“You really inspired me to start selling the higher end stuff. Weexpertriches.com/downloads/ExpertRichesV7.pdf · 2015-04-15 · “You really inspired me to start selling the higher

“You really inspired me to start selling the higher end stuff. We got a 30% conversion rate our new $10,000 product [52 sales] and that just completely blew us away. Six months later, we put the price up to $16,000 thinking maybe it would drop the conversion rate a little. We did another 144 sales at $16,000. In less than a year, we added $2 million to the business. It’s been awesome.”

–Daryl Grant Australia’s #1 Internet Expert

“Prior to working with Alex, I was struggling with my agency. Alex gave me the encouragement and advice to roll out a high-end program, and I have since made $100,000 in less than 4 months.”

–Marvin Molina Houston, TX

“By moving to a more affluent market, Alex helped me triple the price of my Social Media Manager course as well advise me on how to create a high-end coaching program. I also now have a repeatable sales process that I can use to scale my business.”

–Lasse Rouhiainen Europe’s leading Facebook and YouTube Expert

(Creator of the Smart Social Media system and has trained over 200 people around the world

to become successful Social Media Managers)

"Alex's webinar strategies have made a significant impact to my bottom line this year. I highly recommend listening to every word he says about webinars as he is a genuine expert in this area and adds real value with his advice and tips."

–Robert Grant United Kingdom

(Co-Creator of Crowd Conversion, the popular Facebook training system)

"Alex identified and fixed several holes in my launch plan. This is why we were able add 4,700 members to our VIP program [at $197 per month] and why 16% of them took the Deluxe Upsell [at $997 per unit]."

–DC Fawcett Tampa, FL

"I recently used one of Alex's strategies and it helped me generate over $20,000. I know that these strategies will be responsible for over 75% of my income on my next project and represent a minimum increase of $300,000 to my bottom line."

–Jeff Dedrick Internet Marketer

"Alex quintipled our conversion, adding an additional $800,000 to our business. Since that project, we have grown by leaps and bounds and we’re being interviewed by a news channel. We have accelerated our growth by 3 years through this process and would never gotten these results without Alex and his team."

–Jason Gilbert San Diego, CA

“With Alex's help, we've expanded our curriculum from one course to eleven courses, and we've added hundreds of new members to our membership site offering [at $297 per month].”

–John Souza CEO and Chief Strategist

Social Media Marketing University Atlanta, Georgia

(Awarded by Mashable.com as one of the top 5 social media services providers for businesses nationwide and nominated as

a finalist in Forbes' Most Promising Young Companies)

"Working in a very tight deadlines, Alex and his team architected and ran a very complex launch for us. They were instrumental in adding $1 million in continuity income per month and over 50,000 names to our list in under 2 weeks."

–Jeff Adams America's Leading Foreclosure Coach

Los Angeles, CA

"The key thing I learned from my session with Alex is that you often need an outside perspective on how to improve your business. His single idea added over $90,000 for that single launch and much more since then. I am glad we had that session."

–Ray Edwards Highest Paid Online Copywriter

Seattle, WA (Has written for top marketers such as Frank Kern,

Mark Victor Hansen, and Armand Morin)

"We added over 1,700 customers paying us $197 per month. It's exciting because you can bring on an unlimited numbers of customers. Think about bringing in $300,000 to $400,000 each and every month sitting at home and doing this. Let me tell you, we were converting at 30% [of a $997 product] using the tactics that Alex and his team shared with me. If you have an opportunity, do a project with Alex and his team. You're going to love it. It doesn't matter what his fee is–you're going to get it right back."

–Jeff Kaller San Augustine, FL

Expert Riches

How To Attract Deluxe Clients That Pay You 200% Or More

Alex Nghiem

Expert Riches: How To Attract Deluxe Clients That Pay You 200% Or More Copyright © 2012, 2015 by Alex Nghiem. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author. Printed in USA

Acknowledgements

I am a big believer in giving credit to people where it’s due and I wanted to publicly thank all the folks that have helped me get here. First, I have to thank my parents and family for their love and support. My parents have always encouraged me to excel at whatever I do, and for that, I thank them. Being the youngest of 6 kids, I also have to thank my older siblings for keeping me in line as I was growing up. I also wanted to thank Dan Kennedy for really opening my eyes to what marketing really is and the impact it can have on any business. I also wanted to thank Richard Osterude, Bill Harrison, Steve Harrison, Perry Marshall, Jack Born, Davd Frey, Brad Costanzo, Scott Boulch, Russel Brunson, Rich Schefren, Mike Filsaime, and too many to list here for their friendship and advice. A special thank you to Yanik Silver for opening my eyes to see how it’s possible to build a booming business that accommodates one’s quirky lifestyle. Finally, I want to thank all the JV partners who helped get this to the market as well and of course, you, the reader, for believing in this enough to invest your money and time.

Contents

Introduction 1 Why You Should Listen To Me 4

Part I – The Foundation

Why The Traditional Marketing Funnel Is Your Biggest Obstacle

7

How The Ladder Theory Is Preventing You From Succeeding

9

Benefits Of Offering Big Ticket Items 11 Common Mistakes When Offering Big Ticket Items 17 2 Types Of Businesses 20 The Lifestyle Business Formula 22 What You Don’t Want To Do Is Far More Important Than You Think

26

Part II – The Expert Riches Blueprint

Step #1: Add Big Ticket Items 28 The Psychology Of Offering Big Ticket Items 29 Communicate Strategic Value 30

Step #2: Use Webinars To Sell 32 Getting Attendees On A Webinar 34 Tripling Your Results 36 Creating Freedom With Webinars 37

Step #3: Apply Leverage To Earn More While Working Less

39

Step #4: Go Live Quickly And Adjust Aggressively 41

Part III – Closing Comments And Bonuses Words Of Wisdom From Steve Jobs And Mark Twain 44

Appendices And Bonuses Appendix A: 15 Examples Of Big Ticket Items 47 Appendix B: Market Research At Live Events 58 Bonuses For Book Readers ($497 Value) 61

Page 1 – Schedule your 1-1 at expertriches.com/1on1

Introduction

Are you a speaker, coach, author or consultant (collectively referred to as “experts”) struggling with any of the following issues?

You have amazing credentials but you are not earning what you would like

Prospects love your materials but don’t invest in you

You have sold tons of your books but can’t seem to make a profit

You have powerful life experiences and expertise you know the world would benefit from but you don’t know where to start

You don’t want to waits years to get massive results

You watch people who are less qualified than you succeed so much faster

You have sold a ton of your products but you can’t seem to grow

You dread growing your business because it means hiring more staff and/or working longer hours

If you said yes to any of these, then you’re at the right place. I authored this guide because I have worked with many, many emerging and well-known experts who continually wonder why they are not more successful even with amazing credentials and great interest in their work. The good news is…it’s not your fault and it can be fixed.

http://www.expertriches.com/1on1


The fault lies in the model that is perpetuated in most training programs. This popular model works but it’s slow and filled with pitfalls. In this hands-on guide, I will share with you my Empire Riches approach, a radically different 4-step approach to quickly get to $10K to $100K per month…even if you’re unknown or if you’re just starting out. Those that apply this model are quickly enjoying enormous rewards (I will showcase different case studies throughout this guide). This model enables you to generate an enormous amount of cash in a very short period (in a matter of weeks and months vs. months and years)…again, even if you’re just starting out or if you’re unknown. Until now, many of these ideas and strategies have only been available to my high-end private clients who pay me 5 to 6 figures for consulting and masterminding. These are the same strategies that my clients have used to add hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars to their individual businesses (you’ll meet many of these throughout this hands-on guide). Here are also some other benefits of my 4-step Expert Riches approach:

Higher overall profits

Higher quality customers

Better promotional partners

Works even for beginners (even with no products and no list)

Get paid to create high-end products

Differentiation



Along the way, you’ll also discover:

A blueprint for quickly getting paid $10K to $100K per month (and even more)

How to build and grow a lucrative business that is built around your lifestyle (small staff, large staff, work at home, work from the beach, part-time, full-time, etc.)

