How’s that for not-so-subtle post title?
Hopefully I got your attention, because today’s post is going to be one of the most important posts that I’ve ever written.
Plus, I want to explain where I’ve been for the last two months and why you should care about my absense.
Success Starts in Your Head
If you are a business owner, I’d like to suggest to you that “I want to sell you as much of my stuff as possible” should be your mantra. If it’s not, you might want to look yourself in the mirror and ask why not?
But wait! Isn’t that greedy? Aren’t we business owners supposed to care about our customers is some altruistic way? Won’t thinking that way put some people off?
All good questions, and in this post, I’m going to address them all, so keep on reading.
What Makes a Business
In it’s most basic form, a business must have 3 key ingredients if it is to have any hope of survival.
If you are missing any one of these 3 ingredients, you don’t have a business – or you won’t have one for very long!
The 3 ingredients are:
Products
Customers
A way to get paid
For experienced business owners, this is not a new concept. For many new Internet Marketers, it’s not so obvious.
Why is this common sense formula for success not so common? I’m sure there are many reasons…but I’d be willing to bet that the desire for noob’s to “get rich quick” is pretty high on the list.
Also high on the list are the guys who write all the sales copy that, over time, has convinced all the
suckers
noobie Internet Marketers that you can indeed get rich without building a real business.
Sadly, it actually worked…for a while, anyway.
And then came along April 24th, 2012…a day that many a micro-niche site owner (self included) will never forget.
Since that day, the income from my micro-niche sites has dropped to just 1/3 of what it was (my authority sites have remained the same).
Is Google Really to Blame?
As a result of the desire for “easy money” many micro-niche site owners (self included) exploited a “loophole” in the Google algorithm; and some did it very profitably for years.
The “loophole” that I’m referring to is artificial link building to boost your site in the SERPs (search engine results pages) and with the Penguin update, that loophole, at least for now, is gone.
When this happened, many “business owners” saw their income drop by a large amount.
But wait…
Were we really business owners?
That depends on your definition of a business.
As I stated above, I believe that to be a real (sustainable) business, there must be a product, customers, and a way to get paid.
As a micro-niche site owner, I broke this rule. I didn’t have a product, nor did I have customers. All I had was a way to get paid, which in my case was Adsense.
By only having 1 of the 3 key ingredients, I, and many others, never really created a real business, and, in doing so, we all exposed ourselves to the risk of seeing all that easy money stop flowing in our direction.
While this sucked, can we really blame Google?
No, not really. We broke a basic rule, and we’ve now paid the price for doing so.
Products. Customers. A Way to Get Paid.
In my case, I had been thinking about this risk for quite some time. That is why I created this blog and Niche Site Mastery.
I knew that if I was to build a real business, I needed to have a product, customers, and a way to get paid.
With these 3 key ingredients in place my business wasn’t going to be at the mercy of Google. In fact, only 17% of my traffic comes from Google. The rest is from a wide variety of other sources.
Why People Read My Blog
If I had to guess from all the comments people have left on this blog over the last year, the reason that many of you read my blog is because of my background in business. Unlike many other bloggers, I have built and sold a real business. We had customers, staff, products, and millions in revenue to show for it.
Does that mean I’m smarter than you? No, that is not what I’m trying to say at all.
Instead, my experience gives me a perspective on Internet Marketing that many others don’t necessarily share.
Now, with that said, if you examine the people who are really killing it online, they all ‘get it’ and have products (that people actually want), customers, and a way to get paid. That is why they are all making a fortune.
There Are No Shortcuts
So now that we all know that the micro-niche game is essentially over, perhaps now it’s time to get serious about building real online businesses?
Heck ya, it is!
Be warned though…
You won’t get rich quick and you are going to have to work your ass off to get there.
If you still think you can find a shortcut to riches, then you probably aren’t going to get much from my blog going forward.
As for the rest of you, stay tuned, because everything that I put on this blog from this day forward, is going to be about building a real business; complete with the 3 ingredients that I talked about above.
And now…
The Reason Behind My Absense
In the last two months, I’ve not published much on this blog. Many regular readers actually wrote to me to see if I was ok.
Thankfully, I’m alive, doing well, and am more fired up than ever!
The reason that I’d not been blogging was because I was absolutely immersed in working on improving the back-end (automation) of my own business.
If I was to continue to have time to write all these blog posts, I needed to make my business run as efficiently as possible, and with an online business, automation is key! (I’ll probably write another post to go into detail on this)
How My Business Works
In case you are knew to this blog, let me explain how my business works.
It started with my creating a bunch of micro-niche sites. About 80% of those sites had made it to the first page of Google before the bird in the tux came and ruined the party.
