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In a previous post I wrote about the connection between Wine and Web 2.0. Recently I came across a really good video that give a clear explanation of Web 2.0 using the analogy of ice-cream stores. I love ice-cream and so this was an easy one for me to relate to.
You may ask what on earth has Wine and Web 2.0 got to do with each other? Just about everything if you listen to these snippets of the interview that Rich Schefren did with Wine Library TV host, Gary Vaynerchuck.
Gary is not a ‘teacher’ of web 2.0 marketing so much as a doer of it. His video blogging site is incredibly popular and if you watch a few of his shows, you won’t have to read a book to find out what web 2.0 and social marketing is all about. Gary is web 2.0 personified.
Before you listen to his candid discussion about web 2.0 marketing, you may like to watch a couple of minutes of one of Gary’s daily Wine TV Show that he hosts on his blog. I think you will understand instantly what it is all about, enjoy!
Wine Library TV
Summary
Sometimes it can be just a little bit much listening to a whole interview at once as we are all very busy. What I have done to help you out is split this interview into bit sized pieces and also summarized what each snippet is about. You will be able to download and listen to each one, they are only a few minutes in length. You will also find the link to the full interview at the bottom of this post if you would prefer to listen to it that way.
Audio # 1 - Introduction. Becoming part of the community
Gary talks about the importance of becoming part of the community and providing good content as opposed to selling. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet #1
Audio Snippet # 2 - The importance of repetition
Gary talks about about sticking with it in the early days when not a lot is happening, continue to provide good content, consistently and eventually things will gel. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet #2
Audio Snippet # 3 - How fresh is your content
In this snippet Gary talks about doing what you love and are passionate about, this is the only way that you will have the energy to carry you through. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet #3
Audio Snippet # 4 - Knowing your niche
Gary is blown away by the fact that their are so few video bloggers out their on the ‘net. He feels that there is just so much opportunity that it just drives him nuts to think about it! Gary Vaynerchuck snippet #4
Audio Snippet #5 - Do What You Love
Gary is sure that he could do 6-7 different niches that would make him a lot more money but doing what you love is the most important thing. He really wants people to think about what it is that they absolutely love. Gary Veynachuck snippet #5
Audio Snippet # 6 - People want to be talked to, not down to!
You need to make people feel comfortable with you and what you do, they must feel as though they are hangin’ with a friend. This is the age of Americana at it’s best, the balance of power has swung back to the people with the advent of the Internet and web 2.0. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet #6
Audio Snippet # 7 - Content is not enough, you need the secret sauce
You can win on content but if you are looking for home runs, like scary success, you need a little extra. You still must be 100% who you are and not do things for the sake of marketing alone. You need to find a contradiction in your niche. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet #7
Audio Snippet # 8 - It is not about you…at all!
You must be 100 trillion percent dedicated to your audience…full stop. Every waking minute must be dedicated to provided great content for your audience. If you are in the content providing business and you are thinking about what it can do for you, you’ve already lost. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet #8
Audio Snippet # 9 - The Process of mastering social media
There was a couple years of homework city for Gary. One of his key things is reading great blogs. He would go to Technorati and pick the highest ranking blogs and read all of them. He loves people and that is part of the reason why web 2.0 works for him. Even if you don’t love people, you can adjust and still win. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet #9
Audio Snippet # 10 - Marketers are the most disliked people on the Internet…on the planet!
Even though marketers are hated, if you embrace the web 2.0 revolution and reform yourself, you will become the hero and not the villain. Gary is incredibly marketing driven and he feels that marketers do have a huge advantage if they can adapt. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet #10
Audio Snippet # 11 - Don’t be 40 and act 100! You need to adapt
Marketers have to give up their old ways, they are dead! You need to become part of the community and give excellent content. Gary spent over 10 million dollars on advertising for his business and now his blog gets more attention for free! Rich gave away adwords and concentrated on great content. It was then that he started to make money. Rich feels to give people value, even if they don’t buy from you is super important. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet 11
Audio Snippet # 12 - The Consumer wants more and expects more
In the past customer service was not part of retail, you used to pay for gift wrapping and now it is free. The Internet is evolving in the same way, if you don’t provide really great content, your dead. What does being 1st place on Google matter if you suck? Gary Vaynerchuck snippet 12
Audio Snippet # 13 - Don’t think of yourself as an Internet marketer!