How to package your expertise and life experience into big ticket items such as coaching programs, mastermind groups and much more

And much, much more When applied properly, this blueprint enables you to quickly add 6 figures and even 7 figures to your business…while enabling you to work less than you are at the moment. The good news is that you can achieve these results while educating your prospects to invest in you through a value-based sales approach vs. using strongarm sales tactics. As an expert, you probably are driven by a calling to make an impact on the world. The good news is that you can now be paid top dollars while making a big impact. So decide right now: do you plan on using this powerful new strategy to impact more people in a bigger way (and get paid handsomely)…or do you want to stay small and irrelevant? Let’s get started.

$497 BONUS FOR FREE

Are you ready to make a bigger impact and get paid faster? Schedule your 1-1 strategy session ($497 value) for free http://www.expertriches.com/1on1 (see page 61 for additional details).




Why You Should Listen To Me

I started a boutique ecommerce consulting firm in 1993 and I was selling high end ecommerce solutions that ranged from $100,000 (for a prototype) to $350,000 (a production system) to Fortune 500 clients such as Bank of America, Federal Express, BellSouth, and TransUnion. In 2000, I then sold my company to a leading ecommerce company and became the VP of Engineering. As VP, I was responsible for 4 offices and $15 million of revenues. The projects ranged from $250,000 (initial engagement) to $4 million (production systems). After a year, I took off an extended period of time and traveled the world and even started a dance team (performing at charity functions). In the last 2 years, I also ran multiple product launches and authored webinars that collectively generated over $20 million of sales and added over 50,000 new customers for my clients. I have streamlined my experience to a 4-step process for quickly generating $10K to $100K per month, and this process has been proven to work in the following industries:

Social media

Real estate

Retail

Book promotion

Internet marketing

Medical certification

Fine arts

Dating

Sports

Law



B2B

Forex …and too many other industries to list here. I currently charge private clients 6 figures and a % of the backend sales when I work with them, and I also currently have coaching and mastermind programs that range from $5,000 to $30,000 per member. To see details of how this blueprint works in the industries listed above, see the various case studies that are scattered throughout this hands-on guide.



Part I – The Foundation

Part I discusses foundational issues foundational topics such the mindset required to hit $10K to $100K a month (and beyond), the 2 different types of businesses, the lifestyle formula and much more.



Why The Traditional Marketing Funnel Is Your Biggest Obstacle A key idea that is often taught is the marketing funnel, illustrated below.

eBooks / Books / Newsletters$19 - $199

Home Study Course$297 - $997

Teleclasses$297 - $1997

Bootcamps / Workshops$1,000 - $5,000

Coaching / Mentoring / Mastermind Groups$2,000 - $25,000

Consulting$10,000 to $1 Million+

Franchising & Licensing$20,000 to $1 Million+

MOREEXPENSIVE

Traditional Marketing Funnel

The idea behind this is as follows: sell many low priced products (commonly referred to as front end products) and then a % of the people will then ascend (upgrade) to your higher priced services (commonly referred to as the backend, also referred to as big ticket items and high end products). In almost every business, the bulk of the profit is in the backend. Before I demonstrate why this ascension model approach is often an inadequate model for generating cash quickly, let’s look at the numbers of a $100,000 business (to use a $1 million business, just add a zero):

5,000 copies of a $19.95 eBook

1,000 copies of a $99.95 eBook

100 copies of $995 a home study course

10 clients at $10,000

5 clients at $20,000



As you can see, you would have to sell a lot of books at $19.95 to hit $100,000 (5,000 copies). Assuming a 1% conversion (that is, one visitor out of 100 buys) and 0 refunds, you would need 500,000 unique visitors to your site! For the sake of this discussion, let’s say that you can actually get 500,000 visitors to your site, and you succeed in selling 5,000 copies of your front end product. Only a small % of the people will actually upgrade to your backend of higher priced products (remember that the profit is in the backend). Additionally, since there is not much profit in the front end products, you can actually go broke in scaling your business because the cost of getting a front end sale can exceed what you are charging for it (this explains why many authors who have best-selling books still struggle financially). Even if a front-end buyer upgrades, there’s a lag time between the front end sale and the backend sale. This lag time can easily ruin your business because of cash flow reasons. To get to $10K to $100K per month quickly requires rethinking the problem and coming up with a sales process that is focused on selling the big ticket items out of the gate. These big sales then effectively create a war chest of capital that you can then use to expand and reinvest in marketing to get more customers. Part II discusses this sales process in further details.



How The Ladder Theory Is Preventing You From Succeeding

In business, a common phenomenon at work is known as the ladder theory and it has a huge impact in whether you will succeed with the approach I am about to share with you. The ladder theory surfaces when you state something like: “I can’t do until I have this <fill in the blank> under my belt.” A common example of this is when I hear clients tell me they can’t charge high prices until they get their advanced degree or get more experience or whatever. These limiting beliefs originate from society programming that originates in childhood where you have to finish one grade to go to the next grade. All of these are self-imposed limitations and are obstacles that you have to overcome to command premium pricing and sell big ticket items. Top earners are self-anointed and they then claim their space. Being able to charge premium prices and sell big ticket items boil down to:

Finding an audience that can afford what you want to deliver

Identifying their biggest pain points and communicating that your expertise can help solve those pain points

Repeating steps #1 and #2 The steps may shock you in its simplicity but it’s that simple. Unless you’re in a regulated industry, you control what you can charge…and what you can charge is a function of your audience and whether you can solve their big problems. Achieving premium pricing and selling big ticket items are important because:

It signals that you’re the best (most buyers equate higher



prices with higher quality)

It enables you to earn profit faster

It creates profits that you can use to outspend your competitors in acquiring more customers

Your profits can be used to hire outsourcers or staff thus creating more leisure time

The key is to find the right prospects and be able to communicate what you offer to their big problems. Part II discusses the right way to identify ideal buyers and how to identify their biggest pains.

$497 BONUS FOR FREE

Do you need help in identifying your ideal buyers and their pain points? Schedule your 1-1 strategy session ($497 value) for free www.expertriches.com/1on1 (see page 61 for additional details).


www.expertriches.com/1on1


Benefits of Offering Big Ticket Items

In this section, I want to share additional benefits of offering big ticket items. I will define a big ticket item as anything that sells for $1,000 or more (to see a complete list of big ticket items, see Appendix A). If you’re selling to corporate markets, you can add one or more zeros to these numbers (again, when I was selling ecommerce applications to Fortune 500 companies, $100,000 was for the initial prototype, but the idea is the same).

Higher overall profits: If you sell a $20 product, what’s the most that you can make per sale? $20 obviously. But, if you sell a $1,000 product, you can potentially make up to $1,000 per sale. You would have to sell 50 copies of your $20 product to match a single $1,000 sale. Note that since big ticket items are rarely all digital, you almost never make 100% profit as you can make with digital products. However, the overall profit per sale is significantly higher because of the higher per unit sale.

Higher quality customers: When you sell a $20 product, your client often buys on impulse and will often try to return the product or end up putting the product on the shelf (or on his hard drive). When your client is buying a high-end product (again, something that’s priced $1,000 or more), he/she has carefully considered his/her options and is making a more serious decision. Thus, he/she is more likely to actually use what’s in the high-end product.

Better testimonials: Since the buyer is more likely to apply what’s in the high-end product, you will end up with more success stories, which lead to better testimonials.



Better JV partners: Since you’re selling a high-end product, you can give away more per sale, which will attract higher quality JV partners. When you JV with a well-known name, one of the first questions you will be asked is: “How much can I make per sale?” With a low-end product, it’s almost impossible to get the attention of super affiliates and high-end JV partners.

Differentiation: Most market segments, especially the Internet marketing one, are filled with people who provide low-end products and services. By offering high-end products, you can quickly differentiate yourself in the market. In one of my businesses, I offer a $12,000 coaching program whereas most people in that industry charge between $1,000 and $3,000.

