:33 Tom's introduction to William Vanhout 07:07 Languages that make money 09:07 Strategically going viral in viral marketing 12:30 Get people on an email list 23:25 Sponsor message 25:31 A typical day for William 31:57 Finding students for a digital marketing distance learning school Entrepreneurial Resources Mentioned in This Podcast Higher Education Webinar - https://screwthecommute.com/webinars Screw The Commute - https://screwthecommute.com/ Screw The Commute Podcast App - https://screwthecommute.com/app/ College Ripoff Quiz - https://imtcva.org/quiz Know a young person for our Youth Episode Series? Send an email to Tom! - orders@antion.com Have a Roku box? Find Tom's Public Speaking Channel there! - https://channelstore.roku.com/details/267358/the-public-speaking-channel How To Automate Your Business - https://screwthecommute.com/automatefree/ Internet Marketing Retreat and Joint Venture Program - https://greatinternetmarketingtraining.com/ KickStartCart - http://www.kickstartcart.com/ Copywriting901 - https://copywriting901.com/ Disabilities Page - https://imtcva.org/disabilities/ Tom's Patreon Page - https://screwthecommute.com/patreon/ KickStart Viral book - https://screwthecommute.com/viral/ Fill Your List Bootcamp - https://upviral.com/screwthecommute/ Email Tom: Tom@ScrewTheCommute.com Internet Marketing Training Center - https://imtcva.org/ Related Episodes Tom Kulzer - https://screwthecommute.com/661/ More Entrepreneurial Resources for Home Based Business, Lifestyle Business, Passive Income, Professional Speaking and Online Business I discovered a great new headline / subject line / subheading generator that will actually analyze which headlines and subject lines are best for your market. I negotiated a deal with the developer of this revolutionary and inexpensive software. Oh, and it's good on Mac and PC. Go here: http://jvz1.com/c/41743/183906 The Wordpress Ecourse. Learn how to Make World Class Websites for $20 or less. https://screwthecommute.com/wordpressecourse/ Join our Private Facebook Group! One week trial for only a buck and then $37 a month, or save a ton with one payment of $297 for a year. Click the image to see all the details and sign up or go to https://www.greatinternetmarketing.com/screwthecommute/ After you sign up, check your email for instructions on getting in the group.
Thanks for listening! For more tips, you can subscribe to my YT Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/wdekreij Follow me on my social media accounts! IG https://www.instagram.com/wilcodekreij/ Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@wilcodekreij FB https://www.facebook.com/emarky Wilco de Kreij is an entrepreneur from the Netherlands, mostly focused on online businesses. He started his first business in 2002 and started many different ventures since that time. He also successfully founded Connect.io along with Upviral. Upviral is a Facebook Marketing Tool that is now giving thousands of small businesses the marketing power of “giants”.
Thanks for listening! For more tips, you can subscribe to my YT Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/wdekreij Follow me on my social media accounts! IG https://www.instagram.com/wilcodekreij/ Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@wilcodekreij FB https://www.facebook.com/emarky Wilco de Kreij is an entrepreneur from the Netherlands, mostly focused on online businesses. He started his first business in 2002 and started many different ventures since that time. He also successfully founded Connect.io along with Upviral. Upviral is a Facebook Marketing Tool that is now giving thousands of small businesses the marketing power of “giants”.
Thanks for listening! For more tips, you can subscribe to my YT Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/wdekreij ______________________________________________________ Wilco de Kreij is an entrepreneur from the Netherlands, mostly focused on online businesses. He started his first business in 2002 and started many different ventures since that time. He also successfully founded Connect.io along with Upviral. Upviral is a Facebook Marketing Tool that is now giving thousands of small businesses the marketing power of “giants”.
Thanks for listening! For more tips, you can subscribe to my YT Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/wdekreij ______________________________________________________ Wilco de Kreij is an entrepreneur from the Netherlands, mostly focused on online businesses. He started his first business in 2002 and started many different ventures since that time. He also successfully founded Connect.io along with Upviral. Upviral is a Facebook Marketing Tool that is now giving thousands of small businesses the marketing power of “giants”.
For fun, I figured to record what a day is like while running UpViral.com. Hope you like it! Make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already. And, if you'd like to check out my YouTube channel, – you can check it out at https://www.youtube.com/wdekreij
OVERVIEW: Jason A. Duprat, Entrepreneur, Healthcare Practitioner, and Host of the Healthcare Entrepreneur Academy podcast talks about the primary reasons your business should consider hosting a raffle, giveaway, or sweepstakes. He also highlights seven steps to follow if you do decide to host an online raffle to help ensure success. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Raffles, giveaways, and sweepstakes help generate traffic to your website or landing page and reward people who have actively engaged with you and your business. They work best when you have awesome prizes your audience finds valuable and when you target people already affiliated with you such as proven buyers, email subscribers, or program members. Raffles and giveaways are not ideal for audiences unfamiliar with your business. Generally, these prospects don't have interest in your product or service - they're only in it for the freebie. Freebies don't attract the best type of customers. There are seven steps Jason recommends for conducting a raffle. First, determine your desired outcome. Building hype for a new product or service, growing your email list, and obtaining reviews are good options. Creating brand awareness or growing your following aren't good options. Next, choose your prizes. Make sure your prizes have monetary or sentimental value. If you have high-ticket prizes, hire an attorney because you may run into issues or legal ramifications. Third, set your rules and a deadline to participate, and post these ahead of time. Fourth, promote the raffle throughout and one week ahead of time across your social media channels and via email. Next, it's time to pick the winners. Jason advises doing this lottery-style and conducting a live drawing so participants can see how winners are selected. Once you select the winners, follow up. Also, follow up with participants who didn't win. Consider offering a coupon code or a complimentary 30-minute consultation call to this group. Lastly, track results. Be sure to analyze if the effort was worth it. There's still time to participate in the HEA raffle! Join the HEA for Digital Businesses Facebook Group (see link in Resource section). Within the group, click the link to rate and review the HEA podcast and your name will be entered into the raffle. It only takes 60 seconds and you'll have a chance to win a HEA swag bag, a Fitbit, or an Amazon gift card. The first drawing was 9/17 and the second drawing will be 9/24 along with the grand prize drawing. Visit the group page for further details. Jason is giving away more than 4k in prizes! 3 KEY POINTS: Raffles, giveaways, and sweepstakes work best when the prizes are really good and when you invite people already in your audience. However, they don't really bring in new customers, subscribers, or buyers. There are seven steps for running a successful raffle: determine the desired outcome, choose the prizes, establish rules and a deadline, promote the raffle, select the winners, follow up with all participants, and track results. Start small to test the waters and then up the ante by increasing the quality and value of your prizes. TWEETABLE QUOTES: “Raffles...giveaways...sweepstakes can really do a lot as far as creating some buzz...” - Jason Duprat“Things get a lot more complex when it comes to monetizing any social media platform.” - Jason Duprat RESOURCES: Join the Healthcare Entrepreneur Academy Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HeathcareEntrepreneurAcademy/ RafflePress: https://rafflepress.com/ UpViral: https://upviral.com/ SweepWidget: https://sweepwidget.com/ KingSumo: https://kingsumo.com/ #HealthcareEntrepreneurAcademy #healthcare #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #podcast #onlineraffles #giveaways #sweepstakes #onlinecontests
Hey Hustle & Flowchart friends, we are back with a new episode. We are testing out a new podcast format where we will talk on a very specific honed-in topic and get straight to the meat of the content. On this one, Matt talks about over 40 different growth hacks to grow your podcast, including ad platforms, gaining attention in the media, both free and paid strategies, as well as some of our secret weapons on how we've grown the show which have worked very well. After you've listened to the show, be sure to check out the chats that we recorded with Tyrone Shum and Luis Diaz for more podcasting growth hack tips. “The best results we've gotten with Facebook ads is by taking short video clips from our podcast. We'll take a 3-minute clip where our guest shares a gold nugget of wisdom, run that clip as a Facebook ad and put a link where they listen to the full episode in the text description.” - Matt Wolfe Some Topics We Discussed Include: The basics which you are probably already doing, but if not, you should be Podcast Platform Features and Ad Buys and the top platforms for both Where to purchase ads Growth through acquisition Various ways to get media attention Our Resources: Want to learn how to growth hack a podcast and watch over our shoulders (and give you all the templates and DFY swipe files)? Check out PodHacker.com - this is where we deep dive into building, monetizing, and scaling a podcast through unique strategies like the ones from this episode. References and Links Mentioned: For ad purchasing: Overcast, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Podcast Republic, and Castro For features: Apple, Stitcher, Podknife, Radio Public, Podnews, Scribd, Libsyn, Spotify, Listen Notes, PodChaser, Podbean, and Spreaker Gleam.io, Contest Domination, or Upviral for contests Outbrain, Revcontent, or Taboola for native ads HARO True Native or AdvertiseCast for advertising on other podcasts Are you ready to be EPIC with us?! Then grab our EGP Letter here! Check out our awesome YouTube Channel channel, made for digital marketers and business pros looking for actionable insights, where we dish out meaningful content, relevant topics, and transparent discussions with industry experts. Join the Facebook Community - be sure to hop in our Facebook group to chat with us, our other amazing guests that we've had on the show, and fellow entrepreneurs! We also have a new PodHacker YouTube Channel where you can learn how to build, grow, and monetize a podcast with our unique "PodHacks." We post tutorials, tips, and interview clips that help podcasters scale their show and make more money from their efforts. This episode is sponsored by Easy Webinar and Ahrefs - be sure to check out these special deals for our listeners. How To Growth Hack Your Content Marketing - Luis Diaz How To Grow A Podcast Past 1 Million Downloads - Tyrone Shum
First, Shubhajit Roy joins the podcast to discuss the significance of India's first contact with the Taliban, how the meeting went, and what it means for both India and the Taliban.Next, Amil Bhatnagar talks about the viral outbreak in Uttar Pradesh that has killed 32 children.And finally, we go over details of the Allahabad High Court's observation on the importance of cows in India.
How fast is the coronavirus mutating? Why is the U.K. variant, or B.1.1.7, more transmissible than original strains of the virus? Is viral surveillance the weak spot in the U.S.'s fight against the pandemic?
Mitch Aunger is the Co-Host of UpViral's new livestreaming show about how to use contests and giveaways to grow a big email list. Mitch himself has added over 250,000 new leads and run hundreds of campaigns for clients. In this episode of Masterclass Conversations we tackle: Why you need to build a list (to save your business) The most effective way to build a list easily and fast How Mitch is getting an average of 30% conversion rates (average!) on his landing pages. For more information you can visit Mitch and get to know his offers at Book of Experts: https://bookofexperts.com/offers/98
These days people are way more precious about giving away their email address, so if you're going to use a lead magnet to get people on your list, it's got to be a good one! Rather than asking people to enter their email address to receive a bland bit of free content, make it something interactive, something they really care about, and something that will actually qualify them as someone who should be on your list. In this episode we're going through 6 unusual lead magnet ideas that we've used ourselves to get great results. Let's dive in… 6 Unusual Lead Magnet IdeasEpisode Content(0:57) Rob and Kennedy's funny fact. (2:18) Let's talk about lead magnet blindness. (3:20) We're giving you 6 unusual lead magnet ideas (+ a little bonus one). (4:10) Bonus: Building a list of customers, people who you know are willing to buy from you. (6:05) Lead magnet one: Giving away free content. (7:33) Lead magnet two: Simply getting people to sign up to receive your emails. (8:55) Lead magnet three: Joining your list after participating in a competition or giveaway. (11:27) Lead magnet four: get people to vote for something or give their opinion on something. (13:55) Lead magnet five: It's time for a challenge, literally! (18:25) Lead magnet six: Offering a free trial of a membership or even a paid webinar. (20:55) Listeners question (24:50) Subject line of the week Episode Resourceshttps://launch.emailmarketingheroes.com/5k (First 5K) https://upviral.com/ (UpViral) https://blog.responsesuite.com/email-marketing-strategy/ (The Email Marketing Strategy Every Business Should Steal) – Blog Post https://blog.responsesuite.com/segment-your-email-subscribers/ (6 Techniques To Segment Your Email Subscribers) – Podcast Episode https://blog.responsesuite.com/writing-the-perfect-welcome-email/ (Writing The Perfect Welcome Email With Gavin Bell) – Podcast Episode https://pages.responsesuite.com/event (INBOX 2020 Event) – Buy your ticket https://launch.emailmarketingheroes.com/warrior (Download The Email Marketers' GamePlan) https://www.responsesuite.com/webinar (FREE Email Marketing Webinar) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEX3SXkyt__7V63VDf0m2Vw (Check out our Youtube channel) for a behind-the-scenes look at The Email Marketing Show https://www.instagram.com/robandkennedy/ (Follow us on Instagram) for daily email marketing advice and ninja tips https://twitter.com/RobandKennedy (Connect with us on Twitter) for podcast updates and email marketing content
In this episode of Nomad Wolf, we're back with Gabe Schillinger of Legion Beats.Gabe has been working in the music industry since 2002 and had some pretty awesome breakthrough moments as a producer hearing his music on the radio, TV and even in stadiums like Oracle Arena. But the money was very inconsistent which made him consider facing the music and getting a real job.That all changed in 2014 when he decided to pivot and take on digital marketing skills to better sell his music as non-exclusive licenses. He was able to get at music's "middle class" of artists instead of aiming for the superstars. And things really started to take off when he came across Russell Brunson's clickfunnels system.Armed with knowledge of building a proper marketing and sales funnel, he was able to create irresistible offers like 5 free beats and slowly grow a community of buyers. And well after creating a viral content every Black Friday for the past 3 years, he was able to double and triple his revenue. The rest is history!For more in depth tactics behind Gabe's story, hope ya'll enjoy this episode. I know I did. Connect with Gabe Schillinger...Instagram: @legiongabeMarketing course: legionproducers.comWebsite: legionbeats.com/free
Luke was a shoe in to win Australian Survivor but fell just short. Pia played a good game for herself (which is what Survivor is all about) and voted out Luke. Now Wagga local Dave Skow has set up a Go Fund Me Page to raise money for Luke's young family.
EJM 38: How I Sold $12,409 In a Brand New Niche With NO Audience - Part 2 On this 2-part episode, I will talk about how I sold $12,409 worth of products, in a brand new niche that I’ve created with no audience behind it. In part 2, I will discuss how I plan my product launch by using email autoresponder and automated software to my audience. I will discuss how I will be giving value to my audience by pitching my product to be sold in a brand new niche that I dive into and do all of it by using applications and taking action. You can find this interview, and many more, by subscribing to the Entrepreneur Junkie Movement Podcast on iTunes. If you don’t use iTunes, you can listen to every episode by clicking here. Make sure to head to www.facebook.com/groups/podcasting101group to jump into our brand new FREE podcasting community where we help you guys uncover how to launch your own podcast & monetize it at the same time. "So if you guys are in this position and it's a product launch, I would wholeheartedly recommend doing an APPLICATION" - Jamie Atkinson Bulletpoint Summary In this episode, we will know: What is my overview of my product launch How I use software for my product launch Why giving value is so important How I market and pitch my product Why Facebook is so important How I reach out to my audience How I get my target audience excited Timestamps 3:00 - Planning my Product Launch (Overview of my product launch) 5:00 - Good Thing about the Launch and Creating a Good Funnel 6:20 - Up Viral 8:20 - Autoresponder that went out 9:30 - Filling out my Facebook Group 10:30 - Using Facebook Chat Bot 13:30 - Challenge and Utilising Affiliates 16:00 - Giving Away Prizes and Bonuses inside my Facebook group 17:00 - Giving a lot of Value 18:00 - Asking People who are Struggling 19:00 - Hyping Up my Audience and Pitching my Offer 21:00 - Application 24:00 - Having a Webinar Pitch 25:00 - Sales 26:00 - Taking Action Resources or Links Mentioned: (books, events, people mentioned) Up Viral (Software that Steve Larsen used) - https://upviral.com/ Brendon Burchard - https://brendon.com/ Jamie Atkinson Email: jamie@entrepreneurjunkie.co Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamieatkinson/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jamieatkinsonmedia Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/jamieatkinsonlive/ Free Podcasting Community The Entrepreneur Junkie Movement Facebook Page The Entrepreneur Junkie Movement Community Facebook Group Podcasting 101 Community - 4 Ways to Monetize Your Podcast
I'm very pumped for PART 2 of ‘How to Rate Your MLM Business’. Like I said in the last episode, this is not about rating the MLM that you work for. We are talking about rating your current position inside of that. Are you treating it like an actual business or is it like a hobby? This will help you know, not only where you are, but what to do next. *This* episode we'll teach you the latter. What do you do next? Now that you are able to go in and treat this as a company? Like an actual business, like an asset. If you did not see the last episode, DO NOT start with this one. Go to the episode just before this one. Go watch PART 1 because this is part two, and it builds off of what you saw during the last one. AND… If you guys want more help on building real systems in your MLM business, go get the program secretmlmhacks.com. WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT? Having an SLO means that I gained control back over the: Lead Convert Deliver Upsell I gained control back on this side of the ranking. I lose control over at least half of the stuff on the MLM position side. I can't… Convert people in certain ways Say certain phrases Income claims Health claims ...All of the stuff. I wouldn't say it anyways... BUT there's so much red tape because the government's sooo involved. I've got to be way more careful and far more watered down. What I CAN do is control the pre-frame that they see my MLM with by the stuff that comes through on the SLO side. My challenge to you is to go in and rank YOU. How well do you... Attract leads? Convert the leads once you have them? Deliver on what you sold? (Just improving that alone will increase your sales because your testimonials increase once you deliver better.) Upsell them? Second money's always easier than the first money. How well do you do those things? #1 Figure that out. #2 Circle the one that SUCKS the most #3 Use Secret MLM Hacks to figure out what it is that you're doing. If you're new here and you’ve never seen what a funnel is, do it in the order that the modules that are presented. That's going to help you understand WHAT a funnel is. It will help you get that first thing off the ground. YOU HAVE AN SLO… WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT? After you've gone through it and after you have an SLO (self-liquidating offer) up… After you've started creating systems around these things, start ranking them. I already have a business built. So much focus is on the building… But what about post build? Q: What do you do next? A: *THIS* How well are my systems inside the business? I rank according to those things (lead, convert, deliver, upsell). That is what guides my decision making. Which is ultimately why I start thinking about how could I go and create an upsell. I'm going to list out a bunch of ways I could make an upsell… Things that are possibilities. I'll choose some of them. That literally becomes my TO-DO list for the next month. That's what guides me in this. That way it's a market-driven business. I'm listening. I have my ear to the ground. You make money on your strengths. But I'm talking about ranking your systems and fixing the weaknesses. If you don't have systems, it's extremely weak. That's what makes people feel like, “Oh I'm so lost. I don't know what to go do.” If you’re liking this, I appreciate it like crazy. You can go to SMHReview.com (Secret MLM Hacks Review) and leave an honest review. If you're like, “That sucked”, tell me! But if you think this is awesome, tell me that also! If you’re having a hard time thinking that you can be duplicatable… It’s because you aren't. Your systems are. The reason I'm so duplicatable is that I give a lot of these guys the same things that I brought them in with. A SYSTEM is duplicatable. I am very unduplicatable. THERE’S ONLY ONE ME! I'm not trying to duplicate people. I am trying to duplicate business systems. YOUR MLM BUSINESS EXPERTISE People ask me, “Do I teach my downline how to do funnels if they're used to belly to belly?” My SLOs have to do with funnels because it's my expertise. If you are an expert on protein shakes, build a self-liquidating offer around what you're good at. It's the reason why you can create a unique recruiting offer. It's unique. What are you amazing at? I am not a scientist on the supplement that my MLM sells. I'm not. I don't understand much about it. What I know is I... Take it and it's good for me Make money when I promote it … That's pretty much the only science I understand about what I actually sell. Selling has NOTHING to do with how well I know the product. There are people in my downline and their expertise lies heavily in what we’re selling. They're like scientists. They're so smart. It's ridiculous. They're like, “Should I go create something around funnels?” I'm like, "No, because that's my thing. I was the lead funnel builder at ClickFunnels." I'm not saying it's competing. They can do to it if they want… But you can be unique. What are you good at? Build an offer around that. Build your SLO around what YOU’RE good at and similar people will be attracted to you. THE SAME MLM BUSINESS… One of the biggest things people ask is, "Stephen that means that eventually, everyone in my downline will be selling the same thing I am." No, they won't, because they go through the same process that I'm teaching them. If someone's like, "I'm super good at copywriting." I'm like, "Sweet, I'm not." Go get copyformlms.com and make that your $57 thing. That's what brings people in, liquidates ad costs, build systems around it, then pitch them in your MLM. There's room for all. You don't have to be a funnel freak in order to be good at this. It's just understanding the general concepts and principles of offer creation. Making it unique to you, and understanding that what you control and don't inside of an MLM. You can do this on your own. This is the map and one of the ways that I look from a 30,000-foot view to figure out where the weaknesses are in what I've built. I sell with my strengths. But in order to remove me from the business, I need to fix systems that are weak. If you’re getting leads but not converting them… Then that's the question you lead with. Questions invite revelation. So now the question that you ask yourself is, “How do I convert my leads better?” That takes getting to know the leads better. How are they coming in? What pre-frame are they becoming a lead under? What is it that other successful sellers are doing? RATE YOUR BUSINESS Start asking those questions and digging and finding, “Oh, that's what they're all doing”. And you just build something that's automated around that. The onboarding training that I give my team walks them through their first 30 days in my downline. Most of my leads for my downline come from my podcast, which is another reason I tell you to FREAKIN’ PUBLISH! It's so funny how much authority comes from publishing. They'll just be listening to you. Let’s say you’re struggling to come up with SLOs for your MLMs children's books... What if you created a product around how to teach kids to read? Something that's associated and complimentary, NOT competitive to what you're going to sell. You might have a great team but what if there’s a major problem is lead generation? What kind of SLO could you create? I'm going to go drop an episode and training on SLO ideas. What you're looking for is a problem. What are the problems people struggle with, in your MLM, after they buy the product or join the opportunity? Solve those problems. It's super easy to have a lot of people come to you because most people in MLM don't think about it that way. You're just adding more value. Q: How would you promote your funnels if you're just starting out with no proof of personal success yet? A: Success is not based on testimonials, but testimonials help. You can launch something without testimonials. But I would build a system to capture testimonials as you go. Every funnel I launch, I build in a sense of vira-bility (how easily will it go viral on its own?) MLM BUSINESS RESOURCES If you guys go to bestmarketingresources.com, you can see some of the resources that I use. Go look at the video about UpViral. That's one of the ways that I increase my spreadability. I believe I have a video on there about proof. That's one of the ways I increase my conversion rates by 10 - 20% every single time and it works super well. I am NOT the business. I am NOT the funnel. What I am good at is systems. I build systems. You just have to know which ones to build. And this is one of the ways that I go do that. Someone said to me, “Steve, my MLM offers only subscription purchases, which makes the lead generation more difficult.” No, it doesn't. That is in your head. Just going to call that out right there. “New buyers can only subscribe for at least six months. They cannot buy only one product as samples.” Yes, but they can buy your own product in front and then get six months of your thing for FREE. Russell just launched a book about network marketing and different funnel types. I'm going to go create is what's called a Bridge Page. Because I'm going to make my own offer around it when you buy through my link. MLM BUSINESS AND AFFILIATE MARKETING The affiliate marketing model is the EXACT SAME model as the MLM model. There's no difference. I don't how many times I can say that in this. Look at how affiliate marketers sell their stuff. They don't own the cart. How are they getting so many sales? They have to tell somebody to buy on someone else's page. How do they get so many sales? I built a bridge page funnel. That’s what I did. I don't own the cart, I have no power over it, I can't change anything on it. It's something that ClickFunnels is promoting. For the One Funnel Away Challenge, all I did is create a page in front with a video that said, "Hey, on the next page you're going to be pitched by Russell to do this challenge. It's a 30-day challenge to help you get a funnel out the door. What it's going to help you with is X, Y, and Z.” “But in order to add more value, here are some things that you might need to get your success, faster and help with what you do after you've done these 30 days. I've come up with some of my own products, my own ideas and I decided not to sell it, but I could have." "You're going to get all this stuff PLUS all the things that Russell's giving you if you buy through my link. I usually sell each of these for a couple of hundred bucks, and what he's going to sell you is only a hundred dollars.” “Here's how you get it. Click below and it's going to take you to my affiliate link, buy it through my link and once a month I release all of those bonuses to the those who bought through my link." BRIDGE PAGE - WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT? It asks for their email, because I'm a marketer, and it puts them on a list. Now I can create an email sequence. Each email will highlight one of those products or bonuses that I'm giving away on top of the thing that I don't control. That's why you CAN sell a subscription based thing and not own any of the carts. I'm going to figure out all those followup problems and solve something for it ahead of time. Then I can say, “Here is one of the issues I found people need help with afterwards” and it makes it really easy. This is one of the easiest ways to sell a product. Create a bridge page. It's a single page. The one I did for ClickFunnels has already made $110,000 in the last six months. I actually made it in three hours in a hotel room while I was on a trip. Just keep this simple. Keep it real simple. All you're doing is you're creating a lead system, you're converting them, you're figuring out ways to deliver it better, and you're upselling them throughout. This works if you’re selling... A product Your own product The opportunity One of the easiest ones to do for a subscription based thing is say, "Hey, when you buy this, you're going to get six months of the product for free." You give that in addition to that main thing and you out value everybody else. THE EASIEST WAY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO NEXT Q: Is it easier for me to go convert somebody who says, "Stephen, I'm interested in your MLM, but what about X, Y, Z? This, this and that. Help me, help me, help me" I'm not trying to be rude… But I'm not building a life coaching business. I'm building a business around the product that I sell. If you don't like those you're recruiting, that's why. You're not being picky enough. Don't recruit them just because they have a heartbeat. It’s easier for me to widen the pot and find people with a smaller amount of education needed. The belief bridge they have to cross is much smaller. Go to bestmarketingresources.com. I put a lot of resources that I use on there because a lot of people ask me, “What are you using?” You don't have to use ALL those. They just accelerate you. Some people are like, "You need more than ClickFunnels?" Maybe you don't NEED it, but I want to accelerate. I WANT YOU TO RATE YOUR BUSINESS So…. To recap… #1 I'm going to rank my business both in terms of my position, and how I'm treating it and the MLM opportunity. How well do I... Get leads from my MLM opportunity? Convert leads to my MLM opportunity? Deliver for my MLM opportunity? Upsell? How well do I... Get leads for the product? Convert the product? Deliver the product? Upselling them? Those are the MAJOR functions every business has. Rank yourself on that. Do the same for your self liquidating offer. You could get really specific on this and put the actual name of the product that you're selling. Then do it for the next product and then do for the next product and rank it and rank it and rank it and rank it. That gives you a very clear map of what it is that you should be doing. You're NOT the business, you're NOT the funnel. You build something that actually is automatable and duplicatable. What do you hand off to people when they join you? You're systems, not you. I'm not willing to babysit my downline, I made that declaration a long time ago. I will be there and I will create really valuable stuff but I'm not there to make them successful. That's their decision. I am not the builder of their business. I'll give them tools so they can do it on their own. JOIN SECRET MLM HACKS I know it's tough to find people to pitch after your warm market dries up, right? That moment when you finally run out of family and friends to pitch. I don't see many up lines teaching legitimate lead strategies today. After years of being a lead funnel builder online, I got sick of the garbage strategies most MLMs have been teaching their recruits for decades. Whether you simply want more leads to pitch or an automated MLM funnel, head over to secretmlmhacks.com and join the next FREE training. There you're gonna learn the hidden revenue model that only the top MLMers have been using to get paid regardless if you join them. Learn the 3-step system I use to auto recruit my downline of big producers WITHOUT friends or family even knowing that I'm in MLM. If you want to do the same for yourself, head over to secretmlmhacks.com. Again that’s secretmlmhacks.com.
