MMM — How To Get Off Roller Coaster Income & Create Predictable Income

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Hello,

Marlon here.

One of the issues in this business I'm seeing from people I talk to is roller coaster income. That is, income that is feast or famine, up and down.

The CURRENT problem is people launch and then the money dies. They launch a new product. Then the money dies.

I want to have an intelligent discussion about this that is somewhat subtle and nuanced. Before I get to that, if you bought the Desmond Ong offer, he JUST added a VIDEO to the Facebook group that answers a LOT of questions. You need to join his Facebook group if you didn't.  He answers a LOT of questions in there.  Believe it or freaking not, only 10% of buyers are joining the FB group. It makes no sense.  He has done 2 detailed videos so far answering questions posted in the FB group.  Now remember, if you buy coaching or services from Desmond, I haven't checked out every single resource and vendor he's recommending.  So far in the FB group, everyone seems happy.  If you sign up for his recommended vendor on hosting, I don't believe they offer refunds.   Be aware of that.  But it IS the hosting vendor Desmond uses.

Here is the AFFILIATE LINK to promote this issue:

http://www.getyoursales.com?p=AFFILIATEID&w=RollerCoast

I'm interested in your COMMENTS.  Does this newsletter ring a bell with you?  Is it a waste because you feel like you have nothing to plan?  Are you able to figure the Customer Value Number I talk about?  Post your thoughts in comments.

First, let's look at the CAUSES of roller coaster income:

1.  Not knowing your “Number”

Your number is what a new customer buys from you in 30 days AFTER the initial purchase.  In other words, it's your Customer Value Number.  But I use a 30-day customer value, NOT lifetime customer value.  Who REALLY has a lifetime to wait around for a customer value to materialize?  Hopefully you got my Marketing Planner and are tracking this.  There is a GREAT video training in the member's area I did this year that shows even if you just use it at the most basic, simple level, it can really help you.

You can use a 30-day, 60-day number or in between.  Some people with deep pockets use a longer time frame.  If you're really struggling you may only use a 21-day number.  To start 30 days is good because it's a calender month.

30-day customer value = how much in $$$ does a customer buy from you in 30-days after their INITIAL purchase (often referred to as the front end).

The PROBLEM is, it's not always easy to GET  “the number.”  For example, I just spent about an hour on Skype yesterday with a cool guy I met TRYING like heck to figure out how to get “the number” out of the Warrior+ system.

The problem is, there's no way I saw to distinguish between sales from emails and sales from your product launches.  I don't know much about that system, so there might be a way to do it.  I sure couldn't quickly and easily figure it out.

THEN, we really put our brainpower to it. Here's what we came up with that will probably work for YOU on whatever platform you're selling on.  Please share this post to download the PDF that has the formula in it.  The formula in this PDF is something you want to SAVE.

[sociallocker id=”4917″]http://marlonsvideos.com/mmm2/RollerCoaster.pdf [/sociallocker]

Or if you use my Profit Planner, you track it there.  In Infusionsoft, you can search actual customers by the date added.  In almost all software programs you are going to be able to get a rough estimation at least.  We even just took all the emails in aweber in a 30-day period and looked each one up in Infusion to see what they bought and what their date added was.  That gave us first time customers and how much they bought in the 30-day time span.

To be really accurate you calculate a 30 day time span for each customer.  However, you can also just take the numbers for 3 months, divide by 3 and get a pretty accurate figure.  You can also track a moving average of that figure like I have in Profit Planner.

In the OLD DAYS it didn't matter…commissions were only 50% and after broken cookies and word of mouth averaged 15%.

That means you could be very profitable FRONT END and whatever you got from email was gravy train.  You  can STILL do this in some “protected niches” that don't have dog-eat-dog” competition.

Well, the only constant in life is CHANGE.  I know this as a fact as the only way I get golden brown hair now is to dye the crap out of it and make it that way.  Well, things changed in 2007 when the worst recession since the great depression hit the U.S.  It took several years for the full impact of that to work its way down to IM fully.

