Introducing Janet Beckers - Building Lists

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

Janet Beckers is an extraordinary entrepreneur (and winner of the ‘Australian Marketer of the Year’ 2009). Janet is the host and founder of Wonderful Web Women, an award winning on-line community recognised for generous and honest marketing advice for women on the internet.

Janet is a sought - after international speaker and international best-selling author who has inspired thousands of people world-wide to follow their dreams and realize their potential by building a profitable business on the Internet based on their passions.

Our Guest Expert this week is indeed someone you will not want to miss, as she shares her knowledge and passions with us. Her topic ‘How To Build A List Of Thousands of Raving Fans, Position Yourself As An Expert And Attract A Six or Seven Figure Business FAST.’ Will leave you gobsmacked.

Even If You Have NO List, NO Product And NO One Has Ever Heard Of You, you can achieve in this environment. Janet will share with you the step-by-step system you can use to build a successful online business based on your passions.

I hope, like me, you are looking forward to Janet's posts.
Cheers
Barb

[Janet Beckers]

Hello everyone, great to be here.
Over this week I'll share with you the method I used to build my business fast and establish myself as a go-to person in my niche within a few weeks.
I've got heaps of free resources on how to do this in detail over at http://www.wonderfulwebseminars.com.

The core of the method is interviewing experts on live tele-seminars. Sounds easy? The trick is getting experts to agree when you are totally unknown and even more, getting them to promote you to their lists and send new leads your way. So I'll be addressing a few of those issues this week.

In this article I’d like to share with you the 4 things you want from the perfect expert to interview.

If you find an expert that fits each of these criteria then you’ve hit the jackpot. Sometimes you may be choosing between a few experts you’d like to approach but you’re sure which one to put at the top of your list. Then you need to know which of the following criteria are most important.

One of the following criteria trumps all others. Can you guess what it is?



The 4 Criteria For A Great Guest Expert

These are not in order

1. They must be an expert in your niche. Obvious really. But if you are choosing between 2 experts who seem equal, then choose the one that has the highest profile.

2. They must have a mailing list. You can tell this by visiting their web site. Do they have a place to join their list and a reason to do so?

Make sure you sign up for their list and see how they treat their subscribers. Do they give value or do they just flog stuff?

3. They should have product or services to sell. This shows they have expertise in their area and importantly, they can make an offer on your call so your listeners can learn more from them. You can then negotiate a commission share with the expert so you make some cash from your efforts.

4. They should have an affiliate program. This makes it so easy to make sure you are credited with any sales.
So which criteria do you think is most important?

No. 2. The list trumps all.

Did you guess right? You see, when you are first starting out the most important thing you need to concentrate on is building your list. Once you have the list you can survey them and ask them what their biggest frustrations are.

Once you know their problems you can look for solutions they will pay for and then you’re in business.

After you have a list, then you have the luxury of interviewing inspiring people who are experts in your topic, but who have no idea about how to build a list and market themselves.
Turn the Tables

As a side note, after completing the gold level Passion to Profits coaching program, one of my students, Lenore Miller from Outrageously Healthy went on to consult to some of the experts she interviewed when she started. She was teaching them how to market themselves!

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

This is a really thought provoking start to your week of posts Janet. I am sure that many people never think of having an Affiliate programme. Now I realise that this is talking about building lists, but I would think with a good affiliate programme you could also build 'thousands of raving fans' as well as make a good start towards a 'six figure business'.

Can you explain the easiest way to start an affiliate programme? Especially how to set up the code needed so that you know who to pay commissions to.
Chhers
Barb

[Janet Beckers]

Hi Barbara
If you intend to sell products through the Internet, then I recommend you start with a system that has a built in affiliate program to start with. Sure you can just use PayPal or your merchant facility but it really reduces your ability to grow your business through Joint Ventures and a commission based sales force in the form of affiliates.
For people who aren't sure what an affiliate program is, it is software on your site that trackes if a customer has come from a referral and automatically keeps tabs on how mcuh commisison they have earnt.
I've written a step-by-step book on this and what yu need on your web site as it grows through the 5 stages of growth of an Internet business. You can get it for free from this web site:
www.wonderfulwebsolutions.com

Programs to Use:
In the free book I give the reasons on details fo each of the programs I'll recommend but here they are in a nutshell:

1 shopping cart: I use this . It has email, affliates, shoppingcart and heaps of other stuff in one program
clickbank: perfect if you are selling one of products and programs. They collect and pay the affliates for you
PayDotCom. like clickbank but puts the money straight into your payapl account.

There are others out there but these are ones I know from experience are reliable and work really well.

If you intend to grow your business with Joint Ventures you really need a way to track money you owe them. It keeps things very business-like and makes for a stronger relationship.
Cheers
Janet

[Marion Wheatland]

Hi Janet -

MY website is not yet set up for selling, and I am looking at some sort of selling catalogue thing for the not-too-distant future.
This whole idea of being and Affiliate is a bit scary. YOu join your reputatuon to another business, so how can you be a bit discerning?

