|
Clip #57
You are about to hear one of the
absolutely best presentations I
have ever heard on joint venture
marketing. It's by a gentleman
by the name of John Alanis, and
it comes from “The Information
Marketing Boot Camp” by Ron
LeGrand. I have a new service
where, if you have the rights to
any marketing products and you
have the marketing and
duplication and distribution
rights, you also have the right
to place any of the audio tape
material up on a web site to
promote it. A gentleman named
Bob Lee who owns the reprint and
duplication rights to “The
Information Marketing Boot Camp”
by Ron LeGrand has contacted me
to place this up on the website
so he can promote this product,
and that's what I have done.
This is one part of one tape of
“The Information Marketing Boot
Camp.” If you're interested,
like what you hear, and want
more information on “The
Information Marketing Boot
Camp,” please shoot me an
e-mail. Get ready because this
is probably one of the greatest
presentations on joint venture
marketing that I have ever
heard. Away we go.
John Alanis: Let's move on to
the joint venture marketing. I'm
going to be talking real fast
during this presentation because
I've got a ton of information to
give you guys. I call this
presentation “How You Can Make
Big Money As Easily As Answering
Your Phone Even If You Are Dead
Broke, Have No Experience and
Have No Resources Whatsoever.”
I'm going to tell you guys a
true story, while I was worse
than broke, and actually made
this work for me. Joint venture
marketing is absolutely
something that everyone should
be doing. Okay real quick, what
is a joint venture? Simply, a
joint venture is a mutually
beneficial arrangement between
two people whose resources
complement each other. What I
mean by resources are products,
tested and proven ad and sales
letter and most importantly, a
customer list that they have a
relationship with. During most
of this presentation, I'm going
to be teaching you how to search
for people and find people that
have already spent the money to
build a big list of hungry
customers that want to buy more
stuff. If you guys take anything
out of this info seminar, it's
that a list of customers that
you have a relationship with or
someone else has a relationship
with is very hungry to buy more
things with. And nobody knows
that, 99.997% of all business
owners have no clue about that.
They all think "Get new
customers" and they neglect
selling to existing customers.
That's one thing I wanted you
guys to keep in mind while I'm
going through this presentation.
You want to find people that
have lists of hungry customers.
Burn that into your head because
that's the key to unlocking your
joint venture success and how
you can really make a lot of
money very fast with no work
whatsoever. What I said, it's
magic. You take two sets of
existing resources, combine
them, and money comes out where
there was no money before. So
you can get tremendous time and
tremendous leverage. Most people
think a joint venture is this
huge deal where you get two big
businesses together and they sit
down, talk, bring in all the
lawyers, and make a huge
twenty-eight pound contract,
then they go out to the media
and announce that they did a
joint venture. I've never been
involved in a joint venture like
that, and I never want to be
involved in a joint venture like
that. All a joint venture is,
all the joint ventures that I've
ever been involved in basically
involve this, “Hey, you want to
do a deal?" You've got some
resources: I've got some
resources. Hey, we ought to get
together. You want to do a
deal?” Everyone in here has done
joint ventures. You guys
probably did joint ventures last
night. If somebody here has a
rental car and somebody else has
two tickets to get a free
buffet, they say, “Hey, you got
a rental car? I've got two
tickets to get a free buffet.
Want to do a deal? Let's go." So
all of you guys have done joint
ventures. You guys do joint
ventures all the time. Doing
joint ventures in businesses
with information marketing is
exactly the same thing. You just
find out what resources the
other guy has, get on the phone
and talk to him and say, "Hey
let's do a deal.” Joint ventures
are very, very simple. They may
seem very intimidating at first
but they're not. Let’s talk
about why should you do joint
ventures? Why do you want to do
joint ventures? It's already
done. They have already done all
the work for you and you can
leverage right in. If you have a
sales letter, a tested proven
sales letter, or a tested proven
product that would go good with
that guy’s list, you don't have
to spend ten years building
that. All you have to do is a
deal with him and plug it right
in. That is one of the major
reasons that you guys want to do
joint ventures. High net profit,
high net profit. Remember what
Ron has told you, that the big
million dollar secret this idea
of a list of customers that
someone has a relationship with,
and what that means is, if a
person has a relationship with
that group of customers that
they know and trust, you don't
have to spend nearly as much
money to get them to buy. They
know you, they've bought stuff
from you, and they want to buy
more, so when you spend money on
a mailer you don't have to spend
ten or twenty thousand dollars.
You can spend a little bit of
money and get a huge response
because they know and they've
trusted you and there are
potential joint venture partners
out there right now that have
lists of people that you can
just plug into and step into in
five minutes or less. Two years
ago, believe it or not, I was in
the business of selling art.
It’s a long story about how I
got into it, but basically, I
decided I didn’t want to get a
job. I didn’t want to work for
anybody. I hated working for
someone, so I was going to go
into business myself and see
about making some money. So what
did I decide to go into? I saw a
lot of guys going out in the
street to these art fairs, and
they’d go out and sell $3,000 in
a day. I said, “That’s great. I
can make all this stuff and do
the same thing, so let me get
into this business.” What I did
was buy a blowtorch and start
creating artwork. This was a
sign that was 20” x 20” and you
hang it on your wall. I managed
to go to all of these different
art shows, I would sell this
stuff in the street for about
$100 apiece, and I did pretty
well. The problem was it was a
lot of work. One thing that I
noticed was I wasn’t making as
much money as I thought. You
have to go to the art shows, you
have to pay money to get in, you
have to buy food, and the credit
card’s getting a little higher
and a little higher. And I
thought, “Man, I’m not making
any money. My business is eating
me alive.” It got to the point
where I had to move out of my
apartment. I couldn’t afford to
pay. I had to feed my business,
so I said, “I’m going to make
this work. Do I get a job or do
I make the business work? Well,
I’m not going to get a job. I
can’t work. I’m unemployable.
I’m going to turn my business
around in three months because
I’m a smart guy and I’ll make a
lot of money.” What I did was
move down about fifteen miles
out of Austin to a little town,
and I moved into my warehouse. I
had a warehouse for my office
space. I’m a single guy, no
problem, I can live down here. I
didn’t have any hot water down
there, I didn’t have a shower. I
could go to the gym and make
this work. I’ve just got to cut
some expenses. I cut some
expenses, and I still wasn’t
making any money. I said, “This
is crazy. How in the heck can I
make some money? How can I find
somebody who has a big list that
I can sell my products to?” I
didn’t know anything, I had no
experience, and I had no
resources. I just had a product
that I knew people liked to buy.
