I’ve compiled a bunch of notes from the Rich Schefren conference and also the videos he’s been releasing in the lead-up to the launch of his next program. You can get the free videos here – Strategic Profits Videos.
I was pondering over how to release them to you and I’ve decided to extract the key lessons and present them to you in this series.
The order may not make complete sense since I’m combining my notes from different sources and skipping a lot of points in between. What I have provided are some really great lessons and tips on how to successfully build and manage an Internet business, thanks to the mind of Rich Schefren and filtered by Yaro…
Multiple uses for the same content
Rich was up on stage doing his presentation explaining that he had “stolen” away an employee from (Donald) Trump University to act as his product developer. This person’s role is to take all of Rich’s materials, his audio, stage presentation and written words and come up with content packages to sell (with some help – there is more than one person on the product development team).
The idea here is to make use of every thing you produce in multiple ways to generate the most cashflow and front-end sales mechanisms. In Rich’s case he has a ton of materials to play with, but even if you are only getting started it’s worth remembering that you can combine any podcasts or blog articles you produce and make them into products. The same goes for reports or ebooks, whitepapers, interviews and presentations. Everything is marketable if there is someone out there who sees the value.
Journal writing
Rich keeps a journal every day that he uses to reflect on his life, the decisions he makes and the outcomes he generates. He finds by looking over periods of his life, both successful and not so successful, he can determine, with the benefit of hindsight, experience and education, what he was doing well and why. This sort of self reflection can be very valuable to ascertain why you might be failing to gain momentum in your business today.
Outsourcing
Here is a sample of the significant roles Rich currently has outsourced/employees managing that he no longer needs to do himself.
- Financials
- Technology
- Graphic Design
- Client management
- Support
- Product development
- Affiliate management
Imagine having someone else filter and package the information you produce into products, having someone else set up the websites to sell it and an affiliate manager to bring in all the customers for you! That would certainly make my life a lot easier.
Focus on intangibles/education
I’ve got a full article coming out about this, but for the moment I’ll pass on Rich’s comments in brief. He said you should focus on the intangibles – like education – and let the tangible outcomes evolve as a result. What this means is if you have the mental tools and awareness then the right actions will follow.
Law of attraction seems to fit right in here. If you don’t know what you want to do, or have a grasp of how it’s done, how can you get to where you are going?
Change is okay
When I joined Rich’s program his plans were to build a system and then bring on 30 coaches to teach the system to clients. That changed while he was teaching his program to us and he decided instead to create a fully automated online system that will disseminate the right information to clients based on their unique problems. It’s still a work in progress, but you can see Rich wasn’t afraid of making significant changes to his grand plans as he was going.
What I find particularly interesting is the way Rich goes into action before he really has anything sorted out, generates cash-flow by making a lot of sales, then delivering the content on the fly and re-structures his business as he goes. It’s the ultimate in action-orientated business building.
Attention is the new currency
Not much needs explaining here. In order to excel online you need attention. In an information overloaded, attention deficit world, if you can capture the minds of people for just a short period of time you have the most crucial resource necessary to build a business. Attention comes when you do things differently, solve problems in unique manner and over-deliver benefits – often all for free.
Check email at night
How’s this for a very simple practical lesson: Check and respond to your emails at night after kicking some serious goals during the day.
Mike Filsaime recommended this one and his right hand man, Tom Beal, does it too. Really it’s a no-brainer and if email is not something that is super time sensitive for your business, put it on hold until the end of your working day. Emails tend to break into protracted back-and-forward conversations and very rarely are productive – they are usually reactive and don’t help your business move forward.
Dealing with information overload
Here’s one for any of you feeling the stress and agitation from having too much information and too many things to do with what you have learnt.
Focus only on what the task at hand requires. If you need to learn how to set up an autoresponder, only focus on consuming information on solving this problem. Complete the current task and then move on to the next. There is no need to know about affiliate marketing when you should be focusing on product creation. Why study pay per click when you haven’t built a website yet.
The education process has to be sequential, and parallels the growth of your business. Learn – implement – learn – implement, NOT learn learn learn (stress out) implement, stutter…nervous breakdown…learn some more…
The source of momentum
In order to build a business you need three things:
- The right target market
- The right offer
- The right marketing
Assuming you land these three, your business should move quickly from start-up to momentum to business building and then rapid growth stages.
Compelling offer
A lot of stress is placed on presenting a compelling offer to the market. If you haven’t tested offers then you haven’t really tested. It’s not the product that makes a business, it’s the offer presented to solve a very “painful” problem. Once you find the golden combination of a hungry market, a believable promise (offer) and proof that you can and have delivered on that offer, you have the foundation for a very successful business.
The elements of an irresistible offer
Here’s how you can construct a compelling offer…
- Solve pressing problems
- Offer a superior solution
- Present an appealing proposition and use a risk reversal
- Focus on self interest (what’s in it for them – benefits) and curiosity
- Demonstrate overwhelming proof, use case studies and then elicit scarcity
Perception is key
If you think you have a quality issue, you don’t, you have a perception issue. What someone feels and thinks about what you offer is a perception and it’s the perception that you need to change. If people perceive you represent quality then it doesn’t matter if you do or do not. Of course if your product falls apart after a day you won’t maintain a good perception either, so you need some level of congruency between perception and reality – it just doesn’t have to be as close you think it does.
What is marketing?
Rich spends time in his videos and at his Florida presentation explaining what marketing actually is. The crust of the argument is that marketing is not selling.
Marketing is to convince the market to desire what you sell. Once you do that, selling becomes inconsequential.
Persuasion Techniques
Rich broke down a list of possible techniques you can use to persuade prospects. For the sake of brevity I’ll just list some of the names in dot point form here -
- Social Proof
- Scarcity
- Law of reciprocity
- Honesty
- Guilt
- Exclusivity
- Sense of urgency
- Collecting
- Belonging
- Linking
More on the importance of the Offer
Rich listed several key components of a successful business in order of importance, starting at number one with the ‘list’, followed by the ‘offer’ at number two. He was adamant that ‘copy’ is not as important as the offer.
Rich continues to discuss the offer in greater depth, which I will explain in the next part of this series.
Stay tuned!
Yaro Starak
Rich Schefren Filter
PS. If you like what you read here, I’m simply filtering what I’ve learnt from Rich and what I know from experience running a business online. If you want more info like this, read through my article archives and watch the videos Rich provides for free and consider joining his coaching program too, which is due for release later in the week.
Clik here to view.