Marion

[Janet Beckers]

Hi Marion
Great question and I'm pleased you asked becasue unfortunately many people who choose to be affiliates don't really care, they just want the products that sell the momst so they can make money.
You are absolutely associating your brand with anothers when yu act as an affiliate because you are referring people to that business on your recommendation.
I make a point of really researching the businesses I recommend. of course, you can't check out every product because that would mean buying them all and that is just not practical. What you can do though, is research the repuation of the people and company selling the product.
I make a point of researching them on Google and see what other people say about them. I then make sure i get on their mailing list and see how they communicate with their customers.
Do they hard sell in every email or do they give value and respect?

This has served me well for years and people know they can trust my recommendation. It is a real responsibility you have when you make a recommendation.
Here's a tip as an affiliate. It is a great idea to look for products that have a recurring payment. For example, referrring people to programs such as Aweber, 1shoppingcart, wonderful web women (had to slip that in all have monthly payments. This means you get paid monthly for one referral.
Like with most things, less is more. Recommend less things but only things you are happy to back your reputation on.

If you sell the products and pay affliates a commission for their referral, it works ok to make it open to everyone. In reality though, even though lots of people may sign up to be your affiliate and promote you, only a handful will have the skills and reputation with their customers to be effective in sending you new customers.
As a merchant, it is great for you to identify these star affiliates and give them as much help as possible to help them promote. For example, writing special ads for them to use, granting them interviews with you they can use to gift their readers etc.

Hope this gives you some ideas.
Cheers
Janet

[Janet Beckers]

Hey everyone
Today I thought I'd share with you some tips on creating products using your voice. My business is based on doing live tele-seminars with expert guests. Before you want to go down that track, you need to get a feel for making audio recordings and see how easy it is.
I recommend you go to http://www.freeconferencecalling.com
This is a US based service but it is free to use. You can get cheap international calls by buying an international calling card from the newsagent. You can ring this number for an hour and only cost about $1.

The instructions are easy to follow. Go there and create an audio on anything at all, even sing a song. Just do it. You'll see how easy it is to record your voice and download an MP3.

Now you can see how easy it is to go the next step and wither record yourself imparting words of wisdom for your clients (this can be gifted or sold to your customers) or the next step of recording an interview with an expert.

Here is a great structure to follow when recording an interview or yourself sharing your knowledge. In fact this structure works well for when you write sales letters or creat videos to out on your web site.

7 steps:
1. Welcome the listener
A simple thing to do but it increases conversions. Simply acknowledge that they have taken the time to listen
2. Establish Credibility

If you’ve done something that will impress your viewers, let them know. If you are just starting out say something like “hi, I’m the creator of http://www.bla blabla.com”

3. Use a Hook or Cliff hanger

You want to keep them on until the end of the audio. Say something that will make them want to stay until the end. Such as “at the end of this recording i’ll share with you bla bla bla”

4. Share your story

People do business with people they like. The idea of sharing your story, especially why you are passionate about this topic helps people relate to you. Ideally you want the viewer to think “she’s just like me”

5. Paint the problem

Spell out what the problem or frustration is that they may have. Let them know you understand

6. Provide the solution

A business simply solves people’s problems. You want to position yourself as a person who solves problems

7. Call to action

This is the part most people miss. Tell them what to do next. Maybe “go to my website for a free report” or “buy this product" or "call me for a free get to know you call".

[Peter O'Connor]

Hi Janet

A couple of things:

When you say you interview experts to get your material, I have heard of this before. But, it really freaks me out - interviewing is a very difficult thing to do, especially if you don't know the person you are interviewing. How do you do it? Is there a special technique you have to learn?

Secondly, when you get your recording (MP3 or WAV) do you edit it and trick it up with anything (intro music etc)? If you do edit it, what software do you use? How do you keep your file size reasonable? I recorded a 1 hour interview that Barb did and the file size eneded up at over 150Mb. I feel that is too big - what would you suggest I do?

Regards

Peter

[Lillien Curtis]

A lot happening on this topic and valuable information to share.

[Janet Beckers]

Hey Peter
Approaching experts and getting their agreement to be interviewed is the part that there is an art to. Too many people approach experts without thinking through what is in it for the expert. They will respond to your passion and your level of organisation so you need to be professional. Most importantly, they will want to have a greater reach for their message. So if you don't already have a list, you need to put in the time to organise a telesummit and communicate with all the speakers to promote the entire faculty, so every speaker benefit. You can get details on how to do this in my free coaching at http://www.wonderfulwebseminars.com.

Editing? I don't usually worry re adding music etc though we are doing this for our soon to be released Wonderful Web Radio. We use audacity, which is free, to edit our audios.
Hope that helps

The main thing with interviewing is to just be yourself. People will respond to your authenticity and your genuine interest in what your speaker has to say.
Prepare your main questions and know the intent of your call but then just go with the flow. You don't need to try too hard.

I use Instant TeleSeminar to record my interviews and it lets people listen via the Internet without having to call in.
Cheers
Janet