Less competition: You will also have less competition because there are fewer providers of high-end products and services. In fact, you can even partner with your competition and be their backend provider! Simply approach them and offer to pay them a % of your sale when they mail your high-end offer and a sale is made. Imagine being able to convert all your competitors to your JV partners!

Case Study

A fast growing ecommerce retail site noticed that more and more competitors were cropping up. Instead of competing with these sites, the owners instead decided to switch their model from a retail site to a wholesale site. The owners then went back and offered to supply inventory to their former competitors, thus creating a win-win situation.



Bigger impact on clients: When a client buys a low-end product, he or she doesn’t pay much attention if he/she uses the service or product (how many books have you purchased that you haven’t read?). When that same person spends $1,000, he/she is more likely to use the service or product and gain the benefits. This is one of the reasons that people rarely listen to good advice from friends and family (because it’s free) but will definitely listen to a consultant (because the consultant is being paid and is, in many cases, very expensive).

Fewer customer service issues: Again, when a person buys a high-end product, he/she has carefully considered the decision so the likelihood of a refund is much lower. Plus, a person who’s buying a high-end product is not a dream chaser: instead, he/she has actually taken personal accountability for his/her actions and is not likely to blame you when something’s not working.

Guru status: When you sell high-end products, you are automatically assumed to be a guru. How else can you command premium pricing?

Speaking opportunities: Because of the high cost of putting on live events or hosting a webinar, you usually need a product at least around $1,000. It takes as much money to promote an event for a big ticket item as it does a low ticket item so most promoters default to promoting bigger ticket items due to higher payouts (of course, the product should be high quality otherwise most promoters will still pass).

Creative compensation: When you have a backend of high-end products, you can do some creative



compensation models. For example, if you need some services provided, you can use your products or services as barter currency. I have gotten expensive services and products (video editing services, room rentals, coaching, copywriting, etc.) by offering access to my high-end products.

Creative promotions: I know more than one expert who provides tickets their live events (that normally sell for $997 and higher) to other list owners, provided the person receiving the comped ticket has purchased another big ticket item. The expert gifting the seat can then confidently offer even higher priced products to the attendee because the attendee has proven that he is a buyer of big ticket items. Higher conversion: This benefit is probably the most counterintuitive benefit of all. Most people expect to have a lower conversion rate when selling high-end ticket items due to the higher prices. When engineered properly, however, you can have double digit conversion from incoming leads to sale. This requires that you prequalify the leads heavily by having them request marketing materials (and in some cases, requiring them to leave a substantial deposit to even get the marketing materials: this deposit demonstrates a seriousness on the prospect’s part). For example, by the time I sit down with a prospect for one of my high-end offerings (coaching and/or consulting), I have a high likelihood (sometimes, 50% or even higher) of closing the client. In many cases, I make the sale without the client ever having bought a lower-end product from me.



Outspend your competition: A key reason why you have higher conversion is because you can literally afford to buy higher quality leads. For example, you can now bid on higher priced keywords and run campaigns that your competitors could never dream of (offline campaigns, direct mail, outbound telemarketing, etc.) A common mistake is to acquire leads as cheaply possible. These leads tend to be lower quality and actually end up costing you money because they don’t convert. Here’s a quick example: if you got leads from online methods (say, banner ads) for 10 cents a visitor, is that a bargain? Obviously this is a trick question because it depends on the conversion rate.

ADVANCED STRATEGY: Instead of trying to get leads from the cheapest manners possible, cost average your leads across all your channels. That is, invest in multiple ways of getting leads and then see if you are making a profit. This way, you’re not dependent on any single method of lead generation. I have seen more than one business go under because they built the entire business around a cheap lead source, and when that cheap lead source went away, the entire business collapsed. To some degree, this is what happens you are overly dependent on cheap pay per click traffic exclusively: when Google changes their algorithms, your entire business can literally implode.



This is why super savvy marketers do many different things to generate leads including teleseminars, live events and other things.

Hire professional help: Since the product price is higher, you can actually bring in outside professional sales help. For example, with one of my clients, I have 4 professional salespeople who are doing sales via the phone because each sale is $20,000. This allows me to attract the best salespeople due to high sales commission.

Part II discusses in further details how to add big ticket items to your business.

$497 BONUS FOR FREE

Are you ready to put my 4-step process to sell big ticket items and grow faster? Schedule your 1-1 strategy session ($497 value) for free www.expertriches.com/1on1 (see page 61 for additional details).




Common Mistakes When Offering Big Ticket Items

Here are some reasons why marketers don’t successfully sell high-end products and some suggestions for correcting these mistakes.

Poor positioning

Wrong target market

Poorly defined sales process

Close too early

Assume there’s no market

Fear of high prices (self)

Strategy is backwards

Too generic Let’s take each of these in order. Poor positioning: Being able to sell big ticket items or charge premium pricing requires you to be able to communicate strategic vs. tactical value. This topic is further explained in the section, “Communicate Strategic Value”. Poorly defined sales process: In many cases, it may be that you don’t understand your sales process. I have had more than one client who continually want to spend money on generating leads but have no way of qualifying the leads to close them. In Internet-speak, this means a ton of money was spent on acquiring traffic but not enough effort on measuring (and improving) the conversion. To address this, simply create a diagram and see what happens when a lead comes to you (via the Web or offline). Is there a qualification process? If not, put one in place immediately. This alone will remove the noise and allow you to focus on the few true leads that are coming to you.



Wrong target market: In many cases, your product may be 100% dead-on but you’re simply selling to the wrong market.

Case Study

While the circus industry is a dying one, Cirque Du Soleil rapidly grew to become a billion dollar entertainment business. Why? Cirque Du Soleil realized that the buyers that spend the most money on entertainment are the ones who attend plays and operas, not the price-conscious traditional circus attendees. While most circuses offer animal acts, Cirque Du Soleil instead emphasizes elaborate storylines and extravagant sets, similar to plays and operas.

Close too early: This is related to the mistake above. Too often, I have clients who try to close the prospect with the initial contact. This is doable with impulse purchases (eBooks, etc.) but with higher ticket items, the prospect often wants to develop a relationship first. Close too early, and you will scare the prospect off. Assume there’s no market: A mistake you may be making is assuming that there’s no market for high-end products or services in your market category. Most local investors are stunned when they hear that I offer a $12,000 coaching program when the local real estate investing club charges $200 for its annual membership. I can name a dozen more examples, but I hope that you get the idea. Fear of high prices (self): This is the most subtle one of all because it’s internal. Many of us, myself included, grew up with very mixed (and negative) emotions about money, and this carries with us into adulthood. I have spent tens of thousands of



dollars and hundreds of hours purging myself of these limiting beliefs, and I still catch myself falling into this trap. The point is this: just because you wouldn’t pay for a particular service at a price doesn’t mean your prospect wouldn’t. One of my mentors spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on race horses a year (a significant portion of what he makes), and I spend a disproportionate amount on traveling. Really examine yourself and see if you have fear of high prices. Then, determine whether you are projecting these price beliefs on your clients. Strategy is backwards: This mistake is commonly made and will cost you tons of money. You have probably been advised to create low-end products first and then “graduate” to high-end products. I have found that a model where you lead with the bigger ticket items generates cash far more quickly. Part II discusses this model in further details. Too generic: This mistake comes from poor positioning. That is, your service may be too “me too” and vanilla.

Case Study

Ryan Steele offers a lead generation service and can charge 4-5 times more than his competition because he targets surgeons who offer spinal decompression procedures (average cost is about $8,000) vs. the generic small business owner. In addition to being able to charge a higher fee, Ryan also enjoys an enviable 30% close rate (that is, one out of three prospects invests in his program even though it’s 4-5 times higher than the same generic provider).



