Do you know what the single most important thing is in business?
It’s the same “most important” thing in family, in health and in life.
Relationships.
Your success is almost 100% determined by the quality and quantity of your relationships. If you have good relationships, you can overcome any setback, you can conquer any problem and you can grow faster than you ever thought possible.
As we take this 12-part look at the marketing and business strategies that my friends and I are using, we’ve gotten to one of my favorites: simple partnerships.
So let’s look at a favorite method I’ve created for myself around partnerships:
The Smart Strategy
There are three ways I could better use these Expert Calls, making them more to my advantage.
(Can you guess what they are?)
1) BETTER LIST-BUILDING: I could ask my guests to promote the call to their list, too. That way we would BOTH get some list-building benefit.
2) REUSE THE CONTENT: I could re-package the interviews as a series. I could offer them as “Best of…” recordings, or even repackage them as a podcast.
3) TIT-FOR-TAT: I could ask for something in return. I could ask for my experts to do an interview with me to their list at a later time, or to do an affiliate mailing for me.
But as it is, I’d rather leave this particular series “pure” – it makes it more fun for me, and honestly, I don’t need for it to grow my list or make me more money right now. I may rethink this in the future, but for right now, it’s just a joy.
Idea You Could Borrow for Yourself
I can think of a few different ideas you could borrow from this strategy:
1) Give your prospects an opportunity to describe their problems and questions in their own words. That kind of market research is indispensable.
2) Start your own interview series. And don’t be afraid to ask “big names” – you’d be surprised how willing people are to be interviewed, especially when it doesn’t come with the provisos of a summit.
3) Take a look at the caliber of your professional relationships. Are you hanging out with “better tennis players”? If not, make it a top priority to seek out a program, organization or society that contains the kind of people you’d like to emulate.
Let me know what you come up with, OK?
Yours,
Sam
P.S. I am proud to be a friend, colleague, student, Big Fan and affiliate for many of the teachers, writers and healers I’m discussing in this email series. I trust that you will trust your intuition, do your own research and only get involved in things that are right for you. Good? Good. Thanks. – S.
If you’re just joining us, we’re going “backstage” in the world of email and personal development, and taking a look at the business-building methods that some of my best friends and favorite teachers are using, so you can not only benefit from all their fabulous freebies, but you can also start to develop a vision for your own marketing.
I’m going to get underneath the hype and examine each teacher’s:
unique style
smart strategy
ideas you could borrow for yourself
So you can discover what’s going on behind the curtain.
My hope is that this will make you both a smarter consumer and a better entrepreneur.
(Because – like it or not – all creative people are entrepreneurs in one way or another, yes?)
So let’s look a very popular list-building strategy: Summits.
The Manifesting Wealth Retreat
This summit promises that you will, “Discover Your Money Powers, Unlock the Secrets of Living Life on Fire and Design Your Best Year Yet!”
It’s being hosted by Paula Johnson, who’s a very nice Canadian lady with a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology.
One person (in this case, Paula) reaches out to a bunch of experts (me) around a common theme (in this case, money). She interviews each of us, and we all agree to mail our lists promoting the summit.
It’s a great deal for the organizer, because if you have 20 experts, and they each have a mailing list of 10,000 or more, you are now in front of an audience of + 200,000. Even if only 1% of those people opt-in, you have still grown your list by over 2,000 highly-qualified prospects in one swell foop : )
It’s a so-so deal for the experts. We get to promote our message, and usually get to offer a freebie, so some percentage of the larger audience is now opting in to our list. (I usually get 50-100 new readers from a Summit, which isn’t great, but isn’t terrible, either.) Mostly I do it because I like teaching and I like helping other people build their businesses.
It’s an OK deal for the customers, too. They get access to a bunch of free wisdom and groovy freebies, and, especially for beginners, it can be a terrific introduction into the world of personal development.
If the Summit offers an upsell (and this Manifesting Wealth one does – you can get the recordings and some bonus materials for just $47) then the experts usually get an affiliate commission on those sales. To this day, I don’t I’ve ever made over a hundred bucks on any Summit upsell.
So no one is in it for the money – it’s all about the list-building.
I think the bloom is a bit off the rose for summits these days. Audiences are a bit burnt out on them, and especially the ones with 2-3 interviews a day are just too overwhelming to be consumed easily.
Also, they are a TON OF WORK to put together. Organizing the speakers, coordinating the interviews, creating the copy, making sure all the links work and then making sure that all the experts really DO mail…dude, it’s like herding cats. It’s a big, big job.
There are companies that will “produce” your Summit for you, but I can’t say I know much about them.
Bottom line: it’s a tried-and-true method to build up your email list, but it’s also an enormous amount of effort.
Idea You Could Borrow for Yourself
If you’re just starting out, then hosting a summit will give you a big boost, and appearing on summits will help you hone your message, practice your interview style and have something different to offer your list. So I wouldn’t say “don’t do it,” but I would advise you to be very clear about your desired outcomes.
