AMY PORTERFIELD: Hey there, Amy Porterfield here and welcome to another edition of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. As always, I am so very happy that you’re here so thanks for tuning in.
Before we get started I’ve got to thank you. If you’ve written me a review you have just knocked my socks off. I’ve read a bunch of them lately and I just really appreciate it. I have to admit I probably put more work, more time, more effort into this podcast than maybe I should.
Maybe I should be putting some focus in some different areas but I really feel like I can’t turn on the mike if I don’t do my research and create these little mini courses inside of my podcast. Sometimes I think it’s a lot, I know, so I am trying to pull back a little and not give you too much. But I really, truly love this way of connecting with you. Many of you love it as well because I have read it in the reviews. So, if you left a review, thank you so much.
A while back I promised that I would choose a winner from all of the reviews to actually win one of my Profit Lab programs, meaning enrollment into the upcoming Profit Lab. The profit lab is all I’ve been doing lately…sleep, eat, breathe, live Profit Lab.
We have changed it. It is no longer the Facebook Marketing Profit Lab, it is now called The Profit Lab and it still totally includes a lot of Facebook but we’ve integrated other things like more email marketing, more list building with other social media channels, and more overall online core strategies that you need to know. So we have totally overhauled it and it has been a lot of work.
But, when I read those reviews it reminds me that I’m on the right track. I’m giving you guys the stuff that you want so I just want to thank you for those reviews. And I am going to choose a winner. If you’re listening you are going to need to contact us and let us know and maybe somehow confirm that this is you because the name is snickname10.
This is what sickname10 said:
“Amy, I bow down. Your stuff is so good. Every time I listen I feel like I am getting a mini course (which is exactly what I’m trying to do, so I love that). I actually had to stop listening to Online Marketing Made Easy when I run because I get so many great ideas while listening I would have to stop running and write them down. By far one of the best podcasts around. Keep up the good work.”
So thank you so much. We did definitely do just a random winner and this is whom we found but, snickname10, thank you. That just makes my day. Reach out to us at amy@amyporterfield.com and we will get you set up at the mastery level. When I unveil The Profit Lab we will have self-study and mastery levels. Mastery is when you get access to me and I review your entire marketing plan that we have set up in the program. We do Q&A calls. It is really cool and you will get the highest level free of charge, you are my guest.
I thought I would do one more of those, just one more in honor of The Profit Lab coming out so very soon. So if you want to leave a review, anybody that has left a review up until this point and anyone who leaves a review, if you haven’t, up until May 6.
You have until May 6, 2015, and we will do one more little contest. We will randomly choose. Your review doesn’t have to be amazing to win. We are going to randomly choose and you could win mastery into my Profit Lab program. I can’t wait to choose one more winner. Again, thanks everybody for leaving a review. If you’ve already left one you are already in the contest so no worries there.
We are moving on and today we are talking about the three beliefs of truly successful entrepreneurs. These are three things that these really successful entrepreneurs (everyone that I’ve ever come into contact with) believe to be true. I think these beliefs they have are actually making a huge difference in their success.
So I want to break them down for you and get you on board with these three beliefs if you’re not already there. If you are already there, awesome. You will see yourself in a lot of these examples.
Before we dive into those three beliefs I want to see if you can relate to any of these three scenarios that I want to throw at you. I feel there are some core emotions or feelings around stress and overwhelm, especially for people that are in their first three years of getting a business up.
Even through you might be out of that first year there are still struggles of building a business that come up almost regularly in those first few years. Those are the people that I’m really connecting with right now and I want to help you to keep moving forward, but in a really smart way.
See if you can relate to any of these, this first one, I am going to pretend I am the person. I am reading a quote and these are some struggles from my students and I want to see if you can relate.
Mike says, “I want to make this work. I really do. But when I left my corporate job to start my own thing I had no idea that the technology and marketing jargon would be so overwhelming. Plus, everywhere I look someone new is telling me I must do this or I must do that. Who the heck should I be following? It’s too much data coming at me all at once. And honestly, I’m just afraid that I wont make this work, that I left my corporate job and I can’t make my online business work.”
Have you ever had those feelings, the technology, marketing jargon, where you were kind of afraid that what you’ve created isn’t going to work? That’s one I want to see if you can relate to.
Here’s another one, “I’m already spending so much time on my business setting it up, refining my product, actually filling some orders, planning for the future. It’s overwhelming to think of spending even more time on online marketing. I want to have the time for the other things in my life that are important, the things I thought I would have time for once I became my own boss, but it doesn’t look like that’s happening anytime soon.”
