Here’s a comment that Abraham Anaya said about the film…

“This shows that having just a “job” doesn’t take us anywhere. We have blended or we are used to, as a society, that the idea of having a job in corporate America will take us somewhere. That the main purpose of going to college is to find a “good job.” I think that is not true. As a soon-to-be graduate senior, taking my last semester, at university level, I have found out, during these 5 years and a half, what I will like to do in my life. Not to find a “good job” but what I really love to do and that pays me well.”

Welcome to 2010!

It’s just going to get worse folks.

this is a pretty cool and inspiring video I just came across. Makes you think about the simple mundane things in life that with a little “thinking” can be fun, exciting, and mind-blowing (in a way).

Enjoy

So I got my new Macbook Pro a couple of weeks ago and I have yet to setup my add-on’s for Firefox. I’ve been using Safari because it’s so clean but it doesn’t have the awesome plugins that firefox does.

Anyhow, so I’m going through the firefox add-on’s section and noticing huge amounts of traffic and weekly downloads for these add-on’s.

For example…

Twitter Bar get 26,818 weekly downloads. WEEKLY downloads.

Twitter Fox: 83,865 WEEKLY downloads.

Is that a lot of traffic… YES.

TONS of traffic!

Mark Joyner, the author of Integration Marketing, first introduced the concept of integrating your marketing into an already existing traffic or transaction stream for generating traffic, leads, and sales. (Ie: Someone’s firefox plugin)

So take twitter bar for example, you could examine his process and find integration points (dead real estate) to introduce your offering into his product. So if there’s 26,000 new people using twitter and they did 1 tweet a day, potentially your offer could be shown 26,000 PER DAY.

See the power of Integration Marketing?

It’s “How Small Businesses Become Big Businesses – and Big Business Become Empires”

So true.

Here’s a quick video showing you the large amounts of traffic inside firefox add-on’s and how to exploit (or piggyback) on this hidden traffic stream.

Dumb Strategy #1: Faking Social Proof

So you come to a launch blog and there’s 200, 300, even 400 comments on each post. You get thinking, “hmmm something’s up.”

Yea. It’s called faking social proof. Maybe you’ve seen it before. And it’s the #1 Dumbest Strategy you can make when launching your product.

Here’s a little story…

A buddy of mine was promoting for a “ultra-successful” launch and every blog post had over 200 blog comments. As an affiliate, you know you’re about to make a boatload of money when you see that many comments for each post, especially if you’re in 2nd place for the affiliate prizes.

As the buzz built up and the doors opened, day 1… 1 sale. day 2… 1 sale. day 3,4,5,6, and 7… no sales.

What the heck went wrong?

It’s faking the buzz. Something Robert Cialdini calls, “A bungler of influence” and egregious (Jay Abraham word) mistake.

You could probably guess what happened to this guys business.

Instantly done.

Creditability shot.

True story.

Don’t make this DUMB mistake and fake your social proof with fake blog comments. Karma will bite you hard.

I will personally smack you. I’m sure Jeff Walker will agree… to smack you too.

Dumb Strategy #2: Having Your Son/Daughter Write Your Sales Copy

Yes, I understand you want to save money and not pay a copywriter to write your emails or sales letter. I was there and most everyone is…

BUT…

This is a DUMB mistake.

Here’s why…

Copy is King in direct marketing. It doesn’t matter if it’s actual written sales copy or copy that you are reading in a video sales letter, the words you say, the inflection you have all comes down to the “salesmanship in print.”

Small changes mean huge profits. It’s all about conversions. Here’s a simple chart to show you the difference between a low conversion of 0.005% (half a percent) vs. a great converting sales letter at 3%. The difference is between a $50,000 business vs. a $1,000,000 business. Ask Rich Schefren.

Conversion % Traffic Sales Price Revenue
0.5% 1,000 5 $500 $2,500
1.0% 1,000 10 $500 $5,000
2.0% 1,000 20 $500 $10,000
3.0% 1,000 30 $500 $15,000

NOTE: Typically on product launches your conversion rates can skyrocket on the first day because of all the anticipation, curiosity, and other persuasion and influence factors working in your favor. I’ve seen conversion rates as high as 22.4% on launch day!