Next I created this blog (authority site) to share my experiences with the world.
Shortly after that, I created Niche Site Mastery. Initially, I created it so that I had a place to store all the training material for my own virtual assistants. However, as I blogged about what I was doing, people started to contact me to ask if they could buy memberships.
Sell memberships? I hadn’t a clue how to do that. Thankfully, I figured it out.
So, in a nutshell, here’s what happens in my sales funnel: people find my blog and read some content. Some of them become a subscriber to my newsletter. Some of those subscribers then choose to become Niche Site Mastery customers.
It’s not rocket science, but it works.
It could just as easily work for you, too, if you are willing to learn how to do it, and then do all the work needed to make it happen. Sadly, most people are just too lazy.
500 Customers Later
And here’s the really interesting part about my journey so far…I’ve learned more about creating a real online business from this blog and Niche Site Mastery than I did from building niche sites.
Do you think it’s possible that some people who read my blog might want to tap into all that knowledge?
I’m guessing, especially now that the micro-niche game is over, that many people would like to know how I’ve created a profitable six figure online business in about 12 months.
Shocking as it may sound, not everyone wants to create micro-niche sites. Many of my readers want to learn how to create a sustainable source of online income so that they can enjoy the same (work from anywhere, anytime) lifestyle that I am now so fortunate to enjoy.
The good news is that anyone can copy what I’ve done.
What’s In It For You
For those of you who continue to read my blog from today forward, my hope is that by sharing with you what I’m up to, I will inspire you to abandon the search for easy money (doesn’t exist) and instead focus yourself on building a real online business.
What do I mean by real? Product(s), customers, and a way to get paid, of course!
Viable Online Business Models (That Don’t Need Google)
There are still many very viable online business models from which to choose, and I am (or plan to be) involved in many of them. In case you aren’t familiar with them, here’s a summary of the models I think are viable long-term:
Blogging & Authority Sites
Membership Sites and/or Information products
List Building
Publishing (Kindle)
Software apps (to automate work)
Mobile gaming apps
Blogging & Authority Sites
Having built this blog (authority site) into a site that produces a full-time income, I plan to continue to share with my readers the steps that I have taken to get where I am today.
The lessons that I am going to share with you will be directly applicable to any niche that you choose.
In fact, once you understand how to get non-SEO traffic, you can enter any niche you like! In case you weren’t aware, there are some pretty darn profitable niches outside the MMO (make money online) niche. Dating, weight loss, and health are just a few examples, and you can become successful in all of these niches without SEO.
Membership Sites and/or Information Products
The other day I was looking for some information on a Yogurt franchise that I’m thinking of buying into, and while researching, I came across a membership site called Franchise Chatter. When I saw it, I thought it was a brilliant example of yet another niche where you can charge people for information.
Not so long ago, I did a podcast with a guy who was the owner of a profitable membership site in the stock trading niche.
As the owner of a membership site, I can assure you that it is a very viable business model if you do it right. Best of all, it’s not dependent on Google because you are building your own customer list.
List Building
To build a list, you need a squeeze page and a way to drive traffic to it. Once you have a list, you have one of the most valuable assets you can own.
With your own list, you can get traffic whenever you like, you can launch your own products, and you can promote other people’s products. None of this is dependent on Google.
Publishing for Kindle
A short time ago I interviewed a guy on my podcast who is doing very well with his Kindle ebook business. This is a super-simple business that isn’t at all dependent on Google. In fact, you don’t even need a website! If you can write, or hire people to write, you can be in this business.
Software Products (for automation and/or entertainment)
Every week I hear more stories of entrepreneurs who are killing it with software. It could be an iPhone app, a product of interest to Internet Marketers (marketed as a WSO or Clickbank product), or it could be something else. Regardless, the profit potential is huge and it’s not dependent on Google.
Personally, I’m intrigued by the mobile app business and have an iPhone game on my drawing board as we speak. Its going to be a sniper game and I plan to blog extensively about it in the near future.
Screw Google
Google doesn’t care about you.
Google doesn’t have to send you any traffic.
Google only cares about Google.
You should think about your business the very same way because it’s the key to your survival!
For example, Google didn’t come out with Penguin to screw you over. Instead, they came out with Penguin to clean up the results shown in their search engine because people (self included) learned how to game their system.
If they didn’t find a way to reduce undesireable search results, over time, the results shown would become increasingly spammy (thin Adsense sites are spammy) and fewer people would use Google. If that happened, Google’s revenue from Advertisers would drop and the stock price would plummet.
Can you blame them for launching Penguin? (Now, don’t think that I’m defending Google. I think Penguin was launched prematurely, and the initial results have been bloody horrible!)