2 Types Of Businesses

Broadly speaking, there are 2 types of businesses: lifestyle businesses and corporate businesses. A corporate business is one that is designed to attract outside investors and provide a healthy return for its investors. The owners rarely have a 100% say in the running of the business and often have to get approval for major decisions from its investors. Such decisions include whether a product should be released, whether the owner can even go on a vacation, etc. There are exceptions but this is often more the case than not. A lifestyle business, on the other hand, is one that is designed to be profitable while accommodating the quirks of the owners. Let me give you some examples of what I mean by quirks:

The owner of a tech business only wants to work 9 months a year and takes the summer off to compete in water sports

A very highly paid marketing consultant requires that all of his clients meet him at his home office and he schedules client visits around the horse races that he participates in

A business owner wants to be able to live anywhere in the world while running his business

An entrepreneur wants a growing business but only wants an assistant as part of his full-time staff

A speaker, recently remarried and expecting a new baby, doesn’t want to travel even though the largest opportunities in his industry require travel

Since you’re reading this this, it’s my educated guess that you wish to build a lifestyle business vs. a corporate business since there’s an almost endless amount of literature on building a corporate business. Until recently, the whole idea of having a



scalable lifestyle business seemed far-fetched but with advances in technology, thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs are making this dream into reality.



The Lifestyle Business Formula

A common saying is that: “Do what you love and the money will follow.” Having a passion and love for what you do in business is a key element. Unfortunately, what most entrepreneurs and business owners find out the hard way after struggling for months and years is that having passion alone is not enough. For example, I have many friends who love watching football on Sundays but last time I checked, there’s not a way to make money from that. When I consult with my high-end clients, one of the first things I do is show them the following diagram:

The ideal lifestyle business is the intersection of all three circles. If you miss one, you will struggle in one way or another. Let’s see what happen when only one element is missing (if two are missing, you are in real trouble). Scenario #1: Passion + Assets / Skills but no Market Demand

This is a classic case where you can build a small business or



a hobby but not a growing business because there’s not enough market demand. I see this often when I work with domain experts who are also book authors. In many cases, these authors have been misadvised that they should share their message (usually via social media) and if enough people hear the message, these experts will experience success. Social media is a powerful tool but it cannot create demand out of thin air. Thus, this approach rarely works and results in these experts working away for months or even years before giving up to return to their former jobs. The solution here is to do the market research (keyword research is usually the first step but it’s barely the tip of the iceberg) to see if the market demand is there. See Part II for more details on how to do market research for big ticket items. In other cases, it just means taking the existing solution but to a different market or aligning the positioning to match the pain of the target market. One of my clients was offering a high end business opportunity where the buyer can make a healthy 6 figure income by running an art school part-time: the client was a world-class art instructor who pioneered a method for enabling even the most artistically challenged student to quickly create amazing art. She had proven the concept by running her own art school with over 200 students so she came up with a licensing program where the buyer can license her curriculum to open up an art school. The investment was $20,000 plus a monthly fee and the value proposition was pretty compelling: with only 50 part-



time students, the buyer could recoup their investment in 3 to 4 months working only 15 hours a week. With 75 students, the buyer could hit six figures annually a year (to put this in perspective, a franchise that can generate 6 figures for its owner usually cost 7 figures and above). However, she and her husband burnt through over $300,000 and never made a sale for their licensing product even though they generated hundreds of leads. They kept tweaking the offer and was advised to change their ads to improve the response rate. When I came on board, I asked who they were marketing to. Their response: “To other artists, of course.” I asked if they had any leads outside the art market and they said they had a handful from a business tradeshow they attended, but they were adamant that this is a perfect business opportunity for artists. To make a long story short, I contacted the non artist leads and within less than a week, I made their first sale at full price. As I suspected, the buyer was a corporate fugitive who felt $20,000 was a very modest investment to own a business with the opportunity to make 6 figures annually. The lesson was that there was insufficient market demand for their program in the artist market (primarily because most artists can’t afford the $20,000 and they also preferred using their own curriculum) but as soon as we shifted the target market, the sale became far easier.

Scenario #2: Passion + Market Demand but no Assets / Skills

This happens when the entrepreneur sees others making money in a industry ripe with opportunities, and the entrepreneur is excited by the market demand. An example



of this is somebody who loves to cook and has correctly identified that there’s indeed a market to be filled. However, the unfortunate news is that the cooking is awful. There are multiple solutions to this scenario including partnering with somebody who has the necessary skills or outsourcing these skills. However, be careful because if these skills are required to maintain a competitive advantage, then outsourcing is a dangerous solution. More than one Fortune 500 company has regretted outsourcing a lot of knowledge work to countries overseas because those outsourcers are now sufficiently trained where they can compete with their clients.

Scenario #3: Market Opportunity + Skills but no Passion

This is a situation that I personally lived through. I was a highly paid IT consultant for over 10 years and I was very good at it. However, because my heart wasn’t in it, I dreaded going to work even though I was good at it and I was very well rewarded. Subconsciously, I was then sabotaging my own success. When I later figured out what my real passion was, achieving bigger success became far easier.

The lesson is this: while it’s possible to succeed with only having only 2 of 3 three factors above, it’s far easier to succeed when all three factors are present.

$497 BONUS FOR FREE

Are you ready to have a great lifestyle business? Schedule your 1-1 strategy session ($497 value) for free http://www.expertriches.com/1on1 (see page 61 for additional details).




What You Don’t Want To Do Is Far More Important Than You Think

In going through this process, it’s important that you surface the list of things that you don’t want to do or are unwilling to do. Don’t worry if these restrictions sound silly because remember: the whole point of a lifestyle is to have a profitable business that accommodates your quirks. For a long time, it was hard to book an appointment with me on Wednesday afternoon because that was the day new comic books came out. Silly? Of course, but to me, I’ve enjoyed reading comic books since I was a kid and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Likewise, many of my clients are speakers, and it’s well known that the fastest way to grow quickly is to travel and speak on as many stages as possible. Many of these same clients do this for an extended period but they either then get tired of the travel or they realize they are missing quality time with their family. Thus, when I design a lifestyle business for these clients, I need to come up with a solution that doesn’t require heavy travel.

Case Study

Jason Gilbert was a rising name in the speaker world and was advised that to get bigger speaking opportunities, he would have to travel for 3 years straight to “pay his dues”. When we met, he made it clear that plan wasn’t going to work because he was a recent widower and a new father. Instead, I had to execute a plan that allowed him to quickly grow without requiring to be continually on the road and miss his newborn daughter grow up.



Part II – The Expert Riches Blueprint

In Part II, I am going to share the Empire Riches blueprint, a 4-step approach for creating riches based on your expertise and life experiences. Note that some of these ideas are radical and they may challenge many preconceived notions you have about market research, pricing, product creation, marketing and business in general.



Step #1: Add Big Ticket Items

In order to generate $10K to $100K per month with a lifestyle business, some key elements have to be present:

The market demand has to exist (already covered earlier)

An automated sales process (to be discussed)

A product mix where the average transaction size is $1,000 or higher

Let’s explore this last statement more closely. In order to hit six figures, you would have to sell a minimum of 100 units at $1,000. To hit 7 figures, you would have to sell 1,000 units. If the average transaction was $100, you would have to sell 1,000 units to hit 6 figures and 10,000 units to hit 7 figures (this is why most family owned restaurants never hit $1 million because of the sheer amount of volume required). In many markets, there’s simply not enough volume to hit six figures much less than 7 figures if your average transaction size were $100. Thus, you want to select a market where the buyers are used to buying big ticket items. With many of my clients, I sometimes skip $1,000 entirely and focus on selling at $5,000 or above for each sale. This generates cash faster and it creates more profits that I can use to acquire more customers faster. This is often a radical concept for most readers and I challenge you to keep an open mind as you reread the above paragraph. That single idea of adding big ticket items to your business alone can redefine your business.