I said, “Okay, who is somebody
that can buy a lot of my stuff
really, really fast? Wait a
second; I get all these goofy
catalogs in the mail. There are
catalogs of every shape and size
that sell products of every
weird thing you can imagine.” I
thought of this one catalog,
maybe you guys have heard of it.
It’s called Sundance, and it was
founded by a guy named Robert
Redford. I looked in there and
said, “Gee, these guys got a
list of people who spend a lot
of money on weird, funky
high-dollar stuff, and I’ve got
a weird, funky high-dollar piece
of art. Why don’t I ask them if
they want to do a deal?” Not
knowing anything at all about
how to approach catalog
companies, not having a clue
that you’re not supposed to send
them products, you’re not
supposed to call them on the
phone, you’re not supposed to
bother them, I said, “Well, I
have to get some money in here.
I have to get a job.” I only had
enough money to send out one big
box of stuff, so I got a name
and called and said, “Hey, who
is your buyer? Who do I send
this stuff attention to?” They
said, “Oh, you talk to this
guy.” I wrote down his name, and
I sent him a big box of stuff
through UPS, a bunch of signs. I
didn’t think I’d hear from him.
Two weeks later, I get this call
on my answering machine, “Hi,
this is so and so from Sundance
catalog. We got your stuff and
we think it’s neat. Would you be
able to send me some samples?”
“No problem, no problem, let me
send you guys some samples!”
When I sent this box, there was
no fancy letter, no nothing.
Basically, it was a one-page
letter, and it said, “Hey, I’ve
got this really neat sign and
I’m selling it to a lot of
people like your customers. Do
you want to do a deal?” So two
weeks later, I get this phone
call that says, “Hey, we want to
do a deal.” I sent the samples
out and they called and said,
“Yeah, we really want to do a
deal, and we’re going to pay you
$38.50 for each piece of art,
and we’re going to pay for the
shipping, and all you have to do
is get it to us.” I said, “Okay,
that sounds pretty good. Oh, by
the way, how many catalogs are
you guys going to be mailing?”
They said, “You mean this
quarter?” I said, “Yeah, okay.”
They said, “We mail four to six
times a year, about two million
catalogs a quarter.” “Two
million! Did you say two
million?” Two million,” so I
went from selling my art in the
street to being in front of two
million people like that because
I did a joint venture. Let me
show you guys something
incredibly exciting about
dealing with catalog companies.
There is nothing more exciting
than doing a joint venture with
someone who has a big, hungry
list. Let me show you some of
the stuff I got. This is a
purchase order I got from
Sundance Catalog Company,
$19,250 worth of signs on that
one. Here’s another one for
$30,800 worth of signs, and I’m
a guy with no money, no
resources, and sitting in a
warehouse. I have a shop, and
I’m getting purchase orders
coming over my fax machine.
These all came over in one day.
Here’s another one right here,
$26,950. In one day, I got
purchase orders for $70,000
worth of stuff! Over a year and
a half’s time, I started getting
checks from these people,
checks! There amounts were like
$7,700, $4,620 and these are
coming to a guy in a warehouse
running out every day to the
mailbox saying, “The check’s got
to be here, it’s got to be
here.” I was looking in the
mailbox and finding stuff like
$8,662, $6,737, $9,625, $7,700,
every two weeks I’m starting to
get checks from these people.
The purchase orders were piling
in, they’re mailing more and
more and more, and I’m not
paying anything except to get
this stuff made. Some of you
guys may have talked to me and
know that I’m a pretty lazy guy,
I’m a real lazy guy! I don’t
like to work. It was even more
than the checks that they sent,
over and over. Do you want to
see what these checks look like?
I want you guys to imagine
yourself right now going to your
mailbox and looking in. It’s a
little window envelope that
says, “Sundance” on it and you
see there’s a check inside; how
much is this one going to be
for? There’s one for $2,674, a
small one, and I kept this one.
I have this one on my wall, this
is the one for $30,800, walking
to your mailbox and opening it
and knowing that there is a
check for $30,800 inside, most
of that you get to keep. So I’m
going to tell you something
about joint ventures. You think
I did any of this work myself? I
looked in the Yellow Pages, and
said, “There’s got to be a metal
fabrication company that can do
this stuff for me. They have
computers and they can cut this
out.” I found one, and I said,
“Hey, can you guys cut out some
art for me?” They said, “Oh
sure, no problem.” I said, “I
want a good deal from you guys
because I’m going to be buying a
lot from you.” They made it for
much, much, much less than $30.
I never told them how much I was
getting paid for it. We’re
talking dollars here, low
dollars they made this stuff
for. You think I packed this
stuff and shipped it? No, I
looked in the Yellow Pages for a
place for shipping. Goodwill
Industries will ship it. They
warehouse it for free, you have
use of their forklift for free,
and they pack this stuff up for
a little over a dollar a sign.
These big boxes are going out on
a truck. I never even saw the
stuff go out. All I did was sit
back, run to my mailbox, and
look for checks for $30,800. I
was broke, by myself, no
resources, no money, no
experience, and I wound up
making over $200,000 in a year
and a half time, most of which
was net. I also started getting
customers from this as well for
free because I put something in
the Sun, and when the customer
got the package, it said, “Hey,
you have to activate your
warranty. Call for a 24-hour
pre-recorded message and you get
a free certificate signed by the
artist.” People like things
signed by the artist. I sent
them out their free certificate,
which by the way, a catalog of
mine happened to go out too, in
which I had deals that went up
to $4,000 or $5,000, and I would
get even more money from that.
They liked my product, they were
a hungry list of customers, and
they wanted to buy more. That’s
what Sundance customers were
like. I leveraged my way into
two million catalogs a quarter
that were going to hungry people
that wanted to buy weird, wild
funky stuff, and I had the stuff
to sell to them. All I had was a
product. In the information
business, I’ve done a lot more
of these deals, and they are
much easier to do because you’re
not dealing with a hard product.
You’re dealing with information
that you can call up a printer
and have printed like that,
sales letters, different types
of resources. You guys can
understand why you want to do
joint ventures. The next
question is, and I’m going to
start moving quick because I
have a lot of information to
tell you here. Where to find
joint venture partners; the
first rule about joint ventures
is you want to do joint ventures
with people, not businesses.
That’s not always true; I did a
joint venture with Sundance.
Sundance is a big business, but
they’re used to dealing with
small business people. They
understand small business
people. You want to do joint
ventures with people, and the
reason you want to do joint
ventures with people is because
they are like you. They get this
concept of “Oh my God, I like to
make money.” Big businesses
always like to make money. I
don’t know what they want to do,
but they want to send you
through all these hoops. Forget
that. You want to do business,
look around the room. You want
to do joint ventures with people
much like yourself who desire to
make money. Keep that in mind.
Where do you find these people?