Talk to my friends Chris Haddad, Rachel Rofe, and Francis Ablola they’ll tell you the horror stories of bad copy on launch day.

Your affiliates will hate you. If your sales letter doesn’t convert and they don’t make any money… it’s a tough sell to go back to them for another promotion.Treat your affiliates like kings and make them a ton of money because in the end they are the lifeblood of any info product business.

Dumb Strategy #3: “Oh #%$… I Need Affiliates!?”

I’ve seen it happen time and time again. You plan the pre-launch, you mastermind like crazy planning each elemental step, “Scarcity is here, and ahhh the social proof works there. This is going to rock!”

Then it hits you.

“#%$… I don’t have any affiliates!”

It’s a week before your launch, you struggle to make deals happen all while creating the content, writing the emails, creating the product (because you’re not done yet), and the other 100 million thing you have to do, and you soon realize that no one knows about you or your product.

That million dollar launch will not happen UNLESS you plan.

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail.” – Proverbs

About 2 or 3 years ago at Bradley’s in West Palm Beach, FL, Todd Brown from Strategic Profits and I talked about the importance of actually “launching” your affiliates, not just launching your list.

So think about creating a pre-launch plan and campaign JUST for your affiliates. Involve them in the story from the beginning.

Dumb Strategy #4: No Backend

Great. So you built your product got it polished and cleaned and ready for launch, but what about your backend? Did you build that out yet?

Don’t make this DUMB mistake and NOT have a backend.

Yes, in “some” rare cases you won’t need one, but honestly it’s really dumb not to have something in place.

Ok, so you have 1-3 days before you launch and your struggling to find a upsell. You can’t create a product in time and time is definitely not on your side.

Here’s some quick and easy upsells you can offer…

4 Week Coaching Program

A friend of mine, Maria Andros’, had a couple of days left before he highly esteemed launch of her coaching program “Social Media Blueprint” and needed some quick guidance on her upsells. With the help of Harlan Kilstein and some semi help from me she formulated her upsell as a hands on personal coaching program.

They’re simple to do and if time is not on your side, a “hands on” personal coaching program is the thing for you.

In-Depth LIVE Webinar Series

The keyword here is LIVE.

You’ve got too much on your plate already and creating more videos for launch time is NOT happening. So host a live webinar or teleseminar series. It’s simple, there’s virtually no cost and people can gain instant access to you.

In this series you discover and go deeper into your product’s overall benefits.

Don’t make the mistake and not have a backend. Honestly, you’ll be doing a major disservice to the people that want more, want personal attention, and want to learn from you.

Dumb Strategy #5: “I Can Do It Myself”

Can you do it yourself?

Of course you can. Will you pull your hair out. Without a doubt.

Is it smart to go at it alone?

Ask any successful business person. Actually, you already know the answer.

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”
- Ryunosuke Satoro

So true. Without the team, you will never be as powerful as you are together.

From my experience with doing many six figure launches, the elements and team are pretty much always the same.

• Graphic Designer
• HTML coder or programmer (or multiple)
• JV relationship manager
• Copywriter

Those are the core elements. Now, try and do it all by yourself. Your results will probably suck, especially if you have no experience programming, designing, creating web pages, writing good converting copy, or managing relationships and jvs.

Don’t think you can do it all.

This is the single biggest dumbest mistake I see many new and veteran entrepreneurs fall into… trying to do it all themselves. Heck, I’ve been there.

Here’s what I recommend…

Programmers

In my experience I found the best programmers are on odesk, rentacoder, and scriptlance. I use scriptlance for small projects, rentacoder and odesk for larger projects with developers with more experience.

Copywriters

I could definitely recommend a few. The best place to find aspiring copywriters is through Michael Masterson’s company AWAI, WarriorForum, and Copywriting.com.

You can find some great copywriters that are just beginning. Most are quite inexpenesive and provide some good work.