Case Study

Daryl Grant, Australia’s #1 Internet Marketing Expert, shared that she added over $2 million to her business in a single year once she accepted that her market was willing to buy big ticket items: the demand was always there and they never



bought at that price point because she never offered anything at that price point. Prior to meeting me, her highest priced product was $2,000. She then rolled out a $10,000 program and was amazed at how many people bought at that price. She then rolled out a $16,000 program and even more people bought.

The Psychology Of Selling Big Ticket Items

I am often asked how do I sell what I have when the more powerful question is: how do I sell what the buyers are already buying? This distinction is critical because your success will be determined by your ability to identify the biggest pains of your target market and then positioning your offering to a solution to those pains. The bigger the pain, the more you can charge. In some cases, just changing who you are selling to can make a substantial difference in your business and/or speed up your success. While it’s possible to sell anything to anybody, it’s more work than it’s worth. For example, have you heard the phrase, “He can sell ice to eskimos.” My response to that is: why would you want to? Doesn’t it make more sense to sell ice to somebody who’s perspiring like crazy or who needs it to keep their food from spoiling? Likewise, you must, must be able to identify the biggest pains of your target market. Buyers pay big dollars to solve big, hairy problems, not small annoyances. Identify what keeps them up at night and you’re halfway there.



Communicate Strategic Value

The other thing you must be do is be able to communicate strategic value vs. tactical value. As an example, let’s assume you’re an expert who can get a client’s website ranked on page #1 of Google or other search engines. However, if you position yourself as an SEO (search engine optimization) vendor, even if you made the sale, you would only be paid a certain amount. Why? Most business owners, unfortunately, view SEO as a technology investment (tactical value). But, if the client has a negative review on the front page of Google, he’s far more likely to invest in a Reputation Management Specialist (RMS) and pay usually 3 to 5 times as much as for an SEO expert (even though behind the scene, an RMS does the same work as an SEO expert) . Why? Because most business owners view their reputations as having strategic value which has to be protected and maintained. As another example, when I speak with a prospect, I very quickly share that I am not an Internet marketer, a project manager or a technologist (even though I can be all those roles). I communicate that I am a business strategist that can create massive results for their business on a strategic level. That’s why I am so well compensated. Likewise, focus on buyers who are not price sensitive and who have demonstrated a history of paying higher prices. While it’s possible to convince low priced buyers to buy a more expensive offering, it’s often far faster and easier to sell to a different crowd.



Case Study

Lasse Rouhiainen, Europe’s leading authority on using YouTube and Facebook to grow sales, had a very successful Social Media Manager course targeted at the Spanish market, and he wanted to substantially raise his prices. I then identified that instead of creating a coaching program for his existing market, it was faster to translate the same course and take it to the US market since that market has demonstrated a history of investing in bigger ticket items.

Finally, use an apples to orange comparison. For example, a coaching program at $10,000 seems outrageous until you position it as a viable way of creating 10 times that or you compare it against a 4 year degree which costs well over 6 figures at most major universities.

$497 BONUS FOR FREE

Do you need communicating strategic value so you can charge top dollars? Schedule your 1-1 strategy session ($497 value) for free www.expertriches.com/1on1 (see page 61 for additional details).




Step #2: Use Webinars To Sell Do you want to know the most powerful way for getting explosive results quickly? It’s hosting a webinar, an online sales presentation that has been carefully crafted to sell your product or service to a group of people who often are attending remotely. I have helped multiple clients, even ones that haven’t done webinars before, generate huge results (5 figures and occasionally even 6 figures) on a single webinar. In many cases, the webinar sales approach is then used as the foundation to build a 7 figure business (and beyond). This section will walk you through how create time and financial freedom via automated webinars: the steps shared here are the results of having helped clients generate over $20 million of sales in the last 18 months, primarily through webinars. The webinars that my clients have created with my help have been used to sell low end products/services at $197 each to complex offerings that sell for over $100,000 each. A webinar is a technology that enables an online presentation to be made to a remote audience of 10 or to 1,000 attendees (there are platforms that will support even more but the costs go up dramatically). While nothing can truly substitute the experience of being in a live room with your prospects and customers, the webinar comes pretty close. Using a webinar, you can:

1. Deliver to a large audience without travel 2. Reach audiences that may not be cost effective for you

to reach otherwise 3. Survey the audience to gauge their interest



4. Test different versions of your presentation to find out which hook or close is more effective

5. Test a new product to see if it will be sellable before creating it

6. Automate it so that it creates sales for you even when you’re not there

Benefit #1, “Your audience can see your presentation without travel” is a major benefit since more and more of your prospects are traveling less. Benefit #2, “Reach audiences that may not be cost effective for you to reach otherwise” is useful to many of my clients, especially in the trading market, that have held webinars that were attended by prospects from over 100 countries (some of the countries I didn’t know even existed). Imagine how expensive it would be for the presenter or the attendees to meet in the same room for a live presentation to happen. It just wouldn’t be feasible economically, not to mention logistically with all the increased security procedures at airports. Benefit #3, “Survey the audience to gauge their interest” enables you to poll the attendees and then share the results with them to engage their interest. Benefit #4, “Test different versions of your presentation to find out which hook or close is more effective” is possible with live events but because live events are by nature expensive to put on, speakers don’t like to test different hooks or closes because if it doesn’t work, the stakes are too high. Since the cost of hosting a webinar is far less, you can intentionally invite a smaller group to test a new hook or a new close before scaling up. I’ve seen more than one speaker boost their results by 20% (or even 50% and more) by changing their close but they had to be willing to risk losing a lot because of a large live audience.



With a webinar, the testing can be done in a controlled environment thus eliminating that financial risk. Benefit #5, “Test a new product to see if it will be sellable before creating it” is one of the most overlooked benefits of a webinar, which is product prototyping. Since the cost of putting on a webinar is negligible to a live event, you can use a webinar as market research to see if a product is sellable before creating it. This option is simply not possible with a live room due to the high costs of holding a live event. Benefit #6, “Automate it so that it creates sales for you even when you’re not there” is what can transform your business to support your ultimate lifestyle. This is such an important point that it warrants its own section and will be discussed later. The way to make big money with webinar is quite simple:

Promote the webinar to get attendees on the webinar

Make an offer on the webinar Getting Attendees On A Webinar

The table below list some common ways of getting attendees on a webinar.

Traffic Source Comments Joint ventures (JVs) The highest converting traffic there is

Low risk because you only pay when a sale is made

May require reciprocation

Bigger JVs often require a minimum earnings per click (EPC) before promoting

Do some background research on



each JV before contacting them to promote

Start with the smaller affiliates first to get your metrics down before contacting the bigger affiliates

Facebook paid advertising

Easy and fast to setup

Can be laser targeted through Facebook’s targeting capabilities

Start with cost per click (CPC) before moving to a CPM model

Google Adwords Landing page should not include an exit popup

Click prices have gone up dramatically in most markets

LinkedIn groups An effective way of gathering leads provided high quality content is shared

LinkedIn members tend to be more affluent than members of other social media sites

Publicity Requires a long term plan

Often snowballs into larger opportunities when done correctly, which then lowers the cost per lead and sale

Direct mail Expensive but very targeted

Can target buyers of related products by using a list broker

Platform speaking Leads are highly qualified

Often requires travel



Tripling Your Results

This section lists the common mistakes I have seen from having worked with clients in multiple industries (real estate, Internet marketing, software, Forex, B2B and too many to list here) and the steps required to address these mistakes. Once implemented, these steps can often triple the profits generated from your webinars.