First place to find them, a very
good place, is your own customer
list. Some of you may not have
customer lists, but your own
customer list is a great place
to find them. Why? Because they
are people who have given you
money for your products. They
like you. They have a
relationship with you. They know
that you deliver good stuff, and
they have given you money, and
they look to you as somewhat of
a guru. You are in a position
where you can control how the
deal works. As you get more of a
customer list and mail to it
more and more often, I’m sure
Ron can attest to this, you get
joint venture proposals every
day, and you get a stack of
them. We get joint venture
proposals from people who want
to do deals with us all the
time. Most of them, we throw in
the trash, but every now and
then we’ll get someone who calls
and we start talking to them on
the phone, and say, “Hey, we
want to do a deal with you.
We’re going to be running an
Infomercial and we’re a customer
of yours, we’ve bought your
stuff and we really like it.
We’re running an Infomercial and
we need stuff to send in bulk so
we can bulk up a product. Do you
guys have a product?” “Sure, no
problem. How many do you want to
buy?” They are one of our
customers. Also, I was talking
to them on the phone, “Oh by the
way, you’re a customer of ours.
You understand our business. How
many customers do you have?” “We
have about 35,000.” “ Do you
want to do another deal?” Your
customer list is the first place
to work. Another place, let’s
say you don’t have a customer
list, and this is a secret. This
is a big, big secret. We’ve
talked about niche publications
and trade magazines, look at the
ads in there. You see, what
happens is in these niche
publications there are a lot of
people who sell continuously to
the people in there. Let’s take
the art gallery and frame shop
niche for example. There’s an ad
right here, Herbert Arnot, he’s
in a magazine called Décor. He
sells prints to art galleries,
so what he has is a list of art
galleries that have given him
money and buy from him every
month. Do you think if you have
a product to sell to an art
gallery and tell them how to
make money that you could make a
deal with this guy and say,
“Hey, let’s mail my letter to
your list.” “Sure.” And how did
you he exists? Because he is
running ads in there over and
over and over. Also, he’s a
small businessman because he
sells to small businesses. Here
are some ads in the same
magazine. Here’s another guy, H.
Hargrove selling stuff to art
galleries, selling stuff to
small businesses. This is a bag
company here, they sell bags to
businesses. But they’re selling
to them and they’re compacted in
every single month, so they have
a relationship. Let me show you
something else to look for. This
came from the same magazine. You
see an ad like this? This is a
direct-response ad. It has a
headline, it has copy, and the
guy is selling information. He’s
selling a CD. I’ll bet one thing
this guy does is he also sells
updates to his CD, so every
month or every quarter they give
him more money for the CD. So
you have a case of a guy who has
a list, who has a relationship
with his list, and they are used
to sending him money. If you
take your deal and go through
him to his list, they know and
they trust him, so you could
immediately jump into that list.
How big is the list? I don’t
know. I’ll teach you how to find
that out in a little bit just by
asking some questions. What you
need to know is that it took him
years to build that list. How
long does it take you to use it?
Five minutes! The key is, and
this is the whole main point you
should take out of this, they’ve
spent some money to build a
relationship with a lot of
people. You spend no money. You
just step in and make money, and
I’ll tell you a little secret
about these guys. None of them
has any clue about information
marketing or about
direct-response marketing, about
the value of their customer
list. You know that, you have
the key that unlocks that list.
Most of these guys are making
very small margins selling to
these people because they
believe nobody will pay $1,000,
nobody will $3,000 for a
product; we know different. They
will pay a lot of money for
that, and you can teach these
guys how to do that.
Ron: And while you’re at it,
you’re going to find some along
the way once you get a quality
education, you can probably jump
in and take a piece of the
action and do their marketing
for them, and maybe even a piece
of the company by straightening
out their marketing and you
would be the first to have done
that. In fact, that’s what Ted
Nicholas is doing quite a bit of
right now. You take a piece of
the company to straighten out
their marketing for them. It’s a
good deal for both, you bet,
because without him, the company
wouldn’t be there. It’s not
going to grow.
John: These guys are just
getting to the point where you
take some of this marketing to
them; they’re getting checks for
doing no work whatsoever. They
are just in hog heaven, and
they’re happy to do joint
ventures with you because
they’ve never heard of this
before.
Ron: Maybe we’d better explain
that a little bit further.
Suppose I’m joint venturing with
you with your list, I come to
you and say, “John, I want to do
a joint venture. All you have to
do is okay the bottom of my
letter. I’ll write it for you.
I’ll write the sales piece. I’ll
do the mailing. I’ll pay the
postage. I’ll do all the work,
and I’ll give you a piece of
whatever sales we make based on
your endorsement and using your
list. You do nothing. You can’t
possibly lose. If we win, we
both win. If we lose, I lose
only.”
John: It’s free money with no
risk. I’ll show you a letter a
little later on, a presentation
that we use to send out to these
people, we call it “The Free
Money Letter” and it’s a very
powerful proposition. Once you
do one deal with these guys, why
stop at one? We have guys we do
ongoing deals with because they
like us so much. When you send a
guy a check for $26,000 and he
didn’t do any work, he likes you
because that’s net you’re
sending him. It goes right into
his bank account; he spent no
money to generate that. It’s
very powerful. Another place to
look real fast is directories,
the SRDS, the Standard Rate and
Data Service; it is a big book
of mailing lists. Go to the
library and ask the librarian,
“Hey, I want the big book of
mailing lists. Take me to that.”
She’ll take you right to it.
Open it up and what you’ll see
is people who you know have a
mailing list of 80,000 names,
100,000 names and you can do a
deal with those people. One
thing you need to know about
these guys is they are hit up
for joint ventures all the time.
Ron:
SRDS.com
.
John: It’s a great place to
look. Another place is Oxbridge,
go to the library and say, “Hey,
take me to the big book of
newsletters,” and they’ll take
you to the big book of
newsletters. Another place is
mediafinder.com
, you can look that up.
Newsletter publishers are great
people to joint venture with.
Why? Because they have monthly
contact with their customers,
most of them have a little
understanding of the information
business, but they don’t
understand the concept of
putting anything along in there
that asks for more money, like
Paul Hartunian does with his
newsletter. You can do a deal
with them like that. There is no
postage paying. These guys don’t
know, you’re telling them how to
unlock their customer list.
Ron: Slow down here just a
minute, because I want to make
sure they grasp this. You could
literally build a multi-million
dollar company by simply going
into SRDS or Oxbridge or any
place else that has a list of
lists, and they are a list of
lists. Find somebody that has a
magazine or a newsletter on a
subject pertaining to or similar
to whatever it is that you are
selling. If you’re selling a
book on how to grow roses to be
twice their size in half the
time, or yadda, yadda, yadda. Go
to somebody who has a gardening
magazine or a gardening list and
simply do the joint venture.
