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List Building
How To Turn $20 Into Millions – Learning From The Facebook Guy
December 6, 2010
We’ve all read the different “rags to riches” stories in story books as we grew up. Then the books turned into movies and TV shows… but story line was always the same.
Some young kid, who no one expected to succeed, ended up getting super rich super fast and bought up the entire town… or something crazy like that.
And in every story, it seems that the main character had always come from nothing… started with very little… and turned it into a huge empire. The classic underdog.
One story recently caught my attention and it inspired me to write this post. It’s the story of Mark Zuckerberg… the guy who invented facebook. (I just saw the movie last week)
I really don’t want to get into the grim details of the story and how it all progressed – I’ll leave that for you to go and actually watch the movie – but one thing in particular that I want to point out goes hand in hand with the biggest lesson taught in business.
The Money Is In The list.
If you haven’t seen the movie, I’m not going to spoil it for you… I just want to share something about the “idea” behind facebook.
Even though facebook has all these cool applications, features, and games on it that makes it what it is… those things are NOT the reason why facebook made Mark Zuckerberg so rich. It’s actually a lot more basic than that.
When you think about it, facebook was just another idea to create a BIG LIST.
The 500 Million members of the facebook community provide something that ALL business owners need. Something that many different business owners are paying Zuckerberg for…
Traffic.
Anyone who is anyone in business will tell you the same thing… if you really want to make it big in business, you have to have a BIG LIST of prospects that you can constantly promote to.
The current statistic is that over 175 Million people visit facebook every single day. THAT… is considered an active list.
And if you really think about it, Zuckerberg bought the domain name www.facebook.com for $10! And that site has turned out to be a Billion dollar project for him.
He never paid a single penny for advertising… the members of facebook referred other members to the site.
And he never had to worry about providing the site with content… because the members took care of that, as well.
Pretty brilliant, no?
So how does this apply to you?
There are many lessons to be learned from facebook’s success.
The main thing that catches my eye is this… facebook started out as being just cool. Now it’s turned to this “thing” that people can’t live without. I’ve even caught myself checking my facebook profile several times within 10 minutes to see what the update is.
If you want to build a profitable business that is going to last through the test of time… focus on your offer. Focus on your actual product.
I’m not saying that the product is the most important thing… it is, and it isn’t.
You can still make some good money if you don’t have the greatest product in the world… but chances are, you’ll have to make up for it by investing more money in advertising and marketing.
If you create a product that “sells itself”… something that is TRULY cool… something that people can’t see themselves living without… then you don’t really have to worry about marketing or advertising.
Since someone already came up with the idea of facebook, you really can’t use that anymore. But what you CAN do is take advantage of the huge market reach that facebook has.
And I’m not talking about using facebook ads (which are super powerful, too… but that’s a whole different conversation)
I’m talking about combining the power of your cool product with facebook and its huge member base. If you can get ONE of your friends on facebook to “like” your new product/website/offer, etc… then your product will show up on that friend’s wall and every one of THEIR friends will see your offer… and if just ONE more person from that list “likes” your product… the cycle goes on and on.
But it all goes back to creating that cool offer or product… in order for you to actually be cool, you have to be unique… you have to offer something that no one else in your competitive market is offering.
Which makes us ask “How?”
HOW do I create such a cool product that everyone will love and will share with everyone they know?
Well… you just started the process.
It all starts with that one question…
How do I create such a cool product that everyone will love and will share with everyone they know?
As long as you believe that the universe will send you the answer to that question, then you WILL get your answer…
It may happen a week from now… it may happen a month from now… or it may happen a year from now. But it WILL happen… as long as you keep faith.
You can even go a step further and ask… how do I create such a product in [name of market] that everyone will love…?
If you already have an idea of where you want to start… post your idea in the comments section below and let’s see if we can all bounce our ideas around to find something for each other.
I’m excited about this one!