I thought it'd be cool to document what is happening during our 7-day launch of OfferMind Masterclass. The good and the bad… One of the biggest reasons I've noticed people don't have success with launch campaigns is NOT because your… Product isn't amazing Offer isn't good enough Sales message isn't doing its job ...it's literally the way that the campaign is brought to the market. A lotta times, your products are already good - it's just that you don't have a launch mechanism, and you don't understand what a funnel really is… ...and that's why you don't make a lot of money. So here’s how I’m gonna help you: What I’m about to do next is a little bit different - it’s in 3 different sections that span 7 days PART #1: I’m gonna walk you through a simple 7 Day Launch that I used to sell my OfferMInd tickets - I’d never seen anyone one sell tickets like this... so I thought I’d give it a go. PART #2: Is kinda a mid launch check in to give you an update on how things are going - what’s working and what’s not! PART #3: Reviews the campaign as a whole - how did it go, what I learned, and what I wish I done better? HOW TO LAUNCH A PRODUCT HOLLYWOOD STYLE You can learn a lot from Hollywood - if you watch the way that they bring movies to the market you’ll notice that the pre-sell is EVERYTHING! If the first time you ever hear about it a movie is on the day of its launch - that's a HUGE failure! You often see weekend box office sales hit 100 million dollars - that wouldn’t happen if there wasn’t a lot of pressure built up ahead of time. … and yet many marketers often have a ‘build it and they will come attitude’ and they launch their products without putting any thought into the campaign. I want to show you how to STOP leaving money on the table! CHANGING BELIEFS At the core, markers change people's beliefs. However, the act of marketing, (a lot the time), revolves around creating campaigns… And... CAMPAIGNS ARE A DYING ART! I love Frank Kern's most recent book called Convert… Frank says, “These are campaigns... and I believe the campaign is dying.” … and I was like, “I DO TOO!” (Many times, I’ve ranted about people are forgetting what campaigns are - and that they think a campaign is just a Facebook ad) So I want to show you how we launched the OfferMind ticket funnel by creating a ton of noise, Hollywood style campaign... My subtext is that I hope this will incentivize you like crazy to join my programs - because we actually do what I'm teaching. I'm not just re-teaching stuff that I heard from somebody else - we're actually actively doing this - which is very important to me. CREATING A (PROPER) LAUNCH CAMPAIGN The first time I ever learned this strategy was when I was working at ClickFunnels. Russell was hanging out with Brendon Burchard, and Brendon has this thing called The 7 Day Launch. Now, this is Brendon’s thing, and you should totally go learn it from him… I'm just gonna teach you briefly how I'm using some of the launch principles to sell tickets to OfferMind. If you guys went to Funnel Hacking Live a couple of years ago, and you remember the documentary funnels, it’s very similar to that funnel style. At the time of this going out, OfferMind tickets are available - so if you go to offermind.com you can get tickets, but we're expected to sell out pretty quickly. I'm psyched about it - so go to offermind.com to see if there are any tickets available. Now, back to the Hollywood launch… I realized that if I just saying: “Hey, OfferMind Tickets are available…” is kinda an anticlimax… … and I don’t want it to be that way! You see, marketers are event throwers - whether the event is physical or not. I'm NOT saying you have to pull out the stops and throw an OfferMind to be a marketer, that's not what I'm saying at all... However… To be a good marketer you have to be good at creating pressure, and then releasing it in a single direction. Anyone who can do that... has A LOT of power. CREATING A PRE-FRAME Recently, I went Jeff Walker’s launch event, and I got so excited just during the first half of the first day, 'cause honestly for half of the first day, Jeff did nothing but pre-frame the entire crowd. I didn't know you could pre-frame that long, and frankly, it was very impressive. The event is three days, and eventually, Jeff sells you into his Launch Con Program, and ‘cause I'm a Funnel Hacker, I bought the program to see how it works. I love Jeff Walker - the book Launch plus DotCom Secrets is what finally helped me create success. There’s a BIG lesson because I learned about funnels and launching rather than product creation. Anyway, at Jeffs event, I took two full pages of notes of watching what he was doing… and for two-three hours, he did nothing but pre-frame. The entire first session was just pre-framing - it was crazy nuts! At the same time, I was thinking through different campaigns that have worked incredibly well... I got a 2 Comma Club Award for a project I did for Russell using the 7 Day Launch campaign… (It was for the first Two Comma Club Coaching Program where I helped organized Russell's stuff a little bit.) … so I was like, “Why don't we ‘launch’ OfferMind tickets using the same funnel!” As OfferMind is a two-day event, I don't have the luxury of spending half a day pre-framing… So instead… I decided to use the 7 Day Launch strategy to NOT only launch the tickets but to also to act as a pre-frame. So that's what I’m gonna show you now. I want to teach you the campaign and show you how we used it. THE 7 DAY LAUNCH - PART # I: The 7 Day Launch kinda looks like this… Now, as we move forward, there's gonna be a few things that it would be advantageous to watch on YouTube. If you go to salesfunnelradio.tv it’ll take you to my YouTube channel where you can watch if you want… So there's… Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday So, what I did was I created a single page funnel - I added a second page, simply because I added a share element from UpViral - but you don't actually need to do that. The first time I built one of these funnels was for the Experts Secrets Masterclass There was an Experts Secrets Masterclass that we used a 7 Day Launch for, so I was like, “Why don't I do an OfferMind masterclass?” … and so offermindmasterclass.com was born. PRODUCT LAUNCH # DAY ONE So on MONDAY, I built the page and promoted it. My goal was to have 2,000 people registered. To start with we did one email drop and one Facebook Live, and we got about 700 people registered. Then I had the rest of the day to keep promoting - so, day one, promote, promote, promote. PRODUCT LAUNCH # DAY 2 #More promoting… PRODUCT LAUNCH # DAY 3 About a week and a half ago, I did an Ask Campaign where I asked everybody in the thescienceofselling.online group, “What do you struggle with when you're creating an offer?” I had no idea how reactive that would be. BOOM! There were 150 comments and HUGE awesome sample data! I had no idea some of the things that people were struggled with in Offer Creation… So I took the top five topics and split them into session content. The first two sessions were on day #3 at 10:00 a.m and 2:00 p.m. PRODUCT LAUNCH # DAY 3 Session #3 is at 10:00 a.m the following day (I'll come back to session four 'cause that's a little different - but it's still 2:00 p.m on day #3) PRODUCT LAUNCH # DAY 4 Sessions #5 and #6 are at the same time the following day My pitch is for the Masterclass is: “Come watch me as I film my next course OfferMind Masterclass live in front of a live audience.” … I’m answering a lot of the questions that people have had as they've gone through last year's OfferMind event recordings. What's powerful is that this not a top-level Ask campaign anymore, it's getting more detailed. People are like, “Hey, about this scenario, where does that work?” ...and I'm like, “It's a good question - you're not the first to ask that. I didn't realize that was a general question. Here's the answer.” So in these five sessions, I'm just teaching and answering questions. I already have content planned out. It's NOT just a straight Ask Campaign styled course - I already know what I'm gonna teach. However, the Ask campaign validated and helped fill in holes that I wasn't thinking about. Sessions one, two and three, I'm breaking down a lot of vehicle, internal, and external related beliefs. BACK TO SESSION #4 Can you guess what session #4 is gonna be? A: It's gonna be a whiteboard webinar. Q: What's it gonna sell? A: OfferMind I'm using 7 Day Campaign structure to launch the next thing in my value ladder - which is OfferMind. I believe everybody should come to OfferMind - it'll shortcut tons of stuff in your life... So session #4 is a webinar…. It's NOT a traditional webinar, I'm gonna do a share from my whiteboard - there are no slides, nothing else. There's an offer that I created around getting a general ticket for OfferMind and I'm just gonna take that offer, and put it on this whiteboard and sell it. It's really fascinating because this is a live class meets a webinar funnel. PRODUCT LAUNCH FOMO During this masterclass, I'm gonna teach for three days for almost six hours each day. Part of the strategy is that people are NOT gonna be able to be with me the whole time. It's a lot of content for me to teach, but in reality, there’s barely enough time for me to teach ALL the things that I want to. it's gonna be a long time, and it's gonna be some of my best stuff - kinda an abbreviated OfferMind. And here’s the catch… After the launch ends, I'm NOT gonna sell this masterclass in other places… (it’ll probably be a $300 - $400 OTO or upsell some low-end funnels), but it's not gonna be something that I sell generally… So my pitch will be: “Go get OfferMind, and get this course for free - ONLY until Monday at midnight.” PRODUCT LAUNCH # DAY 5 After the webinar, the sessions are still gonna be teaching and answering questions, but the stories I’ll tell are to help break additional vehicle, internal and external related false beliefs. They’ll also be reminders that: “Hey if you want this course, you can get it FREE when you buy OfferMInd.” Recordings are not gonna be available. The replays get taken down each day at midnight PRODUCT LAUNCH # DAYS 6 & 7 At the end, there’ll be the scarcity urgency closeout sequence that you normally would put at the end of any webinar… So for Saturday, and then for Sunday, it's all the sequences that are pushing them out… Then Monday at midnight, BAM, it's done! CREATING NOISE For this to work, I have to create a ton of noise! My Offer business has an email list of over 15,000 people... and I'm pinging all of 'em - we're hitting all cylinders on this. For three days people can watch me film my course Then to keep the course for FREE - they have to get an OfferMind ticket. Finally, the course will then be taken down, and no one else will get it. The beauty of this is that it’s true urgency and scarcity. I hate fake scarcity and urgency, it's stupid - this is real. https://media.giphy.com/media/QYQ3PZ9UHje3S/giphy.gif OfferMind only has seats for 1,038 people, and there's already way over that on the waiting list. Sooo… That’s the end of PART # I… Now we’re going to PART #2: to find out how EVERYTHING is going. THE 7 DAY LAUNCH - PART II: Welcome to PART #2 of me documenting the 7 Day Launch for the OfferMind Event funnel. Oh my gosh, I'm not gonna lie, I'm so freaking tired. I have one of those Oura Rings - and one day, I spent 800 calories just teaching … and another, I think it was close to 1,300. It’s ridiculous! My voice is hoarse and croaky… This on top of the One Funnel Away challenge, “Oh my gosh, I am wrecked.” I've had to call a few audibles throughout this... and that's always expected in anything you launch, ever. So let me just bring you through my studio setup real quick here… The first time I ever watched Russell create and do a 7 Day Launch, he had this amazing camera crew, and there were all these people running around, all over the place. There was this big ole' crew going down, and it was awesome - it was impressive! We have a picnic table with some boxes, and my laptop sitting on the top. The room is a mess 'cause we had to restructure it real fast. Then we have these ring lights, this backdrop light over there, and another light that's just pointing into the corner - so that everything looks kinda level on the actual Sales Funnel Radio backdrop. We have a boom arm that's being held by a bunch of weights from the garage to weighing it down ‘cause the little clamp on the side wasn't quite big enough… The place is wrecked! You’re probably thinking, “Man, he's a freakin’ pig.” ...and, yep! In the middle of launches, I stop adhering to general cleanliness standards. In the middle of a launch, you do all sorts of crazy stuff. You go the extra mile to make sure crap happens. THINGS ARE NOT GOING TO PLAN Today, I was supposed to launch the actual OfferMind ticket funnel, but as I started looking at the last few things needed in order to actually finish it, I was like: “There's no way. There are too many small particulars for me to launch this comfortably right now.” If I just go one more step further, it'll make it easy for us to manage, and that's what I want. Which means, again, I'm only gonna sleep a few hours because I'm gonna go finish the event funnel. I have a funnel team, but I'm finishing is that last 20% that sucks to finish. These are my notes on what I need to finish for the OfferMind funnel... and there's A LOT. This is actually how I started doing it while I was sitting next to Russell… Take a piece of paper and draw the funnel Grab a different color and inside of each of the boxes, I’d write down what needs to be finished before the funnel’s ready. ...and that's kinda the pattern I go through to see what need to be done. I’ve just barely brought them through how I've developed and designed a sales message and offer at the same time using My Core Offer Model, XAVIER. When Russell did the 7 Day Launch, session #4 was when he did his big drop... but I need one more night - I gotta finish this, these last few pieces here. I'm hustling hard to finish it. SIMPLIFY TO WIN I'm in the simplification phase of funnel launching. You start by thinking, “I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this,” and now, I'm in the phase now where I'm like: “Okay, that was a cool idea, but it's completely unrealistic now.” The first three sessions were just deep dive teaching, and then I was planning to finish the funnel in the one hour break I gave myself each day… *IT’S NOT GONNA HAPPEN* So we're gonna do it tomorrow morning. We’re gonna hide some elements so no one knows they're there, and finish 'em later, so we can just launch. That's totally what we're doing right now, and that's exactly how we're handling it. So in installment #3, I will tell you how it went! What is kinda ninja, in the OfferMind Masterclass, (as I'm teaching how to go create a sales message and an offer), I used the example of: “Let's act like I'm trying to pitch you guys into coming to OfferMind!” So then I asked: “What false beliefs would you guys have if I said you should come to OfferMind?” Then I broke and rebuilt their beliefs throughout the whole thing... it was awesome. About halfway through, someone was like, “Wait, you're doing this on us now!” ...and I was like “Ha, gotcha!” THE WHITEBOARD WEBINAR Tomorrow, I'm gonna tape pieces of paper on my whiteboard to hide the offer, and literally, do a whiteboard webinar selling OfferMind. It's gonna use EVERYTHING I've taught them up to this point. It's this awesome culmination - I'm really pumped about it. We’ve had 200 people consistently live with us every single session, (there’ve been two sessions per day), but what's fascinating is that within like six hours, there are another 1,000 views per session - it's been crazy. Last night, before I went to bed, I took the videos down at midnight, ('cause I said I would), I want there to be real scarcity and urgency. I hate fake scarcity and urgency. … there were 3,000 views from yesterday's two videos! All I'm telling you guys is that if you're gonna go in and do this kinda thing, all you need is … A Boom Arm A Box And... A Coulton Look at him over there... Coulton's don't grow on trees. He's been moderating and kicking out all the psychos with small mind syndrome - so that they get outta my life and my audience FOREVER. He's the heavy that kicks people out when they become jerks on the chat: “Wow, this doesn't work,” and I'm like, “Yeah, you're gone.” I'm not even gonna go there. Coulton’s top takeaway so far... “Simplicity is key. Just the clarity that everything has come through with you teaching it, to all these people, like it just shows that it works” Cool stuff! I'll kick this back on in probably about 24 or 48 hours to document the aftermath of the whole thing. PART III This is PART #3 of me documenting the 7 Day Launch, and I wanna show you guys what happened… It was Super Successful. First of all, let me tell you how completely exhausted I was by the end. It took me two or three days to recoup. Normally, when I'm talking on stage, it wouldn't take me that long... but I mean this was really aggressive speaking. When it was all said and done, I think I spoke for about 15 hours in three days, and I was finishing a funnel in the evenings - so it's not like I was totally relaxing or anything… I'd go sleep a few hours, and then I would get up super early to finish the funnel - so it was A LOT. So I'm actually gonna walk through what actually happened. MY LAUNCH CAMPAIGN STATS Okay, check this out... *This is between the dates of April 17th to the 24th 2019* You can see that it actually performed quite well - it did everything I hoped it would. What's interesting is the cart value was actually higher at the beginning of the launch. Towards the end of the launch, it actually started dropping - which is kinda fascinating. This is NOT the first time we’ve launched these the OfferMind tickets - there are more tickets sold beyond that… We're actually about double that as far as seats sold. This morning, I got a message from Russell, (which was really cool), saying that this was the 7th highest grossing funnel in all of ClickFunnels yesterday - so it certainly worked. We made a lotta noise and a BIG ole' splash. https://media.giphy.com/media/3kxqLmAVaGvHAmgs6d/giphy.gif OFFERMIND TICKETS There are actually four different ticket prices, and then a bump... if you look, you can see that some people have a discount, (here are the discount ones right here, across the bottom), what's interesting is that not a lot are taking the discount. There are actually more people buying without the discount - which I thought was fascinating. These two here, that it says bundle, (right where my fingers are), that is is that’s a phone call that we're giving away for free. So people put in their information, and we're gonna chat with them. Significantly more people are choosing to get the phone call than not. ... which makes sense, right? It's actually funny to me when they say, “No.” On a few of 'em, I'm just gonna call 'em live - I thought that'd be kinda fun to call 'em live, 'cause I don't think they're expecting that. So as far as the actual bump goes, which is them buying the funnel… (This funnel cost me 17 grand to build, only because I got a sick team and they're really good, which also means they're very expensive). … you could buy the funnel (and get the thing that cost me a lot of money) for 147 bucks - which is really cool. I am shocked that's only 19%. I thought it would be closer to 30% - so it’s a little bit lower than I thought it would be... and maybe it's just that we're so inundated with the share funnels nowadays… … but this is NOT a normal funnel - so I don't know. I was a little bit shocked by that, but eh, whatever. Let's see, looking at the VIP offer, VIPs are going quick, (this is not reflective of the other VIP tickets that already sold in the past)... So a 41% take rate is pretty insane! Next, the Capitalist Pig ad book… So there's an ad book that we're offering, 13% for a second OTO, it's actually not bad either. Soon there’s gonna be an additional product on top of this; I don't have it turned on yet, it's a two pay option that we’ll turn on very soon - so I think that should increase that. So it's going well… On top of that, I have a Thank You Page Webinar, and so of 97 people who have bought a ticket, four have gone in and purchased - which is still pretty good… It's a $1,500 thing, and they get a 50% off coupon with it. It's a pretty powerful campaign that we ran. One thing that I will mention that's been fascinating is that: The moment the campaign was over, pretty much all buying stopped, and this just attests to the principle that if you build it, they WON’T come. … that's like the stupidest line on the planet. I was doing some consulting with somebody, and they vehemently were very much about that phrase: “You know, Stephen, if we just build it, we know they'll come.” I thought they were joking, and I didn't know that they were dead serious, and I started laughing. I was like, ‘Yeah wouldn't that be nice if that was true!” I had no idea that it was the CEO, and some of the major people in the company, and I was straight up laughing at his face, and then I explained myself, I said, “That's NOT true!” We got another sale today, which is great, but like one sale today verses like the 96 that came in in the last couple… They're not small ticket prices either - that's almost six figures. Actually, with the other funnel, we've collected well over six figures for this now. It's a popular event, we're really excited about it. We got a lotta cool people coming - it's gonna be fun. It's just funny, the moment the campaign's over, the buying stops. It's still open, it's still up, but the buying stops. https://media.giphy.com/media/yIxNOXEMpqkqA/giphy.gif So the next thing we're gonna look at: What other campaigns can we run? Running Ads Doing a summit I have offersummit.com, and I'm gonna go get the big who's who of the industry to come in and teach us how they create their offers - that should be probably June and July-ish. Anyway, there's a lotta like smaller to like micro things… I'm gonna piggyback on the back of other affiliate promotions… there are secrets... I don't wanna tell you guys everything ;-) ... just watch what I'm doing. But it's just fascinating, this has really pushed back to the lesson the moment the campaign's over, the sales stopped the sales - that's buying behavior. And so when someone's like, “I don't know if I wanna do scarcity or urgency,” I'm like, “Well, be prepared to not sell anything.” As far as the lives, there was always about the same 200 people on with me every session... but by the time 12 hours had passed, it had been watched almost 2,000 times per video. People loved it, they ate it up. I had a lotta big friends, who are larger than I am, reach out and they're like, “What is it that you're doing?” I got a lotta people I respect reaching out asking me questions. It was validating. So, anyways, it went really really well, and we got a lotta noise from it. Everyone and their mom heard about it We did a 7 Day Launch to launch tickets - I hadn't seen anyone do that, so I was excited about it. It was hard work, but it's one of the easiest campaigns to run. Energy wise it was challenging because you teach like crazy, but it was still one of the easiest things for me to go pull off - it's a single page funnel. 1,800 people, I believe ended up joining the list. That’s huge. 30% of the traffic came from shared referred traffic, not my list. We found that out by using UpViral. So not only did it expand the list, it expanded those seeing me. On weird thing, since it was on YouTube, it was actually a lot of people who are not normally in my audience... I think if we’d used Facebook, I would've gotten more of the hot audience to buy. Almost 100 people of the 200 who were live with me bought. ...that's a pretty good sale rate, right! I'm happy with that. Once we finished the actual training, we went through with three day urgency scarcity closeout period just like what you would do on a webinar, and just as expected… Day 1: the cart opened, and boom, big old blast the sales. Day 2: kinda nothing - which is usually what happens. Day 3: it's like shoosh - another huge amount of sales coming in. Anyways, it was fun, it was cool. I learned a lot from it. We’ll definitely do it again. A highly effective way to teach, but also sell at the same time. Most of the time, webinars don't have that luxury; teaching is a liability inside of webinar *usually, so it was cool to be able to pull that off. So anyways, cool stuff guys. If you guys, anyway, I would love to have you guys come to OfferMind. We’ve got... I don't know if I'm allowed to say it… You know what, I'll bring certain people on the show to introduce a lot of the speakers to you. I am now actively, (and hopefully they see this), I am actively going to go and BEG absolute killer giants, like Mark Joyner, and Bill Glazer to come speak. I don't know if they're going to yet, but this is me calling my shot before they've said “Yes.” So, in the next month here, by the time this goes out there, hopefully, they’ve agreed. BOOM! If you're just starting out you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies, right? That's also good. But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right? That's what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula. So I created a special Mastermind called an OfferMind to get you on track with the right offer, and more importantly the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it. Wanna come? There are small groups on purpose, so I can answer your direct questions in person for two straight days. You can hold your spot by going to OfferMind.com. Again, that's OfferMind.com.