I Want to Sell You as Much of My Stuff as Possible
Before I get into an explanation of why I chose this post’s title, perhaps a few words from Gordon Gekko are in order…
Ah…that speech never gets old, does it?
Ok, so earlier in my post I posed a few questions that I said I’d answer, so here we go…
The first question was, “Isn’t that greedy?”
Hopefully Mr. Gekko has already answered that one for us. Greed (the desire for more) is what drives Capitalism. It’s what created Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Youtube, Pinterest, and a zillion other companies.
The next question was, “Aren’t we business owners supposed to care about our customers is some altruistic way?”
As a business owner, I believe that my purpose is to create products that solve people’s problems and then help those people to buy my products. I believe deeply in my products and as such, I have absolutely no issue in encouraging people to buy.
If you are going to be successful, you must think the same way!
What I’m not saying is that its ok to produce crap and then try to trick people into buying it. That is lame and you won’t last long trying it because people are just too smart for that. You might get away with tricking a few…but soon enough you will have sacrificed your reputation in the process.
Remember, as Warren Buffet says, “reputations take a lifetime to build and seconds to destroy.”
The final questions was, “Won’t thinking that way put some people off?”
Yes, wanting to sell as much of your stuff as possible might put some people off, but so what! If they are only reading your blog and have no intention of ever buying, what good are they doing you?
If their sole purpose is to get as much free information as possible, let them! If they join your list and then don’t like that you send them offers, they can unsubscribe with the click of a mouse. That’s what the unsubscribe link is there for.
If you are worried about this kind of thing, trust me, you are worried about the wrong things!
The reality is this: no matter who you are, not everyone is going to like you, but there will be many that do and they will be happy to buy your products and/or products you recommend.
Focus on pleasing your customers. The rest will take care of itself.
It’s Not Really About Selling People Stuff, It’s About Helping Them to Buy
Now that you know I want to sell you as much of my stuff as possible, let me clear up one thing…
I don’t want to sell you anything. I want to help you to buy a product that solves a problem that you have. When I do this, I feel like I’ve added value to your life.
If my product(s) were crap, I would feel awful. If you buy my products and then don’t use them, that doesn’t bother me a bit because I’m not your mother and I can’t tell yo what to do.
Do you think Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon is bothered when people buy books and then don’t read them? Nope.
Do you think that within Amazon’s management meetings they talk about ways to sell less stuff? Nope.
Do you think that within Facebook they sit around trying to figure out how to decrease ad revenue? Not likely!
Do you think that within Patagonia, a company renounce for it’s environmentalism, they site around trying how to figure out how to sell you fewer hiking boots and jackets? Not a chance!
Every single successful business on the planet is run by someone who wakes up each day and thinks, “how can I sell more of my stuff today?”
My Confession
The reason that I blog is to get customers. Yes, I love blogging, and yes, I love the interaction with my readers. But make no mistake, I don’t do this for recreation. If it was recreation I was after, I’d be out on my dirt bike!
I blog because doing so has allowed me to build a real business that helps other people to solve their problems. It also gives me a lifestyle that I value immensely.
Blogging, or building authority sites (not spammy micro-niche sites), or any of the other business models I wrote about above can do the same for you!
If that appeals to you, then I would be honored if you decide to keep reading my blog. In fact, you should join my mailing list, too, so you can experience my sales funnel first hand (I’ll be blogging more about sales funnels shortly).
If you really want to build an online business, but you don’t yet know how, understand that I am 100% committed to sharing with you exactly what I’m doing to make my business grow. I love to do it, and I’d be honored if you’ll take what I share with you and then use it to make your business more successful.
Coming Soon to the Online Income Lab
I have big plans for my business and I intend to continue to be an open book about what is and isn’t working for me.
Specifically, here’s what you can expect from me in the weeks and months ahead:
The development of my first iPhone game (from inception to release)
How I’ve built this blog into the success that it has become (as well as my plans to make it more successful)
How I’ve created a successful membership site
How I’ve built my team of sub-contractors (and how I manage them for maximum gains)
How created my podcast and how I use it to get thousands of new visitors to this site
Killer ideas for rapid list building (hint: blogging is the slow way)
Interviews with people that have killed it with Warrior Special Offers (WSOs)
Interviews with (many) other mobile app developers
Interviews with experts in curation and PLR
Interviews with (many) other top bloggers in a wide variety of niches
Traffic and list building progress reports for the OIL blog
What Do You Think?
Hopefully, there are at least a few items on the list above that will be of interest to you. If you have ideas for additional topics, please be sure to share them in the comments below so that I can add them into my editorial calendar
Your comments are always welcome,
-Trent
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