You have to be passionate about giving people your absolute best, your A+++ 1000% best effort. If you look to where you came from, you can be happy with where you are as opposed to looking to the future, and being disappointed with where you are not. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet 13
Audio Snippet # 14 - The beginning is the most exciting time of any business
Embrace the early growing period, don’t think of it as something you have to go through to become successful. Choose what you love and then you won’t have to worry about this, embrace every stage of your development. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet 14
Audio Snippet # 15 - The 5 Steps to learning social media *****
Gary would rather be on the front page of Digg then the front page of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. He goes through the 5 top tips for learning social marketing. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet 15
Audio Snippet # 16 - Listen to your inner voice and then execute!
People work really hard but they still don’t succeed. People need to listen to their inner voice and do what they love…you will be able to quit your job sooner than what you think. When you love it, you don’t sleep, and when you hate it, you sleep. This is the ‘Gold Rush’ of our generation! The secret to success is to care about the health of your friends and family. Gary Vaynerchuck snippet #16
Well that is it!
I hope you have enjoyed these audio snippets, Gary Vaynerchuck is definitely on fire when it comes to web 2.0. I would love to hear you comments on what you though was the best of the 16 and what you learned most from this wonderfully passionate guy, Mr Web 2.0 Vaynerchuck!
The Renegade Network Marketer has been revised by Ann Sieg and an extra chapter has been added. This expands the Ebook into a 142 page document. If you have already purchased The Renegade Network Marketer, you can log in through The Renegade System and go ‘Tools and Resources’ and download the new revised edition.
Here is a summary of the new chapter that Ann Sieg has added to the Renegade Network marketer Ebook.Chapter 8, “Your Most Valuable Asset”
You no doubt have heard it before but just in case you haven’t… your most valuable asset is your mailing list.
So what is so important about a mailing list?
How about $45, 493 profit in 2 days, or what about a loss of $350, 000 as a result of not building a list to its full potential? There are other reason that I will go into but lets examine these figures for a moment.
This is only speculation, but I would say that these are the figures from the first two days of The Renegade Network Marketer launch. Ann Sieg had a mailing list of 12 000 people. The product was and still is, $67 and so that meant that from Ann’s mailing list, 697 people made the choice to purchase in the first 2 days (and many more after I am sure).
This means that the conversion rate was 5.8%. This is guess work on my part, but I do remember that for the first 24 hours of the launch, The Renegade Network Marketer sold at half price. How many people do you think purchased on that first day? If 50% did, that would take the conversion rate up to nearly 8%. That is very, very good.
Do you know that if a direct marketer gets a 1% response rate they are happy? This is often enough for them to break even of the front end which they are happy with as they know that there is a lot more money in the back end or add on sales. So if it cost them $100 to send 1000 letters, and each sale made a net profit of $10, they would be happy with a 1% response rate. Obviously these marketers are dealing with far greater numbers but they usually start small and once they feel sure the conversion rate is enough to break even, they roll out the campaign in multiples of 10…thousand that is.
Marketing is a science and once the figures are there, these guys will roll out scary numbers and get it working within a very narrow margin, even within points of a percent. Once they are sure of the numbers, they are happy to spend $50 000 dollars on a letter drop. Now that is confidence in your figures!
Russell Brunson interviewed the offline marketing genius, Vince James and questioned him for 6 hours about how he made 100 million plus in one year selling nutritional products. You can learn a lot from Vince about marketing on and offline. At one point in the interview he says;
“Internet marketers have egos as big as the Mississippi, who cares if you make a $1000 000 in one day off a product launch, what ever…”
So when Ann Sieg is talking figures here, it is not to show off or anything like that (I know Ann and she isn’t like that at all), it is just to illustrate a point.