This is another one that I get all the time. This is from Janet. This one comes up because people quit their corporate job, start their online business, and realize they are working more hours than they were at their crazy corporate job and there is no time to learn all of the marketing stuff. That’s another one that comes up a lot and that’s the one I started to feel.
I thought I worked enough hours at my corporate job but in my first four years of business but I worked way more hours than I worked at corporate. I am starting to taper off now, but because my office was right down the hall I felt it was calling my name all the time. That can produce some major burnout and it did for me, for sure.
Here’s one final item from a guy named Jake. He says, “I feel like I’m talking into the void sometimes when I post on my blog or on social media. I created my business in hopes of helping real people but I don’t even know if I’m getting in front of them and if they are even hearing my messages. I feel like I’m talking to nobody online and then when I start to promote my programs I sometimes feel like I’m wheeling and dealing like a used car salesman. I don’t know how to pull it all together to get in front of my audience and sell in a way that makes them really realize that I have the solution for them.”
That one is so good. It breaks my heart a little bit because so many of us have programs and products that are so good. We know they are going to work if we could just find our audience online and get in front of them. That is a big frustration that I know so many of us have felt or feel now.
I read those to you because they are little vignettes that were sent in to me when people were talking about some of the struggles in their business. I thought those three really stood out and I think many people listening have felt that way or sometimes feel that way now. If you can relate to any of those stay with me because they all kind of relate back to these three beliefs that I want to run through with you and really just make sure you understand that, if you believe this in your core, if you really believe these things I am going to run through with you, that you can start seeing things come together more easily in your business.
I want you to succeed. It is my genuine desire to help you reach that place in your business where you can say, “Yes, I made it. I love my work and I love my life.” Those two things have to go together. So, that’s truly very important to me. But there is something else that is equally as compelling that I want for you.
I want you to enjoy the journey, the process of making it all happen. Why I am sensitive about that is I haven’t always enjoyed the journey. I get stuck in the hustle of things and think that I need to do this or that or that I’m paying too close attention to the sales versus what I am creating. There are just moments like that where I wait a second and realize I am focusing on the wrong things and I’m not enjoying the journey. So I have always been able to pull myself back in. But if you ever struggle with that I want to be here to help pull you back in so you really love the journey.
One of the best ways I know how to teach is to share my own personal experiences. I have tried out everything I teach and have used it with great success or have used and had major failures but I really like to share the good and the bad with you. The way I do it is just to break things down in steps. I like to kind of hold your hand along the way and show you step by step what I’ve done.
That has always proven to be really valuable to my audience and that’s fantastic. I stand behind everything I’ve taught you about Facebook and growing your email list and how to sell online. All of that is so very valuable.
You still need one more core thing and it comes down to these three beliefs. You have to have a mindset about how to create success in your business. These three things are really, really specific.
Are you ready for the three? First I will list them and then I will dive into each of them and give you some examples. I will read these as if you were reading the belief.
- I believe that one of the biggest strengths in my business is knowing my target market intimately, knowing what they think, what they mean, and what words and emotions they use to express themselves. The more I know my audience the more success I will see.
- I believe that I am not alone. I’m not shipwrecked on a dessert island needing to have all of the answers myself. I thrive and my business thrives with a few core mentors that I trust and I can turn to again and again.
- I believe that I have a great idea, a great product, a great service, a great program that will impact people’s lives and that my idea must have a clear and easy-to- navigate system to generate sales daily.
Those are the three beliefs but I want to go one by one.
First, let’s talk about that very first one, I believe that I need to intimately know my audience. I’m not going to get into this one a lot because we already went into it a bunch with Episode #55. I talked about the importance of knowing your ideal audience. We talked about creating a survey and what questions to ask.
I will say this, I am so passionate right now about you intimately knowing your target market because it will give you a really big boost of confidence in your business. I’ve noticed that might be something you sometimes struggle with, feeling really confident about the direction of your company and how you’ve put it all together and the fact that it’s generating revenue consistently.
Those are some things you might worry about on a regular basis. But when you intimately know your audience, when you can rattle off who they are with a boom, boom, boom, boom, you have an amazing sense of confidence in knowing you can create a core message that will slice right through every single time you deliver it.
It has taken me a long time to create a core message around each of my programs. But it shouldn’t have. I should have done this way sooner. So, take my advice and learn by my mistake and truly get clear on your ideal audience. When I talk about core messaging, the reason it is so fresh in my mind is because of Profit Lab.