Graphic Designers

I recommend checking out 99Designs.com and a secret site that I think is better is use called DesignOutpost.com. You can simply post your project and have 5, 10, 15 designers created a rendition of what you are looking for.

From webpages, logos, banners, flash elements, you name it – they have it. And the best part, it’s super cheap.

If you’re this far, I hope you enjoyed the post.

I’d love to here your feedback. Drop me a comment below.

Muchas Gracias,

Chris

But not this time.

I just got back from a 35 day trip to Brazil with my “new” (yes new) fiance. We visited 8 different cities and took literally 7 “mini-vacations.”

We vacationed and took a…

• 5 day trip to Natal, where I learned the secret to flushing the toilets in Brazil (hint: don’t flush the paper down) and ate lobster like it was our job for $3 a piece.
• 5 days in Rio de Janiero where I proposed to Alessandra at Corcovado “the Christ Statue”
• 14 days in Goiania, Alessandra’s hometown and where I gained most of my 16 extra pounds
• 3 days in Caldas Novas, the land of a natural hot springs and the monster 1.5 ton cow beast (Dan Kennedy would be proud)
• 4 days camping in the middle of nowhere on a sandbar in the Aruaguia river, where the piranha’s are an Aphrodisac and poker goes til’ 7am.
• 3 days in Pirenopolis, where I learned that Alessandra’a uncle is the world’s biggest 80’s fan… he loves Heart.

The best part…

I made more money being on vacation than “actually” doing work back home.

Honestly, I “maybe” worked 5-8 hours throughout the entire 35 day trip and I still made a nice chunk of change *completely* on autopilot.

So what do I attribute it to?

A couple of things.

Creating Passive Websites

Ah… the beauty of affiliates and consistent, residual traffic. You can’t beat that.

This was a nice portion of the income I earned while I was away. When I create new products I first map out a plan for generating affiliates and creating that evergreen, residual traffic stream to consisntely drive new leads, prospects and sales to the new site.

When your creating your product, first off, it’s gotta be good. You can’t polish a piece of crap with pretty graphics.

Proof, proof, proof, case studies, case studies, case studies are everything.

One thing Yanik Silver mentioned before was, “do it, document it, and profit from it.”

I always kept that at the top of mind when creating new products. Because without the proof and some case studies of whether YOU have proved it first, it’s a tough sell… it’s then theory and theory doesn’t sell too well without some serious poop polishing.

Ok I’m getting off topic here, but ah yes. Passive income.

This comes from affiliates, ppc, and other jv partners. Creating this base of affiliates to drive traffic to your site is critical to creating a 5-figure passive income starting today.

Are you building a list of “just” affiliates?

Another thing and I learned this from Rich Schefren a ways ago, “Build a business, not an income.” So true. So start thinking long term, bigger larger themed businesses not one off websites that “make money.”

Keeping the Pipeline Full

I learned this when I worked for my friend Joseph Visconti’s company, Valuerich, when I was a executive salesman in which I had to sell magazine ad space to CFO, CEO’s, and Marketing Managers of small-cap public companies.

It was all about keeping the “pipeline” full.

What is that?

Simple. You stop getting prospects, marketing for potential clients, or driving traffic your pipeline becomes empty and you produce no sales. You then have to ramp back up build up your pipeline of potential clients or customers and like any numbers game, there is a conversion.

In my Product Launch Consulting company, Powerlaunch, from where I learned most all of my strategies from my indirect mentors Jeff Walker and Frank Kern, it’s always about creating a consistent flow of prospects coming into your pipeline.

Some clients can afford you but about 90% cannot. So keeping that new influx of potential prospects especially in a high ticket “hands-on” transaction like product launches is essential.

Ideally, knowing that 90% can’t take on me or you, you then create a range of products that they can purchase from you to get some of the knowledge that you provide with the consulting (duh I should do this)

Residual Results Based Marketing Campaigns

This is something I learned from Jay Abraham and one of my mentor’s Bob Serling…

“Create a marketing campaign inject it into a business. Take the same campaign and inject it into another, then another, then another. In the end you have case studies, proof, and something that is, and most importantly it’s PROVEN to work.”