But prices of front-end info products plummeted.  My Dashboards still sell well in my follow up emails. They are tougher front-end sales ALTHOUGH on JV Zoo front-end prices that are higher are now appearing again.

Still, in the IM niche (NOT other markets) the front-end prices are typically $10.  Just last week Alex Jeffries tried to launch full blown video of a seminar people paid good money to attend  — and he tried to do it at a $27 price point.

Conversions were anemic at 3% (what I heard).  So he lowered the price to a ridiculous $9.95. I say ridiculous because it's actual live video with pro cameras. The ONLY reason he did that is he has phone sales people selling his $5k or 6k coaching program.

That means he can LOSE up to $12 a buyer and make it up on what we call the “back end” of the business.  If you're in Level One, you REALLY get that with my latest “back end revelation” addition. You're probably chuckling now.

OK anyway, on Warrior+, front end prices are dropping to a TOTALLY INSANE $4.  That's just wacked out. I HATE it.  Totally wacked out.  I think Warrior Forum would be well served to set a minimum price to keep marketers from eating their own.

So while software and other things on the Zoo have sold for higher $ front end, pure info offers are struggling to maintain margin.  That means on the “back end' things are going more to coaching and selling services.  You CAN still sell info products but you need to raise your celebrity and other things to increase the perceived value.  You have to counter the trend by doing more things to prop up your perceived value.

THE BOTTOM LINE:  This isn't the old days in Internet marketing.   You can't live off front-end sales by affiliates as you have to give them 100% of the initial sale and quite possibly 100% of the oto's (one time offers or upsells you get after the initial purchase) also.

STILL I feel that markets like JV Zoo and Warrior+ are a GREAT place for the newbie to start CHEAP and learn all the basics without spending an arm and a leg to do it.

2.  Decreased response to emails

This is one I'm not sure we have a lot of control over. I HAVE seen people claim that by going to a system where they send their own emails, they have increased opens and clicks greatly.  I don't personally know anyone who has done this. But I have seen claims of doing it.

From my perspective right now, I'd say decreased response is a given that has to be made up for in other parts of the marketing process.

In the old days I got 25% open rates and 10% click rates.  You get that now on the first few emails you send new buyers but it doesn't last for long. You can artificially boost the number by deleting non-clickers and non-openers.  But do you REALLY increase the bottom line or just put paint on your numbers so they look prettier to outsiders?

3.  Anemic front end (new buyers)

If you aren't bringing in enough new customers, you need really big ticket “back-end” sales to make up for it.  You can have a huge back end but if you only bring in 2 new customers, you still probably don't meet your income goals, as you might not sell either of them that huge back end.

4.  Wrong price points

Depending on the niche you're in, how you price your initial front-end offer and follow-up offers, IS important.  Mostly, it's a matter of observing what others do and conducting your own experiments.

5.  People NOT buying

Markets and desires change.  In the Internet marketing niche, not only have the prices on digital products dropped BUT I see buyers LESS willing to learn real marketing.  They want a turnkey deal where it's all figured out for them and they just plug it in and turn it on.  The closest thing I have to this is the Fail Safe System. BUT it's still NOT the turnkey thing people want. It's as close as I will likely ever sell.

Here's the fly in the ointment:  If there IS a cookie cutter that prints money, lots of people are gonna buy it. Sooner or later the law of supply and demand kicks in. Supply exceeds demand and prices plummet just as they have on digital information products.

So if there IS a cookie cutter that prints money as more and more people find out (and they WILL find out fast via social media), the faster supply starts to outstrip demand.

Like high ticket coaching programs now.  For awhile there weren't many and there was a lot of demand for them.  Now that people have created coaching machines that output big ticket coaching sellers, the supply is starting to exceed demand.

REAL MARKETERS learn to THINK for themselves and find their own unique areas where DEMAND outstrips SUPPLY. And they shut the heck up about it because they know if word hits social media and everybody plus their grandmother jumps on board, the equation will flip and supply will outsrip demand.