Before I started marketing it or creating the product all over again, because we are starting from scratch, I had to ask what the core messaging was. I asked what are we trying to do. I will share all of that later, but what came out of it was so crystal clear.
Let me tell you, creating the product came easier, writing all of the emails (which is never easy for me) became a whole lot easier. And, when I communicated to people that were helping me build my product (helping with design and sales copy and all that good stuff) I could just say, “This is who my audience is, this is where they are struggling, and this is where I am helping them.”
I’ve never been that clear in my life. You don’t have to wait until you are five or six years into your business to get that clear. You will have a full advantage over all of your competitors if you spend time in this area. So listen to Episode #55 but also really make it your mission. Just like I say to make it your mission, top priority, to build your email list, those two can live at the top of your priority list together. Intimately knowing your audience will change everything.
You have heard me say it enough so I am going to let that one lie. If you follow my podcasts you are saying, “Amy, I get it. I know that you want me to do this.”
That’s a good thing. Actually, I lied, I have one more thing to say about that. I just looked down at my notes. Let’s talk about consequences. If you don’t do it and don’t make it your mission to intimately know your audience each time you put something out there you will suddenly miss the mark. You will see some subtle things that will happen and you will realize the message just won’t spark interest. It is just not getting them far enough down that funnel you have created to make them want to buy.
That’s what happens. It’s just so subtle that you go on month after month after month with the same messaging thinking it is kind of working but you want to see bigger sales. It’s not working if you’re not seeing the sales that you really, really deserve. Sometimes you just miss the mark ever so slightly when you really don’t know your audience. That means you won’t make sales.
If your sales are struggling right now it might have to do with that core messaging that you have shaped around what you think you know about your target audience. You need to go back to the drawing board. That’s where I would start. Now, I promise, we are putting it to bed.
The second belief, getting a mentor. You believe you do not need to go at this alone. You are not on a deserted island where everything is on your shoulders. However, I realize that when you are running your business online you feel like it’s a solo adventure. There are some times that I am at my desk in my home office and it’s super quiet in the house and the only thing I hear is Gus at my feet, my little cocker spaniel, panting. I think being an entrepreneur is lonely. It feels kind of alone.
Every entrepreneur, if you have never felt that, WOW, I am really impressed. But it really becomes apparent when I am creating something or when I’ve got money on the line or when I need to meet really big goals and things aren’t working as planned. Then I really feel alone sometimes.
I have an amazing team. I always say it is a small but mighty team. And they are fantastic. But still, because this brand is my own, I feel alone sometimes. Then I remember that I have a small group of mentors that I follow year after year that truly, truly give me the confidence that I can do this. This was most important in my first few years of business.
You probably already know Marie Forleo is a huge mentor of mine. Today I get to call her a friend but in the beginning I just knew her online and when she said to do something I experimented with it. I tried it out.
I don’t take everything my mentors say as gospel but I definitely go back to the drawing board and take action and see if it works for my business.
Eben Pagan was a good one, in the beginning. Who are a few others? Frank Kern was a big one in the beginning for me because I learned from him through the Tony Robbins experience. Some of the people change. I follow different people today than I did in the beginning. But when I did follow them they were my virtual mentors.
I tell you this is so important because there are a lot of people online vying for your attention telling you should do this, or you have to do that, or you are going to fail if you don’t do this. The thing that is so scary about that is that it is so overwhelming. The last thing you want to hear is that your business is going to fail if you don’t do a specific strategy that a guru or person is telling you to do.
What I suggest for you is to believe that you are not alone and that there are just a few, two to three max, mentors that you believe in. You know they have gotten results and you want the same kind of results they have received so you are going to follow them. You will experiment. You are not going to just take everything they say at face value but you know they have tried these things, tested these things, and lived it. And they genuinely care about you.
You can’t ever have a virtual mentor out there that you don’t feel has your back. So I just want to make sure you make an effort to first identify who they are. You probably already know who they are. And then say, “Okay, I’ll take advice or read different blogs or watch other people.” But when it comes down to needing to get down to action, follow those few core people.
Find your core mentors and become their loyal students. These are the people you will turn to when you feel stuck and want to give up, when you feel you don’t measure up like everybody else, or when you want to take things to the next level. They are always there for you each step of the way. These mentors will make you feel like what they are teaching is doable, as if you can do it.
You know you have found a great mentor when they are like your cheerleader but also someone that will push you beyond every comfort level you have. But they make you know you can do this, that you will figure it out, that you are worth it and your business is worth it, and there is a way to make it all work. That is so valuable.