Mistake Solution Not warming up your attendees before the webinar

Give your attendees some materials to review before they come on the webinar so they are more familiar with you

Not selling at a high enough price point

Beef up your offering and charge a higher price – a webinar is the ideal method for selling big ticket items

Not following up with non buyers

Even the best webinars close at around 15% to 20% which means that 80% to 85% of the attendees are still non buyers

Not offering upsells from the webinar

Consider adding an immediate upsell to boost your profits

Not offering upsells after the webinar

Add a series of follow up steps to ascend your webinar buyers into bigger backend programs such as coaching and/or live events

Not doing enough webinars Invest a % of your profits in paid traffic; have a dedicated person to recruit JVs to



continually mail for you; and automate your webinars

Not knowing what to track At minimum, track these metrics: cost per attendee and dollar generated per attendee

Creating Freedom With Webinars

In order to create a life of freedom, you need a sales funnel (also referred to as a sales process) and a lead generation strategy to bring in fresh leads. In almost all cases, a sales process should use a webinar as its core element to drive sales. So what does a webinar-based sales process look like, you ask? Here’s a diagram of a webinar-based sales process that sells an $8K program with 2 downsells, one at $5K and one at $1K (some key areas have been erased for confidentiality reasons). The webinars are automated and the leads are generated through paid advertising and occasional joint ventures. The example sales process below answers one question I am asked a lot which is, “Can you use webinars to sell big ticket items?” The answer is yes. I have sold items that cost over $25,000 per unit and I know of one investor who has raised over 7 figures in investment funds using webinars.



Don’t be intimidated by the boxes – they are simply steps in a multi-step process that is designed to maximize the conversion of each prospect into a paying customer.

$497 BONUS FOR FREE

Ready to explode your business with webinars? Schedule your 1-1 strategy session ($497 value) for free www.expertriches.com/1on1 (see page 61 for additional details).




Step #3: Apply Leverage To Earn More While Working Less

A key piece of making way more without killing yourself is identifying how to leverage yourself. Without the leverage, you’ll end up growing only by working more hours or hiring more staff, neither which is desirable by the lifestyle entrepreneur (many lifestyle entrepreneurs are corporate refugees who left because they hated managing large staff). Broadly speaking, your business is broken into marketing, sales and then delivery. Common ways of applying leverage to marketing include:

Using joint ventures to grab clumps of customers vs. one a time

Using paid advertising to drive a consistent flow of prospects to a sales process vs. depending on individual referrals

Common ways of applying leverage to marketing include:

Crafting a sales webinar presentation (see the previous section)

Automating the presentation to create consistency and free time for the business owner

Bringing prospects to the webinar presentation via media buys or marketing partners (often referred to as joint venture partners or affiliate partners)

Common ways of applying leverage to delivery include:

Holding a live event to share your expertise

Creating info products (which can be mass produced) vs. doing the training over and over



Holding webinars for many paid attendees at the same time vs. doing delivery one on one

Case Study

For one of my B2B clients, I am currently rolling out an $8,000 group coaching program and a $25,000 1-1 coaching program within the first 90 days of entering the market. I came up with this product mix once he shared that he didn’t want to work more than 20 hours a week and he wanted to hit a particular revenue target. The main sales method is a webinar that prescreens prospects who are then closed by a contract salesperson. The goal is for the business to hit 7 figures while working 20 hours a week and with minimal full-time staff (just himself and an assistant).



Step #4: Go Live Quickly And Adjust Aggressively One of the sayings that I share with my client is: “Go live quickly and adjust aggressively.” This reflects the reality that ultimately the customer is the final decision maker on whether something works or not. Planning has its place but I find more often than not that paralysis analysis and perfectionism creep in and by the time the project goes live, the market opportunity has moved on. In the software world, there’s a term called a minimally viable product (MVP). When working with clients, I have adopted this concept to business building to dramatically cut down the time it takes for the business to generate cash. You may be creating multiple self-imposed restrictions without realizing it (see the “How The Ladder Theory Is Preventing You From Succeeding” section).

The longer it takes to go live, the longer it takes to get market feedback and the more likely the market conditions may have changed. Please be clear: I am not advocating releasing crap: I am advocating finding a balance between good enough and perfection and then releasing your product/service to the market to get feedback while getting paid. I find that getting paid creates a positive feedback loop because it demonstrates that the market is willing to pay for whatever is being released. Until your product/service generates a single sale, it’s only an idea with some very educated guesses.



Case Study

Unlike my first book, which took 3.5 years to finish, this book and the previous (my 7th and 6th respectively) were completed in less than a week. Instead of giving myself weeks and months, in both cases, I had hard deadlines (a JV reception and a cruise) which forced me to identify what is minimally viable for me to go live with and then adjust aggressively. This book will be improved over time but the point is that it was completed in a fraction of the time that most authors would believe is possible, and I will get valuable feedback from real readers vs. guessing what the readers want. The interesting thing is that my latter books still managed to generated significant backend sales (in the mid 6 figures) because they were timely vs. being outdated by the time they were done.



Part III – Closing Comments

This part contains closing comments, recommended next steps and bonuses.



Words Of Wisdom From Steve Jobs And Mark Twain Starting and growing a business should never be a light decision. It is true that there’s a lot of uncertainty in the economy but the flip side to that is that some of the greatest companies were launched in the recession (Apple and Microsoft were both launches in the mid- 70s during the oil crisis. If you were too young to recall that time, imagine an energy crisis so bad that consumers were asked to fill up during certain days of the week depending on the letters on their license plates. The good news that is that technology prices have dropped so much that the cost of launching a business, especially an online one, is a fraction of what it used to be (solutions that used to cost over $100,000 are now being offered at $49 per month or even free). In deciding whether or not to take the plunge to start a lifestyle business, ask yourself this question: “What’s the worst that can happen if this doesn’t work out?” In many cases, if you’re reading this, odds are you can always find another job if your lifestyle business completely falls apart (a very rare occurrence, by the way). Most of the time, you have to adjust your direction or your marketing to continually steer towards success. When I work with a client who is creating a lifestyle business from scratch, our goal is to get to 5 figures per month as quickly as possible (usually in 90 days to 180 days). Consider the traditional model where a business is expected to lose money for the first two years, and you can see that this is a radically different – and far more profitable – approach.



One of the quotes that has stuck with me over the years is the one from Mark Twain who said: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Likewise, when Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com was asked why did he leave a very high paying Wall Street position to launch Amazon.com, he shared that he makes decisions based on a regret minimization framework. That is, he didn’t want to look back at life with regret and ask: “What if?”

The late Steve Jobs, often considered one of the most visionary CEOs of the last century and one of my business heroes, gave a commencement speech at Stanford and shared that he’s asked himself this question for the last 33 years (even before he was diagnosed with what he thought what became a terminal illness):

“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

Remember: the sooner you get started, the sooner you can create that impact and the more successful you are, the more lives you can impact.



Appendices and Bonuses



Appendix A: 15 Examples Of Big Ticket Items

This section lists the 15 most common big ticket items. Remember that adding any of these can make a substantial difference in your business. [1] Home study courses: One of the most common examples of a high-end product is the home study course. Typically, this includes CDs, DVDs [for video], workbooks and related items. Most people undercharge for their home study courses. I have a $997 home study course that is a recording of a 4 day bootcamp: the home study course includes 27 CDs and 2 DVDs [for video], and 2 binders with over 500 slides. I can charge considerably more but keep in mind that I am using the $997 product as a lead generator, so in many ways, I want as many copies out there as possible.

Here are some quick tips for increasing the value of your home study course and therefore increasing the price:

Add a certificate for a critique or review. If you are doing a course on marketing, then include a certificate where you will review the client’s marketing materials. Set a value of around $250 to $500 for this.

Add a certificate to attend one of your live events. This can easily add a perceived value of $1,000 to $3,000 to your home study course. At the live event, make sure you have plenty of things to sell the attendee because at this point, the attendee is a very qualified lead (having bought a home study course and traveled to a live event).

[2] Coaching: A very popular model is to offer coaching (sometimes called mentoring), which is positioned as a way to help clients implement what’s in the home study course. Thus, a natural upsell from the home study course is a coaching program.