The point of this is that when you have a mailing list, it is not costing you anything to roll out a promotion and if you have treated your list with respect and have a good relationship with them, the chances of you getting a very high conversion rate is high. If you are not building your mailing list in all of your marketing, you are leaving money on the table. In Ann Sieg’s case quite a lot of money…
How Ann Sieg Lost $350 000
So what is the figure of $350 000 all about?
Ann Sieg underestimated the importance of “the mailing list”. It was a very costly lesson…$350 000 to be exact. Ann Sieg is very particular about numbers and stats (as most marketers are). It is very possible for Ann to review all of her traffic stats and make an accurate estimation of how many people she could have had in her opt-in list if she was using the strategies she is currently using today. How is this possible?
Well, she would be able to tell you how many people hit her site today and give you the percentage of people that joined her mailing list. Looking back she could also see how many people hit her sight last year and how many people opted-in to her list.
On Ann’s calculations, instead of 12, 000 people on her list, she should have had over 90,000. That is over 7 times what she had. Remember that magic 2 days where she pulled $45, 493 from her list at a conversion rate of over 8%? Well times that by 7 and you get $350, 000. This is not just guess work, marketers basically stake their financial lives on figures like this everyday.
As you can see, it was a rather costly lesson for Ann to learn and in true Ann Sieg style, she is willing to share what she has learned in order to save you the pain of having to go through the same process. Start building your list today! (On that note, don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed to get all my latest posts and training videos)
Now apart from the fact that you could blow $350,000 in 2 days, there are a couple of other reasons why it is important to build your own list, Ann Sieg goes into great detail in Chapter 8 but here is a summary:
1. You Become a Independent Business Owner as Opposed to a Sales Rep for you MLM Company
When you have your own list, you have the ability to sell products and services outside of your mlm company, not other opportunities but tools and services that will help your customers and downline. When you are an independent business owner, they are your customers, not your mlm companies customers! You did they marketing so they are YOUR customers, you get to choose what you will sell to them and your mlm company does NOT have the right to tell you any different. You are an independent marketing with the right to market what you want and how to your customers.
This is also a protection mechanism. If your company goes out of business or decides they are paying too much and want to get rid off you…no sweat, you have got your list of loyal customers. If you haven’t got this, your whole organization could be cut from under you before you know it. You may think it won’t happen to me, but there are plenty of horror stories out there if you go looking.
Having a list means that you are the center of your business, not your mlm company. This is a true independent business owner. Of course some companies don’t like this, but they will just have to get over it because as business owners, we are free to choose and promote what ever we like.
2.Joint Ventures
Once you have a sizable list, other business owners will want to do joint ventures with you. This means that you will increase your credibility in the marketing world, your list will then start to grow exponentially and all sorts of doors will open.
Look at Ann Sieg for example; Ken Evoy from Site Build It noticed what she was doing because of all of the sales she was generating for Site Build It through the Renegade System backend and now they are doing a joint venture together. Ken Evoy has massive credibility in the Internet marketing world and now they are working together to leverage off each other. If you don’t have a list, these sorts of doors are not open to you.
Well known Internet marketer Rich Schefren recently released a free report, The Attention Age Doctrine V2. In this report, he goes into great depth about this concept, he calls it piggybacking. The only way that you can get the attention of someone that is well known in the market place is to have a large customer mailing list. Once you have that, you can leverage your position in many, many ways.
A word or warning, never send junk to your list or introduce them to people without a high level of professional integrity. I have stopped reading peoples email after they have sent me a bad offer. You may get away with it once or twice but 3 strikes and you may have to start all over again.
Most marketers will tell you that if they were striped of everything and they were only left with their mailing list, they would be back in business in a matter of days. So if your mlm company goes out of business or changes it’s policy, how soon could you be back in business?