It’s that easy. So now the
questions is, “Who do I joint
venture with and how many of
them do I get to respond?”, and
he’s going to tell you how to do
that in just a second, so it
really becomes an easy way to
market, because I’ll tell you,
you guys just can’t know this,
but the results you’re going to
get from a joint venture
endorsed mailing are going to be
bigger than any other kind of
mailing you do.
John: We’ve had times where
we’ve spent maybe $4,000 on a
mailing and gotten over $100,000
back because the relationship
with the customer is that
strong. There is absolutely no
way if you went out and rented
those lists without going
through a joint venture partner
and riding on the relationship,
we would have spent $4,000 and
probably lost $4,000. Because of
the relationship, that’s the
whole key to this is the
relationship that they’ve spent
the money to build that you can
step right into and make money
with. That’s what unlocks the
key to your wealth and to their
wealth. Two resources, combine
them, money results. Other
places to look real quick, local
directories, Yellow Pages, lists
of businesses that might have a
list that would be responsive to
an offer like yours. Another
place, trade shows. Trade shows
are a little more work. You can
go to the library, find the
local trade show directory. You
can go up to people, shake their
hand and say, “Hey, you got
this. I got that. Do you want to
make a deal?” Real quick, I’ll
just give you a trade
association, NAPL example,
National Association of Printers
and Lithographers, Michael
Kimball. Just fax him a joint
venture proposal, say “Hey, you
want to do a deal?” The deal he
got out of it, and I don’t know
how Michael got this deal but he
got this deal, they paid for all
of the mailing to their list,
they paid all the printing and
they sent Michael a check for
fifty-five percent of the gross,
and all he had to do was to sell
the product. So he was getting
paid to get new customers and
all his cost was just the cost
of the product, and they would
do a mailing like this four or
five times a year and send him a
check. How they agreed to this,
I don’t know but they did.
Ron: That’s a heck of a deal!
John: Yeah, a very good deal!
Another place is seminars, look
around! There are people here.
When I went to Dan Kennedy’s
last seminar, nobody had time to
pay attention because we were so
busy doing deals with people.
When somebody pays $2,000 to
come to a seminar, it’s not like
somebody paying $27 to go to a
Chamber of Commerce meeting and
say, “Hey, you need an insurance
agent? Here’s my business card.”
When someone pays $2,000 to go
to a big high-priced seminar,
you get some players. You get
some people who are serious
about making money. You start
talking to people and asking
them questions, you find out all
of a sudden they may have a big
list that you can use. So what
do you do? You’re talking to
them, they like to make money,
they like you because they paid
money to get this, so “Hey, you
want to do a deal?” There are
lots of deals in information
marketing seminars. Just try
sitting down and talking to
people, and get to meet them and
know them face to face. You
don’t get a lot of want-to-be’s,
you get a lot of real players in
this. Seminars are great places
to go. Another source is
catalogs, again the Oxbridge
Directory has a list of
catalogs. And here is a secret
like I’ve been telling you, most
potential joint venture partners
have no clue about marketing or
the value of a customer list.
You here have this knowledge,
you now have the key to unlock
that knowledge and make both you
and them a lot of money fast.
Okay, moving right along here,
let’s talk about how to approach
joint venture partners. Like Ron
said, he gave you a perfect way
to do it, with money. You offer
to do all the work and send them
a check. Don’t try to educate
them about information
marketing. They’re not going to
know it, and they’re not going
to understand it. Everyone here
understands this concept that
you do no work and you don’t get
a check, right? This is a very
simple concept. How do you do
that? Let me show you the
letter, what we call “The Free
Money Letter” we send out. If
you look, it’s just a letter
from us to them. We overnight
this letter, “Dear Joe, Free
Money!” That’s what it says on
top, free money, and basically
what it tells them is how we’re
going to give them free money.
Something very, very important
down here, all the letter does
is tell them that we’ll do all
the work and we’ll send them a
check. Right down here, though,
look at these PS’s. They are
very important because they have
testimonials from people that
we’ve done joint ventures with
in the past. What that does is
tell people, “This guy is for
real,” number one and number two
“They sent us money and the
check cleared.” A lot of people
who do joint ventures are idiots
and they don’t pay their joint
venture partners. There are
people out there who have been
scorched before, and when they
look and see that this guy pays,
and he pays a lot of money,
they’re going to want to do a
deal with you. If you don’t have
a testimonial, don’t worry about
it. We started out before
without testimonials in “The
Free Money Letter.”
Ron: I’ll tell you what you’re
going to have to do if you don’t
have testimonials. You’re going
to have to simply say, “Listen,
if that bothers you, then you
take the money and pay me.” A
lot of times, they won’t. They
just want to know that you’re
willing to let them do that.
That overcomes credibility.
John: The deal we make on those
is we say, “Hey, we’ll take the
money, but we’ll route it
through your office.” So the
owners come to you, you take the
orders, you send it off, we
charge a credit card. Most
people say “Okay, let’s go ahead
and do it because that’s
working.”
Ron: Don’t forget what he just
said though. Don’t let them take
the orders and hope you’ll get
the names. You have to take the
order and fax it to them or
email it to them and let them
process it and then you know
you’ve got the order.
John: Unless it’s a big company
like Sundance or something like
that, then okay, $200,000 in a
year and a half, I’ll take the
risk.
Ron: That’s doesn’t matter
because you did the shipping so
you had the customer’s name
anyway.
John: I shipped it to them.
Ron: Oh, you shipped it to
Sundance.
John: Right.
Ron: So the only way you could
get the customer’s name is to
put something in the box and
have it come back to you.
John: Right.
Ron: I heard that works. Did
Robert Allen tell you about
“Multiple Streams of Income,”
how many times his name is in
the book? He didn’t tell you
that yesterday? He’s got his
phone number in that book forty
times.
John: That’s a very powerful
thing. Customers that already
had a relationship with Sundance
now had a relationship with me.
I might have taken a lot of
money out of a very small list
to buy new art every month. It
took relationship marketing.
This is the whole key that makes
this business work, relationship
marketing. We need to talk about
real quick, let’s say you decide
you want to do a joint venture
because we all know that joint
ventures are good things to do.
You find some people you think
you want to do some joint
ventures with. You send them a
free money letter and they call
you. What do you say to them on
the phone? This is some
million-dollar information
because what you say to them on
the phone to screen them could
save you a lot of time, agony,
and grief later on. It can also
build some very profitable
long-term relationships. The
first question that you want to
ask, when you get them on the
phone is, “What type of business
are you in?” You know what type
of business they’re in. Who
cares what type of business
they’re in? You want them to
start talking. They like to talk
about their business. “I’m in
the printing business.” “Really,
how fascinating. I’ve never
heard of a business like that.