It’s that simple.

You have a “proven” campaign that has worked with this Company A and produced $3,583 in 3 days, produced $14,738 in 5 days for Company B, and produced $7,873 in 7 days for Company C.

Companies today are looking for proven ways to make more money. Not a fancy ad they got from a ad agency which is new and unique and most likely will fail.

Give them stuff that works, that will make them money immediately, and you have a client and passive income for life.

Now that you have a proven campaign, results, proof, AND case studies you simply SCALE IT UP. But before you scale it up, you create your systems, your processes, find competent people to put into your system, and then promote the heck out of yourself and your company.

You can do this through direct mail, endorsed mailings (via email), space ads in newspapers, or through your warm network of friends, collegues, and joint venture partners.

The beauty about this is every time your clients run one of your proven campaign in their business… you get paid… and paid handsomely.

Just imagine having 3, 5, 15, or like a friend of mine, 250 businesses using your marketing.

Can you imagine the checks and money flowing into your bank account?

An ungodly amount.

Anyhow, I hope this helps some people to start thinking more RESIDUAL, more HAND’S OFF, more AUTOMATED, and more LONG TERM.

Cheers,

Chris Brisson

P.S. When I left Delray for Brazil I mentioned to Michael Masterson, “I bet being away for 35 days, I’ll make more money.” At around day 22 I sent him an email saying “it’s true.”

He said…

“Vacations are very good… but you won’t make any money on them unless you spend the time at the office sloggin away.”

So take his word for it. Vacations are great. Bust some arse, build your systems so you can then truly create a residual ever growing business to enjoy your vacations.

P.P.S. I must thank Brandon Fredrickson for inspiring me to write this. He gave me a case of “vacation’s over, get to work.” Thank Brandon.

P.P.P.S. Alessandra if you’re reading this… I love you baby. (Had to throw that in there guys)

It’s a simple “cash in the bank” marketing secret. Check it out here.

It’s one of those “must read” marketing behavior books. I got a chance to whip through it over the weekend along with reading Michael Masterson’s “Ready, Fire, Aim” and came across the decoy effect.

Now, I first heard of this before from my friend Todd Brown and Rich Schefren a while back. This decoy effect is the true secret to behavior and buyer control. Something Frank Kern would call “crowd control.”

So here’s what it is…

Dan did a test with The Economist magazine on their subscriptions and here we the results…

Here’s a cool video that describes it quickly…

Like many web 2.0 companies Ethnio started off FREE and built a nice base of users…

BUT…

No one took them seriously until they did something unthinkable. Something so wrong in the web 2.0 world.

THEY CHARGED PEOPLE MONEY FOR THEIR SERVICE!

Oh my god! What do you mean?!

I thought you’re supposed to give away your stuff for free?

Wrong.

What’s interesting is once Ethnio started charging people money for their service, their traffic actually went up.

Here’s what Nate sent me over…

On the last day, my mentor Bob Serling invited us to go on his sailboat and coast around the bay in San Diego. My good friend and wunderkid copywriter, Chris “Money Fangers” Haddad, Peter “Double P” Parks, my girlfriend Alex and her friend hopped on Bob’s boat.

Here is our journey…

Bob taught myself, Chris, and Peter a huge deal of money making strategies using licensing. I highly recommend his course Million Dollar Licensing if you’re interested in an easy, proven, and highly lucrative way to make a huge amount of money.

Peter made over $823,000 using Bob’s Strategies. Haddad has made gob’s of cash, and myself… I’ve made a nice, very nice, chunk of residual cash just doing ONE of Bob’s simple strategies.

This chunk of cash is taking myself and my girlfriend to Brazil for 35 days!

Check out Bob’s Million Dollar Licensing course

Cheers,

Chris

I found a way to get 2 hours a day of Starbucks Wifi for only $0.03 per day.

Step 1: Get a Starbucks Gift Card
Step 1: Put $5 bones on the card
Step 3: Sign up on the screen for your Starbucks account
Step 4: Spend $1 bone a month on your card.

That’s it Charlie. Now get workin’.

Chris