Kenda Macdonald has just published her first book and is fizzing with excitement – so Vicky tied her to a chair and made her talk about it. This episode contains angst, truthy stories, a heroic victory, a fantastic idea for selling more copies of your book (or product or thing)... and sad parsnips. If you're thinking of writing a book but you don't yet believe you can listen to this. Key Takeaways: [1:05] What is Kenda’s new book, Hack the Buyer Brain, all about? [2:05] What did Kenda struggle with the most about writing this book? [4:00] Kenda suffered from imposter syndrome while writing this book and it took a lot to get over that. [6:25] Who is Kenda and what does she do? [9:00] Kenda had a mental breakdown on the last chapter of her book! [11:15] What helped Kenda get unstuck? [14:25] How many pre-sale copies has Kenda sold so far? [15:45] Kenda describes how she uses the ‘golden ticket’ to promote her book. [18:30] Kenda shares why she’s using the UpViral tool to help promote her book. [21:40] People have really taken well to the branding of the book and Kenda wants them to get excited about the swag that comes with the book! [22:15] Thinking of writing a book? Vicky hopes Kenda’s story inspires you to take action! Mentioned in This Episode: Vicky Fraser Vicky’s Podcast Vicky’s Blog Vicky on Medium Join the Superheroes Vicky’s Business For Superheroes Book The Inner Circle Borrow My Brain Vicky’s Book Club Vicky’s new book! Write & Publish Your Book in 90 Days Email Vicky Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, and Overcast Automation Ninjas Kenda Macdonald on LinkedIn UpViral
Wilco de Kreij is #1 internet marketeer Bescheiden, introvert, ongelofelijk slim en bekend om zijn video's waarin hij heel snel Engels spreekt. Toch zijn er in Nederland nog heel veel mensen zijn die hem niet kennen. Wilco is de eigenaar van Upviral en Connectio, 2 software pakketten voor internet marketeers. Maar ik ben er zeker van dat elke ondernemer die zich een beetje internet marketeer mag noemen in Nederland en België hem kent. Ik volg al vanaf 2013 wat hij doet en in 2015 lanceerde hij Upviral en dat was vanaf het begin gelijk een mega succes! Wilco vertelt dat hij tienduizenden klanten over de hele wereld heeft (in meer dan 100 verschillende landen) die zijn software gebruiken! 10 succesfactoren va Wilco de Kreij: (leuker en leerzamer is natuurlijk om de podcast te luisteren) 1. Imperfect action beats perfect in action We praten over het feit dat ik zijn salespages er verschrikkelijk goed uit vind zien terwijl Wilco kijkt naar alles wat beter kan. Toch heeft ie ze gepubliceerd. We herkennen elkaar erin dat als we video's opnemen we het liefst alleen in de ruimte zijn. 2. Stap voor stap bouwen aan je team Hoe groter je team is des te meer brandjes er te blussen zijn. Wilco vertelt hoe hij leerde loslaten en vorig jaar voor het eerst in jaren echt een maand op vakantie was en dermate vrij was dat het zijn vrouw opviel. 3. Eén van de 5 dagen rust nemen en inspiratie opdoen. Het lukt hem nog niet altijd, maar een halve dag per week minimaal. 4. Risico's vermijden Wilco's team is langzaam gegroeid en heeft nooit geld hoeven lenen om zijn team te betalen. Dit maakt dat hij zijns inziens 'langzaam' groeit, maar hij kiest hier bewust voor. 5. Maak een product waarmee je iets oplost, start met je eigen 'itch' Als er iets is waar jezelf last van hebt (je mist bijvoorbeeld een functionaliteit in je software) dan kun je dat zelf ontwikkelen en gaan verkopen. 6. Partner up als je ergens niet goed in bent Met de lancering 2.0 versie van zijn eerste eigen plugin had Wilco groot succes omdat hij op zoek was gegaan naar een partner met een grote mailinglijst die de lancering deed. Ook met Upviral heeft Wilco gebruik gemaakt van een partners. 7. Creëer een HYPE Toen Upviral voor het eerst gelanceerd werd heeft Wilco alles uit de kast getrokken om het product in de markt te zetten. 8. Promoot alleen een product van een partner als je er achter staat Wilco heeft een aantal keren producten gepromoot als soort wederdienst maar is hier mee gestopt. 9. Verkoop je informatieproduct voordat je het gemaakt hebt Wilco heeft ook de ConnectIQ Academy waarin hij je leert om Facebook advertenties in te zetten voor je marketing. Honderden mensen kochten de academy en in de podcast vertelt Wilco hoe hij dit gepromoot heeft. 10. Versimpel je business Je hebt helemaal geen ingewikkelde automatisering nodig om je business te laten groeien. En verder praten we nog over producten creëren, challenges, slimme manieren om mensen te helpen implementeren, rekenmodellen voor verkopen buiten je bereik en nog veeeel meer... En niet te vergeten: Wilco deelt hoe hij zijn podcast internationaal op #1 kreeg. Luister voor alle details naar deze hele waardevolle expertpodcast!
Argomenti del podcast 00.00.24 Letture interessanti sui funnel 00.2.40 Dario Bot 00.6.25 Dove inserire il tripwire 00.13.05 Dove vedere le lezioni gratis di funnel secrets 00.14.00 Come creare funnel 00.23.20 Metodi di pagamento 00.24.30 Funnel evergreen 00.30.15 Tool per email marketing 00.31.45 Se mi rubano il funnel? 00.34.00 MailUP 00.35.25 Upviral: come vengono assegnati i punti 00.39.15 Chatbot per lanciare un libro 00.41.15 Piattaforma per video online 00.45.20 Tracciamento comportamento degli utenti nel funnel 00.47.20 Funnel servizi local 00.52.55 Ecommerce funnel 00.58.55 Double optin 01.01.45 Connettere active campaign con wordpress 01.02.50 Google tag manager _ Trovi altri contenuti come questo a https://lucamastella.com/risorse e puoi ricevere aggiornamenti per nuovi contenuti a https://lucamastella.com/growthletter _ Se ti è piaciuto questo contenuto il modo migliore per averne altri come questo è scrivermi nei commenti un feedback o cosa vorresti vedere. Anche solo scrivere "Ciao Luca" mi fa sempre molto piacere. Iscriviti il canale per non perderti altri contenuti. _ Luca Mastella è un Growth Strategy Advisor focalizzato sulla crescita di aziende e startup in growth stage. È stato fino a fine 2019 Head of Growth e Partner di Marketers e negli ultimi anni ha lavorato all'estero per Rocket Internet, Gameloft e Gronade. Come advisor ha contribuito alla crescita di diverse aziende tra cui RM Williams, Westpac, Filotrack e professionisti come Marco Montemagno. Luca condivide la sua esperienza attraverso consulenze e speech. Ha partecipato come speaker a diversi eventi come il Growth Hacking Day, il Bootcamp di Marco Montemagno, il Marketers World e tenuto workshop ad aziende e università come la Bocconi e la Luiss. Se hai bisogno di contattarmi il modo migliore è attraverso il form sul mio sito: https://lucamastella.com/contattami _ Instagram: https://lucamastella.com/instagram Youtube: https://lucamastella.com/youtube Podcast: https://lucamastella.com/podcast LinkedIn: https://lucamastella.com/linkedin TikTok: https://lucamastella.com/tiktok Facebook: https://lucamastella.com/facebook Gruppo FB: https://lucamastella.com/gruppo _ Iscriviti alla mia newsletter per rimanere aggiornato: https://lucamastella.com/growthletter
Wilco is a full-time online marketing “whiz kid” who started at the age of 16, when he started selling sunglasses online. Over the next decade and then some, Wilco has developed several online marketing applications and WordPress plugins. This humble man is the founder of UpViral and Connectio, two powerful viral marketing applications. He spearheads a diverse, talented team of programmers, developers, designers and online marketing professionals to ensure that UpViral and Connectio continues to grow as top-shelf applications. On today’s episode, Wilco will be telling us with us how to grow your email list exponentially. He will also discuss the intensity of Ad campaigns and how to effectively use and maintain them. And of course, he will be pleased to walk us through the functions and benefits of UpViral and Connectio.
Have you ever wondered what makes a post go viral? How about how people that make insane amounts of money on Facebook while some of us just use it for a temporary escape while we're in line at Chipotle or in the back of an Uber... Well today our guest, Wilco de Kreij has spent the past few years answering those questions. Wilco is the founder of UpViral and Connectio: UpViral is platform that allows you to hack virality and incentivize the world to share your content over and over again... And Connectio is extremely close to my heart as an advertiser. It allows you to target your Facebook audience in ways you've never been able to before. In fact, it used to take me $1-3k in test ad spend to find out what you can with less than $250 using his software... Wilco doesn't hold back and shares freely about how he started his companies, built his softwares from the ground up, assembles a team and detached himself from the confines of a physical office. If owning a real business that meets all of our financial desires that you can run from a laptop anywhere in the world is of interest to you, I highly recommend listening to this conversation in it's entirety. Now, If you enjoy this podcast, please go on iTunes, scroll to the bottom and give us 5 stars. It's the main thing Apple looks for when ranking the podcast. And of course, share this with your friends, family and anyone who can receive value from Wilco's wisdom. So with that, please help me welcome, Wilco de Kreij.
Well today's episode is a little different than normal... Today, I'm actually the guest on my own podcast. Lindsey Anderson (One Click Lindsey) from Trafficandleads.com interviewed me not too long ago. Being the selfish human I am, I wanted to publish this for you here as well. You'll hear about my story, my journey to entrepreneurship and my philosophy on Facebook advertising and copywriting. I hope you enjoy it! P.S. - The next couple guests are absolutely insane... First up is Wilco de Kreij - Founder of Upviral and Connectio. If you have any desire to start and scale a software company from anywhere in the world and meet ALL of your financial desires by your mid thirties, this is an episode you cannot miss. Next is Perry Marshall. If you don't know Perry, unforgivable. - Dan Kennedy. He's basically the Godfather of Adwords and is one of the best living copywriters in existence. Bar none. He's also one of the only, if not THE only person to successfully bridge the gap between Darwin and Creationist theories. Yes, things get deep... There's a lot to look forward to ladies and gentlemen...
Show Notes 23 - 4 Ways That Still Work To Grow Your List-building in 2018 This week’s tool of the week is: Convertkit The ONLY email service provider created by a pro blogger for pro bloggers. From free stunning to landing pages to “smart automation” to the ability to track when subscribers become customers all with an easy to use interface. Convert Kit is truly a new bloggers' best friend. And you get an exclusive 30 free trial so you can get a look under the hood and see how much easier Convertkit is than your current email service provider. Head over to https://www.katedoster.com/ck to get your hands on this exclusive offer for Inbox Besties listeners. Resources Mentioned: Free Facebook Community - The Super Friends Secret Lair - https://www.katedoster.com/group Episode 21 - Priming your email list to buy in 2018 Episode 22 -4 Tips For Writing Emails Subscribers Are Excited To See Hit Their Inboxes Courtney at Rule Breaker Club Click To Tweet SmartBride UpViral - Only get One Click Funnels - Create Easy Yes Offers To get the freebie swap templates & activate your free membership level head over to https://www.katedoster.com/join/ I couldn’t find the episode but here is a blog post where Jill breaks down her entire FB warm up strategy notice not only the freebie that she's offering but how she's never to start retarding you with Facebook. All in all this is an amazing funnel to copy on business >>>http://screwtheninetofive.com/the-ultimate-facebook-ads-strategy/ If you are going to doing a forgot you definitely need to listen to Rick Mulready podcast the Art Of Paid Traffic >> http://rickmulready.com/category/aoptpodcast/ Ecamm is great for Facebook Live Webinars. For more traditional webinars go with Webinar Ninja (https://www.katedoster.com/webinarninja) or Zoom.us (https://www.katedoster.com/zoom Reward people for sharing your stuff - Low tech way Click to Tweet then manual tweet them the freebie or invested in Smart Bride or Upviral https://upviral.com/ Tag team - talk about team tag webinars, Freebie swaps mention resource library templates Paid - FB ADS and Promoted Pins Launch-able Freebie - 3. free challenge that’s open & close - live compete like FB group or meeting place. Talk about 1-2 weeks. You don’t need to give them one extra = webinar or book camp - webinar ninja / zoom.us
In episode #30, Wilco talks how you can 10X your marketing and growth without some clever hack. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:53: I want to dive into how you can 10X your marketing or 10X your growth without some clever hack. 00:59: Something that's going to keep them working today, tomorrow, next year and over the next ten years as well. 03:13: The way I look at it, in order to 10X your marketing is really just to get yourself out of it. 03:27: You need to find a way to tap into a certain traffic source, which doesn't take you too much time. 03:37: In 2018, I want to publish more and better content for our audience and for our customers. 05:09: The three steps are to systemize something, automate it and delegate it. 05:25: The first thing when I think of content marketing, I need to make it more concrete. 07:07: What I recommend you to do in various of your tasks is that you really try to break down what exact steps you're doing. 08:10: Because as sexy as delegating is, automating is always better. 08:12: If you can automate it, it's cheaper, it's more reliable, it's always good. 10:36: At the end of the day, what's even more important is that you understand common business practices. Transcription: Hey, what's up. It's me, Wilco de Kreij here back with you again in the very first podcast episode of 2018. We're actually already two weeks into the year, so it's been a while since I recorded the last episode, and I would say with good reason. I feel that over the last couple of episodes, I always start out like, oh it's been a while, so I should probably be more consistent with my podcast, which is actually kind of what this episode is about as well. So in this podcast, I want to dive into how you can ten X your marketing or ten X your growth without some clever hack. We're not going to talk about some clunky hack that may only work today or this week or this month, but something that's going to keep them working today, tomorrow, next year and over the next ten years as well. And I think that's really important if you grow a business. If you're running your business, you don't want to rely on things that are just working for a little while, you want to focus on things that keep on working day in, day out, for a long period of time, because that is how you reach true momentum in your business, and that's how you truly reach your goals. It's actually been an exciting time for me. It's 2018 like I said, I'm having very big plans for this year for both UpViral and for Connectio. I couldn't be more excited. And on a personal level, it's going well as well. In a couple days from now, I actually get the keys for my new dream home, which is pretty fantastic. I'm really excited about it. We've been looking forward to this moment, me and my wife, for a long time, so it's good. But let's not bore you with my personal stuff. So how do we actually ten X your marketing without clever hacks? Well I'll tell you. Basically there are so many things you can do in business or in marketing that you know will get you results. You can do, for example, content marketing. You see all these kind of people who are bragging about content marketing and it's the best thing ever. And then others, they're focusing on paid ads, on Facebook ads, or YouTube ads, and it's the best thing ever for them. And others, they're focusing on the affiliate model. They're having affiliates promoting their product and they say it's the best thing ever. No matter what state at your business you're currently at, you'll have to admit that a lot of these things, they work, but the problem is, you need to put in the work to make them work. It's not like you're going to give it a try on content marketing, publish a couple of blog posts, and all of a sudden, you are at the top of everyone's mind, you're getting leads in, you're getting customers. It's not that simple, and it doesn't matter which channel you're using, every channel or every traffic source will have its challenges and basically you'll have to learn about it to see how it works. The way I look at it, in order to ten X your marketing is really just to get yourself out of it and it may seem simpler than it is. What I mean with get yourself out of it is that you need to find a way to tap into a certain traffic source, which doesn't take you too much time. I'll give you an example. Currently, I am rethinking my content marketing strategy. So I want to, in 2018, publish more and better content for our audience and for our customers as a way to basically create momentum and drive more traffic, reach new audiences. So it's a marketing tool. Now there's multiple things I could do. Let's say I'm like, cool, I'm going to do content marketing so I'm going to create videos, I'm going to create blog posts, I'm going to do a lot of social media posting, I'm going to do a Facebook and LinkedIn, maybe not Twitter, that's not as big as it used to be, but I'm going to do all these things. Let's say if I would do all these things, it would take me a ton of time. Like seriously a lot. There's a direct correlation. I only have X amount of days in the week or in the day, and if I start doing all these things myself, then obviously it's not going to work out. I would not be able to keep working, growing, I would not be able to work on new features or come up with new tools for connecting or whatever. Even though I want to create that content machine, that content marketing machine, there's no way I can do it all myself. The easy way to think is like, all right, just hire someone to do it. I've been at that spot as well where I start outsourcing and then I figured all right, I'm just going to find someone who can already do it, and that's it. Easy Peasy, they will do it, and I don't have to do anything. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. What I learned is actually I need to implement a three step process if you want to get it done right, and that's how I currently do it. The three steps are to systemize something, automate it and delegate it. I'll just keep on talking about the content marketing plan that I'm currently working on. Like I said, systemize, automate and delegate. The first thing when I think of content marketing, I need to make it more concrete. I need to know exactly what parts I'm going to do. Let's say if we're writing a blog post, you could say, well we're going to write a blog post. No, that's not enough. I'm actually dialing in, and I'm thinking about the process, like how do we make sure to go from nothing to a fully published blog post that is promoted at various places. Now if we break it down in small steps, and this is what I call systemizing it, the very first step is idea creation. We need to come up with the idea, what we're going to write about. And then research, like are we going to use some articles, what's going to be in there. And then usually we go for like a bullet point section where there basically is a synopsis of what the blog post is going to be about, then the blog post will actually be written, then there will be editing as well to make sure it's all good, images will be added. There's a checklist of things that basically checks if everything is in order, like are the subtitles in order, like any kind of things that we need to check before being published, then we publish it, and then we go into promotion. And of course promotion in turn is like a certain systemized way. Perhaps we want to say all right, we want to post it on Facebook three times over the next three weeks, and we want to post it on LinkedIn, and we want to rewrite the article to post on LinkedIn, or maybe we want to create a video out of it as well, and we want to publish that on YouTube. There's certain steps involved. What I'm trying to say is instead of just going at something, instead of just seeing how it goes and every single time you're sort of reinventing the wheel, what I recommend you to do in various of your tasks is that you really try to break down what exact steps you're doing. Because once you know what exact steps you're taking, then you're able to see the full process, and then you create something that can be repeated. If something can be repeated, it can be repeated by someone else as well. It's really important to basically create whatever you're working on. Whatever marketing channel you're working, whatever it is you're working on, try to break it down in small steps and see if there's a one pattern that every single time you're doing that task, all these steps have to be taken. Because once you ... Sometimes it can take a little practice, but once you're able to identify it, and once you're able to create all these small steps, then it already becomes easier to start outsourcing it later on. But before I start outsourcing, right after I sort of systemize it and I actually have in my mind or on paper, what exact steps need to be taken, then I go to the automate section and I ask myself what can be automated. Because as sexy as delegating is, automating is always better. If you can automate it, it's cheaper, it's more reliable, it's always good. Often times, there are parts in that list of tasks that can be automated. For example, with content marketing, I could automate, set up, set an automation that once something is published and work for us, it would immediately be added into a buffer so that automatically there will be something going out to some social media networks for example. There's always things you could automate or I could automate on Trello, if a certain Trello or management system where we basically, a project management system in our business that we use to maintain tasks and see who's doing what, et cetera, so I could automate it. If a certain blog post is done, it's published, then automatically it will add a to do to the person who's doing our promotion to make sure that they know exactly what this article needs to be promoted to here, here, here and here. That's also a part of the automation. I ask myself which part can be automated. And only after that, I look at it and like which part can be delegated. Because obviously there's things that you may need to do, and there's other things that perhaps you could easily delegate. If you look at the whole picture, if you look at, all right I want to outsource, for example my content marketing, or I want to outsource for example Facebook ads, or I want to outsource like this whole big thing. It's going to be really hard to find the right person who's doing it in a way that you want him to do. It's really hard. However, once you start breaking it up, you start to systemizing whatever you're working on, then all of a sudden, it's suddenly a lot easier, because there's usually smaller tasks that require a specific skill. Maybe you as the entrepreneur, you have like 1,000 hats and you know all these skills, you have all these skills and you know how to learn it, but someone else may be really good at copywriting, but they may not be good at designing, for example, just as an example. Then you know, all right, I need to find someone who can write a good copy and also someone who is able to create good images, for example. That's really it. We can all thing about all these sexy tricks and hacks and whatever could rank us number one on Google or get us more social reach on Facebook or whatever, and all these things, it's true, it matters, and I like to experiment with new things as well, I do that a lot, actually, however at the end of the day, what's even more important is that you understand common business practices and one of them is definitely this three step process to whatever you're doing. Systemize, automate and delegate. It's incredibly, incredibly important and once you're a master at that, everything becomes so much easier because you can take on so, so much more ideas and work and projects, et cetera, et cetera because you create a system for it first, you automate part of it, you delegate the rest and you are there only at the beginning part. We'll talk about our content marketing. What my idea is, in a nutshell, is really like I prefer to create videos. I'm not a very good writer, so my idea is, and we're going to see how this works out. My idea is I'm going to create a lot of video content, and then I create various processes to turn that video content into various articles for different places. I'll have someone to create, to turn that video into a blog post, to that what I'm saying on camera will be used on text as well. Then if it's relevant, we may be able to create an infographic from it. Also just with a clear process, a step by step plan. Not all of these things will be ready right away, but my goal is throughout this year, I'm going to build a repeatable process and basically a content marketing machine where I can just put in my input, share my ideas and thoughts and knowledge, and then my team will be able to either automate and delegate, to make sure we produce all this content on all kinds of places online. That's it for all of you who don't have enough time in the day. Systemize, automate and delegate. It's incredibly effective. If you're not a master at it, become a master at it, because it's going to change your life and your business. That's it for now, and I will see you all in the next episode.
In episode #29, Wilco talks about the most important question that you can ask yourself, and that is, "What is your why?" Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:39: Why are you doing what you're doing? 00:51: What is your why, and why it is important? 02:40: You need to know your why for internal motivation. 02:55: Simon Sinek: 'How great leaders inspire action' 03:44: Start with the why. They start with, "We want to change the world." 04:40: if you don't know your why, it's really hard to really influence people. 04:50: If you know your true why, you can convince people to believe in that same thing as you do. 06:02: What I always loved doing most, is to do things in a way that make me feel smarter than someone else. 07:10: Do things as the top couple percent. 08:15: ConnectRetarget that allows you to only retarget those for example, who spend more than x time on your site or who scrolled to at least 50% of your page. 09:00: The real point of this podcast is that by knowing your why, you'll, it will be easier motivate yourself, it will be easier to motivate your team, and it will also be way easier to influence your potential customers. Transcription: Hey everyone, it's me, Wilco de Kreij, here, and today I want to talk about the most important question that you can ask yourself, and that is, "What is your why?" What I mean with that is like, why are you doing what you're doing, and that, "Ah to make money," or whatever. Making money, or getting more sales, or getting more customers, that's a result of the work that you do, but that's not you're true why. So today, I want to talk about what is your why, and why it is important, because for a long time, I thought that the only reason to knowing your why is important, is basically to find internal motivation. And obviously, that's partially true, that's definitely true, but it's, that only grabs, that's only a small part of why it is so important. That's why I want to talk, dive into this today. So, if I look back over the years as an online entrepreneur, there's definitely been up and downs. There's periods where I'm super focused, and I can just move mountains. There's so much stuff happening, I feel I'm in the zone, and everything's going exactly as I planned, yada, yada, yada. But then, at other periods, I sort of plateau. Business is going flat, or at least it feel like that. I'm not as motivated, and I'm really searching for that motivation. At these periods, knowing my why is incredibly important. I mean, when my business was smaller, I was able to get enough motivation out of, for example, monetary results. I was like, "If I can do x,y,z," in terms of revenue or profit, or whatever, that motivated me, because it was going to have a substantial impact on my life. If I would double the amount of money I would make, it would have a substantial difference on my life. Well today, monetary goals don't drive me anymore. It's like, maybe you can, or maybe you cannot relate, but at some point it's just like, that doesn't really matter. And at that point, the why becomes even more important, because if you don't know why you're doing what you're doing, how do you get out of bed in the morning? Just as an example. So, you need to know your why for internal motivation. But what I discovered is actually, that's just, the why is not just for your own motivation, but if you know your why, everything will move along. In fact, I just watched a presentation by Simon Sinek, it's actually on TED, TED.com, you probably know You would search for, 'How great leaders inspire action.' I repeat, 'How great leaders inspire action.' You'll find his presentation. I highly recommend it, it's awesome. What he basically, what that presentation is basically about is that, as a company, a lot people they ... basically he draws a circle on the board. In the middle he has why, and then how, and then what, on the outside. Most companies, they talk about the what first. Like, "This computer, it has all these features." How; "It's really well designed, it works well." And then maybe the why, why they do their thing. But they focus on the what first. Well, some companies, they start with the why. They start with, "We want to change the world." Like, for example, Apple, "We want to change the status quo. We want to change the world. We're doing that by redesigning modern computing," and how, with all the products that they have. If you watch that presentation, it's going to make a lot more sense compared to how I'm explaining it, but basically where it comes down to is that those that start with they with, that's, basically you need to start with the why if you want to truly impact. If you truly want to follow ... get a group of people to follow you, if you truly want to be a leader, whether it is as a company, whether it is as a politician, or whatever it is. You need to start with your why, and if you don't know your why, it's really hard to really influence people, because people don't, they are not influenced by just the specs. They're not influenced by the what, only influenced by the true why. Now, this may sound super vague, right now, I apologize for that. My point here is that, if you know your true why, you can convince people to believe in that same thing as you do. That goes for your customers, or potential customers, but also in your team. If everyone in your team is just focused on like, "Oh, let's do this, because we need to make it happen," they're just doing their job to get paid, basically. However, if they truly believe in what you believe in as well, if you explain them the why you are doing things, and they believe that as well, that's when they go all in. That's when they will, you're like, "Let's do this together." It's not just about the money. Obviously they need to make a living, but they do it because they believe in it. They believe in the why. They believe in the reasoning behind it. For a long time, I haven't personally been super clear on this. Actually started to formulate this more and more in the recent period, so probably still changing as we go along, but I'm more than happy to just, you know, let you know what I think my why is. Because if I truly look at myself, and even as a young kid, what I always loved doing most, is to do things in a way that make me feel smarter than someone else. Not like smarter, I don't want to, no, that's probably the wrong wat of saying it, right. I don't feel smarter, because ... I actually don't, but I want to do things that are smarter than other people. I want to do things that are more efficient. For example, even in high school, when all the people would, for example, study three weeks for a test, I would challenge myself to do in like, two days, max. Why? Because it gave me a kick to just do it in a more clever way than someone else did. Like in the exact same thing these days; other people might just throw something online hoping for people to share with their friends. I love it when I can use, for example, UpViral and have system or a trick, or a strategy in place, that makes sure I'm in the advantage, that I can actually do things better, or smarter, or more efficient than someone else. And right now, this, once again, may sound super vague. I'm still sort of exploring, but that's really, in the real core of me, I love being, doing things that are basically more efficient, and more effective than the average. Do things as the top couple percent, basically, just of things a little bit more clever. Like clever tricks, clever strategies, clever, just tiny tweaks that make all the difference. That's what I love doing most, and I noticed that's also what I love teaching most all this, as well. Instead of just following the crowd, and do the same thing as everyone else is doing, yada, yada, I love it when I can just share a little trick, and like something that other people just haven't seen it, and those who do, they immediately have a competitive advantage over their competitors. That's what I love doing. And that's really what is the basis of both UpViral and Connectio. I connect all the tools. I just do the things a little bit trickier, a little bit smarter, a little bit better than everyone else. I give you an example. So for example, if you're advertising on Facebook, a lot of people, they're just retargeting, and they're retargeting everyone who visited their site, right. So I came up with ConnectRetarget that allows you to only retarget those for example, who spend more than x time on your site. Or who scrolled to at least 50% of your page. I like all these kind of things. I just doing it smarter than everyone else, and we're getting such a big improvement of ROI, but for me, personally, it's not even about the ROI itself, it's really about doing things smarter, doing things in a more clever way compared to the others, and to compared to my competitors. So, that's really what drives me. That's what I love, and right now I'm really going through that process of finding my true why, and finding the right word for it, because obviously I'm not a native English speaker. So in Dutch it's easier for me to formulate, and over time, when I talk about people, when I talk about this with other people, it will start to formulate better, and that's actually also why I'm sharing it here on the podcast with all of you, so you can all ... I'm just trying to formulate my why. The real point of this podcast is that by knowing your why, you'll, it will be easier motivate yourself, it will be easier to motivate your team, and it will also be way easier to influence your potential customers. Because if they believe in your why, regardless of what the actual product of you does, that you deliver, but if they believe in your why, they are so much more inclined to become a customer compared to a competitive product that actually may do the exact same thing, may have, may look the same, may smell the same, maybe the exact same, but if they believe in your mission, if they believe in your why, they're going to take your product. They're going to buy your product, because they believe in your why, and by buying it, they are basically voting for that as well. So that's why it's so important. So once again, I would highly recommend you to look up the video called, 'How great leaders inspire action.' It's in TED.com, and it's presented by Simon Sinek. I'm not sure if I pronounce it right, but I just watched it this morning, and I absolutely love ... and actually just noticed that it got over 35 million views, so there's a good chance that you've already watched, that you've already seen it. So, if not, go check it out, and with that having said, I will talk to you all soon.
