MODULE #5 How to Make Money From Your Brand Okay, so welcome back and this is module number five and in this module we're going to be focusing on how you can actually make money from your brand. So we're going to be talking some strategies in regards to getting ready to make your money, how to ask for the money in a professional yet brand-centric way and, more importantly, I'm going to be giving you lots and lots of ideas and concepts on how you can actually plant them into your brand and start making money. Real, actual ways to do it. So I want to start off first and foremost, right at the top of the module here to say that the first rule of monetizing is actually to stop thinking about monetizing. Okay? We talked about this a little bit in the last module and I always like to sort of carry things on, if you haven t noticed, from one module to another, but the fact of the matter is that monetizing your brand is just a natural conclusion to your brand building process and that's everything that we've done up and until this point. It's just the natural conclusion to this entire process and I want to recap that process as we're getting into the final kind of stretch here and I want to recap that process so you can see exactly what I'm talking about. So first up we're going to define our niche. Okay, we've done that already, even if it means niching down so that we can work with a slightly smaller but more engaged and targeted audience, right? Once we've got that audience, we're going to identify them, really plug ourselves into them and answer their questions and solve their problems by the content that we actually create. You see where I'm going with this? We've gone through all of this one module at a time, here, right? Once we've started to handle their questions and solve their problems for them at that point we're already in that P2P relationship building stage where we can really kind of suck them in as fans and get them turned on to everything that we put out there and with those relationships in place it's important for us to maintain those relationships and grow on those relationships by offering some small wins such as replying to comments, re- tweeting some of their content and that sort of type of thing. And once all this has happened, once you've got to this point, then and only then have you earned the right to actually sell to them. You see what I'm saying here? Monetizing your brand is just a natural conclusion of this entire brand building process. And you've got to make it easy for people to buy your stuff and one of the easiest way to be able to do that is to survey them directly or indirectly so you can ask for feedback on a blog post. What do you think about this? And that's indirectly, very indirectly, asking them to give you some information as to how they feel about a specific problem or topic or subject or situation or you can get really, really direct and ask them what they need help with. Asking them what they need help with will get very, very sincere and very frank answers back nine times out of ten. And that'll enable you to be able to put together all of the different answers to those questions and the solutions to those problems and ultimately build something that provides the help that they need. Now, to show you an example of this in motion, really, really in motion, really close to my heart, I want to take you back to August in 2010 where Michael, here, left a blog comment on my site. I'm not going to read the entire comment out here but, basically the post was about virtual assistance and how you should work with them properly.
And Michael had basically said in this comment that he tried to work with a few people and it didn't quite work out after reading the 4-Hour Workweek book. And the biggest problem is finding people that could really do what they really actually were claiming to do. And then he says, right at the bottom here of this comment, "If only if there was a source where you could get good, quality virtual assistance to help you like the book says they can. I'd even pay for it if I knew it could be trusted." Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Thank you very much, Michael, you've just given me a fantastic business idea and no more than four weeks later, I launched a new service, Virtual Staff Finder which is now turned into a full-time business with over ten members of full-time staff and we service almost 100 entrepreneurs on a monthly basis; finding them their virtual assistants here it the Philippines. It's probably one of the most proudest things that I've ever put together because it truly means that I'm alleviating the stress and the headaches of running a business in today's market by working directly with clients and hooking them up with VA's. Another thing that I've done and I'm using myself here as example because I know some of you have probably heard of a few things that I'm about to bring up, they might've even seen, maybe you've even actually have participated in some of these things but I've put together as well. And this is a mastermind session that I did for the first time in London and I was absolutely astounded with how much interest there was in just getting a bunch of entrepreneurs together to solve one very serious problem for most small business owners and that's entrepreneurial loneliness. There's something to be said for getting into a room and really, honestly, just shooting the sh** for a little while and getting to the point where these like-minded individuals come together to discuss problems that they're facing, brainstorm on new ideas and that sort of type of thing. I did two days back-to-back in London and it launched another three days in three different cities around the world: New York, L.A., and Sydney later on that year as well. So it was an unbelievably good success for me, for my brand and it was even better because I was solving yet another problem for my readers and my audience. Marie Forleo, who we met a couple of modules ago has also done a really, really good job in putting together her B-School where she talks about making money and changing the world which I just love and she did it in such a classy, manageable way and solves so many problems for her massive audience. Michael Hyatt did it recently with his 5 Days To Your Best Year Ever goal setting course and just a great price, a great deal, a great course and again solved an incredibly big problem with people putting goals and new year s resolutions in place and always flaking out on them. The way that Michael put this together, man, it's a great