From the desk of Razvan Rogoz
Dear friend,
Look, being a self-improvement coach or trainer is very popular nowadays. It doesn’t require a lot of accreditations (or any) and anyone can do it. This means that the market is very competitive and to be honest, everyone and his grandma is now a self-improvement coach. Most are broke and have nothing to actually show, in terms of results, but that’s another story.
My point is that you need to find a way to stand out. This is a field where you really must know what you’re doing when it comes to marketing. Most are oblivious to this fact. They think that if their heart is pure and just want to help people, millions will flock to their website and place orders. These are the first to give up this field and start searching for another job.
From 100 people, 90 bring nothing but good intentions. There is no positioning, there is no strategy, there is no USP (unique selling proposition). Most entered this field because someone told them “you’re really good at motivating people, you should build a business out of this”. This is true. If you like people and you’re good at inspiring them, then this is a good field for you. But getting thanks and appreciation is very, very different from getting paid. It is easy to say “you’re great”, it is a lot harder to get $100 instead.
I remember this example from Eben Pagan, one of the best modern marketers in existence. He said how hard is for the human animal to actually want to give money, for anything. His exercise was simple – go to a conference or event or concert and ask for someone for $100. Don’t give any reason. Don’t say you’ve lost your wallet or something. Just ask for $100. Unless you’re smoking hot or that person seeks a favor from you, chances are that you’re not going to get it. People will give their time, will give their love, will give their admiration, will even give their energy and their body before they give their money. It is easier to ask for someone to move furniture for you than it is to ask for $100 and get it.
I’m not pulling this from my mind. I know this based on tangible examples. I’ve helped many marketers who had a lot of good intentions but no plans whatsoever to actually earn money in this field. They always considered that if they do what they love, the money will come. In 95% of the cases, the money never came. I know because they came to me, desperate, to help them sell after they’ve spent weeks or months building materials and not getting any customers whatsoever.
Wanting to help is not enough. Getting paid is very important too. And even the people that say “oh, just follow your passion” have complex, effective sales funnels in place. They don’t hope for money. They get the money by transforming leads into customers and customers into high value customers. Hope is not a strategy in life or in business.
That being said, what are the ways to position yourself in such a manner that you’re actually earning money in this field; not only earning money but actually prospering?
It comes down to several factors that I’m going to detail below. This information when applied correctly is worth millions of dollars so pay close attention and stop skimming through my articles.
The first factor is credibility. You can sell to friends and family only for so long. At the beginning, you have a large number of people around you that know you and believe in you and they make for great customers. However, unless you have a very, very large friend list, you’ll run out of leads that you can help after a month or two and that’s in the best case scenario.
Now you need to approach a sea of people that need your help but they don’t know you, they don’t believe you, they’re skeptical as heck, they’ve been burned before, they feel like their problem has no solution and generally, want to reconfirm their story as a victim by saying no to you and to everyone else that wants to help them. Yes, most people even if they’ll buy now or they’ll buy soon, generally see you as a problem and not as a blessing. Change is hard. I’ve been in the customer position many times and I know it.
How do you position yourself and for what? Well, you position yourself as an expert that serves a particular group of people using a particular type of solution. In other words, you want to serve a certain type of customer using an unique or at least, different solution. You don’t want to do what everyone else is doing but rather, find your small piece of the jungle where you can do your thing – your real thing.
People like Tony Robbins seem to serve everyone but they run huge organizations. Tony Robbins started with seminars for sales people and fire walking. Fire walking was his unique selling proposition, the entire mind over matter thing. Earl Nightingale had “The Strangest Secret”. Grant Cardone in his self-improvement books bring the idea of doing ten times more than anyone else, of massive effort. Jim Rohn was a gentleman and it felt like you were talking with your grandfather. Stephen Covey was focused mostly on the corporate area combining common sense with methodology.
I don’t know what you can bring unique but there’s something for you. Don’t stress too much about this. Just focus on serving a portion of the marketplace and focus on bringing something different – don’t try to be everything for all people.
The best way to position yourself is through a book and through other paid materials. Most people position themselves through free content and this is an awful idea because free content is not appreciated anymore. People are starting to pay attention to only what is paid, as they automatically consider it better. When you’re offering your stuff for free, you’re just saying “I don’t appreciate my time or my effort enough to charge for them” and people ignore them. But if you charge, even if it is $1 for a book, then you’re positioning yourself as someone else. They have to pay for you and while $1 per book won’t make you rich, I must tell you, there is a huge, huge difference in psychology between leads and customers. It’s like going to date with a girl that doesn’t care about you and one that she’s into you. It doesn’t mean that she’s going home with you, but she’s into you.