In episode #27, Wilco will share his split-test geekiness with all of you. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:25: You better get ready for some marketing geekiness. 00:55: Converted 83% better than my original version of that page. 02:55: Now, the first tip I want to give you is that you should not start running a split-test. 03:22: First, I’m just throwing something out, see if something even has potential. 04:16: My point here is that I only start split-testing once I know if something kind of works. 04:47: Now, the second thing that you need to do is to aim for big differences. 05:37: The main headline is like what really draws people into it. 07:00: You want to make sure that you have enough traffic. 10:30: My point here is that when you are doing a split-test, you need to know what you’re optimizing for, what your end goal is because sometimes, you’re looking at the wrong goals. 11:20My point here is that you need to make sure that you have the right goal in mind. 11:40 You need to have patience 13:00 Keep track of all of your results. Transcription: You better get ready for some marketing geekiness because today, I’m actually sharing my split-test geekiness with all of you. Hey, it’s Wilco de Kreij here. Just this morning, I wrapped up a split-test that I actually had forgotten about, so this split-test has been running for a while. I didn’t even look at the stats until this morning, and when I checked the stats, I noticed that the winning one, the variation that I was trying out actually converted 83% better than my original version of that page. This is on a money page, right? This was a page where I’m actually selling something, so 83% higher conversions, that’s actually insane. It’s almost twice the amount of sales for the exact amount of traffic, right? Obviously, I figured like, “Hey, I need to record something about split-testing to my audience because it is so, so important. It can be the best thing in your business. For those who already know me, I’m a bit of a marketing nerd. I actually like doing split-test, so I’m running split-tests on a lot of things, right? It all starts, obviously, with like things like the ads that I’m running, but also on like opt-in pages that I’m running. If I’m using UpViral, for example, I always split-test the opt-in the page. I split-test all my sales pages. Like you have no idea how much I split-test. I just do it because … not just because I like doing split-test, but also because it is the best way to learn, right? It’s one thing to learn from others to see like, “Hey, what are they doing?” but it’s another thing to actually try different things out yourself and actually knowing like, “All right, so I tried out these three things, and from these three things, number three actually works best. Now, why is that? Why is that?” So then, I’m diving in. I’m going to break it down, and that’s actually … like that’s been probably my main way of learning things, just by seeing what works instead of guessing, right? For that reason, I wanted to talk about split-testing because there are some things you need to do while doing a split-test, but more … Perhaps, even more important is there are some things you should absolutely not do because if you do these things, it’s wrong. Then, you’re basically doing … Like instead of like improve a conversion, you might actually be breaking them or you might not even get any results because of it. For that reason, I wanted to talk about five tips that I think you should be doing or should not be doing when going to run a split-test. Now, the first tip I want to give you is that you should not start running a split-test and like that sounds right, right? I’m just saying that split-test is the best thing ever since … the best thing since sliced bread, and now I’m saying you should not be running a split-test. That’s right. You should not. You should not start out running a split-test. Like on most of my campaigns that I run, I don’t immediately start creating a lot of different split-tests, right? First, I’m just throwing something out, see if something even has potential, right, because like if you’re going to split-test everything that you create right from the start, it’s going to slow the whole process down. Let’s say you have a new product in mind or you have a new service in mind and you want to bring that out to the market. You could either create multiple sales pages, multiple opt-in page. You could make everything perfect, perfect, perfect, and plan it all out, and after a couple months, release it, or you can just … right away like start a webinar. For example, get people to sign up. Introduce your product that you have even if you don’t even have a sales page yet. Like just get the word out as soon as possible and see if people even respond to your product or service. That is just an example, but my point here is that I only start split-testing once I know if something kind of works, and from there, I start improving, but I don’t start out running a split-test usually because it just slows the whole process down, and I prefer to move fast. If something isn’t even remotely working, then why would I split-test that? Like if something is not working at all, then the best case scenario of a split-test is finding something that doesn’t work at all and almost doesn’t work at all. I hope that makes sense, so don’t start split-testing right from the start, but wait until you have something that you feel that is going to work. From there, you can actually find and improve your winning variation, for example. Now, the second thing that you need to do is to aim for big differences. Don’t go split-test to see what color of your button would be best, whether it’s yellow, green, or blue. At some point, it will make sense, right, to split-test that, but initially, you’ll always want to go for the biggest differences, so look at your page. Whatever you’re split-testing, whether it’s an opt-in page, whether it’s a sales page, but what would be the biggest … like what could have the biggest impact, the biggest different change, right? For me, like I have a certain process. I always start with like the biggest change first. For example, if I’m split-testing an opt-in page, like the biggest change is going to be the hook, right? What is it even about? In my design, it’s usually the headline, for example. The main headline is like what really draws people into it, right, so I first do a split-test between that, and I don’t test out anything else and only after I find the right hook. Like if one of those titles is actually the winner, then I go and tweak other things like maybe the sub-headline, or maybe the text on the call-to-action, or maybe if the design is a big part of the landing page, then maybe a completely different design. I’m not going to make small tweaks. I do it like completely different, and the reason why is because I want to have big changes, right, because if something is … If you’re just going to change the color of your button, like that’s going to maybe improve your conversion rate by 2%, and not just that like it’s not just the small difference. That’s not even the problem, right? If I can get a 1% or 2% improvement every single day, I’d sign for that, but the problem is that because the difference is so small, it’s going to take a long time before you actually know for sure whether it’s converting because up until that point, you just … like it could be up and down like there’s too much variation. You’re just not going to know which significant certainty whether something is working best. The bigger the difference between various things you’re testing out, the faster you will get results, and that’s really what I’m after, right? I want to make fast changes. The bigger the differences, the faster you will have a significant data to know which conversion … which variation actually converts best. Thirdly is also you want to make sure that you have enough traffic. It isn’t always easy. I know. If you don’t have enough traffic, then it might be difficult, but like especially if you do not have a lot of traffic, then do not start a split-test where you’re testing out six different things. Then, in that case, you just have two variations, right? You can test out multiple things, but in order to do that, you will need to have a lot of traffic in order to make it worthwhile. Obviously, I could go into the map, but I think for now, I just want to keep things simple. It really comes down to like the more traffic you have, the faster you will know with a significant certainty whether something is actually converting better or not. If you do not have a lot of traffic, then that’s a problem. Like if you only have like … I don’t know, 50 visitors a day, then that’s going to be a problem, right? It’s going to be so much faster if you have more data, and that’s also one of the reasons why I spend a lot of money on Facebook ads, for example, because basically, I’m buying data. I’m buying to see what works and doesn’t work instead of waiting around. Once I know what works, then I can tweak that and send more traffic into that with auto-traffic streams like UpViral and content marketing. All those other kinds of things. I hope that explains this well. Make sure you have enough traffic before you start split-testing. Number four is going to be maybe the most important one actually because … and actually, the case study, the results that I just shared with you that I figured out this morning is actually super, super, super relevant for that. With that split-test, a while ago, when I set it up, I actually set up multiple goals for that split-test, and this particular split-test, I’m using … I’m running it using Visual Website Optimizer, VWO.com. What that tool allows me to do is I can actually set up multiple goals, so I can, for example, set up a goal saying like, “Hey. If they click on a button on that page, if they visit my thank-you page, so that I actually know that they made a purchase,” and the third goal of like how many revenue it would actually generate, so it also takes into account which package someone actually bought, whether someone bought a monthly package, a yearly package, et cetera. Now, what I’ve done for this particular campaign is I’ve created multiple goals. One-half was the main goal that I was tracking, but I added multiple goals. I remember when I started this out, I didn’t have enough data. It didn’t have enough data, right? After the first couple days the test was running, I didn’t have a lot of data, so the easiest thing to look at was the click-out, right, the click rate because basically, it was a replay page for a webinar, and I looked at the stats saying like basically, “Which of these two variations triggered people to click on to the checkout page?” Right? There was one variation out of these two that was the clear winner. Everyone … like not everyone obviously, but almost twice as many people … at least one and a half. Initially, it was twice. Later on, one and a half times the people clicked on the button to the checkout page. If I was looking at that data, then I would have picked that as the winner right away. It was clearly performing better in terms of click-throughs to the checkout page, but after I let the campaign run, after I let the campaign run, I actually noticed that the other page converted way better in sales, right? My point here is that when you are doing a split-test, you need to know what you’re optimizing for, what your end goal is because sometimes, you’re looking at the wrong goals. Like if I would have looked at the amount of click-outs to my checkout page, to my page where people could actually make the purchase, then I would have picked the wrong one because the page that actually get people … Sorry. The page where people did not click as much as often to the actual checkout page, that one ended up converting better overall, right? Even though a lot of people didn’t actually click on the link, those people that actually did click, they converted way better, right? My point here is that you need to make sure that you have the right goal in mind, and if you don’t have the right goal and you’re going to focus on, for example, click-outs while that’s not your end goal, then a winner which may seem like a winner could actually be your loser. If I would have went with that, I would have just lost the 83% conversion improvement that I just found this morning, right? It’s really important to pick the right goal, and that actually brings me to tip number five. Actually, I’m going to share six tips because I just remembered a very important one as well. Number five is that you need to have patience. Like if you’re getting initial data, and you’re just having a couple sales, and it’s not significant yet, then do not stop the test because sometimes, initially, you might see like, “Oh, this is actually converting 40% better,” while it’s actually not like … There’s no way you can actually say something about the test because you haven’t had enough patience. You need to be patient in order to let the split-test run for a while. For those of you who were asking how long should the test run, that totally depends on how much traffic you have, what the difference is in terms of the conversion between the two variations, how many … about the conversion rate is like, “Is it 2% to 3%, or is it 20 to 30%?” Think like that. Once again, I’m probably not going to go into the math right now, but let’s just say that you need to be patient. Obviously, I encourage everyone to … If you really want to dive into the stats, you can probably google for that, or if you ask me, maybe I’ll shoot another episode later on, but for now, I think I want to cover the basics. So far, I’ve covered five, and that is to do not start split-testing right away. Aim for big differences. Have enough traffic, obviously, right? Test the right conversion. Make sure that you’re testing the right conversion. Number five, make sure you have patience, right? Number six is actually an important one as well, and I recently started doing that in a more detailed way is to keep track of all of your results, right? I’ve been doing split-tests for years, and years, and years. A lot of the split-tests that I’ve been running like three, four years ago, I didn’t actually stored that data in a good format, so I don’t have access to all of my split-tests from like three, four years ago, which is weird because it’s actually the best learning material you can have, right? All we’ve been doing for the last year or so is we’re actually documenting every split-test that we’re doing so we can actually draw conclusions like, “What do we expect to get out of a test? When did this start? How much traffic did it get? What are all the variations with like screen tilt and all that, and what’s the conclusion? Like what conclusion can we draw?” Based on that, we can learn, and learn, and learn. No, not just me, but the whole business as well because my team has access to that as well, so that’s my sixth tip. If you are doing split-test, create a Google Doc. Create something. It doesn’t really matter what it is, but create something where you’re keeping track of all of the split-tests that you are running. I just wanted to share that with all of you. I hope you appreciate that. Let me know if you are running split-tests as well so I know I’m not the only one geeking out on this kind of stuff, and I hope you have an awesome day.
In episode #26, Wilco shares how to stay focus especially for entrepreneurs just like him. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:25: How do you stay focused? 01:00: Wilco de Kreij, I've been an online entrepreneur for, I don't know, 15 years or so. 01:38: Do what excites you. 02:10: I want to create products and build things that people actually use that they're happy with and they thank me for it. 02:38: I saw one of our customers raving about UpViral and how he got thousands of lead in the first 15 hours. 03:00: My "idea quarantine". 03:28: I write it down in Evernote. I'm not allowed to touch that idea for two weeks. 03:59: The third tip is to surround yourself with people who run a similar business. 04:40: I got some friends who are doing a lot of e-commerce. 06:00: Keep planning your plan. 07:04: I actually have a schedule right here on the wall where I map everything out. 07:26: You can change within your focus and that might seem a weird thing to do. 08:00: We just had a two year anniversary for UpViral, which is awesome. 08:35: I've been doing a lot of affiliates. I've been doing a lot of Facebook ads. 08:45: Now I'm bringing more people into the team. 10:59: Pick something that excites you. 11:00: Implement the two week idea quarantine. 11:02: Surround your people with people who have a similar business as you have. 11:04: Keep planning your plan. 11:06: Allow yourself to change what you were doing within your focus. Transcription: How do you stay focused? There's so many distractions. I love what I do, but even then, I see so many opportunities and sometimes I just get distracted, right? Especially as an entrepreneur, we see things. We see opportunities that others don't. Even though it's a good thing, it's sort of like a blessing and a curse kind of thing. Today I want to talk about how do you actually stay focused. How do you make sure that that thing, the path that you're on, you're gonna stay on it? You're not gonna distract yourself by all the things that you kind of know you shouldn't. Just in case we haven't met before, my name is Wilco de Kreij. I've been an online entrepreneur for, I don't know, 15 years or so. Even for me the fact that I see opportunities has been a blessing and a curse. Because of that I've been able to build quite a few businesses and I've been able to sell a few. It's good, but at the same time, oh my God, you would not believe how often I go distracted, which sort of lets me off course. Over time there is a couple of things I've learned to make it easier to stay focused. The first step I want to give you is overtly this is gonna be an open door, but I want to mention it anyway, is, do what excites you. What really excites you is different for everyone. For me, for example, there's been times my business were focused on how do I make more money or whatever. I learned that that does not motivate me at all. It's the worst thing to have as a goal, because once I have that as a goal it was so easy to get distracted. It wasn't really passionate by it. I realized that for me ... Once again it's different for everyone, but for me what really excites me is that I want to create products and build things that people actually use that they're happy with and they thank me for it. The moment that I realize that the moment that I had something that people were actually using and leveraging and thanking me for it, that gave me the energy and I make it so much easier to stay focused on that thing. For example, I was on Facebook actually, a couple of hours ago, and I saw one of our customers raving about a viral and how he got thousands of lead in the first 15 hours. I was like, "What?" That really gives me the energy to stay focused. It reminds me that what I'm doing is the right thing to do. That's the first. Make sure to pick something, run a business that honestly excites you. Secondly, it's more of a tactical tip, which helped me a lot over the years and that is what I call my idea quarantine. Even though you're focused, even though you're excited about what you do, you're gonna see other opportunities. You're gonna see other things that you think, "Oh, this will be good to add," or "Oh, this is such a major opportunity." Before you realize, you realize you wasted a couple of days on it. What I do nowadays is that whenever I have an idea ... because we still have ideas, right? I write it down in Evernote. I'm not allowed to touch that idea for two weeks. That's my two week idea quarantine and if after two weeks I still think it's genuinely good I need to go after it, then maybe, maybe I would. Usually after two weeks I already came to my senses and it's not something that I should pursue. Do that. That is definitely a tip that I really encourage everyone to do. Add this into your routine. Whenever you have an idea, write it down and you're not allowed to touch it for two weeks. The third tip is to surround yourself with people who run a similar ish business. People always say that you should surround yourself with people who are a couple of steps further than you. Yes, I agree with that, but not just a few steps ahead of you. They should also be in the same kind of business that you are. Obviously it's good to mingle with people who have a completely different business than you have. That's fine. That's totally fine, but what I've noticed for me personally is that when I mingle myself with people who I think have an awesome business, but is not similar kind of business I tend to think, for example, I got some friends who are doing a lot of e-commerce. They have e-commerce shops and are selling to consumer, which is different from what I do. I run a couple of software companies in UpViral. That's a different kind of business. Because I see them, they're shipping thousands of T-shirts and all kinds of products every single day, I'm like, "Wow, that's pretty awesome." It sort of gets me of course, because they're doing something different. I'm not saying you cannot mingle with people who have different kind of business because I still do. What I notice is that I need to have a couple of people around me who run a similar kind of business. Whom I can brainstorm with, but also that inspire me to do new things within my focus basically, instead of surrounding myself with people who are all doing something completely different. As an entrepreneur it's sometimes lonely. It's an awesome job if you want to call it a job, but it's awesome, I love it. I absolutely love it, but it can be lonely and if you don't surround yourself with people who have a similar kind of business ... What happened to me is that I felt like maybe I should run a business like they're doing, because no one around me was having a similar kind of business. You can mingle with everyone that you want, but I highly, highly recommend to mingle also with at least a couple of people that you look up to that are a couple of steps ahead of you that run a similar kind of business. That's my third tip to you to stay focused. Number four is to keep planning your plan. Personally I write down my plan. What we're gonna do over the next couple of months. I write it down pretty. It's not something I do like I said it now and that's what I'm gonna do for next six months. What I actually do, I write it down for maybe three, four, five months or so. Every couple of weeks I go through the plan again and see what excites me. Sometimes ideas change and that's fine. Personally I would not be able to set a plan for this is what I'm gonna do for the next couple of months and stick with it because I know that over time I'm gonna be excited about different kind of things. I know if I decide right now that I'm gonna focus on something in four months from now and if I'm not ... It could be that in four months from now I'm not as excited about that idea anymore and that's risky because once I'm working on something that is not as exciting to me it's easier to get distracted by all the things that are more exciting. Because of that I always keep planning the plan. I actually have a schedule right here on the wall where I map everything out. This is what I'm gonna do next month, and the month after and the month after. I'm not doing it just once and that's it. I'm actually readjusting the plan every couple of weeks or so to make sure that everything that I'm doing over the next couple of months isn't just what I should be doing, but also something that excites me. Number five, the fifth step to stay focused on what you're working on is that you can change within your focus and that might seem a weird thing to do. For example, personally for years I've been working on various projects. I went from one thing to another, to another. That's not the way to build a scale business. Usually the scaling, the big part when you want to do big may have a bigger impact. That doesn't happen overnight. You want to build something continuously. Stay focused on the same business like what I've been doing UpViral right now while I'm shooting this video. We just had a two year anniversary, which is awesome. Before I started the UpViral I didn't even know I could be focused on the same thing for multiple years. Right now I've learned that I can do this for years. The reason why I can do that is not because I settled for doing the same thing, but because I'm actually changing what I'm doing within that focus. I'm still focusing on the same business. I'm still focusing on the same product. Meanwhile, I do different things. I've been doing a lot of affiliates. I've been doing a lot of Facebook ads. Over time, I sort of realized that initially I was doing a lot of things myself. Now I'm bringing more people into the team. More people are doing the things that I used to be doing. Right now my role has changed into doing everything myself into managing everything. Now I'm sort of going to the phase where I have people in my team who are managing everything and now I'm changing what I'm doing to more a strategic role and a creative part. The point here is that even if you're focusing on the same thing doesn't mean that you have to do the same thing. As long as the company, if you have multiple people on your team or maybe you can bring people in, you can do different things whilst still be focused on the same thing. I know this can be totally vague for some people. That's fine. That's something I've learned. I wanted to share that because sometimes people think, "I need to focus and I just cannot change direction because I need to focus." It's always going to be a fine line, because you should stay focused, but at the same time it's not a set plan. That's also why I have the two week quarantine that I just mentioned is that sometimes it's okay to shift because that should be your focus. It's really a fine line and I get that. Basically what I'm thinking of I can change direction. That should not delete everything I've been doing over the last couple of years. As long as that's still valid. If I suddenly start a completely new tool or completely new business, everything I've worked on for the last two years, it's gone. However, if for example, I would believe that a viral could go in a slightly better different direction. A more, I don't know, instead of focusing on context it's more about ... I don't know ... As long as everything I've done to this point still adds up to that thing. As long as everything is moving in that direction. I'm probably super, super vague right now. I apologize for that. That's what's happening for me. Let's wrap this up. How do you stay focused on whatever you need to be focusing on? Number one, pick something that excites you. Number two, implement the two week idea quarantine. Number three, surround your people with people who have a similar business as you have. Number four, keep planning your plan. Keep on readjusting, keep working on it. Don't do it once and forget about it. Keep working on the plan, where you're going. And number five, allow yourself to change what you were doing within your focus. That's it for today. I hope you all enjoyed this. If you do, let me know in the comments below. Talk to you all soon.
Adverteren op Facebook begint steeds meer terrein te winnen bij de kleinere ondernemer. We zien dat deze manier van adverteren goed werkt om leads te realiseren en dit dient als eerste startpunt om een schaalbare business neer te zetten. Aan de andere kant zien we dat op Facebook de concurrentie tussen adverteerders groter wordt. Daardoor wordt de click duurder en moeten we steeds slimmer gaan adverteren. Wilco de Kreij is flink wat jaren bezig om het leven van de ondernemer die aan online marketing doet, makkelijker te maken. Met zijn twee bedrijven Connectio en UpViral heeft hij internationaal een succesvolle online business opgezet. Wilco de Kreij begon al jong met het ontdekken van het internet en de eindeloze mogelijkheden. Op zijn 16e startte hij met het verkopen van zonnebrillen, die populaire zonnebrillen uit The Matrix. Wilco raakte geïnspireerd wat er in dat jaar (2003) allemaal al mogelijk was en vanaf dat moment is bij Wilco het ondernemers-gen ontstaan. Waar ik vooral met Wilco over sprak is hoe Wilco tot concepten komt, hoe hij ze valideert aan de markt en hoe hij dit opschaalt tot een bedrijf met een flink team aan mensen die overal ter wereld voor hem opereren. We spraken daarnaast over productivteit, focus, zelfontwikkeling en natuurlijk was de rode draad online marketing. Wilco deelt met jou wat wel en niet werkt in online marketing en is een professional waar veel ondernemers van kunnen leren! Beluister hier het interview.