It is important, the mentors you choose should make you feel like you can do this and make you feel really good about what you are creating. They will push you beyond anything you are comfortable with and make sure they are there for you when you get stuck. They offer solutions. They give you step by step. They help you make it happen.
You might just read their blog every week or listen to their videos or buy their courses. For me, I bought their courses. I followed their blogs. If they had a podcast I listened to their podcasts religiously. They are putting out content regularly.
Another thing with a great virtual mentor, they have to give away some good stuff for free, valuable stuff. I think you should always invest in your mentors but you also need to know that the free stuff they are giving, so you can build that trust with them, is just as amazing. That is so very valuable.
So, choose your mentors wisely because there is a lot of static and noise online. You’ve got to find someone that really resonates with you and you love the success they’ve gotten and you want that too. I challenge you, really identify your core mentors, no more than three. You can dabble with others but you always come home to those three and you take action with what they are suggesting you try or do for your business. That part’s important too.
Let’s move on to #3. The third belief is about believing that you have a fantastic product and that you must have a system for that product in order to create consistent revenue. This one goes a little bit beyond mindset but it is huge. Everybody that I know that’s created multi-million dollar businesses are sticklers for systems. Systems and processes and simple funnels make their business work.
Your great idea, your product or service, has to have a system in order for you to keep moving forward and feel confident that your business can work. I look at a system (I will explain what I mean by a system in a second) as a well-lit path for you to just keep moving forward. You can think of this as a roadmap but it is absolutely clear and it’s easy to navigate.
The thing is, you might be thinking, “Okay, a system.” Another way to say it is a sales funnel. You might be thinking whoa, your business isn’t ready for a sales funnel. Let me tell you every single business, especially when you are marketing online, should have a sales funnel. You should definitely. I don’t care if you are one month into the business or three years into the business, you need a sales funnel.
Let me explain that just a little bit more because it probably sounds a little overwhelming. You want to know what I am talking about and what goes into that.
I have a friend, Brad Martineau. He is the owner of Sixth Division, the company I used early on when I started to use Infusionsoft to help me build out my campaigns. These guys know systems and know funnels.
He was recently on stage and Brad said something that will stick with me forever because it’s exactly what I’m trying to teach you here. He said, “Pursue simple, get fancy later.” That means so much and I am going to break it down for you, “pursue simple, get fancy later.”
The thing is, there are some amazing books out there. There are amazing books on systems and sales funnels and marketing systems and all that good stuff. I’ve read them all. I am a student of creating funnels in your business and finding a way to move a Facebook fan or a Pintrest follower, or whatever it is, to become a paying customer over and over again. That’s what my mission is. Everything I teach you is to get to that end game that they become buyers.
The thing is, a lot of the books that are out there right now are really advanced. They are very overwhelming and if I had picked up some of these books three or four years ago I would have wanted that stuff so bad that they are teaching but I would have gotten so lost in the weeds that I would have never done it right.
My thing is if you pursue simple, get a simple system together for your business to move your Facebook fans or any social media follower to become a paying customer. There are things you can do to get there.
I put out a freebie recently, a couple of weeks ago. You can still get it for a limited time. It is a free guide. It is called The Product Maximizer. You can get it at http:// amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/freeguide. The Product Maximizer is all about ways to make more money with the product you already have. I talk about putting together a system and I give you the seven steps that it takes.
The thing is it doesn’t need to be super complicated. It doesn’t need to have a bunch of bells and whistles. If it did you would probably get lost in the weeds like I mentioned and not get it done. But I still think every business should have a system where if you have a product you should be making sales consistently.
For you that might mean daily or it might mean a few sales every week, whatever you feel good about, but there shouldn’t be long periods of time that you make no money whatsoever and then you launch something and hope it makes money but if it doesn’t you are in trouble because you haven’t made money in a long time anyway. That’s how my business used to be. It used to be so reliant on launches that if my launches didn’t go well I was in big trouble.
That is a sick feeling. And it was because I didn’t have good systems in place. I didn’t have a simple sales funnel. I tell you all of this because
- Again, I believe every business should have a sales funnel, and
- It could look really simple, I mean really simple where there are just a few things you do to set it up and then it’s running on autopilot.
I have a really simple system in place, it is really simple, running on autopilot right now that makes me between $1,000 and $2,000 every single day. You know I try not to throw up big numbers. I remember when I was in my first few years of building my business people would tell me they made $5 million the previous year and that I could too. I would want them to just shut up because if I could just make $100,000 in a year I would be really, really happy.
