How I Lost (and then saved) a $40,000 per Year Site
I made a video for you the other day.
When I made my last update and talked about how Google
killed one of my sites that makes $40,000/year I got many
emailed and few comments asking about that.
So, I wanted to update about it… and add in some good news…
I was able to get my domain back and it’s set to do about double
the average this month!
Here’s the video for ya:
Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
Long Overdue Update
Hey!
Thanks for coming and checking out the blog…
I have been kind of quite for the past few months, so I decided it was way past time to make an update.
Check out the video below to see what I have been up to and how I recently lost a $40,000/year website.
On the flip side, I am also working on selling one of my sites for about 30X monthly profits… that adds up to a pretty big chunk of money.
And I promise to put more time aside very soon to make some good content for you!
PS - I apologize in advance for the poofy hair and scruffy face… I need a haircut and shave!
PPS - I just made that new intro on Animoto… they have a cool system.
Matt Davis, Ryan Moran, PotPieGirl - Webinar Replay
For those of you that missed or just want to check it
out again, here is the Tough Love Webinar hosted by
Ryan Moran, PotPieGirl and myself (Matt Davis).
We talk about the brass tacks of making money online…
Which turns out to be not such a big secret!
Here’s the video… enjoy!:
Make Money Telling Stories
Okay, this was initially going to be a video blog post…
But after about 5 unsuccessful tries at getting the audio
to record correctly on on my webcam on this new
computer, I decided to just type it out.
So, I am working on my new niche product and I am
about 99% done now.
I can’t give the specifics yet b/c I want to make sure
everything is in place and working before I do…
But it is a video course in a specific niche.
I have the videos all online and the website built,
now I just need to get some tweaks done to the site to
make everything flow together better…
And my big task…
Writing the sales page!
So, I have been reading a lot about copywriting
lately and trying to brush up on my copy (this is also
what inspired my previous post, Selling 101)
One of the most powerful techniques for writing
salescopy is to use stories in your copy.
There are many reasons for this…
It is human nature to love stories.
What are some of your best memories growing up?
I know many of mine are of hearing stories from
family members…
My Grandpa telling me World War 2 stories and
stories about growing up as a cowboy in Texas,
riding horses and catching armadillos…
My dad telling me stories about the different dogs
he had throughout his life…
My mom reading stories to me out of books.
Being a great storyteller is an amazing gift to have…
Being able to intertwine a sales pitch into your
story is an even better skill to have and one that
will keep your bank account looking pretty!
As we hear stories, we place ourselves in those stories.
So using examples of characters that are in similar
situations as your prospective market and how
a certain product helped change their life will reflect
in the prospect’s mind as their own life being changed
by owning this certain product.
Another benefit is that using a character in a story can
allow you to say things that you otherwise wouldn’t be
able to as freely say.
See, if someone realizes they are reading a sales page, they
automatically have their guard up against being sold to…
We HATE being sold to…
But we love to decide on our own to buy something!
So, we want to use the characters in the story to make the
prospect “choose” to buy the product.
Here’s an example of what I am talking about. Let’s pretend
we are selling a product about Housebreaking a Puppy.
Here’s how we can sell to the prospect and slip it past their defense:
“A friend of mine got a new puppy a several months before me.
He was having a heck of a time getting his dog housebroken…
Everything he tried was not working and every time he turned
around his dog was peeing in the house again!
So, I was pretty nervous about my new puppy and had started
to worry that maybe he would turn out like my friend’s…
I had started working with him on it recently and we weren’t
having a whole lot of luck…
Maybe he too, would be destined to ruin my carpet and furniture!
But one day my friend calls me sounds ecstatic.
I ask what he’s so excited about and he tells me:
‘This is incredible… I housebroke Spot! And with this new technique,
it only took me 2 days!’
Of course I ask for more information, so he goes on to say.
‘You have to get The Housebreaking Secrets System that teaches
how to this… I was wrong in everything I had been trying… no more
scolding, no more ‘pee pads’, no more worrying’
‘Come over tomorrow and see for yourself’”
Okay, now obviously that wasn’t the best story and was extremely
cheesy and blatant…
But I want you to get the idea.
Did I do a decent enough job of conveying the general idea?
K.
Now another benefit is the entertainment factor.
This is a factor that Travis Sago has taught me about.
Basically, in general, we are bored and want to be entertained…
So, your stories are going to serve as entertainment to people.
Think about how much time and money is spent on entertainment
in the form of stories…
Books…
Television…
Movies…
Think about how much money is made by the creators of the most
popular types of stories in the categories above.
Now, I was able to get the second part of the video to work correctly,
so here is a 5 minute video of me analyzing how I use stories in my sales
page for Easy Licensing Pro.
Here’s the page to follow along:
http://www.easylicensingpro.com/licensing
Leave a comment below if you have advice about sales stories, or
want to ask a question… or just want to tell me know how much you love me!
Selling 101
Okay, for the first real post I decided to do it on selling.
SO many people put such a bad stigma on selling…
Salespeople are looked down on and considered to be
bad people in some way.
Selling is a great thing and is only bad when used for bad!
Really, it is one of the key things you need to know when
getting started online.
You don’t have to be a great salesperson to do well online.
There are just a few key principles that you need to keep in mind.
The biggest one is to sell the BENEFITS, not the features.
What the heck does that even mean?
Well, so many times I read sales pages and the focus of the
salespage is on the what the product actually is…
It tells me how many pages are in it…
How many videos are in it…
What the content is about…
But there are no benfits listed!
I don’t give a crap what the product is… I just want to know
what it will do for me!
I epecially see affiliates making this mistake.
In their pre-sell they are saying how great “Product X” is
but everything that’s listed as being great is just a bunch of
features of the product.
Oh, it’s good because it has 150 pages?
It’s a great product because it has over 5 hours of video?
I should buy it because it will tell me how to set up “X”?
NO!
So what do I mean by a benefit then?
I mean “How will this product change my life for the better?”
Sell my emotions!
If it’s a make money online product, then get me picturing
myself going to the computer in the morning in my underwear
just to see how many sales I made while I slept!
Get me thinking about how nice it will be to not have to worry
about a boss!
Don’t tell me you are going to teach me how to write and publish articles…
Or that you are going to teach me Search Engine Optimization…
That might be what the content is about…
But how is knowing that stuff going to help my life?
SHOW me how it will help my life.
I decided to throw in an activity for you.
Let’s take a market and all do our best to come up with a
quick little blurb about the benefits of a product instead
of the features.
For the market, let’s pick an easy one like weight loss for ladies.
Pretend you just have a few sentences to get the sale for your
new weight loss product (the type product doesn’t matter)…
Leave a comment below with your pitch.
Sell me!
Welcome to the Blog!
I finally broke down and had a blog created for me.
I have avoided it for a long time and all of my friends
were telling me how great they are.
So, I have been thinking about what I will write my
first post about because of course, I wanted to start
the new blog with a bang…
But, I decided to just do an into instead…
AND…
I wanted to ask you a question instead of me just
blabbing about myself and my ideas.
What do YOU want my first post to be about?
Seriously!
What do you want to learn?
Don’t say things like “I want to learn how to make
money online!”
Tell me some specifics things that I could answer in
a blog post… and I will get to answerin’ em!
Just leave your comment below and let me know!
Later,
Matt