The Business Method Podcast: High-Performance & Entrepreneurship
Today listeners, we have the founder of Upviral and ConnectIO, Wilco de Kreij on the show. Wilco is an entrepreneur that started dabbling in eCommerce as a teenager in the early 2000's selling sunglasses online. He continued his passion for building business online for sixteen years and is now the founder of two successful location-independent businesses. Wilco shares with us the process of building Upviral and Connect IO while making sure he was still able to travel when he wanted. We also chat about how the money is managed within his business to keep things simple and to keep focused on growth. Lastly, he shares what is essential when moving from a 6-figure business to a 7-figure business. 01:45: Utrecht, Netherlands 03:25: Who is Wilco de Kreij 08:10: Starting Upviral 13:18: ConnectIO 15:14: Spreading Your Team Amongst Two Different Businesses 16:06: The Biggest Difference Between 6-figure vs. 7-figure Entrepreneurs 17:07: Ways to Let Little Things Go as an Entrepreneur 18:31: When Disasters Happen While on Vacation/Holiday 24:14: How Wilco Manages the Flow of Money in His Businesses 28:11: What is Your Business's 100 Year Plan? Contact Info: Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/wdekreij http://connectio.io/ http://upviral.com/ http://connectio.io/connectleads/ Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/entrepreneur-house-live-in/id1069958541?mt=2
In episode #23, Wilco talks about a cool strategy that he use often in order to get more customers through the door. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28: Do you want to improve your conversions? 01:03: This is what I call the power of simplification. 01:55: You want to explain a concept of what a product actually does but in a couple of seconds. 02:40: You want to improve your retargeting on Facebook, you can do it by using ConnectRetarget. 02:55: It's behavioral retargeting, it's awesome and you'll get better retargeting results. 04:30: I try to tell them a story, try to get them, instead of being an obvious sales page or being an obvious sales video, I tell them a story about that. 05:30: This exact same principle, I've used it multiple times and every single time it works, it plain works. 07:00: ConnectExplore, allows you to find more and better interest on Facebook. 08:42: I know that often because we're so excited about our own products, it's so easy to over complicate things. 09:13: For those of you who might be a little bit confused by your explanation, you make sure that they'll understand more and better of your product compared to without doing this simplification process. 10:18: I just write things down in my notebook and usually it takes a while to really get to a good analogy that is really simple and easy to explain. Transcription: Hey, hey, it's Wilco de Kreij here, and let me ask you a quick question. Do you want to improve your conversions? Do you want to sell more stuff? If that's you, then yes, then this episode is specifically for you. If you don't want to improve your conversion, if you don't want to sell more, then no need to listen, then you probably hate money and you hate to grow your business, but if you do, then please keep on listening. This is all about a cool strategy that I use as often as I can in order to get more customers through the door. It doesn't really matter whether you're selling something online or offline, whether you're selling a product or a service or whatever you are selling, this pretty much works on everything. This is what I call the power of simplification, right? If you have been following me, or if you've seen for example, the sales videos that I put out, the sales pages that I put out, then you've probably already seen it in action. Basically what this is all about is that the problem as being an entrepreneur, or the problem as being the product creator, or the problem as being the marketer, like sometimes we tend to go overboard when people would ask us like hey, what does this product do? I mean, if someone asks me hey, what does a Upviral do, then I could be talking for hours, because I'm such a nerd. I'm like talking about yeah, does this, it does that, it does that, but the problem is that when someone comes to your page that never heard of you before or they come across you, maybe not even on your site, maybe in person, but you want to explain a concept of what a product actually does but in a couple of seconds, right? Usually as soon as you go into the technical stuff, you lost them already. You don't want to bore them with like the technical stuff because they don't even know why they should be listening. Something I've been doing is I've sort of been trying to create an analogy to simplify the whole thing. I'm going to give you a couple of examples too to make that more clear, but basically I'm trying to find something in the real world that makes whatever the product does more relatable or more easy to understand. For example, I'm not sure if you know about ConnectorRetarget, it's one of the tools that we sell. I could be, like if someone would go to the sales pitch of ConnectRetarget, I could right out of the gate start saying like hey, you want to improve your retargeting on Facebook, you can do it by using ConnectRetarget, it's behavioral retargeting and then you can retarget based on how long they stayed in your sites or how far they scrolled down. You can do all these amazing things, it's behavioral retargeting, it's awesome and you'll get better retargeting results. I could do that, right? I could do that, but I also know that part of my audience isn't even up to speed yet, right? Part of my audience, they don't even know what, at the moment they land on my page, they don't even know what to expect, right? What I was thinking about when I was putting together the sales video for that one, I was like all right, so how do I explain this in simple terms? What I used is, and you also see this if you go to this, I actually recommend you check out the sales video for ConnectRetarget, you'll see, it will make more sense. Basically how I start the video is something like this, hey imagine you're in a shop and in this shop there's ten people and from those ten people there's nine people who immediately leave the shop without buying but there's one person who, he's walking around the shop and he's checking all your products out and then eventually he also leaves the shop without making a purchase. Imagine you have one shot, you can convince one of those ten people, to try to convince them to become a customer, right? You could give them a discount or you could do something to bribe them and to get them to come back and make a purchase. Who would you go after? Those nine people who clearly weren't even remotely interested or that one person was clearly interested but for some reason they didn't actually pull the trigger. By making it, by explaining it in like a story base, because I'm doing it based on a story and on the video I actually visualize, I'm not just saying that, I'm not just on my screen talking about it, I actually, you see some people walk in the shop and things like that. I try to tell them a story, try to get them, instead of being an obvious sales page or being an obvious sales video, I tell them a story about that. By the end of this one minute story, they'll understand, every prospect will understand like the difference between just approaching everyone the same way or the fact that some customers or some potential customers, I have to say, some visitors, are going to be more valuable than others. Then right after, I basically introduce the problem, because now they understand this part. By simplifying the process, by giving them a real world example and right after I tell them, all right cool, the problem is that when using Facebook there's no way to make a distinction between these two people. Facebook just thinks that every visitor is the same way. There's no way you can actually retarget based on how long people stay in your site or how far they actually scroll down on your site, things like that, but you know what? Here's the solution, ConnectRetarget can do that. That's basically what the pitch is in a nutshell. This exact same principle, I've used it multiple times and every single time it works, it plain works because as soon as I start talking right away about the technical things, it's so much harder to convince them of the point that I'm trying to make. While if I would actually, now what I'm here doing is like just by using a real world example, makes it easier to understand, makes it less techy and vague and all of that. After I'm sure that they understand that initial concept that I wanted to know, then I can actually, then the pain point is going to be way more effective. That's what I say, like the pain point I mean is that the problem that people have. If I would just say hey, you need to run behavioral retargeting, people are like why would I need that? I don't really need that, but by simplifying it and making it relatable to a real world story or a real world example, it makes it so much easier. I do this in various of my products actually. For example, I'll give you another example actually, so we also have a tool called ConnectExplore. If you go to the sales page you'll be able to find that sales video as well. One of the things it does, it does quite a few things but obviously we cannot mention everything right in the sales video right away. I mean that's also the power of simplification, right, you don't want to throw everything that your product does, you want to focus on some key things that you think are going to convince your customers. That's also an important lesson. Basically what it does, it allows you to find more and better interest on Facebook. Instead, once again, instead of saying hey, we have this tool and it will help you to find more interest or maybe even start off hey, you know what? You want to target the interest that your competitors won't be able to find and here's how you do it. Even that way, it wouldn't work as good as what I think as what we currently did and that is that I make a simple analogy saying something like hey, you know, imagine you're going fishing and you have two options. You can either go to the local fishing point, which is like crowded with fishermen and everyone is going for the same fish or you can actually go to a hidden pond which is actually filled with trout, like there's loads of fish but nobody's there to fish. Which would you go for? In their mind it's going to be like of course I want to go for the hidden pond. That's obvious. That's where you want to be. Then I tell them like, all right, it's the exact same thing on Facebook. It's the exact same thing, people are always going for the same interests, like it's the crowded pond, everyone is going for the same interests but you know what? There's actually interest that your competitors won't be able to find and that is where ConnectExplore comes in. Once again, I'm just simplifying it. I'm making an analogy in the real world, which might not seem as related right away, I mean, a local fishing point has nothing to do with Facebook obviously, but it's the exact same concept. It's the exact same thing. By using these kind of examples in the beginning of my sales video, it just helped me a lot to explain the more technical solutions. I'm not sure about you, I'm not sure about what kind of product or service you are selling in your business but I know that often because we're so excited about our own products, it's so easy to over complicate things. It's so easy to confuse our prospects and because of that, we already lost them and of course part of your audience, they're going to understand. Part of your audience will actually get it, but by making this simple analogy, like you're not excluding those people. People who are smart enough to instantly get it, they will still follow using the simple analogy but for those of you who might be a little bit confused by your explanation, you make sure that they'll understand more and better of your product compared to without doing this simplification process. What I highly recommend you to do, for everyone who's selling something online or offline, it doesn't really matter, try to think of like a real world example or a real world analogy that you can leverage or use to simplify what your product does, or maybe not even what your product does but maybe even the point that you're trying to make. Just like I did with ConnectRetarget, I'm not even showing, I'm even talking about retargeting, I'm just giving them, I'm making clear, making the point clear that not every visitor is equal. Some visitors, if they engage with your shop they are more valuable basically and only after that I make the point, right? On Facebook that's not possible, it's only possible using our tool, ConnectRetarget. Yeah, I hope that helps for everyone. It's definitely some food for thought. What I usually do is whenever I, I just write things down in my notebook and usually it takes a while to really get to a good analogy that is really simple and easy to explain. You can even do a test run on your friends or people around you, your family, like hey, if I do it like this, does that make sense or not? That usually helps me a lot as well. I hope it helps and I will talk to you all soon.
In episode #22, Wilco shares a chat he recently had with someone who asked him some of the right questions to basically get himself focused. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28: I just bought myself a new toy. 00:50: It's actually a whiteboard with a year planner on it. 01:11: I just need it to be something more visual where I plan out all the projects so I could see exactly. 02:27: As an entrepreneur, it's not always easy to stay focused on the right things. 02:37: Would your business be around in 300 years from now? 03:00: What should happen in order for that business to be around in 100 years? 04:46: If you look at all the businesses that have been around for more than 100 years, none of them solely rely on its founder. 05:35: If you look at UpViral, a lot of the dashboard and interface and how certain features work, I've all created it myself. 07:39: Is it actually something longterm? 07:46: Connectio is 100% focused on Facebook ads and UpViral is 100% focused on getting people to share the message. 08:00: UpViral will be way, way, way much more longterm compared to Connectio 08:15: Connectio makes Facebook ads more effective. 08:50: I would say it's only a matter of time that Facebook will be not cool anymore. 09:34: With UpViral, it's not depending on any network at all. 10:20: I've also seen a lot of people who are creating things that are really just focused on a certain trick. 11:36: Everything I do since that time has been longterm and I can still use that in my business today. Transcription: Hey, it's Wilco de Kreij here and I just bought myself a new toy. I'm really excited about it, but I'm going to guess that once you hear what it actually is, you're like, "Huh. Boring." Yeah, it might actually be boring, but I'm actually geeking out and it's actually crazy that I never bought it earlier. It's not a tech toy or an iPad or anything like that, but it's actually a whiteboard with a year planner on it. I already have a whiteboard in my office. It just helps me to write things up and brainstorm a little bit, but I never really had a good year planner in the office. I always write it on checklist or a notes or in a. Basically, it's in my mind, right, but I just need it to be something more visual where I plan out all the projects so I could see exactly, right. All right, next month, we're doing this. This week, we're doing that. Then the month after, we're doing that because what I sometimes realize is that in our business, we're working on so many things at the same time and at some point, we launch something or we create something or finish a certain project or a deadline and then right after, I'm like, "Wait, a second, the next whatever should be happening next. It should've been done already, right. It should at least be halfway." Then, there's a bit of a delay because then I start on that project even though it should've started a month before and just get all the pieces and puzzles moving because obviously, a lot of the projects that we get out are depending on the various people, right. You'll need, for example, if we're launching a project, you'll need designers, video editors, copywriters, support training, developers, obviously, UX interface. There's so many things, so many pieces of the puzzle that are needed to get everything in motion. In other words, planning is a big part of running a business, right. Now with that, I recently had a chat with someone who asked me some of the right questions to basically get myself focused because as you might know, as an entrepreneur, it's not always easy to stay focused on the right things and he asked me a really good question. He asked me, "Would your business be around in 300 years from now?" I'm like, Three hundred years? No way. That's way too far ahead, right." Then he was like, "All right, would your business be around 100 years from now?" I'm like, "A hundred years? The internet might not even exist at that point, right. A hundred years is way, way, way too far off." Then he asked me like, "All right, what should happen in order for that business to be around in 100 years?" It's funny because I never really looked at it like that. I try to plan ahead, but 100 years, that's a long time, right. That's an insanely long time. I'm only 30 years old myself so that's like more than three times as my age, right, which is insane, but even though I wasn't able to answer that question because to be honest, I don't know yet at least what I should be doing to create something that would last an eternity or at least last 100 years and would still be around, right. Because I was thinking about that question, it did help me to basically make my own planning more longterm, right, because I'm not sure about you, but I usually have a hard time to really see the future in five years from now. I can see it for the next month, three months from now, six months from now as well and maybe even a year, but that's about as long as it goes, right. I sort of know where the business and everything should be going like multiple years from now, but there's a difference between knowing and knowing, right. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I sort of know it, but I don't feel it. I don't really know it, right. When I was thinking about, all right, what should I do to make sure my business is around 100 years, then I suddenly started to realize that I should be focusing on completely different things, right. If you look at all the businesses that have been around for more than 100 years, none of them solely rely on its founder, right. As soon as a business is just relying on the founder, in this case on myself, that's not a good longterm strategy because quite frankly, I don't think I'm going to survive 100 years, right. Now if you look at the five-year perspective, you would say you can easily rely on just the founder because I'm hoping I'm going to be alive in five years still, right. Let's count on that. At the same time because I was thinking about that 100-year plan, I was like wait a second, why should it always rely on me? It doesn't mean I would always be involved, but I didn't realize that in order to really grow and really to go to the next level, I need to hand off certain things that I'm not the best at, right. I'll give you an example. If you look at UpViral, a lot of the dashboard and interface and how certain features work, I've all created it myself, right. I didn't code it. I didn't develop the actual technical part, but I did put it all on paper. Basically, I drew it all out and I decided how should things work and how should things not work, right. If you look at the grand scheme of things, if you look at certain massive SaaS companies, massive software as a service companies, the level of detail and the level of ... Basically, the speed of development is just so much faster than ... There's always room for improvement, right. That made me realize, wait a second. Now I'm currently doing all of that, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the best at this. There are people out there, a lot actually that this is what they do. They design the interface. They decide on what should be in there, what not. There's people who are way better at that and see all the logic and can focus on that full time while I should actually divide all my time to all different kind of things, right, not just a product, but also the marketing and affiliates and managing the team. There's a lot of things that I need to do. Long story short, by asking myself the question like what should we do in order to still be around in 100 years, even though that might be a silly question for many businesses these days, like many businesses if you're focusing online, it might not be as relevant, but it does change your way of thinking if you're really thinking about it this way and it will make you realize things that maybe you should just hand things off. Another thing that's really important right away, and I cannot stress this enough and this is actually something that might be relevant, it's actually relevant for everyone who's starting a business as well as those who are already running a business, and that is also to really think about whatever your thing is, is it actually something longterm? I'll give you an example. As you probably know, I have two businesses, UpViral and Connectio. Connectiois 100% focused on Facebook ads and UpViral is 100% focused on getting people to share the message, right. If I'm going to be completely honest, UpViral will be way, way, way much more longterm compared to Connectio. Now does that mean I'm going to quit Connect IO? No, definitely not. That's completely opposite of what I'm trying to say. The point is that Connect IO is 100% depending on Facebook ads. It makes Facebook ads more effective. In other words, as soon as advertisers stop using Facebook, then Connect IO will not be of much use. In other words, if Facebook for some reason will magically disappear or, for example, the same thing will happen as what happened with MySpace, for example ... At some point, MySpace was the place to be, right. Look at it right now. I don't know anyone who's using MySpace. Twitter was huge. Twitter is still big, but not what it was before, right. I would say it's only a matter of time that Facebook will be not cool anymore, right. Because it's a social thing, it doesn't last forever. Just like every local restaurant, it's cool for a while and then all the non-cool people go there and all the cool people go somewhere else. With Facebook, I expect the exact same thing to happen, which means that once people start to move over to another platform, advertisers are going to shift towards the new platform as well and then, connectio will not be as useful as it currently is. That's not going to happen overnight. It's not going to happen in the next two years, but if you look at it, for example, 10 years ahead, then I'm pretty sure that Facebook will not be around, at least not in the current form, right. That's my take on it. However, with UpViral, it's not depending on any network at all, right. It doesn't matter if people are using Facebook, doesn't matter if people are using Twitter, doesn't matter if people are using Yip, Yap, Yung which doesn't even exist, right. It doesn't matter which social network or which interaction they use between people because it's based on an invite link basis. People can share it wherever and people will always be talking to other people. People will always be in contact with other people because it's all based on word of mouth, right. For that reason, I see UpViral as something way more longterm because it's not depending on anything that is temporary. It's not depending on anything that could just cease to exist from one day or another or one year to another. These are two examples. I've also seen a lot of people who are creating things that are really just focused on a certain trick or a certain hack or something that is currently working or something that is, for example, not really according to the rules of a certain platform, right. They're having some cool tricks on Facebook or on Twitter or whatever and they created products around it. You just know before even starting a project like that, you just know that whatever that thing is, it's not going to be around for like six months, right. That's super, super, super short term. If you have something like that, then please stop, please, you should stop. You want to make sure even though 100 years is way too long for most people even for myself, but at least you want to aim yourself at least like a three-year plan, a four-year plan. Even though plans will change and even though yes, I know it's going to be hard to create a plan that far ahead, I even still struggle with that sometimes because there's so many opportunities and so much stuff and there's so much that could happen, but at least you want to be clear on what could happen and what you are planning to happen in those couple of years because that way, you can actually start focusing on things right now. Just yesterday, I was working on some funnels and I actually realized that I was actually using a lot of my work from 2015, right. I was using certain sales pages, certain copy because everything I do since that time has been longterm and I can still use that in my business today. Because of that, everything grows much faster because I don't have to start over every six months or every year or so. The takeaway for today is to whatever you are doing, stop for a second and ask yourself a question what should you do to make sure that my business is going to be around for another 100 years, even though that might seem crazy, but focus on that and then, you will realize that at least you should have something that will be around for five years. Anyway, I hope this helps and I will talk to you all soon.
In episode #21, Wilco shares his thoughts on what’s a good time to cut your losses if you’re working on something. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:08: I’m actually fairly happy, especially considering the fact that I just pulled the plug on a project that we’ve been working on for over a year. 01:40: The beauty of doing that offline is that you can really do a deep dive into your mind. 02:07: It just helps me a lot to sometimes just go offline, and just do nothing there, and write in my notebook. 03:44: As you probably know, we create various software products that we had a piece of software pretty much fully ready to market. 04:41: When we released UpViral, there was nothing of the kind where it’s like, “What? 04:54: For ConnectLeads, first time you were able to connect your Facebook lead ads into your auto-responder. 05:00: ConnectRetarget, you can do behavior re-targeting on Facebook. 05:29: I don’t mind competition, but I just want to be first, and then people can try to compete with me. 05:44: My point being is that I’ve pulled the plug on various tools even though we spent months, and months, and months of work. 06:46: At every point in time, you need to look at it like, What’s the biggest opportunity that I have right now? 07:33: All that matters is what actions you take from today onwards. 09:17: If you haven’t seen any project through, if you haven’t had any success in line, then I would actually encourage you to keep on focusing on what you’re focusing on. 10:08: I highly recommend you to just go offline, take a notebook, write down all the pros and cons, write down all your ideas. Transcription: Hey, hey, you entrepreneurs and marketers. It’s Wilco here, and today, I’m actually fairly happy, especially considering the fact that I just pulled the plug on a project that we’ve been working on for over a year. Boom. We’ve been working on it for over a year, and I stopped … I canceled … I deleted the whole project pretty much, which is not something that you usually do, right, especially after a year’s worth of work. Now, it’s not something that we’ve been working on like every now and then, and been dragging on for a year. No. This is actually a project that I had a full-time developer on for over a year full-time, day in, day out, and besides the developer, obviously, various other people were involved as well like a designer, an architect. Like there’s various people involved with a project like that. Yeah. I decided to stop the project, to remove it from our business future, and it was actually not an easy decision to do, but I do think is the best thing to do. Last weekend, my wife is away on Sunday, and usually, I don’t work on Sundays, right? I usually hardly work on the weekends. I try to keep that work-private balance in shape, but last Sunday, my wife was away, so I figured to carve in some time to really just rethink every decision that I made recently. Basically, I took a notebook and just sat outside for I think like four, five hours. Something like that where I just wrote out everything that we’re working on like new projects, old projects, like goals. Everything, right? The beauty of doing that offline is that you can really do a deep dive into your mind. That’s what I like to call it because always, when I’m online, I’m like, “Ah, I have some kind of a cool idea,” and I start doing research, and I start reading. All of a sudden, I’m distracted by something, and like I don’t really do a deep dive because I’m always distracted by outside influence, by outside factors like things that I read or whatever, right? It just helps me a lot to sometimes just go offline, and just do nothing there, and write in my notebook, right? If you see my notebook, in like four, five hours, I probably write like seven to, I don’t know, 10-ish pages full, which isn’t even that much because most of the time, it’s actually thinking of what to do. Anyway, I was thinking like, “All right. One of these projects, and what do we do with it?” I realized, like I said before, that we needed to pull the plug. Now, when do you cut your loss? Like what’s a good time to cut your losses if you’re working on something. We’re all working on something, right? It could be a new project that you’re working on. It could be a customer that you’re trying to close a deal on. It could be, I don’t know, a new funnel that you’re creating, a new sales page you’re creating, a new offer. It could be anything, right? Whatever you do, you are doing something. Assuming that most of your tasks aren’t done in one day, you’re working on that for a long period of time, right? You’re working on that for multiple days, multiple weeks, multiple months, or even multiple years for some, right? Usually, when you get started, especially when people spend money on a day, half of the … There’s a tendency to keep on working on whatever, right, because they were already invested in that idea. They’re already invested in the thing that they’re working on, so they can’t really back out. I would actually say that that’s not a wasted case. There’s quite a few scenarios that it’s actually the best decision to actually pull out even though you have been working on it for a long time and even though you spent a lot of money in it, et cetera, et cetera. In fact, actually, I remember multiple times that we had a piece of software. As you probably know, we create various software products that we had a piece of software pretty much fully ready to market, right, and we still pulled the plug. One of the examples was actually a … It was a push notification tool, so you can actually create various kinds of push notifications. This was back in the day. We started working on it back in the day before there were any other like platforms like PushCrew and all the other push notification platforms. Back then, we were the first when we started building it. However, by the time that we actually got to market it before … by the time it was actually finished, there were already various competitors out there. Like I don’t mind competition. Not at all, but I like to create things that no one else does, right? I like to create things that are so unique that it’s like a new opportunity in the market, and it makes it so much easier to sell. When we released UpViral, there was nothing of the kind where it’s like, “What? You can create viral campaigns and add them into your sites? What? This is awesome.” Everybody jumped in it, right? It was the same for ConnectLeads, for example. First time you were able to connect your Facebook lead ads into your auto-responder. What? ConnectAudience, same thing. ConnectRetarget. You can do behavior re-targeting on Facebook. What? Like whenever we release something, I want to make sure I’m the first doing that because it makes the marketing so much easier, right? It makes the marketing so, so, so much easier. Whenever I create something, and it’s already out there, and like the second or the third one, I’m like, “Mm,” like I don’t want to do that, right? I don’t want to be competing anyone else. I don’t mind competition, but I just want to be first, and then people can try to compete with me, but I’ve already positioned myself as the number one tool or the number one leader in that certain thing that it does, right? My point being is that I’ve pulled the plug on various tools even though we spent months, and months, and months of work, of time on development and design on those kind of tools. Like I said, just yesterday, I pulled the plug on a project that we’ve been working on for over a year. Now, in this case, I’m hoping we might be able to use, let’s say, 20% of that in like a different twist or different angle or something like that. At this point, I cannot really share what this specific tool actually did, but the point I’m trying to make is that at some point, it’s good to cut your losses and not look at whatever you put into it. What I see people do is they continue … Like I said, they continue because of what they invested in it because they feel they need to do that, right, because … Let’s say, yeah, I’ve already spent $10,000 in this, so I feel that I’m wasting $10,000. That’s not the way to look at it, right? At every point in time, you need to look at it like, “What’s the biggest advantage that I could … What’s the biggest opportunity that I have right now?” Often times, it is to continue whatever you’re doing with that because whatever you built so far is actually … If you would switch to something else, you would have to start over, and it would actually take … It would actually be a slower path to wherever you want to go, right? Usually, the reason why you need to continue what you’re working on is because the thing that you built so far, the thing that you’ve been working on so far up to today, that makes it the easiest and the best possibility, the best advantage that you have at that point, but it doesn’t mean … like you don’t have to look at what you invested in. You don’t have to look at how much time you spent time in it because that’s all irrelevant. All that matters is what actions you take from today onwards. If you realized that whatever you’ve been working on, you’ve been working on it for a year or whatever and it’s actually … like it’s outdated already. It’s not going to get you to the level where you want to go regardless of what you do with it. You can be flogged … They would basically be flogging it that harsh, right? I’m not sure if that’s a good saying in English as well, but that’s how we say it in the Netherlands. Like if the project is not … it doesn’t have any potential, then you can just keep on working and finalizing it, but it’s not going to do you any good. If that’s the case, you might actually be better off to just delete it regardless of what you did so far and just start something else which will be better. Now, I’m not sure if it’s going to make sense for all of you. I hope it does for some. At some point, it actually does make sense, like I said, to just pull the plug even though it might hurt, your bank account might hurt, your ego as well, which is not a nice thing, but that’s okay because as long as you believe in your long-term goal and you know like the easiest route to go from here, where I am today at this very point, to whatever your goal is, if the easiest route is to do that, using your tool, or your thing, or your project, or whatever it is that you’re creating, do it. Go for it, but if not, then stop and go the other direction. That’s one thing that’s important to add. There’s always an exception because I also see a lot of people who are trying to create something online who are trying to build a business, and if that’s the case, then it would actually be worthwhile to just stick with your idea because I see so many people that they’re switching too easily from one project to another without having … see any project through. If you haven’t seen any project through, if you haven’t had any success in line, then I would actually encourage you to keep on focusing on what you’re focusing on. But if you already know what you’re doing and you already had success in the past, then you are … you should … okay to make that decision to either switch to a different one and just let whatever you were working on slide and just pull the plug. Sometimes, you can even repurpose parts of it, right? It doesn’t mean that you have to throw away everything, which I’ve had to do multiple times, because I did have to throw away a thing, but sometimes, you can repurpose anything. Now, I’m not sure if this is making sense for anyone out here, but I just wanted to throw this out there because if you are working on something that you feel is not the right thing to be working on, but you’re just working on it because you are … you’ve already invested so much time into it, then I highly recommend you to just go offline, take a notebook, write down all the pros and cons, write down all your ideas. Just stand still for a couple hours and really ask yourself whether continuing is actually the best decision or not. I hope this helps, and I hope you all have an awesome day.
