7 Years Today!

Yep, today marks the 7 Year Anniversary of the Business!

Things are so incredibly different from when I first started. Looking back, my mistakes and my victories are quite apparent. I would have to say the biggest mistake was not building lists for every niche that I was in. I was in so much of a hurry to try to make the sale, that I missed out on a huge opportunity almost every single time.

It took the near collapse of my business to make me recognize the importance of building lists.

I think what I did right over anything else was creating my own products. Lead gen may turn out to be huge, but right now my products are bringing in the revenue.

Another mistake is in choosing markets and products. From now on, I will create products that will easily integrate with the lists of other infoproduct owners. This will make JVs easier and will eliminate the thing that has been my biggest hurdle - traffic.

The biggest thing that I did right, though, was not giving up. Seven years and I'm still not where I want to be in terms of income. However, I am doing this full time now. There is only one person that I met when I started this game that is still in it. That says a lot.

I think that things are going to continue to improve with The Business. Yes, there will still be ups and downs (this past week was especially bad) but that is just the way things go=)

To another 7 years and to more profits!

Amazingly, I did something else HUGE today. I'll have more details in a few days.

First Lead!

Lead Generation
The first lead for my lead generation site came in early yesterday morning! I contacted a few businesses yesterday and I'm currently waiting on a response from them on getting sample leads from me.

The site is still sitting at #15 for the main keyword so I expect the leads to come in as a trickle.

This is exciting, though. I would have to say that of all of the sites and concepts I've built, I've been the most patient with this one. It looks like that patience may pay off soon.


Info Products
I completed work on the affiliate tools page for the relationship product and emailed a number of sites that were highly ranked in Google for several keywords. We will see how things go.

I Need Affiliates!

Info Products
The relationship website is making moves and I'm rolling with it. This week, I've been focusing on preparing the way for affiliates to promote my product. I had one of my employees make a list of the top 12 sites for a number of keywords that have generated PPC sales for me. Once everything is ready, I will email potential affiliates to see if I can get some on board.

So far, I have:

• Started the affiliate page. It has banners, link creation, and links to YouTube and Ezine articles I've created that affiliates can use.
• Set up the affiliate autoresponder. I may make a custom image for it rather than the boring one Aweber provides.
• I've created a separate salespage just for affiliates that incorporates an exit pop up page. This page has a squeeze page for the lead magnet I created so affiliates can benefit from my autoresponder messages even if they don't have one themselves.
• Crafted the email that will be sent to the potential affiliates.
  

I have an old PDF that was put together back when I was part of The Edge that talks all about getting affiliates. I will have to break that out and make sure to hit all of the points.

The first goal is to reach 7 affiliate sales per day. That would equate to ~$105 profit per day from the affiliate traffic.

I have also spent the last few days updating my tracking links. The data is so valuable and I was too lazy to do it right the first time. "There's never enough time to do it right but there's always enough time to do it again," is what my Dad says. Now, I should be able to see open rates for my emails in Aweber, as well as know where each sale is generated.

MSN has been acting funny lately. Ever since I set up a new set of Website Optimizer split tests, my traffic from MSN adCenter has fallen to a trickle. I will call them today and see what is going on.

I have also developed an idea for a new product on the relationship site. I will start fleshing that out after work on the affiliate tools and the buyer's autoresponder sequence is complete.


Lead Generation
The lead gen site has not produced any leads yet, however, it still has not broken into the top 10 on Google. The employees are working on building links for it.

I have been tempted to try another, less competitive market for lead gen. However, I've been pretty good about staying focused so I will sit tight for now.

January Was Good

Last month was a good month. There was revenue flowing in from all parts of my business, including parts that I had not actively marketed in a while. I honestly believe that the tithing was the key. I have an entire blog post about it that I wrote in January.


Info Products
January also showed glimmers of just how much revenue the relationship product can produce. For example, on Jan 16 there were 4 sales of the product for a gross of $164 in addition to the revenue that came in from the other sites. I know there is a ton of traffic out there for this niche, it is just a matter of tapping into it.

I also did a number tests and tracking last month and found some very interesting stats:

• Exactly 50% of the Customers Bought on the First Message/Freebie Download Email
• 7.14% of the Customers Bought on the Second Email (Links to a video I created with tips for them to use)
• 7.14% of the Customers Bought on the Third Email (Also links to a video I created with tips for them to use)
• 4.76% of Customer Bought on the 11th Email (Soft Sell)
• 61.9% of the list was built with paid traffic.
• Salesletter converts at 4.26%!

There are a number of interesting things to take away from this:

1. There is a conversion gap in my autoresponder sequence between message 3 and 11.
2. Another paid traffic source is probably in order to get revenue up. MSN just doesn't have any volume.
3. Half of the conversions happened before visitors even really entered the sales funnel! It may be time to start approaching affiliates=)

This month, my focus for this site is on traffic and conversions. I've already set up some new test for the optin landing page and I have some results that I'm trying to verify as far as which salesletter is best.

I'm also working to fill the conversion gap in the autoresponder sequence. Initially, I was going to overhaul the entire sequence but I think that a lighter touch is in order. Instead, I'm going to work on tweaking the existing messages and adding some more hardsells into the mix.

Lead Gen

The lead gen site is making its way through the SERPs. On last check, it was #15 for its main keyword. My employees are building links to the site to help push it along. Next time, I believe I will go for a more "niche" version of a lead gen site. This one is very general.