There were times in the early days where people would throw big numbers at me and I would think they were so beyond me and I wanted them to tell me something that was very doable. $1,000 a day can be very doable for you but you need a system.
I am passionate about this. I am on a journey to make sure that all of my students have a simple sales funnel in place, you can call it a marketing systems, a sales funnel, whatever it is, to make sure that every day when they are on social media doing anything they are moving people through a free giveaway, simple Facebook ads, and email marketing using that in a funnel to get them to become customers.
I am on this mission to pursue simple. We do not need all of those bells and whistles. And here is one more thing I will say that is really, really cool about getting the bells and whistles in your business, bells and whistles mean upsells and down sells and multiple funnels running at the same time and running funnels to a $47 program and a $2,000 program. It is all very doable. But the thing is if you don’t start out simple you will likely never get all of that other stuff in place.
My mission is to get you a simple sales funnel that you start out with and then once it is generating revenue consistently you add the bells and whistles. Then you add all the other really cool advanced marketing strategies that some awesome people are doing and teaching and you will blow it out of the water. You will be the best student in the world. But I want you to start simple just to get it in place. You should be making money every single day if you already have a product. And that’s what I want for you.
If you are working on a product, as you work on that product also think about creating a way to move a Facebook fan to become a customer. Get that Product Maximizer that I talked about earlier because it shows you the seven steps I teach. I really do see it as my job to help you put all of the pieces together to teach you how to create a marketing funnel/system in your business to get sales everyday; that is really hard on a podcast.
As you know, with each of my podcasts I do a free giveaway. It is usually a free PDF giveaway. But this time I have made it into a master class, a free master class. It is basically a webinar but I am doing it live.
If you want to participate in a live webinar where I am literally going to take you through step by step on how to create a system in your business to generate consistent revenue. I have changed this. I actually taught this last year but I changed it to incorporate finding your target market online. That is something I have never really taught before that I will teach inside a sales funnel/system for your business.
In addition to that, I want to talk to you about including other social media platforms. I still think Facebook is the most powerful platform but there are others and you can do some paid traffic and free traffic with lot of other social sites to fill up your funnel and get people to actually go through the path that you want them to take and read all of the emails that you create to get them to want to buy.
There are some cool things you can do with a really, really simple system. Remember, pursue simple, get fancy later.
You can check out this live free master class that I’ve created at http:// amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/system. The master class is called How to Build a Marketing System (Using Facebook) That Will Find Your Target Market, Grow Your Email List, and Make More Sales.
I am saying, “how to build a marketing system (using Facebook)” because we are not going to make it all about Facebook. Facebook is a crucial, really important component of creating a marketing system in your business that generates consistent sales but we are not putting all of our eggs in one basket.
When Facebook changes your marketing system will still work. When Facebook is frustrating to you your marketing system that I help you create will still be generating revenue. That’s why it’s so important. You know I love Facebook. You know I rely on it every single day. But I use it in a way that it will never affect my business where it will stop all sales if Facebook tells me I can’t market there anymore. I make sure all of my bases are covered and I want to show you how I’ve done that.
You can go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/system to actually learn how to create the system. This belief that I want you to have that your product deserves a system, no matter where you are in your business (beginning, middle, more advanced) you must have a consistent plan in place to generate revenue. It can be really, really simple yet really effective. That’s what I want to show you how to do so I will literally walk you through all seven steps of this plan I use in order to generate revenue daily. I can’t wait until you check it out.
Again, the master class is live so if you are hearing this podcast way down the road and I have recorded it a long time ago you may have missed the master class. You can go there and maybe I will have something extra special for you there. But right now the master class will be live. We are doing it in early May and you are invited. I cannot wait to see you there.
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this episode. I know it’s a little bit different than my others. I’m not giving you step by step, do this, do this, do that. It is more of a mindset thing.
- If think you already know, being an an entrepreneur, you’ve got to have a strong mindset. There are core beliefs you need to have. Remember, you are not alone. You’ve got your virtual mentors out there that will help you when you get stuck and move you forward. Identify to yourself who your mentors are and make sure you become their loyal student.
- Know your audience really, really well so that your core message always sparks their interest and you can have confidence that anything you put out there is going to be well received by the people that truly care about what you’ve created.
- If you have a product you need a system, a simple plan. That is where I come in the best. That is where I can really help you step by step.
Thank you so very much for being here and don’t forget to leave a review so that you can win a mastery level enrollment into the upcoming Profit Lab. We will be picking a winner and I will mention the winner in the podcast after May 6.
Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day and take care.