01:35 Sunglasses Spark, Shutdowns and Side Project Plug In Success 09:30 “Everything was a lesson in itself” Mindset 11:33 Painful First Lessons Hiring Developers 14:55 Finding a Big Partner to Launch a Product 19:42 User Interface Design 23:00 Big Lessons from Launches: Prepping, Timing and Backing Up Everything 31:15 Multi Projects, Launches and Teams 32:25 Upviral Story 36:30 Shooting to the Moon but also being Realistic 38:45 How to Value/Price your Product 42:00 Getting into a Recurring Business and Long Term Vision 44:20 Finding and Hiring Developers: Trial Projects 46:08 Hiring and Company Culture 47:50 “If you launch something you’re proud of, you’re launching too late” 48:50 Staying Motivated when Products don’t take off 51:05 Running a Software Company from Europe
Regelmatig neemt Marc de Groot interviews af met andere online marketing experts, succesvolle ondernemers en andere mensen uit de e-commerce sector. Deze interviews zijn te beluisteren via de Online Marketing Podcast en in samenvatting na te lezen via dit blog. Vandaag gaat Marc in gesprek met Wilco de Kreij, de man achter producten als Connectio en UpViral. Mis geen enkel online marketing en ondernemers inzicht meer en volg de content van Marc ook hier: - Online marketing blog - Online Marketing video's - Webwinkel Marketing Platform
In episode #17, Wilco will help you send out more effective emails through your email subscriber list without having to learn any copywriting or without having to learn anymore new skills and you can implement this right away into your business! Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:55: Ever since I've implemented this strategy into my daily routine, it has not only helped me to improve all of my email marketing. 01:32: Email marketing is the number one most important thing in my business. 01:54: We have upviral which is all about building up your email list. 02:17: Most of the sales happen after we sent out some emails. 03:20: I always used to keep an eye on basically other people who I think are good email copywriters. 03:53: So what I did a year ago, was I started categorizing all the awesome emails I got. 04:17: Some folders that I have is for example the first one is bonding. 04:40: Good job on closing out an offer in a creative way that I think wow I can use this, I add it to my closing or scarcity folder, right. If 04:50: If I see really good headline, like a headline I just need to open, I add it to my headlines folder. 05:00: If there is a certain kind of email that tries to really engage me after I haven't been active on a certain email list, I add it to my re engagement folder. 05:15: A real good pitch and try to sell me something and one way or another they use a real clever hook, I add it to my sales and pitch category. 05:30: Right, if there's an email with really good story telling that I am just being sucked into the story, I add them to the storytelling one. 06:15: When I see an email like that with a real good survey, a questionnaire inside of an email. Transcription: Wilco de Kreij, here back with you again for another episode of the Uncensored Growth podcast. And today I want to talk about email marketing. And more specifically, I want to help you become a better email marketer. I want to help you send out more effective emails through your email subscriber list without having to learn any copywriting or without having to learn anymore new skills and you can implement this right away into your business. It's a simple, yet effective strategy that I have been using over the last, I think the last year or so. And ever since I've ... Ever since I've implemented this strategy into my daily routine, it has not only helped me to improve all of my email marketing. It has not only helped me to get more results from all my email marketing but also it made all of my email marketing effort a lot easier. You know. It's now easier and faster to write an email. I don't have to think a lot about it. And that's all because one powerful strategy that is actually in hindsight pretty obvious to do for some reason I never really did it until a year ago. And my guess is you've never done it as well. So as you may or may not know email. Email marketing is in my business. The number one most important thing. Right? Everything I do is all to get people on to our subscriber list and then from there, we try to bribe them or whatever you want to call it. I try to get them or convert them into a customer. So not only are we doing that ourselves. So obviously our tools are focused on that as well so. We have upviral which is all about building up your email list. True virality. By making sure all your subscribers will get that their friends to subscribe as well. So everything is all about email marketing and that is just and all because it works. It plain works out. We actually did some tracking. I mean. Facebook for example, posting on facial construction media. It's nice and all but most of the sales happen after we sent out some emails. After we actually build a relationship through email marketing. That part you probably already knew so I am not going to talk about that too much but ... for me as a Dutch guy. For me its not always easy to write a good email. Right sometimes, sometimes I struggle a lot. But even if I know how to write it. I often used to struggle with what should I actually send out. I mean there are so many different kinds of campaigns that you can send out to your email list. Right? You could be inviting, inviting them to a webinar. You could be trying to build a relationship with them. You could be sending some value. Maybe you want to sell something. Maybe you want to close, or close a certain offer by implementing scarcity into you emails. And obviously there's so many different ways to write all these emails and the good thing is that we have a ton. And I mean like thousands, probably tens of thousands of smart marketers worldwide, who are doing it on a daily basis. Now what I used to do, is always, I always used to keep an eye on basically other people who I think are good email copywriters. Right so, I used to subscribe to their email list and I used to check their emails and say "Hey this is actually a good title or hey this is actually a very good email". But I never really, you know all I did was basically, I just thought of like alright I should remember to start it. "Oh Yeah, I should remember this kind of email. Oh hey maybe this email is actually nice to use in my automation or email sequence. Right so, all the emails, I sort of remembered it so what I did a year ago, was I started categorizing all the awesome emails I got. So I am subscribed to a lot of emails, email list all in the same niche that I am, in the online marketing niche. And every single time, I see an email that stands out for a specific reason. I drag them into a specific folder. So I have various folders inside of my Gmail account. So everything is being collected inside, inside of a Google email, a Gmail account. And for example, some folders that I have is for example the first one is bonding. So if I see an email that really makes me feel like ... that they, that the person sending out an email really makes a closer connection with me as the reader. Its really bonding kind of campaign. I drag it to the bonding folder. If I see a really well written closing or scarcity email. You know if they're doing a real good job on closing out an offer in a creative way that I think wow I can use this. I add it to my closing or scarcity folder, right. If I see really good headline, like a headline I just need to open. I just know I need to open it. I add it to my headlines folder. If there is a certain kind of email that tries to really engage me after I haven't been active on a certain email list, you know sometimes you recognize that kind of email. I add it to my re engagement folder. If there's a really good pitch. Like just a real good pitch and try to sell me something and one way or another they use a real clever hook. That I think "Hey, you know I could use this in one of my campaigns in the future". I add it to my sales and pitch category. Right, if there's an email with really good story telling that I am just being sucked into the story. I start reading the email and right away I know like all right. Boom. This is a good story, right. This is something, I mean I would never ever, ever copy that story but sometimes you can take inspiration of a certain way of telling a story, right. So if I see an email like that, I add them to the storytelling one. If there's an email that asks me to basically answer something, right. If there is something, sometimes you get an email saying "hey how, how advanced are you on online marketing? Easy. Beginner. Advanced. Whatever". Like they ask you a certain question and you can click on any kind of link inside that email to identify your, your answer. What they do on their end is obviously they start tagging you and now they know that you are for example, an advanced marketer or now that you have an email list of over fifty thousand people, what ever your answer is. But sometimes when I see, when I see an email like that with a real good survey, a questionnaire inside of an email. I add it to my survey and questionnaire category, right. Same thing for writing an invite and also same thing if I see a really good value email in which someone shares a really good trick. So I have been doing that for about a year now. I've been, every single time I see a good email. An email from another marketer that I would think "Wow this really stands out" I add it one of those categories that I just described. And the end result is that every single time that I need to do something. So for example, if I want to send out a webinar invite, I can just go to my folder of webinar invites and I see all the best ones that I have seen over the past year or two, right. So for a year, if I check it later it's going to be two years of data. So I would never ever, ever copy any of those emails but usually it's good to have some inspiration before I start writing an email. Because usually other marketers, they already have a good hook. They already came up with a good clever way of describing it or funny ways or a good headline or whatever. So if I'm looking for a headline I can just go into my headline folder and I see all the clever headlines that at some point, at some point in time I have tagged as hey this is a good headline. And it just helps me so so so much. So every single time, instead of starting to start over, instead of having to come up with everything myself. I just have a glimpse in that specific folder, what the email is going to be about that I am about to write and it makes it so much easier to not only create something but also to create something creative and effective, right. So if you are listening to this and you are doing any kind of email marketing. Which you should right? If you are not doing any kind of email marketing, you start your list right away. I mean head over to UpViral dot com for example and subscribe. And make sure, build your email list. Do what ever you have to you don't even have to use UpViral, if you don't want to. But make sure to build that email list and also make sure to subscribe to other people inside of the same industry as your on. And every single time that you, you see an email that you think "Wow this is really clever. Hey, you know I should remember this add it to a folder so you can remember". Then ideally specifically create multiple folders, like I did, like I just told you. So for example if you see some bonding email, if you see some scarcity emails, specific headlines, if you see storytelling ones, if you see certain webinar invite, if you see value emails. Like create different kind of folders inside of your, inside of your email account and drag them into the right folder. And initially it might not help you as much but over time, you will have a data base of all the kind of things that you've seen in the industry, in your industry what you think is a really good email campaign. And it's just going to help you a ton. And just in case you don't want to, you don't want a daily ... you don't want go through all of those emails and clutter inbox or whatever. I'd highly suggest to use a service called Enroll dot me. That is Enroll dot me. Its a free service. It works for Google email, G mail. It will basically, automatically remove all those emails from within your inbox. From you inbox but it will also send you a daily digest email of all the emails in just one email. So you will get just one email, every single day with all those emails inside of it. That's pretty awesome service. I use it a lot to keep my email books clean while I can still be on top of all those things, I want to be on top of. So highly, highly recommend it. So I hope that this helps and I will see you all or talk to you all in the next episode. Just bye bye.
Zack starts off with his excitment for finishing Resident Evil 7 and the new T.I.M.E. Stories expansion! Sugi also gives his thoughs on Lego Batman! Smash Up has more expansions coming out. Please Stop! : ) New game from GMT, Apocalypse Road lets you use tracks from Thunder Alley and Grand Prix. Dice Tower Essentials has a new game in it's line of games called Viral. And finally, Two Rooms and a Boom has a new nine card expansion on Kickstarter. We talk about a lovely card game we all played called Noir and Zack talk's about another zombie game Run, Fight, or Die! You can comment or give feedback on Twitter: @thirstygamers_ And as always stay thirsty for games my friends!
In episode #13 Wilco talks about the importance of consistency in your business. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:43: ConnectExplore, it's one of the new products that we just launched for Connectio.io 01:16: There is actually one thing that helped us a lot to get more affiliates on board for this one, to get a higher conversion on the sales page. 02:37: What I think helped this a lot over the last couple years is one thing and that is consistency. 04:06: It's a trap, right? You're always going after the next thing. 04:49: UpViral is our viral referral platform and Connectio.io is a suite of various Facebook ad tools. 04:54: The first tool that we created inside of Connectio.io was actually ConnectAudience. 05:56: The things they deliver are actually a great value for what you pay, right? 06:22: Over the years we've shown to our customers, our affiliates, to partners and people around us that this is what we do, and we're sticking to it. 07:07: The reason why they promote it is because they believe in what I do. 07:42: Just by doing the same thing consistently it's going to help you so much. 08:55: I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to customer support. 09:20: That helps me to understand them better, understand our customers better. 09:52: I've actually replied to over 1600 emails, which is insane. 10:22: The whole team is always striving to the best kind of rates of our support. 10:40: We want to make sure we make our people happy. 11:42: Keep on doing it, don't give up after a couple months, but just keep on doing it because only after a while are you going to get that tipping point where everything else becomes easier. Transcription: Hey there it's Wilco de Kreij here and while I'm recording this we just got out of a product launch for Connect Explorer. That basically means that right now I desperately, desperately need some sleep, but obviously that's not what we're going to talk about. If you've been following me then you probably saw some emails about it as well, ConnectExplorer, it's one of the new products that we just launched for Connectio, you can check it out at Connectio.io. What we did is we had a big product launch in which we had a special offer for the first couple of days and we then besides just sending it out to our own existing email list and through our own existing customers, we also invited a bunch of affiliates to promote it, so you know they can actually send it out to their audience as well so that we can actually get a lot of people at the same time all checking out this introduction offer and hopefully get access to it. Now there is actually one thing that helped us a lot that we've been doing over the last couple of years already actually which helped us a lot to get more affiliates on board for this one, to get a higher conversion on the sales page. To get more people to actually purchase, but also for example to get more people to actually take us up on our web sale, because after people got access to ConnectExplore we had an up sale offer so that you can actually get access to that as well. There is something we did over the last year, two years or so, maybe even longer but at least definitely the last two years that has helped those on all of these things and all together, like I'm not going to share any numbers, I'm not a big fan of that, but the launch went really, really well, above expectations, and I'm just super grateful for my team and all of the customers that actually got access to it, but also for all the affiliates who were kind enough to promote ConnectExplore to their audience. Just super happy, super grateful, and that's why I'm shooting this quick podcast for all of you while we just got out of the trenches. I'm obviously still super busy with the launch and all the work that's involved with it, but I just wanted to touch base with my podcast crew, which you are one if you are listening to this right now to sort of give you the backstory of this. What I think helped this a lot over the last couple years is one thing and that is consistency. Just consistency, consistently doing something that you believe in. I mean, I'm not sure about you but I'm subscribed to quite a few email lists from all kinds of marketers, and one of the things that I noticed is that a lot of people, they just jump from one thing to the next, right? For example this day they do some kind of product launch for a sort of product, and then I don't know, it's the best thing ever. Right? It's the best ever like, ever, ever, right? Then two months go by and then they promote something else and then that thing is actually the best thing ever, like ever, ever right? And maybe there's even a huge overlap. Then if you then go back to that first product, is it still being updated? Do you still have people working full time on that adding features and what not? No, because now the new thing is the new thing, right? That just does not make any sense to me. I mean, what ... at what point in time did we actually think that that was a good idea to just start over every single time. Now, granted I'm not going to lie, I've been there, right? I've had various product launches in the past where you know, I just did a launch and then six months later I had another product coming out, and that was sort of like the routine for a while. At some point, I saw the light, that's not going to work, it's a trap, right? You're always going after the next thing. There is no real world business that works that way, right? It's not like BMW is going to create a car and then after a year they're going to say, "You know what, we're going to get rid of all the cars, now we're just going after motorcycles," and then after a year like ... it doesn't work like that. You want to keep on adding. It's fine to add new products, to launch new products, but you should always ... it should be added on top of your whole whatever you're doing, instead of just replacing the old stuff, right? What we've been doing over the last two years or so is we've been focusing on two platforms and two platforms alone, which is UpViral and Connectio. Viral is our viral referral platform and Connectio is a suite of various Facebook ad tools. The first tool that we created inside of Connectio was actually Connect Audience. We haven't launched that to the public first, but we actually started building that in February 2015, so almost two years ago. We still ... We're updating it continuously, we have people on top of it. For example at UpViral, we started that even earlier actually. We have three developers working on it full time. Why? It's not that we want to launch something and then just forget about it. We want to keep on adding things on top of it, we want to keep on building. Now the thing is when you start out doing that, obviously I have a lot of, I don't want to call them competitors but other people in the marketplace who are also creating tools and software, right? Because they usually don't really ... a lot of ... like no offense but a lot of people they build something and they don't really continuously add features, continuously improve it or they don't really have good support or whatever, and because of that they are able to deliver things sometimes for a lower price than we do, right? The things they deliver are actually a great value for what you pay, right? Not going to lie about that, it’s a great offer, but for us in the beginning, it can sometimes be hard to sort of compete with that because someone who is brand new, they're going to see two products and yeah, well this one is price x and this one is price y, why would I pay more for this? From the outside they might even look sort of similar. Right? Over the years we've shown to our customers and to our affiliates and to partners and people around us that this is what we do, and we're sticking to it. It's not like, "Oh yeah, we're going to do this for a long time," and then six months later we're focusing on something else. No, we said this is what we're going to focus on, and six months later, a year later, we're still doing it, we're still, you know we're not changing, this is what we do and what our long term vision is. Just by doing that consistently it just gives so much trust to the people around you to the partners and to customers as well or potential customers. I mean we even saw, I was talking to various affiliates, they literally told me that the reason why they promote it is because they believe in what I do. So someone said actually that he has been following me for a while but initially he didn't want to promote my products to his audience because he wasn't sure whether we were going to be around. We have the long form sales pages, right? We have very long sales pages, so for some people that seems a bit off, it's like all the marketers are doing that, so it must be something that you know ... you must be like all the other marketers who are just going to continue and run off and do something else, right? It took them a while to realize that. Just by doing the same thing consistently it's going to help you so much. I think that goes for a lot of my customers as well, right? I see a lot of people, they just do one thing and if it doesn't work out, then they go to the next thing. They're going to try something else, but what I realized and it took quite a few years to realize it actually is that usually there is somewhere along the line there is a tipping point, at which point initially it's really hard to get something off the ground, right? There is a tipping point where everything suddenly becomes so much easier, but you're not going to get to the tipping point unless you stick to the same thing. You just got to grind, you just got to do the same thing over and over and make sure that you do it consistently. Only then you'll be able to get that tipping point and that's when everything becomes a lot easier. Just giving another example and it's actually one of the reasons why I'm so tired right now, because the truth is a launch like this, a lot of work goes into the preparations, right? All the sales pitch are done before hand, all the affiliates know what to do, all the videos are ready before hand, we have all the videos created for ... in the members area. Everything is all done beforehand, but the thing that kept me up the most is customer support because I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to customer support and normally I'm not in the customer support desk a lot, we have a team taking care of that, we trained them well, but always when we launch a new product, I sort of become this control freak who just wants to see what's happening inside of our support desk. The reason for that is actually because I want to see if there's any issues and I'll want to see how people are using the tools because that helps me to understand them better, understand our customers better and to makes sure we can create updates for it that are actually going to make sense. We actually already have quite a few updates listed just from the initial couple days because people are sending over some great results, if I wouldn't have been inside of the support desk myself, I might not have seen that. I mean my support staff might have summarized it for me, but there's always something that gets lost in translation, so over the last seven or eight days or so, I've actually replied to over 1600 emails, which is insane. That's just from the support desk by the way, that doesn't include my own inbox, my Facebook inbox, and doesn't include any of the chats I've had with affiliates and all of that. 1600 just from the support desk, back to our customers, that I personally did, not even the rest of my team. But that's just the reason why I want to make that clear, once again one of the things I think we've done consistently is we care about our customers, not just me but our whole team. I mean the whole team is always striving to the best kind of rates of our support, as we automatically keep track of how happy you are. If you send in a reply, and we send a reply back you can automatically vote how happy you are with the reply. We're always striving to basically get the highest score possible. We want to make sure we make our people happy. That's also something, if you just do that for a week or a couple weeks then people aren't really going to know this, right? If after a couple years people have been sending multiple messages in and every single time they're happy with the result or at least most of the times because obviously you can't always make everyone happy, right? Over time it's going to become clear, "All right, these guys, they actually have good support, right?" If you just do that for a week, or a couple weeks or a couple months, it's not going to have an immediate effect but once you do that long enough, once you do that consistently over a long period of time, at some point there is a tipping point where people are going to talk about it and say, "Wow these guys, they're actually really good. They have good support, go there." That just makes everything so much easier, right? That's really just the thing that I wanted to share with all of you, so whatever you're doing in your business, don't try to switch from one thing to another, but be consistent in what you do. Do something that you actually believe in and be consistent with it. Keep on doing it, don't give up after a couple months, but just keep on doing it because only after a while are you going to get that tipping point where everything else becomes easier and also it takes a while to sort of get a certain image into your customers or into your prospect's mind. If they're going to see that for a long period of time, over and over that you're actually sticky to what you do, then they know that it's true, you're not just saying that it's true, but they know that it's actually true. That's it for today, I hope this helps and I hope you all have an awesome day. Bye, bye, cheers!
In episode #12, Wilco talks about how to get sane during a busy period in your business. You might be able to relate to such a busy period, right? Listen as Wilco provides you with great advice on how do you make sure you're not stressed out, at least to a minimum degree, while getting all your stuff done. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:52: We run two software companies, UpViral and Connectio.io 00:55: Suite of various Facebook tools, tools for Facebook advertisers to make their ads more profitable and more efficient. 01:10: ConnectLeads, ConnectAudience, ConnectRetarget. 01:12: Launch a new product: ConnectExplore 01:22: The downside is that whenever we launch a new product, there's so much work that goes into that. 01:53: When we launch a product, we usually do it with a lot of affiliates. 02: 39: I want to move and I want to move fast. 02:50: What we always do is we pick a date that we're going to launch it in advanced, usually like two months in advanced. 03:00: that's the date we are going to launch it, no exception, no excuses. 04:10: We have first Christmas day and second Christmas day in the Netherlands. 05:06: The thing is that I wanted to talk about today, how do you stay sane in a period like this? 05:59: First thing I do is I always have a clear, detailed list so I know exactly what I need to do. 06:58: I imagine the worst case scenario. 07:46 It's good to try and achieve as much as you can, but never forget that whatever you're trying to do it's not as important. 08:42: It's really important to take time off. 10:14: Focus on your end goal. 10:25: I also reward myself. 11:51: Record a podcast episode to talk about it. Transcription: Hey, hey, everyone. I hope you're all doing great and I also hope that you got to enjoy Christmas over the last couple days. Right now it's just a few days after Christmas, right before New Year's, and I'm sitting at my desk and I am super, super stressed out, actually. It's an incredibly busy time at the business right now and sometimes it just drives me crazy. I'll probably have to start at the beginning. As you probably know, we run two software companies. One is AdViral and the other one is Connectio, which is a suite of various Facebook tools. Basically, tools for Facebook advertisers to make their ads more profitable and more efficient. In that arrange of tools we have actually multiple tools, right, so we have right now connect leads, connect audience, and connect with targets, and we are about to launch a new product, which is pretty exciting I think. I'm actually really excited about it. It's called CONNECTExplorer. The down side is that whenever we launch a new product, there's so much work that goes into that. I mean, not just the product itself, but ... Well, also the product itself, actually. It's not just thinking about what it should do, it's not just designing it and the whole infrastructure and actually building it, like the actual development of it, but also things like testing and training the support team and creating training videos and all this good stuff. That's just the tool, right, and even outside of that there's so much stuff on the marketing side. When we launch a product, we usually do it with a lot of affiliates. We invite affiliates or other people who in turn can then promote our tools to their customers and to their audience and they will get a percentage of the commission. There's so much work involved with that. Not just the sales pages and the sales videos and the email sequences and all that kind of stuff, but also things like running ads to get affiliates on board and talking with affiliates on one on one and deciding on the pricing structure and the funnel and all this. There's just a thousand and one things that need to happen. Which is cool, right? It's good. That's part of our job and I like it. The thing is that whenever we launch a product, I'm not someone who's just going to work and see whenever it's done, blah blah blah. I want to move and I want to move fast. I want to take the best out of the year and I want to do as much as I can in order to move forward. For that reason, what we always do is we pick a date that we're going to launch it in advanced, usually like two months in advanced, and we say "All right, that's the date we are going to launch it. No exception. No excuses, that's the date. Unless someone dies, that is the date that we're going to launch it." In this case, we picked January 4th. We picked the date roughly, I think two months ago. From that point on, we know that's when it's all happening. Usually that works out pretty well, right? Usually over the last couple of products that we launched everything ... Basically, ahead of time everything was fully done. The reason why I like to do that because I don't like to have stress in my life, right? I'm trying to avoid stress at all times. In this case, we had some delays on the team, mainly on the marketing side, which means that everything was sort of pushed back. The result of that is that right now we have less than a week left and there's still various things that need to be happening on the marketing side, things like videos and finishing up the sales page and quite a bit of work all on the marketing side. I'm confident that we will finish it, but in order to get it to be done it's just a super stressful time at this moment. For example, right now ... Even on Christmas, we have two days of Christmas, right? We have first Christmas day and second Christmas day. That's just a thing here in the Netherlands. It's the way we do it. That's usually when we all go to families, just like you probably did. On the first Christmas day, we went to my wife's family and then on the second Christmas day we went to my own family. Usually we go there at eleven or so. During the morning I worked, and then the moment I go back home I worked, which is not something you want to do on Christmas day. That's the way it is right now. On all the other days I usually work right now from like eight am to around twelve pm with not much breaks in between. That's just because I want to get stuff done right now. It's not always as fun. Just so you know, these are not my typical working hours because that's obviously crazy, but what ends to happen needs to happen, right? The thing is that I wanted to talk about today, how do you stay sane in a period like this? You might be able to relate to such a busy period, right? You maybe had some deadlines in the past as well where you just need to get so much stuff done, or maybe you even earlier on ... For example, when I look back at university or at high school, I remember when I had exams or tests that I was always super stressed out because there was so much to learn and to do or whatever. You might be able to relate to that where you're just so, so busy that you're just stressed out and you're just generally stress out. Now, how do you fix that? How do you make sure you're not stressed out, at least to a minimum degree, while getting all your stuff done. There's a couple things that I do to stay as sane as I can, even in the busiest moments of the year. First thing I do is I always have a clear, detailed list so I know exactly what I need to do. For example, when we do a product launch, we actually have a full template of all the steps, all of the tiny, tiny steps that we need to do. We know when we're going to launch a product from A to Z, these are all the things we need to do and we can just check it off of our list. All right, that's done. That's done. That's done. By knowing exactly what you need to do, once you have it on a list, once you've written it down, you can just forget about it basically. You can remove it from your head because you have it on the list and you know if you just follow that list you're going to finish everything, right? That's the first thing I highly recommend you to do. Write everything down that needs to happen. I think one of the most important things for me, when I sometimes go crazy and I'm super stressed out and I'm not always as fun to be around with, I guess, what I do is I imagine the worst case scenario. What if everything goes South, and I mean everything. We're all trying so hard to have an impact in the world and to grow our business, but what's the worst case scenario? Even if the worst of the worst of the worst would happen, at the end of the day this is just, quote unquote, just a business. If everything fails, if a product launch doesn't go as planned, nobody's dying. Nobody's getting sick. It's not that bad. People around me, especially over the recent period, I had multiple people in my environment who sadly passed away way too early. That just makes you realize ... That just puts things in perspective. It's good to try and achieve as much as you can, but never forget that whatever you're trying to do it's not as important. The people around you, your wives, your family, your husband, your parents, everyone around you. That's what really matters. If you are sometimes stressed out and you're just generally stressed out, just think of the things that are really, really important and that sort of makes you realize that the things that we sometimes seem to worry about are not even that important. That's something that helps for me a lot, actually. I do that pretty much every day. Just make myself realize that it's not that important. The worst case scenario is still a pretty good deal if you look at it like that. Everyone's healthy and all of that. Also, it's really important for me, at least ... Everyone is different, of course, but for me it's really important to take time off. Even though it's super busy and, like I said, I made long days right now, but I always go for a walk, for example. Just clearing my mind and not doing anything with work. The moment I start working nonstop, all the time, I just know the next day I'm going to be less productive. You're still human. Maybe you are a robot, I don't know, but for me I cannot be productive all the time. You need to have time off. Instead of having that at random whenever my body says, "Well, stop," I'd rather just plan it in and I schedule it in beforehand. Every couple of hours or whatever I go for a walk, take a little bit of time off, and that really helps me to stay sane as well. While doing that, I usually also imagine that worst case scenario. "oh yeah, I'm trying my best, but don't forget this is just a business. It's not your life." That really helps me to stay sane as well. With that also, obviously, and really important at least for me once again, everyone is different, is exercise. Personally I love to play squash. It's a kind of tennis kind of thing. It's really energetic, I love it. That just helps me to clear my mind and to just be able to focus the next day again. I usually do that in the evenings. It helps me to focus the next day again on the business. For me, that's really part of my routine as well. One thing that really helps me stay sane as well, especially during such a busy period, is focus on your end goal. Right now, we're super busy for this launch, and I have my end goal. I know exactly what the end goal is going to be. With that, I also reward myself. For example, by the end of January my and my wife, we are actually going to Ecuador for a three week trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos islands. We're going to travel around because we just love to travel, we love to meet new people and love to explore new cultures and all that. We're going to Ecuador is South America for a couple weeks. That helps me now, as well. I'm like, "I'm just going to be super, super busy. That's fine because I know what the reward is going to be. In a couple weeks or in a month from now I'm going to fly off and I'm going to spend some quality time with my wife while traveling to an amazing country." That helps me a lot as well. Altogether, let's go through the list. How do I actually stay sane even if it's super, super, super busy? First of all, have a clear list of what needs to be done so you know exactly what needs to be done. Also, keep in mind what the worst case scenario is because often you're worrying about things that are not really worth worrying about. Also, make sure to take time off, exercise, and also focus on your end goal. If possible, reward yourself after you've put some really hard work in. That sort of is the pain that you're going through. That's how I do and also maybe I could even add another one which is record a podcast episode to talk about it, which I'm doing right now. Actually I'm recording this at the beginning of my day right before I dive into the action because I just wanted to get this off my chest. I actually feel that it's already helping, so that's good. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to go for a walk, clear my mind a bit, and then I'm going to dive into the action. With that having said, I hope you have an amazing day and I also hope that you have an awesome New Years Eve and an awesome start of the next year. All right, that's it. I will catch you all in 2017.