This is marketing 101.

6.  No autotesponder sequence

A LOT of people went to all broadcast emails because they can convert higher due to timdliness and urgency.  They are also less predictable in terms of RESPONSE than an autoresponder sequence.

Let's say you mail your list every other day and have 15 autoresponder emails per month for 3 months.

Now you can use your Profit Planner to track revenue per email (or just do it manually) and keep replacing the bottom producers with better $ producers.

You can add in some recurring billing (also called continuity) offers.

Your autoresponder sequence is more PREDICTABLE in results than broadcast emails.  It allows you to PREDICT your income.

Here is an example.

I know roughly that a new buyer spends $70 in a month with me.  Let's say I have a TARGET INCOME of $15,000.

$15,000 / $70 = 214.

In other words, I need 214 NEW BUYERS each month to generate $15,000.  Now the $70 is AFTER average affiliate commissions are paid.  You can't use a number like $70 but then remember later that $60 of that went to affiliate commissions!  lol.

Are you beginning to see how you can create a PREDICTABLE INCOME?

Let's say your average buyer only spends $12 in 30 days after their initial purchase.

$15,000 / 12 = 1,250 buyers.  That's quite a few new customers.

Now, why NEW BUYERS?

Because the OLD BUYERS are already ADDED TO the 30-day autoresponder sequence!  So you won't get your $12 from them!  You already GOT your $12.  You can send them broadcast emails but that money is less predictable.  But you COULD take an average off $ from broadcast emails over 3 months and have a relatively stable number to create predictions from.

Look at it as your gravy train.

The ACID TEST is this:  Are you able to PREDICT your income or not?

You bring on 100 new buyers.

Are you able to PREDICT how many $ you will have at the end of the 30 days from those buyers?  If you CAN, then you can create a stable income.  You know to hit your TARGET $ you just need to get X more new buyers each month.

If it is NOT stable, then you can't do or know this.

Let's say you need 300 MORE new buyers each month and you currently ONLY promote on Warrior+.   Either you juice up prizes and promotions to affiliates to add more PULL and get more new customers.

Or you could expand your offers over to JV Zoo.

Or you could bite the learning curve bullet and see if you can suck customers off of Facebook ads.

Or you can do something else!

But AT LEAST you know WHAT you need to do and WHY!

If you're  in a nice, comfy protected niche, you can run some banner ads or recruit a few more affiliates or JV partners.  People dont realize that Internet marketing is probably the most competitive niche in the world.  Still, it's a good place to get started and learn. Maybe not to stay in forever unless you're insane like me.  But to get started in, the Warrior Forum makes it cheap and easy to learn imho.

You gotta have a CHEAP place to learn. Of course, if you have a nice easy niche with cheapo banner ads or ads in forums, go for it!  You need SOMEWHERE to learn the ropes without mortgaging your future and spending your 401K on coaching programs that may or may not pan out ( probably not but it could happen).  I'm sorry.  There's a learning curve.  It's not all push button easy although we try like heck to make it that way to help out our customers.

Still a lot of people want magic and aren't willing to work.  They want to make more money than their job in 15 minutes a day, without learning anything.  But MOST people don't want that.  The achilles heel and the crack of online marketing is FAST INCOME.  People are addicted to it.  It really is an addiction.

Create a product.  Put it on JV Zoo or Warrior +.  Work hard to promote it and money will come in FAST…after 1-4 weeks of work.  Spend 6 months or a year building or cultivating a list and you CAN make money fast by sending an email to your list.

Actually, I have seen people build a small list of 100 or 200 buyers and do better than you'd think with it.  Connie Green did it with a list of 600 buyers.

7.  No continuity or recurring billing

This is a bit of a mixed bag.  In the old days I had Milcers and Ateam. The only issue I have is when people get on recurring billing like this, they stop buying OTHER products!  LOL.  Still the predictable income is nice. I PREFER income from software services called SAS or Software As Service, meaning it's monthly recurring billing.