How did you get into this
business?” You’re building
rapport with them. “Well, my
Grand pappy started back in
1953.” Who cares about that?
What you’re doing is getting
them to start talking, opening
up about the business and they
will begin to reveal details.
You are conditioning them to
talk about their business
because you have some questions
that you want to ask them about
their business. “How many
customers do you have?” This is
very important. If they have
three customers, you probably
don’t want to do a deal with
them. Another question you want
to ask is “Do you have the names
and addresses of your
customers?” If they say no,
good-bye, forget it. If they say
yes, okay go on to the next
question. “How often do they buy
from you?” “They buy once every
five years,” probably not a very
good prospect to test. If they
say, “We have people that like
these niche publications and buy
from us once a month. They send
us big dollars because they’re
buying product from us on an
ongoing basis and we have 1,200
names.” A big list with some of
these guys can make a lot of
money, we have 1,200 names, and
we have 2,000 customers. “How
much money do they usually spend
with you?” If they spend $5
every time, probably not very
good. If they’re used to
spending $3,000 to $5,000 a
month to buy products to resell,
they’re used to spending money
with this company. Very good,
very powerful. What you want,
your ideal is a sane small
businessperson. Let me explain a
few things to you. What I mean
by sane is this; sane in that
they want to make money. A lot
of businessmen don’t want to
make money. I don’t understand
it. They don’t want to make
money. They’re in business for
ego reasons, they’re in business
to employ people. They don’t
want to make money. I’ll tell
you a very quick story. There
was an art gallery that I used
to sell art to. He bought on a
wholesale/resale basis. He would
buy my art, and he sold a lot of
stuff. I went in and asked him
day when I was not smart about
this business, “Hey, do you keep
the names and addresses of your
customers?” “Yeah.” “How many do
you have?” “I have about
10,000.” “Want to do a deal?” “I
don’t know.” I said, “Look, I’ll
do all the work, pay for it,
send you a check. You’re in
retail, you’re whining and
pissing and moaning every week,
you haven’t had a vacation in
three months, you’re miserable,
you hate it, so let’s do a deal.
I’ll pay for everything. I’ll
send you a check.” What do you
think the guy said? “That
doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve
never heard of business being
done like that.” What’s the word
you say when you’re talking to
someone like that? “Bye. Next.”
Forget it, you don’t deal with
people like.
Ron: Believe it or not, John has
never been to one of my real
estate boot camps where we talk
about pre-screening quickly!
“Next!”
John: Get rid of them! There are
plenty of profitable joint
venture partners out there.
Okay, let’s say you’ve got
someone on the phone, they’re
good, and you want to deal with
them. Okay, types of joint
ventures, here are the rules.
Back to what I said in the
beginning, make sure both
parties benefit from the deal so
you can continue to do deals in
the future. That’s very
important. You think of a joint
venture partner like a customer.
It is another type of customer
list, but it’s joint venture
partners. They have a long back
end too. You don’t want to do
just one deal with them, you
want to do lots of deals with
them. It’s like sending them
cards over and over, except
they’re much higher dollar. We
have people that we do deals
with all the time. We just call
them and say, “We’ve done deals
before, do you want to do a deal
again?” “Oh, yeah, we liked that
check we sent you. Let’s do
another deal.” Remember, both
parties have to benefit, that’s
very important. Some of these
idiots that won’t pay up from
someone, they’re stupid. They
may think they’re saving
$20,000, but they’re cutting
their throats from another extra
$250,000 in the future. You
always want to make sure the
other person mutually benefits.
That’s the one rule. Other than
that, the types of deals are
limited by your creativity. That
being said, let’s give you some
similar types of deals. Ron
alluded to one, an endorsed
mailing, earlier. They are very
powerful. If you were to send
this sales letter, you had a
tested proven sales letter, I’ll
tell you how to get the rights
to the sales letter at the end
of this presentation. You have a
tested proven sales letter and
you send it to their list, you
want to send an endorsement on
their letterhead in their
envelope to them so that they
know it came from your joint
venture partner. Here’s the
secret, you write the
endorsement letter, and they
sign it. Money with no work. All
this endorsement says is “Hey,
my name is Joe. You bought some
stuff from me in the past.
You’ve been very happy. I have a
friend named John who has this
great product. I thought you
guys would really like it, so
here’s the sales letter on how
to look at it.” That’s all it
has to say, as long as they know
it came from him, and that you
are getting the guy’s
endorsement.
Ron: John, let’s repeat that
because that’s very important.
The only purpose of that cover
letter is to get your customer
to read the sales letter. That’s
the only purpose of that
endorsement. Well, there are
two; credibility and to get them
to read the sales letter. You
don’t try to sell anything in
that letter, especially when
it’s an endorsement from
somebody else.
John: It activates the
relationship. If you got a
letter from someone but it had,
if Ron LeGrand had written an
endorsement letter, you’re more
than likely going to read that
because you know Ron, you have a
relationship with him, you know
that he isn’t going to send you
crap. If I get something that
has an endorsement from Dan
Kennedy, you better believe I’m
going to read that and probably
buy it because I know that Dan
is going to send me something,
and he only endorses people that
are good. Their relationship
with their customers is on the
line, and if you turn around and
take somebody’s product and you
have a customer list, and you do
a deal with them, you’d better
make darn sure that you are
delivering a very good product.
We have, times in the past,
where we’ve done a deal with
someone we didn’t check out as
well as we should have, and we
had a lot of returns coming back
because the guy wasn’t
delivering what he was
promising. Your credibility is
on the line with you customers,
and their credibility is on the
line too. Mutually beneficial.
Very quick, another type is
swap, where you have a bunch of
names, he has a bunch of names,
you trade names, and there is no
compensation on either side. By
the way, with an endorsement,
usually the deal we make with
people is we will do all of the
work, we will send out
everything to your list. You
give us 2,000 names, and we will
pay you twenty percent of the
gross. We’re paying them a
commission on an endorsement. On
a list swap, you just trade
names and you both keep all the
money. It’s very simple. On a
wholesale/retail, like I had
with Sundance, I made products
at a price, they paid me, and
then they resold them. That’s a
very easy joint venture. Royalty
arrangements, like an author and
a publisher, you may create a
product for somebody. You may
have the means to create a
product or own the rights to a
product, but you don’t have a
sales letter. Well, you let them
use the product, print it and
they send you a check every
month for a percentage of the
gross that they sell. Royalty
arrangements are another way to
work it; that is not the
preferred way we do it because
you have to rely on somebody
else to send you the money. But
you can also turn around and do
that deal with someone else. If
you have a product you want
created, but you don’t want to
spend time to do it, say “Hey,
I’ll make a royalty arrangement
with you. I’ll pay you a
percentage every time we sell
one of them.” It’s a very fast
way to get product sold.