Coaching programs can be month by month or for a specified period (one year is quite common). Prices can range from $297 to $5,000 or more per month. A discount is usually given if the client commits to a longer period up front. I had a coaching program that was $12,000 when paid as a lump sum or $5,000 down and $997 per month for 9 months (approximately $14,000), if the client financed the coaching fee. This service can be labor intensive but coaching is very popular with clients because they feel like they’re getting access to the guru and can get their personal questions answered. When done properly, simply adding coaching to your existing business can easily add 6 figures to your bottom line, even if you have a small list.

Coaching is one of the lowest risk products to add to your high-end portfolio because it involves mostly your time and little infrastructure costs (as is the case with a bootcamp). If money is very tight, you can bootstrap your coaching program by adding one member at a time and use the incoming fees to pay for the additional marketing.

INSIDER TIP: You can sell coaching without a sales letter or even a Web site. We sold almost $75,000 worth of coaching before we built a site: all the sales were done via phone and face to face. A significant reason for our success are the questionnaires we use to prescreen prospects and the software we use to track them.

Here are some things you should consider when building your coaching program:

Group or 1-1: Most entrepreneurs make the mistake of doing 1-1 when they can be delivering coaching in a group format.



Open enrollment or not: open enrollment means that the client can join at any time. Closed enrollment is similar to the schooling system: you have to enroll by a particular date to attend the sessions. As you would imagine, there are pros and cons with both approaches.

Compliance or not: do you expect the client to perform at a particular level (can’t miss a certain number of sessions, for example) or do the work that is assigned (you would be surprised how many people join coaching programs and never apply what’s being taught)

Partners/Key Members allowed or not: do you allow your members to bring partners and/or key members to your coaching sessions?

Curriculum or not: will you have a curriculum that you follow or is it ad hoc, i.e., the topics are determined by the coaching members who are present during that session?

Accountability or not: do the members have to report their progress to fellow members?

[3] Mastermind groups: Clients also like being part of a mastermind group and this is usually done in conjunction with coaching. Typically, the mastermind group meets 3 or 4 times a year live (usually 2 long days), and there’s phone support between the live events. I have belonged to high-end mastermind groups that charge $10,000 per year and there are ones that charge $50,000 or more. I know of one that charges $100,000 for a single meeting (with a % of the business that gets generated from introductions made at the meeting) and the members gladly pay it.

Clients like mastermind groups because they can [a] network with similarly minded individuals and [b] JV with the other members.

INSIDER TIP: When you sell masterminding groups, make



sure you emphasize the potential JV opportunities that will be provided to your members. This creates an almost irresistible offer because the member can easily recoup several times the cost of being in the mastermind group. In fact, I have belonged to more than one mastermind group more for the JV opportunities that for access to the guru.

[4] Bootcamps: Bootcamps are expensive live multi-day events, usually on a specific topic in a niche (for example, in real estate, the topic would be how to sell a house quickly vs. generic real estate investing topics). Bootcamps can be unthemed or themed. A good example of a themed bootcamp is Yanik’s Underground Seminar, where everything is spy-related.

Doing a bootcamp should not be one of your first choices for a high-end product unless you have very deep pockets. Many entrepreneurs (present company included) seriously underestimate the cost of hosting their first bootcamp and then spend months recovering financially.

But, when done properly, bootcamps are a great way to create HUGE paydays (6 figures, even 7 figures) in a single weekend. In some cases, the promoter breaks even on the ticket sales (this is true even for $1,000+ events) and makes most of his money from the product sales that happen at the event (this is known as “back of the room sales”: maximizing back of the room product sales is a specialized topic that will be covered in more details in a future product).

Here are some things you should consider before doing a bootcamp:

Do you want to speak at your event or not? This simple question can often determine whether you are profitable or not. A well known promoter shared with me that even



with 200 attendees at a $1,000+ event, he didn’t start making money until he started speaking and selling at his own event. This was my own personal experience as well.

Do you want to have multiple speakers or just yourself? Note that when selecting a speaker, you should only consider speakers that can sell from the stage (this is not to be confused with being a good keynote speaker) to maximize your sales.

Is your current list large enough to attract enough people to your event? If not, then you need to have some high-end JVs with list owners whose clients have demonstrated that they are willing to pay to attend live events.

Do you want to theme your event or not? Again, a good example of a themed event is Yanik’s Underground Seminar, where all the promos and sessions are themed with the spy industry.

Do you want to bundle in other things into the event price such as lodging? In many cases, this can increase sales because it’s less hassles for the attendee (cruise ships figured this out years ago).

[5] Workshops: Workshops are typically more hands-on than bootcamps and are usually kept much, much smaller. As an example, I went to a list building workshop that was limited to only 35 people. Clients like workshops because they offer hands-on instruction and are typically lead by a single instructor (as opposed to a bootcamp, which can have multiple speakers, sometimes as many as 5 a day).

INSIDER TIP: When selling workshops, emphasize the opportunity to learn something hands-on and the small intimate setting, which allows for more personal attention.

[6] Field trips: Field trips are variations of hands-on workshops



and usually include a tour. Here are some examples:

Real estate tour: for one of my real estate events, I rented a bus and took my attendees to visit real properties.

Office tour: I paid $10,000 to attend a tour the offices of a very successful info marketer. He explained his hiring procedures, how he runs his back office, how he manages inventory and credit card processing, etc.

Factory tour: I paid $2,000 to attend a class held at the Disney Institute, and they actually took us underground and showed us how the Disney World park operates.

A field trip is a simple high-end product to add. For example, let’s assume that your topic is, “Increasing your profits with better customer service”. You can host an event at a conference room at Disney World and then have your attendees walk around the park to observe and study how Disney World provides world-class service. This is training in the field and when properly positioned, is extremely appealing to attendees.

One of my mentors does a weekend event at Disney World doing what I just shared and he charges $10,000 per attendee for the weekend: he grosses almost $100,000 just for the weekend.

[7] Licensing: Licensing is when you sell the rights to your work to somebody else. For example, let’s assume that you have a specialized way of improving profits in a company. You can license foreign rights to a distributor, who is then responsible for translating it to the local language. The distributor would then pay you a royalty, and you would add another income stream without having to create a distributor network.

Licensing is similar to affiliate marketing, but provides the licensee the ability to do his own fulfillment (with affiliate marketing, the product owner ships directly to the customer).



[8] Franchising: Franchising is one of the most expensive products you can create and shouldn’t be your first high-end product. The legal cost of franchising can run you into $100,000 or more and can take a year or more. However, the payback can be enormous (the founder of Domino’s Pizza made billions not by selling more pizzas but by selling franchises). I have a colleague who’s already on track to make $1 million from royalties alone from his franchisees next year.

Franchising an idea requires that you have a repeatable business process and a marketing system to generate clients. People who buy franchises like structure and usually pay premium dollars ($20,000 to $100,000 for the initial fee is quite common + a royalty in the form of a % of gross sales, usually for 20 years). The franchisee usually gets rights to use the brand name, marketing and back office support in a specified territory.

Here are some things you should consider before going down this road:

Make sure you have very deep pockets before you consider franchising your idea.

Study other franchises in your market category and see what they charge and what support they provide their franchisees.

Attend some franchising shows and talk to the attendees. See what the attendees look for in a franchise.

Work with a legal firm that specializes in franchise laws because it is a specialty.

[9] Business License With Territories: This is often required as a quasi-franchise because it combines the territory exclusive and the marketing support of a franchise. The biggest difference is that whereas a franchise requires you to use the franchise name, here you can use your own name (in fact, the business



licensor will go to great lengths to explain that it’s not a franchise).

The main reason to adopt this model is to avoid the steep fees for registering to become a franchise. This model often incorporates a monthly fee for ongoing support to create a residual income.

[10] Do-it-for-them Services: The saying, “Teach somebody how to fish” no longer applies in today’s time. People now want people to scale the fish, cook the fish and then deliver the fish all ready to go. Here are some examples of do-it-for-them services that are very popular:

Turnkey Web sites with pre-written copy, pre-written autoresponders, etc.