On this episode, Wilco we’ll talk about the most important success factor in your business. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:38: Have you ever bought a tool or a software or something like that and ended up never using it? 01:32: UpViral, Viral referral marketing platform. 01:44: What Dropbox did was if someone signed up to Dropbox they get everyone of their members to own their own unique invite link. 03:18: Brad Costanzo, added 3,000 subscribers within a couple of weeks using UpViral 04:06: Facebook community where people can actually discuss and brainstorm about how they are viral hacking their business. 04:38: 10,000 emails subscribers for three weeks using UpViral 06:15: What my point here is that usually it's not about the tools that we have. 08:03: The point is if you are selling a product to your customers and it doesn't really matter what it is, often it's not just about your actual product. 08:35: Do everything in your power to make sure that they are going to see all the value that you have in it. 09:26: Like showing case studies from others to first of all learn from so they can learn what others are doing. 09:28: Start seeing results from others so they believe it actually works. 10:14: If you sell something make sure, absolutely sure, that you do everything within your power to make your customers believe and know it actually works for them. Transcription: Hey, hey, it's Wilco de Kreij here back with you again. Today we're going to talk about something that I was really fascinated by over the last couple of days. Before I dive into today's episode, let me ask you a quick, quick question. Have you ever bought a tool or a software or something like that and ended up never using it? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. At least I hope I am. I think all of you can relate to that where you sometimes buy a piece of software, but for one reason or another you don't really use it, even though at the moment you purchased it, at the moment you actually entered your credit card details, you were sure this was going to help you solve problems, or this was going to help you get more results, or whatever your motivation was. You had some reason to buy it but you ended up never really using it. I probably got tons of tools that I've bought just for the sake of maybe I could use it and I end up never using it. I think a lot of people can relate to that. That's related to what I want to talk about today because as you probably know, if you're listening to my podcast, I am the founder of UpViral and UpViral is a viral referral marketing platform. We've been building it for years and it allows you to basically use the exact same model as what Dropbox did. What Dropbox did was if someone signed up to Dropbox they get everyone of their members to own their own unique invite link. All these people could literally invite their friends over with their own unique link and they would automatically keep track of who was signed up. They could literally say like, "Hey, every single time one of your friends signs up you will get extra storage into Dropbox." Dropbox is like a cloud based backup space, in case you're not familiar with that. That used them to grow tremendously. I'm 100% sure that if you know Dropbox you probably know about it because one of your friends sent it over to you. That's how powerful it is. That exact same model, that's what you can do with UpViral as well. You can do it in tons of different ways. You can run giveaways, for example you can say, "Hey, if," for example, "you get five of your friends to subscribe as well, then using your own UpViral link then they will get something of value." You can get for example a discount coupon or some other piece of value, a video, something that you're sending them, whatever it is. You can also use it to run contests. Anyway, this tool, this podcast is not here. I'm not here to pitch UpViral or anything like that. I just wanted to give you a rundown so the rest of this episode is going to make more sense. We've been doing that for a long time for a couple of years now. Officially we've been on the market for like one and a half years or so. Obviously, we've been building it before that time as well. We have thousands of people who are customers. What's funny is that last week, I think it was last week, we published a new blog post in which we interviewed one of our customers. His name is [Brad Costanzo . He launched a brand new coffee brand together with his wife and he used UpViral as a test to see how it all went. Within a couple of weeks he added 3,000 subscribers, email subscribers to his new brand new startup using an UpViral contest which is pretty awesome even though it's still a fairly small campaign. We interviewed him. We asked him a bunch of questions how he did it to send it over to our customers so they can learn from that as well. We published that on our blog. Coincidentally, we sent it out to all of our customers and just a few days later someone else in our Facebook group, we have a Facebook community where people can actually discuss and brainstorm about how they are viral hacking their business. I say viral hacking because that's how I summarize this process. Viral hacking means that you have this type of referral platform somewhere inside your business where people, if they sign up, you give them their own unique invite link so they will actually start promoting your business for you on your behalf. Someone who's also viral hacking, who's also using UpViral, he boasted in the Facebook group that he's been using UpViral for three weeks now and on his very first campaign he got well over 10,000 emails subscribers. I mean that's crazy. He started out with a Facebook fan page with 250 fans which let's be honest isn't that much. He boasted his results in the group. He said like, "Oh yeah, I've been using it first time ever about three weeks time and I've just collected well over 10,000 email subscribers." What's funny is that initially we sent out that case study to our customers by using an email. Then quite a few of our customers, that are inside that Facebook community, so they saw someone else also talk about what results they were having. Over the last couple of days, basically on our support desk we measure what kind of results we're getting or what kind of questions we're getting, how many, et cetera, et cetera. Over the last couple of days we see an immense spike in users who already had UpViral but they weren't necessarily doing it. They weren't necessarily using it. All of a sudden like, "Oh yeah, I want to start a new viral campaign as well," and they got all these questions to strategic or how should I do it best or things like that which is funny. All these people already had access to UpViral. They bought it at some point. They kept it and they didn't really take action, enough action. All of a sudden they see two case studies in a single week where other people are getting really great results using UpViral. All of a sudden they all start using UpViral. What my point here is that usually it's not about the tools that we have. I mean inside all of your businesses you have all kinds of tools that you're using, right? If I look at myself, obviously I use Facebook ads, I use Slack for communication, I use for my emails, I use UpViral for growth. I use all these things but usually it's not about what tools you have but it's about believing that these tools work. If you see other people are having results, if you see other people are saying like, "Yeah, this tool is awesome. I got this, this and this done with it," that's when you in your mind believe that that tool is actually what you need to use. My point here being is that we have all these things in our businesses. We gather information. We buy courses. We get coaching. We buy tools that we think could help us but all of these things don't really matter as long as we don't really believe it's going to work. If you buy a certain course that's going to help you using Facebook ads but if you don't really believe in Facebook ads, or you don't believe that Facebook ads course is actually showing you the right things, then it doesn't matter. You can look at it but if you don't believe it that those things are actually true or actually working really well, then you're not going to take action, right? It's the same thing with tools. If you don't really think or believe it's going to get you results then it's not going to work. My point here is not just saying like, "Oh yeah, we got some amazing cases that UpViral works," which by the way it does. We have people who've gathered hundreds of thousands of subscribers using UpViral which is I think pretty awesome. I'm happy with that but that's not the point here. The point is if you are selling a product to your customers and it doesn't really matter what it is, often it's not just about your actual product. It could be a piece of software for example. It could also be coaching or anything else. It's not just about the actual product. It's not just about the features that you have, but what might be even more important, is that you need to onboard your customers into believing that whatever you're selling works. Not just through the point on your sales page where you say, "Yeah, this is awesome and it works." Then they click the buy button and that's it. It only starts there. It only starts there. After that point don't just give them the product and that's it but actually do everything in your power to make sure that they are going to see all the value that you have in it. You don't do that just by saying like, "Oh yeah, we have this feature and we have this feature and you can do this with it and you can do that with it," but actually show other people who are having results using the product that you have. I think that's just super important. I mean for me as a super entrepreneur who's running multiple companies as service companies, that way of thinking is incredibly important. Usually I'm so focused on building new features because it's often easier to think that that's what's going to get our customers more and even more results. What I realize now is, especially this week, that it's not just about extra features but it's also about the education and just giving people the belief, the trust that it actually works, like showing case studies from others to first of all learn from so they can learn what others are doing. Secondly, start seeing results from others so they believe it actually works because only if they believe something works, they're going to go through the pain of implementing it, because no matter what you are selling, for example if it's a course, there is always a bit of quote, unquote, pain. They always need to spend time going through it and the only way they're actually going to do that is if they actually, actually believe that it's going to get them the results they want. That's pretty much it. What I just wanted to give you the quick punchline if you sell something make sure, absolutely sure, that you do everything within your power to make your customers believe and know it actually works for them, not just to the point of getting them to actually purchase your product, but especially after that. Send them even more. Send them case studies. Send them everything they need because once, even if it's just a one time purchase, the more they will start believing in that your product or you as a person or your brand or your business is the ultimate thing that they want and the ultimate thing that is going to get them results, the more, first of all, they're going to use it, but secondly the more they're going to talk about it with their friends. Like, "Ah, this is awesome and it works and it's amazing." That's what we are seeing right now. People are talking more and more about UpViral because, first of all, they're getting more results and also because they see other people who are getting results. I just want to share that real quick. I hope it's going to make sense to you all and I want to wish you all an awesome day. Bye, bye.
Crowdfunding Uncut | Kickstarter| Indiegogo | Where Entrepreneurs Get Funded
Cheat Sheet If you have a list, a certain percentage will be your True Fans. It is crucial you learn how to identify them. They genuinely want to help you succeed. Help them help you! One way to identify them is through a private, application required, Facebook group. If someone is willing to take the time to fill out an application then they are probably willing to help you out. Size doesn’t matter… it’s engagement. Talk directly with your fans. Give them insider access and perks (Hint… it is fun! They like you and want to help.) Leverage technologies like UpViral and ThunderClap to increase social sharing and increase sales. Reward the top sharers. About This Episode Two weeks ago, Austin Netzley talked about the famous “1000 True Fans” article from Kevin Kelly. The essence of 1000 True Fans is that if you cultivate a relatively small tribe of people who love your work and are willing to pay for it, you can sustain a career in almost any field. You can even fund a Crowdfunding Campaign. But the key is learning how to identify them and how to engage with them. Kevin Kelly wrote 1000 True Fans in 2008 before Kickstarter and Indiegogo were founded. And in that essay, he even mentions that building and maintaining a direct relationship with your fans can be a bit daunting. But that was 8 years ago and technology has changed. We have Facebook Groups... UpViral... Thunderclap… Typeform... ...and a host of tools that happen to make speaking directly to your 1000 True fans really easy. In this episode, Nathan Chan and I talk about the “Facebook Insider Group”. Nathan is the founder of Foundr Magazine and recently finished up a Kickstarter Campaign for a coffee table book for entrepreneurs. While that campaign was going on, he gave me a behind the scenes look at how it works and it is super cool! It is the most concrete and concise example of implementing 1000 True Fan Theory that I have ever seen. And it works. After seeing Nathan use it successfully with his Foundr Campaign, I implemented it for the JamStack campaign and it has been a huge success. 474 Members Great feedback and social engagement And we raised 50% of our goal in 4 hours directly from that group! I will be using Insider Groups on all of my campaigns moving forward and you should too. Special Bonus: In this episode, Nathan and I go over some key MISTAKES we both made in our most recent campaigns that cost us a lot of money. Here’s the thing. Experienced entrepreneurs make mistakes all the time. If this is your first campaign then you will too. Accept this NOW, and go have some fun screwing up and learning from it! But save yourself some headache (and make a bunch of extra money) by learning from our mistakes. Resources Mentioned Foundr Magazine Foundr Kickstarter Campaign Foundr Indiegogo In Demand 1000 True Fans UpViral ThunderClap Typeform Purple Cow by Seth Godin JamStack Kickstarter Campaign
Interview - Imperfecte actie is beter dan géén actie In het skype gesprek met Wilco de Kreij, online marketing ondernemer van Up Viral, gaat het niet over lead en getallen. Het gaat over de essentie van het leven, het maken van fouten en het leren ervan. Deadlines, doelgericht, kleine stappen en afmaken: dat is kenmerkend voor Wilco. En zeker niet alleen business gerelateerd. In deze podcast onthult hij zijn grootste les, hij stopt zelfs even met praten… Zijn I Love Life: Volmaakt geluk is geen zorgen hebben. Luister naar deze podcast en haal jouw inspiratie eruit!
On this episode Wilco shares how he actually didn't realize that he got scammed until after he paid out 25,000 US dollars, which is crazy, right? Time Stamped Show Notes:01:21 I decided that I wanted to have a coach or a mentor. 01:51 It had to be someone that is ten steps ahead of me. 02:20 founder of ClickFunnels 02:59 The cost of this group, of this inner circle of his, is $25,000 a year. 04:04 Russell Brunson is using Upviral. 05:48 I call his team, and I joined, and I wired the $25,000. 08:00 The funny thing is that it's actually joined Russell Brunson's inner circle because of that scammer. 08:51 As it turns out, those $25,000, it was easily worth the investment. 09:30 As an entrepreneur, don't look backwards. 09:41 Have a vision, and move forward. Transcription: Hey everyone, it's me, Wilco de Kreij here, and today I've got a crazy story to share with all of you. Recently I got scammed, and I actually didn't realize that I got scammed until after I paid out 25,000 US dollars, which is crazy, right? In order to dive into that story, I'll probably need to start at the very beginning for it to sort of make sense, sort of like know why I actually fell into this trap. You might think, "Well that's just a bit stupid." I just want to give you the full story. As you might know, as an entrepreneur, it sometimes can be a lonely journey, right? I mean, we have to make all these kind of decisions and we usually, we don't always have people to brainstorm with. We sort of need to have the vision and we need to set the strategy and the whole team, or your whole business depends on it, right? In my experience, it can be a lonely journey. For that reason, at some point, I think it was like last year or so, I decided that I wanted to have a coach or a mentor. In order for someone to be a coach or a mentor to me, I knew that that person needed to be at least ten steps ahead of me, right? If someone was at the similar level in terms of their business and what phase they're on, that wouldn't really inspire me. Or like if I would ask a certain opinion, like, "Hey, how would you do that?" If someone is at the same level as I am, I would probably be asking him like, "Why would I believe you, and why not just go for my own gut feeling?" It had to be someone that is ten steps ahead of me, so that if he or she would actually say, "I've done this, I tried this and this is the best way." Then I would actually believe them, that to be the best way, and I would actually take action on that instead of second guessing their opinion or their input, right? I've been searching a line, and I've been doing some research and all, and at some point I ran into this guy Russel Brunson. You might know him, he's one of the bigger online marketeers. He's the founder of ClickFunnels and I've been following him for a while. I've been reading his book, I've been listening to his podcasts, and all of that. I think about sixth months ago or so, I started to, I was sort of curious and I was thinking of joining his inner circle. He has like an inner circle, which is a group of people, group of one hundred entrepreneurs that he gives mentorship to, or coaches, or however you want to describe it. It gives you access to his mind, basically. You can actually ask him questions, one on one, and there's some brainstorming sessions in the US as well, so it's a good way to ask him questions and to leverage his knowledge, right? The cost of this group, of this inner circle of his, is $25,000 a year, which is quite a bit of money, right? The first time I started thinking about that, I've been thinking about it a lot, and for me, most of the money I spend in my business, I can sort of estimate what I'm getting back out of it. If I spend money on ads, I know what I'm getting out of it. If I spend money on development, if I build my team, a lot of the things are, I can sort of see what the return is. For this, I was actually paying out $25,000 just to get some input. Just to get some answers on questions. In my mind, it was not an easy decision to make. It was not like, "Oh, yeah. It's just $25,000, I'll just throw it at it." No. It's actually a lot of money. I just wasn't sure, basically. I had a call with his team, I thought about it, and at the end I decided not to go for it. I just let it be, and I figured I'll just do it on my own. A couple months later, a friend of mine, actually a couple friend's of mine, they texted me and they said, "Hey, Russell Brunson is using AdViral." He was talking about it, AdViral, which as you probably know, is my baby. It's my main business. He was talking about it on social media. He was saying, "Oh, yeah, it's great. We're getting all these kind of results." He was literally promoting AdViral on his Snapchat and all his other channels as well. I was like, "Oh, wow. Russell Brunson is using AdViral, how awesome is that?" I'm looking up to the guy. I think he's a superstar. I was getting all excited that he was using AdViral, which is, I think, pretty awesome. He was getting good results with it as well, right? A few days later, I actually got an email from him. At that point, I was freaking out. I was like, "Woah. Seriously? Russell Brunson is emailing me?" He emailed something in line of, "Hey dude, it's great software. Awesome. Keep up the good work." Something in that line, right? We emailed back and forth a little bit, and then he asked me whether I had a second account for AdViral. His team had their own account. He already purchased one account, and he said, "Hey, do you have a second account? In return, I'll give you one of my products." We made a swap, I also gave him access to our auto products connect for ConnectIO, our Facebook access products. I gave him those accounts, and he gave me an account, and because he was emailing with me, I was so excited I actually talked to my wife saying, "Oh, yeah. Russell Brunson is emailing me." I felt like this was super cool. I never had contact one on one with the guy. I've been following him, listening to him, to his podcasts, just the fact that he made time out of his busy day to reply to me was just, it was awesome. That's actually why I decided at that point, while I was emailing with him, I figured you know what? I'm just going to join the inner circle, right now, right here. I call his team, and I joined, and I wired the $25,000. You might think everything is good, right? Well as it turns out, in a way it is good, right? The inner circle, I love it. It's actually, seriously I love it. Recently, I sent a message to Russell, because now that I'm in the inner circle I can obviously contact him one on one. I sent a message to him, because I was checking the login that he sent me earlier in that email conversation. I was checking that login to see, I wanted to check out what it was. I never really had time to dive into it. At this point, I wanted to dive into it. I opened the new login that they sent me, I entered my email and password, and it didn't accept it, right? It didn't work. I sent a message to Russell saying, "Hey dude, the login that you sent me, it's not working. Could you please fix that, or let your team fix that because I'd love to check it out." He messaged me back, saying, "Dude, I never gave access that login." I'm like, "Wait a second. Yeah you did." I reminded him of the email conversation that we had and he said, "Well, no. I don't remember that. That was not me." We dig in deeper. As it turns out, those emails were not Russell Brunson. Let me explain to you what happened. Russell Brunson, he was using AdViral, and he shared that on social media. We dove in deeper. What apparently happened, someone else saw that, and they signed up for a domain name, which is similar to his ClickFunnels domain, and he imitated Russell Brunson by sending me an email. He took on a fake domain name, he used the name Russell Brunson, he emailed me saying, "Hey, could you please send me a login?" We emailed back and forth, and all this time I was thinking it was Russell Brunson, when in fact it was a scammer. It was someone who went through all that effort, signing up for a domain name and pretending to be Russell Brunson, sending me emails back and forth in the actual language as if it was Russell Brunson, right? Only with the goal of actually getting access to AdViral and ConnectIO. I get it, right? Who doesn't want to have access to those tools, but I mean, that's a lot of trouble, and also illegal by the way, but a lot of trouble to just get those tools. The funny thing is that it's actually because of that scammer, it's actually because of that scammer that was emailing me, I believed it was actually Russell Brunson that I joined the inner circle. Here's what happened, right. This guy, just last week we looked up his account, obviously, and realized he never actually used it. A couple months back there was this guy, a scammer, he went through all this trouble to sign up a domain name and to imitate someone he wasn't actually himself, to get that account, and now a few months later after going through all that trouble, he hasn't even used it. He's just putting a lot of effort and a lot of work in, and I'm guessing that he's still at the same spot as where he was a couple months ago. Now, on the other hand, I actually joined the inner circle because of these emails. Sure. As it turns out, those $25,000, it was easily worth the investment, because I'm already way ahead of that right now. I think that's the main idea I want to give you. It's a bit of a crazy story when me and Russell figure this out, that someone actually imitated him and I actually joined because of the scammer. We laughed so hard. Some people might say, "Doesn't that feel awkward that you actually joined because of the scammer?" That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what made me to decide to actually move forward, I moved forward and that's the power that we have as an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, don't look backwards. Don't look at the decisions you made that did work out, that didn't work out, or try to find excuses for things. Have a vision, and move forward. If something happens, just take the best out of it. I think that's really what sets us apart from those that are just not, that don't have a vision, that are short sighted. These are the kinds of people that might be doing these kind of tricks, trying to scam someone and get a free account or whatever. That's just super short sighted. I think, I guess, the biggest takeaway that I wanted to share with all of you with this crazy story, is that just have a vision, go for it, and don't find excuses or don't blame all of us if something works or doesn't work out. Of course, yeah, I could have been pissed off that someone scammed me and that I paid out $25,000 to Russell. Just to make clear, the $25,000 obviously went to Russell. It's not like the scammer also tricked me into paying that to him, but I did pay out $25,000 because of those emails. If the scammer would not have emailed me, I would not have joined the inner circle. I'm actually thankful. Just in case he or she is actually listening, thanks for that. I appreciate it, because of your short shortsightedness, I'm actually way ahead from all of this. Yeah, thanks for that actually. That's it. I just wanted to share this quick story with all of you, I thought it was super funny but also like I said, please take the lesson out of it that just have a vision on long term, and do what you believe in, and you'll be all right. Everyone peace out, cheers.
There’s a great tool called UpViral.com that you can use to create and run viral contests. I’ve used the tool for a product launch last year and we built a launch list of around 10,000 email subscribers total. A big part of the traffic and emails we got came from viral sharing. Here’s what we … Continued The post How To Run A Contest On Facebook — Facebook Contest… appeared first on Till Boadella.