Ron: That’s exactly what Ted did
with me. He sold my courses at
his expense and sent us a
commission on every time he made
a sale. He didn’t create
anything except the sales
letter.
John: Right, it’s just another
type of arrangement that you can
do. Another type is a consulting
arrangement. I’m not going to
spend too much time on
consulting arrangements. That
can be a whole other big
seminar, but let me just tell
you a few things. I had a
consulting arrangement with
Michael Kimball, and we had
consulting arrangements with
several other marketing gurus.
We pay them a retainer each
month, and they get a percentage
of the sales that their
knowledge generates. Very
simple. So we can tap into their
brains any time we want by
calling them. You can make the
same deal with another company
as a consultant. You’re on
retainer, you get paid a
percentage of the sales. Again,
a problem that can come up with
that is you getting paid when
you’re supposed to. You’re not
taking the money on that, but
it’s something to keep in mind
as you go along and get more
experience and get a track
record, you may want to enter
into a consulting relationship
with a joint venture partner.
Also, like Ron said, you might
get to the point where you can
rebuild or redo someone’s
marketing for them and get a
piece of their company. That is
done on a consulting
relationship. As long as you are
in a position where you know
you’re getting the money, it’s a
consulting relationship, and
people understand a consulting
relationship. They know what a
consultant is, and they
understand that. Another
profitable resource is a package
insert, like if you approach a
newsletter publisher and say,
“Hey, we just want to send our
tested proven flyer out along.
It comes right to me, and I send
you the money. We both avoid
postage, it’s riding along.”
That can be very powerful if you
get someone in a niche market
who is sending products out to
be resold every single month.
Say “Hey, let’s put my sales
letter right along with your
endorsement in the package. That
way, nobody has to pay for any
postage.” And like we talked
about yesterday, they get the
package, they know they just
bought something they’re happy
about, and they open it. These
negotiations are not net. If you
negotiate a net deal, I
guarantee you that any account
in the world, no matter how much
money comes in, can make the net
all go away. A gross deal is
very simple. The only thing I
will say up here is make sure
that you know your numbers.
Remember, if you’re giving away
five percent of the gross,
depending on the product, you
could be giving half, sixty or
seventy percent of the net. Know
your numbers before you do it.
It’s very important that you
make it a percentage of gross.
It’s very easy to track as well.
Number three is, do all the work
yourself. Don’t trust the other
party. There are a lot of guys
out there that mean well, they
mean to do the work, but they
get busy and they decide to go
to Vegas or go off somewhere and
have some fun, and they don’t do
the work. They get involved in
other deals. Do all the work. We
always do all the work, Michael
and I when we do a deal. We know
our printers, we know our sales
letter, and we know that we are
going to get that out. Do the
work. If you don’t have any
money, what you can do and what
I’ve done in the past when I
didn’t have any money is say
“Send me 2,000 names, and I’ll
do all the work.” I mailed a
hundred letters. I got the money
in, and mailed three hundred
letters, then I mailed more and
said, “Hey, we did great on
this. Here’s some money. Let’s
do some more names.” If you
don’t have any money, you don’t
have to mail all the letters.
You can literally mail a hundred
or two hundred letters, it’s not
as viable as if you mailed them
all, but if you don’t have any
resources you can afford to mail
a hundred letters and you’re
probably going to get some
response because you are riding
on a relationship. Do all of the
work, that’s very important.
Most joint ventures fail because
the other person didn’t do the
work they were supposed to.
Shortcut that in the beginning
and do all the work yourself.
Number four, get it in writing
yourself. What I mean is that
there are books and agreements
out there that you can find,
look it up, say “Hey, this
agreement is very similar to the
deal we’re going to do.” Change
a few things, make sure it’s in
English, don’t call it a
contract, and call it an
agreement or an understanding. A
lot of the time, we’ll just sit
down, write something up, and
say “Hey, you send us 2,000
names, we’re going to mail this,
and we’re going to do that.”
It’s very plain. Is it a bad
idea to have a lawyer review it?
No, but don’t get him involved
in negotiations.
Ron: There’s a sample of that
kind of an agreement in the book
as well. It’s a letter of
agreement.
John: It’s just a letter of
agreement. It says, “Hey you’re
going to do this, I’m going to
do that.” Keep it simple, keep
it plain so a sixth grader can
understand it. If you get into
all that legalese, they are
going to get intimidated,
they’re going to want to get
their lawyers involved, and the
only person who is going to make
money is the lawyer.
Ron: That’s absolutely true. Let
me give you a recent case study
on that. I was attempting to do
a joint venture with a couple of
fellows out in California. They
sent me a complex contract, and
I said, “Do I have to sign this?
If I do, I’m not even
interested.” And we didn’t do a
deal. They got the worst of it
because it would have been a
great deal for them. They said
“If we don’t get that signed, we
can’t do it.” I said, “We can’t
do it. Next.” What it amounts to
is who is in control. You’ve
heard that before, John.
John: Yep. It’s absolutely true.
If you find somebody who wants
to send you a big thick
agreement like that, unless it’s
a standard agreement, like on
the catalog cards that they send
to everyone, that’s a little bit
different because you can look
and see what all the vendors
have done, if they’ve paid their
vendors, if they’ve had any
problems. If you’re dealing with
an individual like Ron is
telling you about and you get a
contract like that, beware. You
and I both know that you can put
something in writing, “I’m going
to do this, and you’re going to
do that. We can agree.” Right?
There’s no other place to
disagree. Keep it simple. A lot
of times if you enter an
agreement, maybe you guys don’t
know exactly what’s going on,
you can say, “Let’s go back to
the agreement and see what we
agreed to so there are no hard
feelings.” You get it in writing
and you know exactly what
everyone is supposed to do.
Ron: Do a small deal first and
see how it works out, and then
you can decide whether or not
you want to do more.
John: That’s a great point. I’m
going to talk about that in just
a second, Ron. Ron brings up a
very good point. Do a small deal
first. Actually two more things,
you don’t want to joint venture
with someone and then decide you
hate their guts. You want to be
able to get out, so make sure
you put that in the agreement.
Number six, and this is very
important. Always leave open the
possibility for renegotiations,
and say that going in. The
reason is a lot of times you
don’t know what the numbers are
going to be. You have no idea
what the numbers are going to
be. So you say “Hey, let’s do a
trial deal. We’re going to do a
three-month deal. We’re going to
see what the numbers are. I’m
going to pay you this, then
we’ll sit down and look.” If
he’s not getting enough money
and you’re getting too much,
give him some more money. If
he’s getting too much money, if
he’s getting seventy percent of
the net and you made a deal on
gross, say, “Hey, we have to
renegotiate. I’m not getting
enough money. This isn’t
mutually beneficial.” You can
sit down and renegotiate. If
it’s working out great and you
like doing it the way it is,
then you can do a longer deal.