Looking forward to reading your feedback…
Arman Vakili
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How To Quickly And Easily Build A List
November 28, 2010
Give Me A Place To Stand, And A Lever Long Enough, And I’ll Move The Earth.
- Archimedes
Any successful business owner will tell you that the money is in the list.
Having a list of interested prospects that you can go back to every time you want to promote a new product is a very powerful position to be in.
I know a guy that has a personal email lists of over 4 MILLION subscribers. I remember the first time I went to his office and he was trying to prove a point. He sent a quick email out to his subscribers list about a new affiliate product that he had found… blah blah blah… hit send and LITERALLY 10 minutes later he had made $1,737.00.
Imagine being in his shoes… that you can make that kind of money in 10 minutes.
Don’t get me wrong… it will probably take a few years to get to his level. To have a list that big. But let’s say that you don’t have a few million people in your list, and you only have 30,000.
That is enough to create a multiple 6-figure and maybe even a 7-figure income from.
And then the obvious question comes… “HOW do you create a list of that size?”
Excellent question!
The first and most important part of the process is developing your Unique Selling Proposition… and there is a completely separate post that is dedicated to that subject.
Once you’ve gotten your USP, the next step would be to figure out what you want to give away as a free “gift” so that people would be willing you their contact info in exchange. The better and more valuable your free offer, the higher your conversion ratio of how many people will actually subscribe.
Eben Pagan has a great strategy for this topic which he calls, Moving The Free Line. Which basically means, find out what information your competitors are selling… and give it away as your free offer.
So let’s say your competitor is selling an eBook that teaches you how to potty train your dog for $27… give that information away for FREE, and you can CHARGE MORE when you actually make your first offer.
If you give away more value than expected on your free offer, this is what will be running through your prospect’s mind as they go try out the product… “Wow! If this is what he’s giving away for free… then I can’t wait to see the info that he’ll charge for.”
And they actually LOOK FORWARD to getting another correspondence from you.
Once you’ve gotten your free offer figured out… the rest is pretty easy.
You won’t have to worry too much about the sales copy for the lead capture page because at this point, if you’ve done a good job researching your USP and you’ve created a valuable enough free offer… all you need to do is just tell your prospect what you’re giving them and what you want in exchange.
That’s it. Don’t make it hard on yourself by trying to write something sophisticated and educated sounding… the simpler and clearer you are the better.
Try to follow this format for your Lead Capture Pages:
- Headline – Briefly tell your prospect EXACTLY what you’re giving them, and the benefits that are waiting for them once they get it.
- Subheadline – This is a continuation of the headline. Tells the prospect any further details about the free offer and re-emphasizes the benefits that will be delivered.
- Descriptive Bullets – 3-4 bullet points should be enough. Each bullet point is essentially another headline, except instead of talking about all the features/benefits in one bullet, you’re going to dedicate a bullet for each feature/benefit.
- Call To Action – “Just Fill Out The Simple & Easy Form Below, And You’ll Get Instant Access To Our Free Report/Video/Audio, etc”
- The Lead Capture Form - There are many auto-responder services that you can get this form from. It is the form that will ask for your prospect’s name & email – at least – and will restore that contact information for you so that you can go back and promote to your list whenever you want. Some of the most popular auto-responder services are GetResponse & Aweber.
- Testimonials – Testimonials are a GREAT way to increase your conversion rate. Even if you haven’t sold your services to anyone yet, let a few of your friends try it out and give you their feedback.
Try not to do more than the above outline for starters. As you progress and get more results, then you test out different ideas and outlines… but for now, stick to this one.
Once the lead capture page has been set up, all that is left to do is send traffic to it so that the list-building can start.
There is a lot of good info under the traffic section of this blog that you can start with… and you’ll find a LOT more in our free Business Building Checklist. It is a series of reports that explain to you in “checklist” format, what you need to do to start your own business from scratch and make money with it fast.
You can download it by clicking the clipboard at the top-right section of the page.
I hope you enjoyed this post and as always, I would love to hear your feedback in the comments section below.
Arman Vakili
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