Yanik
SIlver
Let
me start by sharing a story with you. When I was 8 years
old my best friend Jamie and I loved to read comic books.
(I think I still have my collection somewhere in my
parents' garage). One day we decided we would get rich by
drawing our own comic books with characters like "Big
Nose Fred", "Meteor Mouse", "Benjamin
Bunny" and a whole slew of others.
We
named our company "SilverDragon Publishing" (his
last name as you probably guessed was Dragon) and we were
going to make a fortune selling our comic books for a
quarter each! We got hard to work drawing and writing our
comic books. And when we were done we set-up shop on
Jamie's front lawn using his Mom's card table, waiting for
the money to pour in.
And
we kept waiting…and waiting…and waiting...
SilverDragon
Publishing was only in business for 1 day before our
little 8-year old dreams were shattered since we only
ended up selling 2 copies of our comic book (one to his
parents and one to mine).
So
what's the big secret I *almost* discovered?
Simple.
It didn't cost us a quarter to create those comic books
and if we had sold a couple thousand copies we could have
made some big-time money. So let's fast-forward to today -
I'm doing essentially the same thing (but successfully). I
create information products like electronic books, online
courses, membership sites, audios, etc that people buy
online and do you want to know the best part?
Since
everything is delivered over the Internet my cost is, get
this, zero, nada, zilch. It's almost 100% pure profit!
That’s one of my favorite parts about why I’m
embracing the Net. I sell “bits and bytes” so there is
no delivery cost, no fulfillment cost, no packaging.
It’s awesome! Plus, I can automate the process. A
visitor comes to my site and they'll read my online sales
letter. Then once they decide to order they'll click over
to my order page and give me their credit card number.
Their card is processed in real time to make sure it is
valid and after it's approved the customer creates their
own password to access my 'digitally delivered' product.
And then, the money is deposited in my account and I get
an email confirmation of the order.
My
very first project, a simple (even primitive) site InstantSalesLetters.com
sells downloadable sales letter templates. I started it in
February of 2000 with $1,500 and that first month I
brought in $1,800. Now this one web site is brings in over
a quarter of a million a year!
My
Success Is Not Some "Fluke" or Stroke of Luck…
And
my success with Instant Sales Letters isn't some fluke.
Consider this -- my next project brought in $14,223.25
after the first month of its release (and this was during
the Holiday season when people are always strapped for
cash). Next,
I refined my technique even further to create a massive
profit windfall of $9,842.00 in just 4 days on a project
that took less than 2 weeks to complete. Amazing! And my
latest release brought in over $35,000 in less than 9
days.
Here’s
how I do it:
-
Come up with products that solve a
problem
Everybody hates to write so I simplified the
process by making sales letters simple fill-in-the-blank
tools.
-
Make your site a direct response order
taking machine
Most people mistakenly try to put a lot of
free stuff and content on their site. It’s not
necessary. Almost all my sites consist of one long sales
letter (and yes, people do read it all and buy!). Decide
what your objective is and ask for that response.
-
Keep going back to your buyers
It’s gets easier and easier as you go along
because the real big money is in continually coming out
with products your existing buyers want. Don’t start
from scratch every time trying to sell your product.
-
Share the wealth
One of my biggest secrets is using an army of
commissioned salespeople on the Net. They are my
affiliates. I only pay these affiliates when they make a
sale so you can potentially have hundreds – even
thousands of affiliates driving traffic to your site.
-
Deliver more than you promise
I always try to deliver just a little more
than I promise with some kind of free unexpected bonus to
my customers. This sets you up for point #3.
Now
if I was starting again – here are my 3 tips for new
authors:
-
Create
a site that sells – this is so important. Unless
your site gets the job done – you can’t go ahead
with the activities that will bring you in the big
money. Spend as much time as you have to getting your
site to consistently convert visitors to buyers.
-
Joint
venture – Once you know your numbers (like
conversion %, visitor value, etc) then you can
approach people with a joint venture proposition.
You’re looking for people with big databases that
you can tap into. Your goal is to get an endorsement
from them. Don’t be afraid of giving them the
lion’s share of the profits either.
-
Start
an affiliate program as soon as you can – After
you’ve done several joint venture deals on an
individual basis, you’ll want to open up your
program to the world. Let other people sell your
products for you and you pay them only when they sell.
Don’t
be put off by starting. When I first started, my friends
were rolling on the floor laughing when I told them I was
going to build a profitable web site. And they had every
right to be amused, since I had absolutely no web site
design skills, zero HTML or coding knowledge… in fact,
not much computer "know-how" whatsoever (still
don't). But that didn't stop me from going ahead with my
simple 2-page web site, and the flood of orders hasn’t
stopped. Good luck!
©
Yanik Silver
Yanik
Silver is recognized as the leading expert on creating
automatic, moneymaking web sites…and he’s only been
online full time since February 2000! He believes almost
everything people have been taught about making money
online is completely wrong. His Internet success
techniques only require a simple web site and you don’t
even need to know how to put up your own web page. (In
fact, Yanik still doesn’t know HTML).
He
is the author and publisher of several best-selling
marketing books and tools including:
Yanik
specializes in creating powerful systems and resources for
entrepreneurs to enhance their businesses. When
away from the office Yanik enjoys playing volleyball, ice
hockey, skiing and working on his terrible golf game. His
most important project right now is trying to convince his
wife, Missy, to move to the beach so he can play beach
volleyball all day!
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