Always be flexible, always leave
open the possibility for
renegotiation.
Ron: Another way to reduce that
risk as well, here’s another
option. This is a pretty simple
deal. I’ll do all the mailing,
I’ll pay all the expenses. We’ll
take those expenses off the top
of the gross and then we’ll
split what’s left. In reality,
that’s going to come down to a
safer deal for you. Sometimes
you’ll get more and sometimes
you’ll get less. But it is safer
for you to do that, and it is
fair. You don’t charge him for
gasoline and phone calls, just
charge for the easy to prove
expenses of doing the mailing,
not people taking the phone
calls and all that crap, just
the hard costs.
John: Remember, what you want to
do is when you do a joint
venture with someone, set up for
more joint ventures with him, so
you want to make sure they are
taken of and you are taken care
of. If you take care of them,
you are going to be a jewel in a
sea of broken glass, because
most of their experiences if
they’ve done joint ventures
before, you’re going to find
people who have been scorched.
When you come in and you do what
you say, they feel that they can
do a deal with any time. They’ll
write you a testimonial. Let me
tell you how to create that.
Number one, pay all joint
ventures promptly and pay them
with style. When Michael Kimball
pays his joint venture partners,
he doesn’t just send them a
check. He sends them a FedEx
with a check and on there writes
“Congratulations. You’ve worked
out great. It’s wonderful.
Here’s your check. I hope you’re
as satisfied as I am.” He send
that to them FedEx. A week
later, what shows up? There’s a
company that we do business with
that bakes cookies as gifts.
They get a big box of cookies.
We send them money and we send
them food. There’s a letter on
it that says, “Thank you, thank
you, thank you for doing this
joint venture with us. Here’s
some food as appreciation.” So
they have money in their pockets
to spend and they’ve got food
and what happens is another
overnight letter shows up a few
days later that says, “Oh by the
way, would you please write us a
testimonial.” So they’ve got
money, they’ve gotten food and
now there’s a letter asking for
a testimonial.
Ron: I’m ready to do a joint
venture, John!
John: It’s a very good business.
They’ve never had anybody do
that before, you do that, and
they love you. They’ll do deals
over and over with you, and know
that you are taking care of them
and there is a check for them.
Ron: Do they get cigars too?
John: We haven’t done that yet.
Let’s start talking about
licensing. This is very
important. Remember in the
beginning of the talk what I
told you about joint ventures
and what I was talking about. It
has to be a mutually beneficial
relationship, meaning you have
to have something to bring to
the table. A tested proven ad, a
tested proven sales letter, a
tested proven product, and if
you’re starting out a lot of
times you may not have a track
record and it takes you six or
twelve weeks, even more to test
that. Like I said, when you have
to do that, it kind of deflates
the spirit of joint venture,
which is making money with no
work whatsoever. Let’s say you
find a joint venture partner and
he has a good list and you want
to deal with him, but you don’t
have anything. What you can do
is license a sales letter, you
can license a product. You can
do a lot of licensing deals.
Most of the sales letters that
we do, we don’t create very many
of them, and we license them
because we know that they
already work. A license is just
a piece of paper that says you
have full rights to use this
sales letter in any way that you
would like. It’s like you have
the sales letter yourself. You
now own the rights to this sales
letter so you can mail it, you
can use it, and you can do joint
ventures with it. That’s very
powerful. What you are doing is
spending some dollars up front.
There is usually a licensing fee
that you will pay to acquire the
rights to the sales letter.
Paying a licensing fee to get a
tested proven sales letter to
send to someone you want to have
a relationship with is very
cheap. If you look at the time
it will take you to test and
come up with a test proven sales
letter, it could take months and
hundreds or thousands of
dollars.
Ron: I paid $15,000 for a sales
letter once that I know of, and
I paid Dan Kennedy $8,500 for
another sales letter, and they
were absolutely unproven and
untested. One that’s already
been proven, believe me is a
quantum leap.
John: I’ll tell you a story
about that. One of the people we
do a lot of joint ventures with
licensed a sales letter from us
for $20,000, they paid Michael
$20,000. They wound up mailing
to their customers, they have a
big fat customer list, and they
made $1.6 M from that letter.
Michael said “You’re going to
make a lot of money with this.
You’re going to make at least
$1M.” He knew the letter had
already been tested and proven
and going for that hot list that
they had a relationship with,
they made $1.6M. That’s a good
deal! They knew before going in,
before they even wrote that
check that money was going to
come right back.
Ron: That’s what they grossed,
$1.6M?
John: That’s what they grossed.
Ron: Tell them what it is. They
were selling a $995 package
giving people the rights to
resell four CD’s and a marketing
package to resell them with.
John: Right, and they plugged
that right into their list of
names, and got this money where
there was none before. You take
a tested proven sales letter,
mail it to someone’s list that
they have a relationship with
and money comes in. Michael said
“The next time I do a deal with
him, I’m getting a piece of the
action.”
Ron: Michael hadn’t learned
that!
John: No, he still scratches his
head over that one! Why you
should license your product?
When you get to a point where
you have a list of customers,
and you have a sales letter that
works to that list, you should
license that letter. The reason
is because if you want to build
a huge company, a lot of times
you have to get employees, you
have to spend a lot of money on
infrastructure, systems, and a
lot of times I don’t want
anything to do with that. I
don’t want to build a big
business. I want to build a
lifestyle business where we make
high net with low overhead, low
hassle, we have a very small
office, and we want to have a
life to live so I can go have a
lot of fun. A lot of times, we
won’t go after the lists because
we know that in order to fund
that program, we’re going to
have to bring in extra
employees, more computers, all
that stuff. We don’t want
anything to do with that. What
we do is license our letter, we
license our products to other
people that will go out and do
it. Then we can get money, we
can get an up-front licensing
fee from those people, and we
make money from that where there
was no money to be made because
we’re not interested in going
off and doing all that other
stuff. Those people wind up
getting put into the mail order
business because they get to
leverage our resources of what
we’ve done before with
knowledge, time and a tested
sales letter. When you get into
that position, you should
license your products. We have a
friend who is a niche marketer.