Building a list is not as hard as it sounds, you will need an autoresponder and squeeze pages. I previously used Aweber for an autoresponder and Mathew Glanfields YourSqueezePage to create my landing pages. Each of these products are $19.95 each which is not too bad as you can have a functional internet marketing business with these too resources. I have recently changed to Oprius to do both of these jobs. It only costs me $14.95 and so I can have all of my work in one place and at the same time save $24.95 per month, not bad. You can Trial Oprius for 30 Days at no cost by going here…
In summary, the extra chapter in The Renegade Network Marketer provides some insights into taking control of your business as a network marketer. You will find that chapter 10 has also been updated. There is a marketing tip in there that will help you make a lot more money in your marketing. It is something that I will be implementing in my marketing straight away.
So what are you waiting for, log in to The Renegade System and download your new revised version of The Renegade Network Marketer. If you have not yet to purchased Ann Sieg’s ebook, you can read more about it by clicking here…
Most people that read The Renegade Network Marketer get very excited about the ability to generate their own leads. This is exactly why The Renegade System was developed. I personally prefer to use The Renegade in reverse. I will explain why…
The Renegade Network Marketer is sometimes referred to as a funded proposal system. This is an interesting term and simply means that when someone purchases The Renegade ebook from you, they become your lead. The fact that they purchased the ebook from you, means that they are funding you to propose your business to them.
I think in theory this is a great idea and there is no doubt that this works. There is only one problem that I see with this and that is; the more people that are pushing these kinds of funded proposal systems, the more competition there is for advertising. This means it will become increasingly expensive to advertise and more difficult to get people to notice your ads.
There are a number of possibilities as far as the types of people you will attract with this kind of funded proposal system;
1. People already in an mlm company who are happy
2. People that are in an mlm company and are unhappy
3. People in no mlm company but are looking
People That Are Happy With Their MLM Company
There will be people that find your Renegade Marketer ads and marketing pieces that are happy with their company but are just looking for more information on how to become more effective in their business. Unless you are in a mlm company that is fairly universal and complimentary, it will be difficult to propose anything to them.
I for example, I am working with a greeting card and post card company that offers exceptional quality greeting cards for a 1/3 of the cost you pay in a supermarket. Most mlmers could make use of this service no matter what company they are working with as it fits into an overall balanced marketing strategy. There are a number of other companies that have this universal type quality.
For me, universal means that your product is going to help people be more effective in the marketing of their primary mlm business. Offline marketing is an excellent way to follow up with customers and prospective clients.
If you are going to promote a funded proposal system such as The Renegade Network Marketer, I would suggest having a complementary company that you can work in tandem with your primary company. This way you have something to propose to these people that are actually happy with their current company.
Ann Sieg is a advocate of multiple streams of income and this is an excellent example of this.
The other thing about the Renegade Network Marketer System is that even when you do attract prospects that are in this grouping, it is still possible to make commissions and have them seek your advice and get paid for it. Ann Sieg recently did an interview with successful Renegade Marketer Willy Lim and he talks about how this has been working for him. It is a very interesting interview, you can Listen To That Here…
People That Are Unhappy With Their MLM Company or MLM Experience
The next people are the unhappy campers. These people will be open to changing companies but they are going to be harder to work with because they are unhappy and most likely a little wary of network marketing. There is also the possibility that they were just looking to fix their current situation rather than get into a new situation.
These people would be less likely to join you in your ‘universal company’ because if they are unhappy, they are also probably unproductive. They possibly have restricted cash flow which is why they purchased the ebook in the first place.
If you can help these people make sense out of the whole Internet marketing venture and they get into positive cash flow, then latter on down the track, you will have a high chance of them joining you in one of your businesses (more likely your universal one).
This is an approach that is based on developing a long term relationship with people. I feel this is a very good approach but you will need to be prepared to help these people along the way. The more systematised the training you offer these people the better it will be for you. If you have something in place that these people can follow, it will mean that you are not continually duplicating your efforts.