What really happened to get SnapFunnels.com launched. On this episode Russell talks about how he went from one Snapchat follower to over a thousand in under 24 hours. He also shares how you can make Snapchat work for your business. Here are some fun things to listen for in today's episode: How Russell was able to substantially increase his Snapchat following in a very short period of time, and how it continues to grow. How Russell used skills he already had in marketing to market his Snapchat account. And How you can use Snapchat to help your own business grow. So listen below for the Snapchat gold Russell is handing out on this episode! ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, good morning, good morning, good morning. I'm excited to be with you here for longer than 10 seconds on a special edition of Marketing In Your Car. Hey everyone, so yes, yes. I've been going a little Snapchat crazy for the last little bit, and I'm excited to be on a platform where I can talk to you for a little longer than 10 seconds. Anyway, as you guys know, I got intro'd to Snapchat a little while ago, a couple of days ago, and wanted to try it out. Did the first day and thought it was really fun. I thought it was actually a really good platform for me. Especially with next week we got some crazy stuff. Next week we're flying out Ty Lopez is doing a webinar for us, I'm flying out and hanging out at the mansion for a day. Dude, just kind of get some people excited about that webinar, which will be cool. After that, we're going and Marcus Lemonis is having us on The Profit, crazy, crazy, crazy. So we are going to be filming a part, I'm going to be in the episode building funnels for people. So we are going mainstream, funnels are becoming mainstream, which is cool. And a bunch of other cool things and I'm like, “How do I show that to people? I can talk about it post-production in here, Marketing In Your Car, which is fun, I can go into more details and share the cool stuff, but how do I take you behind the scenes, snap by snap. So we're going to be snapchatting the crap out of that trip along with everything else we're doing. Anyway, it's worth trying to figure out Snapchat, if nothing else, to see behind the scenes of next week, which is going to be amazing. So I think I found out if you go to snapchat.com/add/russellbrunson, I think it adds you directly, or faster or something. Alright so, this is kind of the behind the scenes. I thought Snapchat was cool, did the first snap, had one person watch it, and I was like this sucks, how do you get people? So I got to figure out a way to get people. I was like, what if I just create a page that educates them on why they should be following me and snapping and all that kind of stuff? So I create this page and it kind of goes through what to do and how to do it and all that kind of stuff, which is kind of cool. So then I started promoting that a little bit and we got a little bit of traction by people who already knew what Snapchat was and they jumped on and that was kind of cool. But then it just kind of died real fast. I was like, that was a lot of work, the juice was not worth the squeeze. Now I got 12 people watching my snaps, so that's not any cooler. And I was like, how do we grow this? As I'm asking myself this question, I want you guys thinking about this for your business as well, so from a podcasting standpoint, from an affiliate program, from a blog, from a Facebook, whatever it is. For me, the question in my head was how do I grow Snapchat faster? And again, I think the process I'm going to walk you guys through is the same process I would be going through if I was asking any of the other questions. How do I grow my affiliate program? How do I grow my podcast? How do I blah, blah, blah? So that's kind of the thought right? So what I did is I started going back, and this is, and we're jumping all over the place for the faithful followers of Marketing In Your Car, so if you jump back to the episode where I talked about an epiphany bridge. So I started thinking about what gave me my epiphany to want to actually care about Snapchat? And I was like, for me, it's cool. A couple of days ago I met Brandon and Kaylin, they showed Snapchat, I was like this is cool and they showed me how they get 20,000 people per snap to watch this thing. I'm like, dang. They put in a year's worth of effort, but now they get 20,000 views every time they push a button, which is nuts. I don't know any other platform you can do that on. You can be on informercials and you can't get 20,000 people to watch at the click of a button. They get 30 a day that 20,000 people watch, it's pretty cool. So that was kind of my big epiphany. Like wow, if I could build it up that'd be awesome. Then I was like, the only reason I'm getting on Snapchat, is because now I understand the benefit, I'm going to try Snapchat. So I want to see what other people are doing so I can understand how they're doing it, how they're engaging. I'm going to follow cool people, so I started following people. Now, it's funny, I'll log into Snapchat 50 times a day, refreshing to see if people I'm following posted anything. I'm annoyed when they haven't. I'm like, crap this is a cool platform because I want to be annoyed. When I'm, this is probably more than you wanted to know, when I'm going to the bathroom I want to see a bunch of snaps from the few people I'm following. If they haven't posted something I'm annoyed. Dude, wake up you guys. Do something funny. You need to entertain me now. So I was like, crap, this is kind of cool. I can just keep doing stuff and people during their bathroom breaks or whenever, I don't know when people Snapchat, they can catch up on all the weirdness that we're doing. I was like this is a cool platform. I need to take people through the same epiphany I had. So we set up snapfunnels.com, that's what my page was initially telling them how to follow me, but I was like, let's step back. What if I can get Brandon and Kaylin to give everyone the same epiphany they gave me? So that was my first thought, I was like, cool. This is literally yesterday morning. So then I Vox those guys. I'm like, “Hey can I interview you for like 30 minutes talking about Snapchat?” and they're like, “We're about to jump on a plane, we can't really do it, unless we do it at this time.” I'm like, “Sweet, let's do it. We'll do Google Hangout, We'll jump on and talk to guys for 30 minutes about Snapchat to give everybody the same epiphany I had. So that's step number one. Step number two is I'm about to leave my house to come to the office and I'm like, well how am I going to get people to actually want to register to watch this training? I gotta do something different, unique and fun. So what if I Snapchat me selling Snapchat and telling about the epiphany I had with snapchat and then introducing the people that gave me that epiphany. So I'm weaving 20 different marketing things into one, I hope you guys are seeing this. So then I'm like, what am I going to Snapchat? And I was like, with video's, what does really well is if you're taking someone on a journey. If you are just you in your office like, “Hi, my name is Russell, I'm in my office. Let's talk about something.” It's not nearly as powerful as you starting somewhere and taking somebody on a journey and a process with you. It's kind of like you are taking them on this whole epiphany with you. So I was like, I'm about to go to the office, what if I take them on this journey? “I'm leaving my house, going to the office, talking to Brandon and Kaylin, you guys are kind of going on this journey with me, opt in and you're going to see the same conversation I'm about to have.” So that's what I did. I got out Snapchat and I started Snapchatting my whole journey. Me putting my backpack on, walking out the of my house. Getting in the garage deciding do I take the Corvette or do I take the bike? The bike's way funnier so I took the bike. Me, driving my bike while I'm Snapchatting this message. And then I'm out of wind and it keeps cutting me off because I only get 10 seconds. So instead of trying to be all polished I played off of that, let me complain like 5 times about how short these things are. So I'm taking them on this journey to the office and then I go into the office, go to my desk, and I share what they are going to learn, and I show pictures of Kaylin with her ripped 6 pack abs to make people want to hear what she's gotta say. So I create this whole video of like 20 or 30 ten second Snapchats, and I'm trying to make it fun and entertaining. I had my brother edit one upside down because I wanted a pattern interrupt because it was like 5 shots in a row of me riding my bike and it just got kind of boring, even though it's ten seconds at a time. I'm like flip it upside down that way it's a pattern interrupt so they don't get bored during the 4 or 5 sessions of me riding on my bike. Anyway, we made this video, honestly on my ride to the office, had my brother edit it, flip that thing around, then we posted it on Youtube. Then I made Snapfunnels.com and posted that Snapchat video of me Snapchatting talking about Snapchat with an opt-in box. Next page then, I had just a really simple process, 1, 2, 3. Number one watch the training from Brandon and Kaylin, so as soon as we did the Googe Hangout, then I put the embed code on that page. Even though Google Hangout dropped 2 or 3 times, we didn't edit anything. Because I was like, I don't want to; I just want to go fast and hopefully show people you don't have to be so polished to make things cool. So we did that. Step two is like, “Hey go to this page now to follow me.” So then it takes them to a page I created the day earlier that walks them through how to find me, how to follow me, how to watch my snaps or my story or whatever. I should learn the terminology. Then step three was like, “Hey you guys should share Snapfunnels with your audience because if you could educate them on how to do this, then they'll be more likely to follow you as well. So what I'm going to do is if you share snapfunnels.com then we will give you a share funnel link for this funnel then you can use this funnel for your marketing.” I used a script I've been looking at for the last month of so that I thought was cool and I was wanting to use it. It's called Upviral. It gives a little widget you put on your page, like share this, then you share it, you earn points and things like that. It's pretty awesome, so we had people go and to get the share funnel link you had to share it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, I think or something like that. So they share it, boom, boom, boom. After they share it all three places it unlocks and emails them the share funnel link for that funnel and now they've got that, which puts people into Clickfunnels if they're not already a Clickfunnels member, which is cool. So we did that whole campaign and by lunch time it was all done. Busted it out on Clickfunnels, got it done, post on Facebook and we started watching it grow. Instantly it started growing, which is cool because I had a meeting right after that, so I wasn't able to promote it or anything. I just posted on Facebook and people started sharing it and opting in, and sharing it and new people opt in, and it started virally growing on its own, it was crazy. Then last night, finally before I left, I emailed the Clickfunnels list saying, “Hey, here's the Snapchat funnel, go get it for free.” So they could go do that, and then I emailed my list just talking about the title, which is how to ethically build a cult following in Snapchat. Anyway, it's been cool. It's been less than 24 hours since we had the idea. We had, I don't remember the exact numbers, over a thousand people have opted in. It's growing, people are watching my snaps, it's starting to grow really fast, it's exciting. So why did I share that with you? One is because I was kind of recapping in my head, which helps me to get it out, and realize what we did. And number two, that same process you guys could use for anything. Think back about why you started your affiliate program. Think about why you started your podcast, or started your blog. What was the epiphany you got? Create a training video giving people that epiphany and then create a funnel that gets them in the training video, which then gets them to subscribe to your blog, which then gets them blogging, because if they're blogging they'd be more likely to read your blog. People who write blogs, read blogs. I don't write a blog, so I don't read a blog. I only Snapchat because now I Snapchat. So educate people on what you want them to do, or how to do that thing that you're now doing and then in the process teach them to consume your part of it. And then throw in a viral campaign to make it go viral and see what happens. So there you go. Oh, and also by the way, I could have named this Snapchat Cult Secrets, but I'm the funnel guy right? I talked about this 3 or 4 episodes ago. Funnels has become our thing, so I called it snapfunnels. What does it have to do with funnels? I don't know, it's Snapchat and there's funnels and things like that. Anyway, it's syncs with the branding. Anyway, I hope….that one little campaign took us three or four hours to put the whole thing together, it turned out amazing and it was all just pieces of the stuff we've been sharing through the podcast. So I hope you guys are picking up the gold we're dropping, because it's powerful strategy for anyone to build their following. So use it, abuse it. I will be using it and abusing it more. My guess, I'm hoping Dave Woodward who runs our affiliate and our business stuff, is listening to this. Dave, let's do this for the affiliate program stuff. I have a really cool epiphany story, I haven't launched our affiliate program, so boom, me and Dave are doing that. It's done and done and happening. So that's exciting. We should do it for our podcast, I mean a lot of different ways, maybe we'll do podcast funnels, actually I'm totally doing that. It's coming soon to a funnel near you. Appreciate you all, have an amazing day. I'm at the office, time to launch Biohacking secrets, it's going live today. And also Funnelswag.com is going live today. So we got two cool things happening. So I'm going to go promote the crap out of both of them. So appreciate you all, have a great day and we'll talk soon.
What really happened to get SnapFunnels.com launched. On this episode Russell talks about how he went from one Snapchat follower to over a thousand in under 24 hours. He also shares how you can make Snapchat work for your business. Here are some fun things to listen for in today’s episode: How Russell was able to substantially increase his Snapchat following in a very short period of time, and how it continues to grow. How Russell used skills he already had in marketing to market his Snapchat account. And How you can use Snapchat to help your own business grow. So listen below for the Snapchat gold Russell is handing out on this episode! ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, good morning, good morning, good morning. I’m excited to be with you here for longer than 10 seconds on a special edition of Marketing In Your Car. Hey everyone, so yes, yes. I’ve been going a little Snapchat crazy for the last little bit, and I’m excited to be on a platform where I can talk to you for a little longer than 10 seconds. Anyway, as you guys know, I got intro’d to Snapchat a little while ago, a couple of days ago, and wanted to try it out. Did the first day and thought it was really fun. I thought it was actually a really good platform for me. Especially with next week we got some crazy stuff. Next week we’re flying out Ty Lopez is doing a webinar for us, I’m flying out and hanging out at the mansion for a day. Dude, just kind of get some people excited about that webinar, which will be cool. After that, we’re going and Marcus Lemonis is having us on The Profit, crazy, crazy, crazy. So we are going to be filming a part, I’m going to be in the episode building funnels for people. So we are going mainstream, funnels are becoming mainstream, which is cool. And a bunch of other cool things and I’m like, “How do I show that to people? I can talk about it post-production in here, Marketing In Your Car, which is fun, I can go into more details and share the cool stuff, but how do I take you behind the scenes, snap by snap. So we’re going to be snapchatting the crap out of that trip along with everything else we’re doing. Anyway, it’s worth trying to figure out Snapchat, if nothing else, to see behind the scenes of next week, which is going to be amazing. So I think I found out if you go to snapchat.com/add/russellbrunson, I think it adds you directly, or faster or something. Alright so, this is kind of the behind the scenes. I thought Snapchat was cool, did the first snap, had one person watch it, and I was like this sucks, how do you get people? So I got to figure out a way to get people. I was like, what if I just create a page that educates them on why they should be following me and snapping and all that kind of stuff? So I create this page and it kind of goes through what to do and how to do it and all that kind of stuff, which is kind of cool. So then I started promoting that a little bit and we got a little bit of traction by people who already knew what Snapchat was and they jumped on and that was kind of cool. But then it just kind of died real fast. I was like, that was a lot of work, the juice was not worth the squeeze. Now I got 12 people watching my snaps, so that’s not any cooler. And I was like, how do we grow this? As I’m asking myself this question, I want you guys thinking about this for your business as well, so from a podcasting standpoint, from an affiliate program, from a blog, from a Facebook, whatever it is. For me, the question in my head was how do I grow Snapchat faster? And again, I think the process I’m going to walk you guys through is the same process I would be going through if I was asking any of the other questions. How do I grow my affiliate program? How do I grow my podcast? How do I blah, blah, blah? So that’s kind of the thought right? So what I did is I started going back, and this is, and we’re jumping all over the place for the faithful followers of Marketing In Your Car, so if you jump back to the episode where I talked about an epiphany bridge. So I started thinking about what gave me my epiphany to want to actually care about Snapchat? And I was like, for me, it’s cool. A couple of days ago I met Brandon and Kaylin, they showed Snapchat, I was like this is cool and they showed me how they get 20,000 people per snap to watch this thing. I’m like, dang. They put in a year’s worth of effort, but now they get 20,000 views every time they push a button, which is nuts. I don’t know any other platform you can do that on. You can be on informercials and you can’t get 20,000 people to watch at the click of a button. They get 30 a day that 20,000 people watch, it’s pretty cool. So that was kind of my big epiphany. Like wow, if I could build it up that’d be awesome. Then I was like, the only reason I’m getting on Snapchat, is because now I understand the benefit, I’m going to try Snapchat. So I want to see what other people are doing so I can understand how they’re doing it, how they’re engaging. I’m going to follow cool people, so I started following people. Now, it’s funny, I’ll log into Snapchat 50 times a day, refreshing to see if people I’m following posted anything. I’m annoyed when they haven’t. I’m like, crap this is a cool platform because I want to be annoyed. When I’m, this is probably more than you wanted to know, when I’m going to the bathroom I want to see a bunch of snaps from the few people I’m following. If they haven’t posted something I’m annoyed. Dude, wake up you guys. Do something funny. You need to entertain me now. So I was like, crap, this is kind of cool. I can just keep doing stuff and people during their bathroom breaks or whenever, I don’t know when people Snapchat, they can catch up on all the weirdness that we’re doing. I was like this is a cool platform. I need to take people through the same epiphany I had. So we set up snapfunnels.com, that’s what my page was initially telling them how to follow me, but I was like, let’s step back. What if I can get Brandon and Kaylin to give everyone the same epiphany they gave me? So that was my first thought, I was like, cool. This is literally yesterday morning. So then I Vox those guys. I’m like, “Hey can I interview you for like 30 minutes talking about Snapchat?” and they’re like, “We’re about to jump on a plane, we can’t really do it, unless we do it at this time.” I’m like, “Sweet, let’s do it. We’ll do Google Hangout, We’ll jump on and talk to guys for 30 minutes about Snapchat to give everybody the same epiphany I had. So that’s step number one. Step number two is I’m about to leave my house to come to the office and I’m like, well how am I going to get people to actually want to register to watch this training? I gotta do something different, unique and fun. So what if I Snapchat me selling Snapchat and telling about the epiphany I had with snapchat and then introducing the people that gave me that epiphany. So I’m weaving 20 different marketing things into one, I hope you guys are seeing this. So then I’m like, what am I going to Snapchat? And I was like, with video’s, what does really well is if you’re taking someone on a journey. If you are just you in your office like, “Hi, my name is Russell, I’m in my office. Let’s talk about something.” It’s not nearly as powerful as you starting somewhere and taking somebody on a journey and a process with you. It’s kind of like you are taking them on this whole epiphany with you. So I was like, I’m about to go to the office, what if I take them on this journey? “I’m leaving my house, going to the office, talking to Brandon and Kaylin, you guys are kind of going on this journey with me, opt in and you’re going to see the same conversation I’m about to have.” So that’s what I did. I got out Snapchat and I started Snapchatting my whole journey. Me putting my backpack on, walking out the of my house. Getting in the garage deciding do I take the Corvette or do I take the bike? The bike’s way funnier so I took the bike. Me, driving my bike while I’m Snapchatting this message. And then I’m out of wind and it keeps cutting me off because I only get 10 seconds. So instead of trying to be all polished I played off of that, let me complain like 5 times about how short these things are. So I’m taking them on this journey to the office and then I go into the office, go to my desk, and I share what they are going to learn, and I show pictures of Kaylin with her ripped 6 pack abs to make people want to hear what she’s gotta say. So I create this whole video of like 20 or 30 ten second Snapchats, and I’m trying to make it fun and entertaining. I had my brother edit one upside down because I wanted a pattern interrupt because it was like 5 shots in a row of me riding my bike and it just got kind of boring, even though it’s ten seconds at a time. I’m like flip it upside down that way it’s a pattern interrupt so they don’t get bored during the 4 or 5 sessions of me riding on my bike. Anyway, we made this video, honestly on my ride to the office, had my brother edit it, flip that thing around, then we posted it on Youtube. Then I made Snapfunnels.com and posted that Snapchat video of me Snapchatting talking about Snapchat with an opt-in box. Next page then, I had just a really simple process, 1, 2, 3. Number one watch the training from Brandon and Kaylin, so as soon as we did the Googe Hangout, then I put the embed code on that page. Even though Google Hangout dropped 2 or 3 times, we didn’t edit anything. Because I was like, I don’t want to; I just want to go fast and hopefully show people you don’t have to be so polished to make things cool. So we did that. Step two is like, “Hey go to this page now to follow me.” So then it takes them to a page I created the day earlier that walks them through how to find me, how to follow me, how to watch my snaps or my story or whatever. I should learn the terminology. Then step three was like, “Hey you guys should share Snapfunnels with your audience because if you could educate them on how to do this, then they’ll be more likely to follow you as well. So what I’m going to do is if you share snapfunnels.com then we will give you a share funnel link for this funnel then you can use this funnel for your marketing.” I used a script I’ve been looking at for the last month of so that I thought was cool and I was wanting to use it. It’s called Upviral. It gives a little widget you put on your page, like share this, then you share it, you earn points and things like that. It’s pretty awesome, so we had people go and to get the share funnel link you had to share it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, I think or something like that. So they share it, boom, boom, boom. After they share it all three places it unlocks and emails them the share funnel link for that funnel and now they’ve got that, which puts people into Clickfunnels if they’re not already a Clickfunnels member, which is cool. So we did that whole campaign and by lunch time it was all done. Busted it out on Clickfunnels, got it done, post on Facebook and we started watching it grow. Instantly it started growing, which is cool because I had a meeting right after that, so I wasn’t able to promote it or anything. I just posted on Facebook and people started sharing it and opting in, and sharing it and new people opt in, and it started virally growing on its own, it was crazy. Then last night, finally before I left, I emailed the Clickfunnels list saying, “Hey, here’s the Snapchat funnel, go get it for free.” So they could go do that, and then I emailed my list just talking about the title, which is how to ethically build a cult following in Snapchat. Anyway, it’s been cool. It’s been less than 24 hours since we had the idea. We had, I don’t remember the exact numbers, over a thousand people have opted in. It’s growing, people are watching my snaps, it’s starting to grow really fast, it’s exciting. So why did I share that with you? One is because I was kind of recapping in my head, which helps me to get it out, and realize what we did. And number two, that same process you guys could use for anything. Think back about why you started your affiliate program. Think about why you started your podcast, or started your blog. What was the epiphany you got? Create a training video giving people that epiphany and then create a funnel that gets them in the training video, which then gets them to subscribe to your blog, which then gets them blogging, because if they’re blogging they’d be more likely to read your blog. People who write blogs, read blogs. I don’t write a blog, so I don’t read a blog. I only Snapchat because now I Snapchat. So educate people on what you want them to do, or how to do that thing that you’re now doing and then in the process teach them to consume your part of it. And then throw in a viral campaign to make it go viral and see what happens. So there you go. Oh, and also by the way, I could have named this Snapchat Cult Secrets, but I’m the funnel guy right? I talked about this 3 or 4 episodes ago. Funnels has become our thing, so I called it snapfunnels. What does it have to do with funnels? I don’t know, it’s Snapchat and there’s funnels and things like that. Anyway, it’s syncs with the branding. Anyway, I hope….that one little campaign took us three or four hours to put the whole thing together, it turned out amazing and it was all just pieces of the stuff we’ve been sharing through the podcast. So I hope you guys are picking up the gold we’re dropping, because it’s powerful strategy for anyone to build their following. So use it, abuse it. I will be using it and abusing it more. My guess, I’m hoping Dave Woodward who runs our affiliate and our business stuff, is listening to this. Dave, let’s do this for the affiliate program stuff. I have a really cool epiphany story, I haven’t launched our affiliate program, so boom, me and Dave are doing that. It’s done and done and happening. So that’s exciting. We should do it for our podcast, I mean a lot of different ways, maybe we’ll do podcast funnels, actually I’m totally doing that. It’s coming soon to a funnel near you. Appreciate you all, have an amazing day. I’m at the office, time to launch Biohacking secrets, it’s going live today. And also Funnelswag.com is going live today. So we got two cool things happening. So I’m going to go promote the crap out of both of them. So appreciate you all, have a great day and we’ll talk soon.
Facebook is arguably the most powerful and versatile ad platform the world has ever seen. These days, it even gets more and more attention from marketers than Google.That is why it is understandable how it can be hard sometimes to keep up with the amount of ad strategies that come out. Host, Brad Costanzo, invites, Wilco De Kreij, to the show to talk about some of the newest and most cutting edge strategies for using Facebook to build your list and sell your products.Wilco is famous for inventing tools, software, and strategies that make it easy to pull the most money out Facebook as much as possible such as Connect Leads and Upviral.You'll hear him talk about how to use viral giveaways, new Facebook Lead Generation Ads in cooperation with retargeting, and truly what's working now and how to automate it.Learn more about Wilco and get the full shownotes at https://baconwrappedbusiness.com/wilco/Some Topics We Discussed Include:How Wilco de Kreij got into entrepreneurshipWhat ConnectLeads and UpViral are all aboutHow to Encourage consumptionWhat are the effective types of giveaways and building a list from new leadsLove the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here’s How To Rate and Review Us»Join the Bacon Wrapped Business Community today: Bacon Wrapped Business on FacebookBrad Costanzo on FacebookBrad Costanzo on LinkedInBrad Costanzo on YouTubeBrad Costanzo on Twitter
In deze video ga ik in gesprek met internet ondernemer Wilco de Kreij, de man achter de tools ZoSocial, UpViral en ConnectLeads. Allemaal handige webapplicaties op basis van een SAAS model. (Software As A Service). Deze producten kenmerken zich door super succesvolle lanceringen waarmee Wilco mede dankzij samenwerking met meerdere affiliate partners wereldwijd letterlijk tonnen aan omzet binnenhaalt tijdens de eerste week van zijn lanceringen. Wat doen zijn tools? ZoSocial helpt ondernemers om like & win acties te houden op Facebook die wél aan de Facebook richtlijnen voldoen. UpViral maakt het mogelijk om mensen iets aan te bieden in ruil voor het delen van een unieke link naar je inschrijfpagina. Bijvoorbeeld; vul je naam en email adres in en download de checklist. Vervolgens zien mensen een unieke url en kan je mensen uitnodigen om die url te delen via social media in ruil voor punten. Bij X-aantal punten krijgen ze een bonus. Bijvoorbeeld toegang tot een cursus, een coupon code, etc etc. De derde tool is pas net gelanceerd: ConnectLeads. Met deze tool kan je leads die je binnenhaalt via de nieuwe Lead-Ad’s van Facebook direct inschieten in je e-mail marketing systeem zoals Mailchimp of Aweber. In plaats van elke dag handmatig de verworven opt-in’s als .csv bestand te downloaden en te importeren in Mailchimp, automatiseer met connect leads dit proces. Om het jullie makkelijk te maken heb ik linkjes geplaatst in de shownotes naar deze producten: - http://jelledrijver.nl/upviral, - http://jelledrijver.nl/connectleads, - http://jelledrijver.nl/zosocial. Deze podcast duurt ongeveer een uur. Heb je geen tijd om dit hele gesprek te beluisteren als Podcast? Ga dan naar http://jelledrijver.nl/fw042 en download het hele gesprek uitgewerkt als transcript inclusief alle linkjes, tools, tip’s en tricks.