Outsourced marketing where you do mailings for the client. This is more commonly done in industries where most of the marketing is offline: example industries include the financial sector, real estate, medical services such as dentistry, etc. However, I do know one very successful marketer who charges his clients a fee per email that he sends for his clients (he has a proprietary system where he can practically guarantees the deliverability of the email, and his clients happily pay him to handle that so they can focus on their core businesses).

Outsourced lead generation where you generate leads or set appointments for your clients

Do-it-for-them services are typically charged with an initial setup fee and a monthly recurring fee. This offering has a high renewal rate because in many cases, the service is integral to the health of your clients’ businesses. For example, if you were doing lead generation for your client and he/she didn’t renew, you would immediately stop and the client’s business would suffer immediately because no new leads would be coming in.



[11] Continuity programs: A continuity program is one that charges the client on a recurring basis (usually on a monthly basis). It can be a newsletter, a membership site, an outsourced service, a coaching program, a software product, web hosting, etc. It’s more a way of billing than a particular program.

[12] Teleclasses: Teleclasses are multi-week classes that are delivered via the phone. The classes usually follow a set curriculum and are typically delivered in a group format. Prices should range from $997 to $2997, but again, most entrepreneurs make the mistake of charging too little. An easy way to increase the price is to add additional value by providing a downloadable workbook and/or offering transcripts to the call (along with downloads of the calls themselves). Or, you can sell a basic version at around $497 (no downloads, no transcripts) vs. the deluxe edition, which includes the downloads and transcripts along with additional Q/A sessions and maybe even a 30 trial period to your coaching program (see the Forced Continuity discussion earlier for an expanded discussion on how trial offers work). [13] Consulting: Consulting is also a high-end product that you can add with little risk. Many entrepreneurs don’t like consulting because it’s “trading hours for dollars”, i.e., you usually bill at an hourly rate. However, there are other compensation models you can consider including success fee, a % of the sales generated, equity and some combination of all the above.

I once did work for a client and was given a very small equity position (in addition to my standard fees). When the company went public, my tiny equity was worth over $500,000.



Consulting is a low-risk way for quickly adding large sums of money to your business, but be aware that it is time consuming, unless you bring on subcontractors.

INSDER TIP: When doing consulting, it’s best to require a retainer up front instead of billing the client as you go. This simple tip can dramatically increase your cash flow, especially for large assignments. In my previous business, I had payroll of up to $70,000 per month, which I had to meet on a bi-weekly basis. My clients would pay me 45 to 60 days after the work was completed, which meant I was acting as a bank and charging 0% interest.

[14] Membership sites: Membership sites are a special form of continuity programs and are usually online (a newsletter can be considered an offline membership site). Depending on the industry, the monthly subscription fee can range from $19 all the way to $1,000 (I know of one site that caters to large corporations that charges almost $50,000 per month).

WARNING: Having a membership site sounds great in theory but in reality, you need a way to get a large amount of members quickly vs. adding one or two members at a time to be able to offset your customer acquisition costs and attrition. In many cases, it can take 3 to 6 months (and more) to recoup the cost of acquiring a continuity member. To address this issue, quickly offer another big ticket item such as a home study course or presell the continuity as a lump sum.

[15] Platform speaking / webinar speaking: One of the highest paid “products” is the ability to sell from the stage (or on a webinar), also known as platform selling. In many ways, it’s not a product, as much as a way to quickly create products and also sell your other products.



Here are some tips about platform speaking:

More and more speaking opportunities are offered via webinars vs. live events due the rising costs of holding live events (see the “Use Webinars To Sell” section).

Platform speaking is not the same as public speaking: in many ways, it is the most leveraged skill to master, and the payback can be enormous. I have helped more than one client generate over six figures in a single webinar.

Platform speaking definitely raises your visibility and the visibility of your other products, and it quickly brands you as the expert in your category.

$497 BONUS FOR FREE

Ready to add big tickets items to your business and grow faster? Schedule your 1-1 session ($497 value) for free at www.expertriches.com/1on1 (see page 61 for additional details).




Appendix B: Market Research At Live Events

Being first in the market is often a very risky strategy and in many cases highly overrated. For example, Amazon.com, contrary to what most people think, was not the first online bookstore. They refined their strategy based on what they saw others doing. Of course, Amazon.com has since innovated in many, many ways, but the point is this: they saw a trend where people where purchasing online as opposed to convincing people to buy online. Most marketers (especially Internet marketers) are taught that to use online services like WordTracker to identify market needs. Unfortunately, this often leads to a limited view of what people are willing to buy. WordTracker tracks what people are searching for, not what people are buying. To really understand what people are willing to pay and to understand what makes people buy, the best market research is to attend a live event. In fact, you should attend the most expensive event you can afford to do this exercise properly. Why? The people who attend expensive events are proven buyers because:

They paid a lot of money to be in the room

They paid travel and lodging expenses to be there

They took time off without pay to be at the event As you attend the event, observe just how much the attendees are willing to pay for the products that the speakers are presenting. Watch what the presenters are offering and then observe what price points the sales are happening at.



This simple market research will tell you the following:

How much attendees are willing to spend

What benefits are making people invest in those products/services

What is the hook that got the attendees to pull out their wallets

Additionally, the event should be seen as a prime sales opportunity again because you are surrounded by potential buyers. In fact, I often can pay for my event by doing one of 3 things:

JV’ing with one or more of the speakers: I can see the speaker in action and decide whether they can close from the stage

JV’ing with the promoter

Selling one or more of my high-end products to the people that I meet right there at the event

In fact, in some cases, I have presold enough of a new product that I can fund the entire development! With that in mind, instead of seeing attending live events as cost, I see it as the best investment of my marketing dollars. ALL of my major JVs and strong relationships were built and solidified at live events. To give you another example: I have spent the last 3 years selling products/services to the real estate market. I was at a live event and quite bored until something very interesting happened: the speaker finished his sales presentation on what I thought was an overpriced product. The next thing I knew, I saw a wave of people running to the back of the room. I immediately saw that there were huge untapped opportunities because the speaker could not provide all the support to the



buyers. I then had lunch and dinner with many of the buyers and they shared with me that they were still looking for things that weren’t offered at the event, namely hands-on coaching. I then partnered with another investor and almost overnight, we sold $75,000 of coaching to the same people that I met at the event. This was possible because we focused our energies on people who have already proven to be buyers of high-end products. By carefully observing what was happening and identifying untapped needs at a live event, I was able to build an info business with high-end products from the very beginning. Keep in mind that these sales were made without any Web site, any sales letter, any marketing materials, any teleseminars and no list! It was simply sitting down and talking to each prospect a time at the live event and following up afterwards. Each person you meet at a live event is worth at least 100 email opt-ins from your site. Thus, when you go to a live event, be meticulous about collecting personal contact info and follow up after the live event! It never ceases to amaze me that people will spend thousands to be at an event and don’t even have business cards!



Bonuses For Book Readers ($497 Value For FREE)

I created this guide as a roadmap on how to get to $10K to $100K per month as quickly as possible. I know that you probably still have questions such as:

What specific products should I include in my lifestyle business?

What is the best way to attract buyers who are not price sensitive?

How should I price my offering?

How do I craft a killer webinar to maximize sales?

How do I automate the webinar to create maximum leverage?

That is natural and I want to offer you an opportunity to have a 30 minute strategy session with me and my team (normally $497 but free for a limited time to readers of this book). I currently charge $10,000 per day for consulting and six figures for major projects, and what you will discover during this 30-minute strategy session can create a lot clarity and identify next steps to move forward. To book your 1-1 strategy session, please go to this special page


to fill out a short questionnaire about you and your business. One of my staff members will then contact within 72 hours and if you don’t hear from us, most likely, we already concluded that we couldn’t help you based on your questionnaire.

Please be patient since we are often booked out weeks ahead in advance. I reserve the right to pull this offer at any time.





Documents

“You really inspired me to start selling the higher end stuff. Weexpertriches.com/downloads/ExpertRichesV7.pdf · 2015-04-15 · “You really inspired me to start selling the higher