I created an ebook that I offer to people to help them through the initial transition phase of becoming an Internet Marketer, “The Step by Step Guide to Becoming a Successful Renegade Network Marketer”. Most people can read this and follow my instructions very well. I don’t have to teach the same things over and over again. I can simply direct people to the appropriate resources.
It sets up a wonderful relationship as well. I genuinely want people to excel in their primary business and am helping them do this. They never feel like I am trying to pull them away from their business (because I am not) and yet we get to work together in a very productive way. It truly is a win/win situation.
The key is to invest in people first and truly want to help them succeed. Once they trust that this is your intention, they are happy to join your ‘universal business’. I often tell people to spend their marketing budget elsewhere and join with me when they have positive cash flow and a budget that allows it. At this point they really understand that I have their best interest at heart.
I have heard of salespeople being referred to as Farmers or Hunters.
I like to think of myself as a person who is the farmer type; a person that cultivates relationships over time. I guess their is no right or wrong. It is just a matter of what suits your personality.
Many people love the concepts that Ann Sieg teaches in The Renegade Network Marketer but don’t want to go to the trouble of creating their own systems to help the prospects that they attract through the Renegade system as it is too time consuming. As a result there have been a number of generic training programs that are designed to do this for you.
The one that is perhaps the best is McKay Earls 90 Marketer. This course is set up very much like the Renegade System but takes your prospects through a very methodical, step-by-step process of becoming a internet marketer using the concepts of The Renegade Network Marketer. It means that you are able to deal with a whole team of people and at any time someone gets stuck, you can refer back to what step they are up to and help them. I highly recommend The 90 Day Marketer.
Another great resource you can offer people is The Renegade University. This has a Free Membership area that is not only good for helping people become familiar with the basics of internet marketing and how they correspond to The Renegade Network Marketer but also is a good way to convert your 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing leads into Renegade sales. I wrote a post about that and also created a video showing how that works. You can read that post here…
People That Have No MLM Company
These are obviously the best kind of Renegade Marketer prospects to speak with. The competition for these prospects is very fierce and so these people will have opportunities coming at them from all angles. It is increasingly more difficult to stand out from the crowd. I am not saying that it can’t or shouldn’t be done, I just think there is a better and more natural way.
I think rather than marketing your mlm opportunity it would be better to market your product and attract retail customers and then later on convert them to business builders when they show interest in the business.
When I say marketing your product, what I really mean to say is marketing your solution to peoples problems. Look at it this way, if your product is effective for migraine headache, the person with a migraine headache is not going to be searching for your product, they are going to be searching for a migraine cure. If this is something you know a lot about, then you could build a website around this.
Here is a wonderful example of a website http://www.adhdawareness.com/ using this principle. This is a site that sells products but first and foremost it is selling solutions for ADHD. Take the time to read the intro, it is brilliant. If you had ADHD or even knew someone that was struggling with this condition, how would you feel when you read this? My bet is you would instantly sign up for more information and you would probably forward the site to people that you thought could benefit.
I have a website that is connected to Thank You Cards but you will not see any mention of mlm or my company on that site. It is the product that I am selling, not a mlm opportunity. This site is all about retail and wholesale sales of my product. You can see that site by going to http://YourThankYouCard.com
In the correspondence that you send to your customers, you can have a very subtle signature line such as www.HomeBusinessExpert.com or something like that. You could then have a very simple blog or website where you talk about what a difference having a home business has made in your life. You would have an opt-in form where the person can receive a free report and information about your methods of doing a home-based business. At this stage, the people are loyal and satisfied customers of yours; they feel they know and trust you. The chances of them opting in to your list are extremely high.
Your first email could be about how Ann Sieg has totally changed the way that you approach your home business and give a little story about that. You would then give them the link to the free report of Ann’s The 7 Great Lies Of Network Marketing and arrange a time to get together with them on the phone.
This is what I would call The Renegade Network Marketer In Reverse. The prospects that you are attracting using this approach are extremely well qualified, what we would call a hot prospect.
At the end of the day, what ever way you approach it, as long as you are getting paid to advertise and attract people into your business, you are in a good position.