He sells to carpet cleaners and
he licenses his package for
$35,000. It’s a great deal
because he’s not interested in
any of these other niches. He’s
got a life and he likes to do
other things, but he gets money
out of that where he wouldn’t
have gotten any before, and the
licensee is then able to go in a
step right into a tested proven
business and know they are going
to make money. You’re
shortcutting all the testing,
all the business deals and all
that good stuff as a licensee
and you get a big nice licensing
fee where you wouldn’t have
gotten anything before because
you have a life you want to live
and you want to go off and do
other things, not have more
employees. Again, just like why
you should license your products
or other people’s products, it
cuts down on time. We license a
lot of people’s products because
we have lists of customers who
want to buy stuff and we don’t
want to create products, we
don’t want to write sales
letters, so we take someone else
and pay them a licensing fee and
it goes right to our list. Also
one thing that a license can do
is if you are getting started in
this business, it cuts your risk
way down. The probability of you
writing a sales letter and
building a business on the first
time out is very slim. That’s
the first time. Can you do it?
Sure, you can do it. There are a
lot of people who have started
with $200 and built a very
successful mail order business
from their kitchen table. If you
look at the money they spent
testing and reinventing and
going all over that, it was
self-financing but they may have
spent $10,000 to $50,000 to get
to the point where they had a
bunch of products, a bunch of
tested proven sales letters,
ones that they knew worked. You
can shortcut that by just
stepping right in and acquiring
a license. The neat thing that
does is, you should create your
own products, you should write
your own ads and sales letters
eventually, but when you are
doing that to your own customers
that you a relationship with to
someone else who is a master
copywriter letter is brought in,
you have a good chance of being
successful.
Ron: It’s my contention you can
write your own sales letters and
develop your own products after
you have a cash flow coming in.
You can take the pressure off
and have plenty of time doing
that without being under the gun
all the time. You’re right, your
chances of succeeding sitting
down and writing your first
sales letter are about as good
as me losing twenty pounds in
the next two or three weeks, and
I’m on the Atkins Diet.
John: You can come to the gym
with me, Ron. I’ll make that a
reality.
Ron: I’d rather buy the report.
John: I’ll put you on the video.
Ron is absolutely right. If you
look at a master copywriter, Ted
Nicholas said that every time he
wrote an ad, he wrote 120 ads
for his book “How You Can Form
Your Own Corporation For Under
$75.” Ted’s a master copywriter.
How many of those ads were
successful out of 120? Forty
were, and he wrote 120 ads. The
ones that were successful were
very successful. He was able to
go out, and if you would license
an ad like that, you could step
right in and start mailing money
immediately because you know it
has been tested, you know it has
been proven. It doesn’t make
sense not to license. It cuts
your risks way down, it cuts
your time factor way down, it
gives you time and it gives you
leverage. Licensing, we license,
we’re licensees and licensors.
Licensing overcomes joint
venture obstacles like I said in
the beginning. You can approach
someone and talk to them so that
now you have a tested proven
product, now you have a track
record of someone you have
licensed from and you have a
tested proven sales letter. All
of a sudden, when you get into
this joint venture deal, you
have pull with these people. You
can sit down and say, “Okay,
here’s why I collect the money
and send you twenty percent
because I have the key now that
unlocks your list.” You can do
that with a phone call, getting
those products and getting in.
What it comes down to is
licensing in joint ventures is
the best way to make money with
absolutely no work whatsoever. A
few concerns about licensing you
may want to keep in mind when
looking at getting a license, if
you’re looking at a hard
product, like a commodity and
it’s territorial, then you want
to make sure there is no
competition. That doesn’t quite
happen in direct response and
the reason is because if you’re
mailing to your own customer
list or somebody else’s even if
there are other people out there
who own the licensing rights to
that letter, there’s no way they
can touch that customer list
because you are riding on the
relationship. If I was to take
that same letter and mail it to
that same list and the same
person on the same day got a
letter from your joint venture
partner with their endorsement
on it, they’re going to order
from that person because they
have a relationship. There’s
very little concern about if
everyone here was to license the
same letter and go out without
stepping on each other’s toes,
the market is too big, and the
relationships that you step into
are too powerful for that to
happen. Keep that in mind. Also,
one thing you want to be very
careful of is stealing
customers. There may be some
people out there who you can do
a licensing deal with and their
whole idea is to get you to go
through them so that you pay for
everything and they get the
customer and they start
marketing to the customer, and
they cut off your back end. You
want to make sure that any
licensing deal that you step
into, you are in full control of
that customer. Remember like we
said, the customer list and the
relationship with that customer
list is the key that unlocks all
the wealth in this business.
Again, an upfront investment, a
lot of times, if we have out
front $35,000, that’s a big
investment. Is it a big
investment? It’s a small
investment when you look at it.
How much time, money, energy,
and effort are you going to have
to spend to get up to that point
where he is? It took him years
to get there. You spend $35,000,
you’re there immediately. Is
this something to think about?
Sure, but when you put that up
against the upfront costs of
building it and doing it all
yourself, it’s a very small
amount of money. It’s something
you should keep in mind.
Ron: It’s like buying a
McDonald’s instead of opening my
own hamburger store, isn’t it?
John: Exactly, do you spend the
$400,000 or do you go open your
own hamburger store which is
tested, proven and you know at
least eighty percent of those go
out of business within four or
five years. I’ve seen one
McDonald’s in my lifetime that’s
gone out of business and why
that happened, I don’t know.
What you’re doing is investing
in a tested proven track record
for the long term. If you have a
good license that you are
looking at, you know that paying
an upfront fee is a good, good
deal. It saves you a lot of
time, frustration, energy and
effort, and you get the inside
stuff. Like I said, benefits
again, I just want to go over
that. A lot of time, the
infrastructure is already built.
If someone is known in the
marketplace and you’re selling
their products with their
identity on it, people feel they
have a relationship with this
person, so what you are able to
do is that brand increases
responses because they feel like
you’ve already tested them. They
feel like you know them. Again,
tested proven ads, sales
letters, websites, that’s
something that’s important, a
tested proven website. A lot of
people are out there selling
websites. The website may not
lurk, it may not sell, but
people love to sell websites and
the web has made a lot of people
stupid. “Oh, a website is going
to make money.” No, no, no, but
if you license one that you know
works both from a marketing
point of view and from a
technical point of view, that
can be very powerful. Product
support, inside information,
let’s say for example that you
want to license a sales letter
but the guy who mails the sales
letter has a lot of experience,
and he knows the sales letter
sells real well for one-legged
used car salesmen, but it
doesn’t sell well to two-legged
new car salesmen. Do you think
you might want that information?
Sure, absolutely. How long of
testing would it take you to
find that out, how much money? A
long time and a lot of money, so
inside information is very
powerful.
I want to thank you for
listening. This is Michael
Senoff with
hardtofindseminars.com. If
you want to get in touch with
any of the people we interview,
please email me at
|