I think there’s a lot of opportunity to take the underlying ideas and collaborative spirit behind the Summit concept and do them in new ways… What do YOU think?
Let me know what you come up with, OK?
Yours,
Sam
P.S. I am proud to be a friend, colleague, student, Big Fan and affiliate for many of the teachers, writers and healers I’m discussing in this email series. I trust that you will trust your intuition, do your own research and only get involved in things that are right for you. Good? Good. Thanks. – S.
You’d really rather just DO your work & have someone else take care of the marketing.
I know.
But odds are there isn’t anyone else to hand the marketing off to, and even if there were, that person isn’t going to know or care nearly as much about your work as you do.
So let’s play with the vocabulary a bit and see if that helps.
What if you thought of marketing this way:
Marketing Is Making Friends With People You Don’t Know Are Your Friends Yet
Here’s the thing – you don’t have to market to everybody.
You just have to market to the people who are ALREADY INTERESTED in your work.
And guess what? Those people probably already share your values.
So – right now – make a quick list of the VALUES that are most important to you & your work.
For example, the values of The Organized Artist Company are:
Creativity
Authenticity
Transparency
Kindness
Good Humor & Fun
Next time you need to write a bio or an email or a sales page or an email or whatever, run it past your values & make sure it’s a match. This will help insure that you are using the words & phrases that accurately reflect what you do. It will also ATTRACT the perfect clients & customers right to your door.
Honey, You Are On A Mission
You do the work you do because you know it helps people and you love it.
That love, that desire to help and those values that you just wrote down add up to more than creative entrepreneurship.
They add up to a mission.
And when you are on a mission, you are going to be pulled & stretched & challenged & celebrated & pushed waaaaay out of your comfort zone. Be ready for that.
You may not want to market your business, but you can learn to do it well and may even grow to LOVE it. (I do!)
Finally, consider this aphorism:
If No One Is Complaining About Your Marketing, Then You Are Not Doing Enough Marketing
You deserve to have your business be financially sustainable, values-driven and joyful. Not easy, mind you – but joyful.
And improving your copy writing is the NUMBER ONE key to your success.
So…
I’ve partnered up with my good friend Wes Schaeffer from www.TheSalesWhisperer.com – he’s an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant & he’s a full-on, small-business genius with a GREAT sense of humor – everyone says we make a great team : )
So you’re invited to check out our Free Preview Event – called “7 Copy Writing Mistakes That Are Costing You Money”
—–> Watch or download the free preview event here
(or paste this link into your browser window: http://bit.ly/WRNVIP2)
It’s a free webinar for creative entrepreneurs, frustrated small business people…
and YOU if you know that if only your…
– web pages
– bios (don’t you HATE writing Bios? We’ll show you the EASY way!)
– blog posts
– product descriptions
– social media posts (what are you supposed to say on Twitter? Really?)
– press releases
– emails (like this one!)
…were more authentic & more compelling, then you could SELL MORE STUFF, which would mean you would be helping more people! (Which is why we do all this, right?)
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
– You want to promote your business…but you get tongue-tied when people ask you what you do.
– You would love to Blog and Facebook & Twitter & Pinterest & whatever… but you’re not really sure what to say.
– You know your web pages are old & boring…but the idea of redoing it all makes you want to go lay down.
– You’re a creative entrepreneur who’s over-worked.
– You’ve got 37 ideas, a bunch of new projects and plus there’s your actual business…and then there’s the family and the kids and… good heavens, you don’t have the TIME to write new copy!
– You’re ready for financial success and you don’t have time to screw around. You need real answers from experts who really GET IT.
– You are ready to learn a NEW way to write copy that’s easy, fun and…wait for it…. PROFITABLE.
Then this event is for you!
Here’s what people said about it:
“so down to earth, and so real, and are SO encouraging!” – D.D., California
“That was very helpful! Thanks, you two 🙂 ” – R.P., Los Angeles, CA
“I enjoy your laser sharp humor as well as succinct comments and great insights. Always inspirational and instructive.” – C. D., Washington
7 Copy Writing Mistakes That Are Costing You Money
(and how to fix them WITHOUT having to hire an expensive copywriter)
with Small Business Experts
Wes Schaeffer & Samantha Bennett
—–> Watch or download the free preview event here
(or paste this link into your browser window: http://bit.ly/WRNVIP2)
You can listen online AND you can download the MP3.
I’ve been in the trenches & learned a lot about small business marketing in the past bunch of years and I’m thrilled to have this chance to share my insights with you.
YOU KNOW THE WORLD NEEDS YOUR GOOD WORK.
But if they never hear about it, they can’t benefit from it, right?
Please join me & my pal Wes on this Really Useful Webinar —
—–> Watch or download the free preview event here
(or paste this link into your browser window: http://bit.ly/WRNVIP2)
And please let me know how things are going with you – you know I love to hear from you!