Recurring billing is one thing that can stabilize your income.   It's also more work to put together software or figure out something you can sustain.

BUT MARLON, I don't have products to put in my autoresponder sequence!

1.  You can stick emails in there for affiliate products and add your own unique bonuses.  If you stuck some of mine in there and created your own unique bonuses for them, it wouldn't suck.

2.  You can buy QUALITY PLR, maybe add some videos to it or combine with other PLR and create some nice unique offers.

3.   You can bang out some 3-hour screen capture video or audio products.

Best wishes,

What do I have to HELP you on this path?

Book of Secrets:  This is a collection of some of my best all time marketing secrets.  Great reading!

Get all the basics on how to do graphics the REAL WAY using PSD’s from Photoshop Elements, so later you can graduate to full-blown Photoshop. This is very basic but really, really good training in just the core stuff you need to START OUT with. This is training wheels for graphic design. You won’t become a pro overnight. But this gets you on the RIGHT PATH and that is the PURPOSE. We updated screen caps last year. None of the basics in Photoshop Elements change much. You got a lasso. Paint bucket. Patterns. Gradients. This is what we teach here. BASICS. To me, if you’re really SERIOUS and don’t want to just hire out all graphics, you need this.  The videos are made with an older version of Elements but the screen caps are updated.

http://www.designdashbooard.com

Get “training wheels” to walk you through my famous 12-step formula I taught around the world in 120 seminars Fill in the blanks and click a button.
The ORIGINAL fill-in-the-blanks letter software. This is NOT about magically creating sales letters. It’s like TRAINING WHEELS for my 12-step formula to FORCE you to use it and walk through the process mentally. I found in teaching this in 120 seminars that people would not actually DO the formula I taught. So I decided to create a way to FORCE FEED it. THAT is why I created Push Button Letters that then spawned the whole entire genre of sales letter creation software, MOST of it sold as a magic pill without understanding the GOAL which is to get you to MENTALLY PROCESS and walk through a precise, step-by-step FORMULA.

http://www.pushbuttonletters.com

The exact things I taught a new employee to get him up to speed on all this marketing stuff in 30 days. And will get YOU up to speed on the absolutely criticall basic knowledge also. Get up to speed FAST with the in-house training I gave one of my new employees. I love this product. To me it’s Evergreen. The stuff I teach here is what I feel is absolutely VITAL for anyone to know, including a new employee, new customer or whoever. That includes you. This is BASIC but powerful training. I find a LOT of people miss the BASICS, so they get no value from other stuff they buy. You HAVE to put in you

r basics FIRST.  A few of the software recommendations are dated. But 90% to 95% of it is Evergreen.   http://www.themarketingdiary.com

Want to know how I got 30,000 affiliates to promote me? I love this product also. It’s how I got several million people to my websites.   It includes the steps, the documentation, everything. Now, yes, I did this product some years ago. You’ll find out the things I do, teach and believe in are EVERGREEN. The answer is NO. It’s not outdated. YES, everything in it STILL applies. Do I STILL use everything you’ll read about it in it. It’s my BLUEPRINT for a highly successful affiliate program. Check this puppy out:
http://www.1in102.com

Need a target market? http://www.pushbuttontargetmarket.com
If you’re struggling to find a target market, I think this can help. It isn’t the ONLY thing you need. It isn’t like “the answer.” But I really think if you delve into the tool it talks about that you can really gain a deeper understanding of what is SELLING in the market. That is the purpose of it.

Money Getting Secret: On December 3, 1998, I Discovered A “Money Getting” Secret That I’ve Repeated 122 Times — And You Can Use This Same Secret Starting 2 Hours and 58 Minutes From Right Now! http://www.marlonsanders.com/writerssecret/

 

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

If you got value from this Marlon’s Marketing Minute newsletter about the Immediate Income Increaser, please tell me in comments, then like and share.