This is why so many marketers do $1 trials. That’s not a revenue stream. It’s just a symbolic price designed to transform leads into customers. The people who are going to buy your products, are going to pay $1 for a trial and those you turn away were never going to become customers no matter what.
You need a book or a course or some form of packaged value that you charge for. I suggest you charge normal price, not $1, because this would raise other problems (each time you ask more, you’re going uphill, so when you’re charging $1 and then $100, he sees this as a huge jump) but at least, just charge something.
Of course, you also need to convince him to purchase the book. The truth is that you can be the best self-improvement writer but unless the prospect knows about this, he’s not going to buy. Most people are stuck in the past where the quality of a book meant something. This paradigm comes from the old model of publishing where you would send your book to a big publishing house and if they publish it, it means it is good, as it will be found in every library from Tokyo to Anchorage, Alaska. This was true – then. In self-publishing, the playing field is opened and the worst can publish on Amazon just as the best. Getting picked by someone like Random House or Penguin Books does mean something as it is a vote of trust. They spend hundred of thousands to promote your stuff. When you’re self publishing, be it on Amazon or on your website, you need an amazing copywriter to help you promote it.
I’m that amazing copywriter and I guarantee you that you’ll earn more sales with me helping you than some random guy writing generalities trying to sell your stuff – but by know, reading this blog, you know that. Well, it’s worth repeating – when you work with me, you’re working with someone that’s going to create a very effective sales funnel, one that is going to bring you a lot of customers and just as importantly, a lot of money.
That being said, positioning comes down to creating something of value, charging for it (and the more you charge, the better, as it is a strong positioning and branding element) and effectively persuading your prospects to buy.
Is this all?
No.
This is just the beginning. Your book / course helps you start a relationship. You want to start this relationship from a position of authority, one in which he sees you an expert and respects you. But what do you do from here?
The answer is simple and it comes in two words.
Sales funnel.
You want to have a funnel constantly upgrading his value as a customer. What I mean by this is to have a scripted interaction using emails and other forms of delivery (Facebook bots look very cool and effective) so he buys increasingly higher value products.
The first product is your $49.97 course. The second one is your $97.99 three hour video course. The third one is your $399.97 home study course. The fourth one is your $997.99 membership to your success academy. The fifth one is your $1997.99 five day retreat in Colorado limited to only ten people. The sixth one is your $4997 platinum coaching where each week you’re meeting on Skype and you’re providing a customized, him oriented solution.
Do you see how it works? Higher value after higher value. Maybe 1 in 100 are buying the first one, 1 in 200 the second, 1 in 400 the third, 1 in 800 the fourth and so on but isn’t this a lot more effective then selling him coaching at $97.99 per hour?
I’ve worked on some very high value funnels with the top products exceeding the cost of $20.000. Yes, the last product in the funnel was $19.997 and one customer to get from A to Z would have to spend around $40.000. There were thousands of entry level customers and only about 30 at that level, but 30 people who spent $40.000 is $1.200.000 in revenue.
This is how all the good marketers are doing this. You think Tony Robbins earns a lot of money by selling $20 books? Of course not. I think his promotional costs are higher than that. But then you have Date With Destiny and other +$2000 programs, you have coaching by his team, you have his high end programs and so on. He uses the entry level products to position himself as an expert for who doesn’t know him (I wonder though, is there anyone with an Internet connection and an interest in self-improvement who doesn’t know Robbins?) and then he uses very effective sales funnels that lead to high tickets.
A sales funnel replaces you from the sales seat. It is a system designed to strategically sell so you don’t have to. It is effective and unless you’re already rich and you don’t care about earning income, using sales funnels is the way to go to succeed in the self-improvement field and in all other field that is.
There is more to this formula and I’m happy to reveal it to you and to answer your questions in a 30 or 60 minutes call. You can invest in me to answer your questions at a rate of $50 per every 30 minutes, with a 30 minute minimum. We can conduct these calls through Skype or in some cases, directly by phone. Per request, I can also record these conversations for you so you can have them easily available and for $25 per 30 minutes, I can send you the transcription, which means you’ll have the text form of our conversation that you can easily refer to.
Are you interested in investing in your success? Then let’s have a one time, complimentary call. This is to determine if we’re a good fit together and to get a full picture of your needs before our coaching call. In this manner, I can make sure that we focus on solutions and not on establishing background during our paid coaching call.
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Best regards,
Razvan Rogoz