course. It's a really, really good course. My buddy Leo Babauta from ZenHabits put together something really, really nice a few years ago. This is no longer going now, however, it amalgamated into something different. But the A-List Blogger Club, which in term was in the E-Book mastery course as well, just unbelievably good training, good stuff, solved the problem and gave people what they wanted which was ultimately at that point access to Leo and it was just a great course. I was a member of that course, actually, I jumped on a few years ago when I was still on my sort of early days of blogging and it certainly helped solve problems for me in turns of what I should and shouldn't have been doing as someone who was someone who was trying to grow a blog. And lastly, in terms of other outside sources, Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger. This is just a copywriting scorecard for bloggers. He's had so many great e-books and mini-courses have come out that have solved problems for bloggers in all industries around the world and does extremely well with them. My last example is going to be a course that I put together for my Virtual Staff Finder clients. First of all, I find people, VA's and that solves that problems but then when they started coming back to us and said well this is great an everything but I don't have time to train these virtual workers myself, maybe you can put something together. So we did. Seventy- five class videos and over fifteen hours of VA training
was put together and that's a course that sells very, very well for us week in, week out with hardly any effort at all. Why? Because we're solving a problem for our audience. So monetization models, let's talk about this real quick. I want to break this down, these are several ways here, over ten, I can't remember exactly how many but I know I did at least ten here, so over ten different examples of ways for you to able to monetize your brand once you get to this point. First up is by offering freelancing service. So maybe you're a writer or a graphic designer by trade or something along those lines. Next up is a video course of some kind. This is something a little like Branding Boot Camp here where it's a little more in depths, a little more in to it than just maybe a couple of quick audio recordings or something like that and you want to sort of make a slightly larger learning platform. Coaching and consulting is another great way to monetize your brand, particularly if you want to utilize a way to be able to also build authority at the same time. By coaching and consulting people and helping them with their business you're being seen as that expert in that field pretty much instantly. E-books and Kindle books have also served me very, very well. Not just from a monetization strategy but also from a brand building strategy and just sort of an authority strategy as well. Audio courses. Maybe not so many of these around nowadays because video is just so, so attractive and so important to be involved in but I find that just, every now and then I might just want to listen thirty minutes, fortyfive minutes of training on one particular subject. Live events are another really, really interesting monetization strategy and these are becoming more and more and more popular. I think there's something to be said about being in and around other people, particularly in a slightly larger, more professional set-up. I think you'll find over the next year or two more and more live events in your particular industry or start coming to fruition as well. Carrying on; membership sites are a biggy as well, so you start off a site, you've got a little bit of content that you share and maybe you're doing a weekly course or monthly course and you're adding some new content on a regular basis and you're charging people a monthly fee to get access to that. Very, very popular. More and more big time bloggers and online brands are starting membership sites in our days. Here's one that a lot of people don't think about. And that's physical products. If you've got a good enough brand maybe you can print t-shirts, coffee mugs, mouse pads. There's lots and lots of different ways to be able to create physical products with your brand awareness around them. And, it's funny, I'm actually in the process right now as I record this in January 2014, of putting together t-shirts for Virtual Freedom and the launch of that book. There's a lot of different ways that you can put physical products into your brain monetization strategy. Mastermind groups. I've mentioned that a little bit earlier on. Just because there's other people out there that are doing this, it doesn't mean that you can't do it yourself, okay? I want to clarify that and it goes all the way back to module number one. Just because there's some competitors out there, it doesn't mean that you can't do this too. If you're in the skateboarding niche or if you're in the BMX biking niche or the rock-climbing niche and see how all three of those go on to that kind of extreme sports banner that's called, what I've done right there is just niched it down. If you're in the dog walking, or the dog training niche, I had a coaching client just recently who was a dog trainer, all these different things there's other people in and around your area, within your state, within your city, within your country that would be interested in getting together and, quite frankly, would be more than happy to part with a little bit of cash to be involved with something like that. Here's ones that I really like: private newsletters and a couple of modules ago we met Chris Brogan and he does this brilliantly with his writing newsletter. I think it's just great; a way to just create content without any major time required. I mean you're sitting down and you're writing an email and people are paying you for it. Think about that. You don't have to charge a lot but if you get enough people involved it can be really, really financial beneficial. In person retreats. Now, this is something a little bit different from mastermind group. Maybe you'll have two or three days involved
here. Maybe they re slightly larger or even a slightly smaller group than a mastermind group. One thing I have found definitely has happened and has got more and more apparent over the last couple of years is that people are more and more happy today to actually pay for just access to you and what you're all about and how you can help them. It's pretty amazing how I've seen several big brands, people like Michael Hyatt for example, will do a couple of days at a conference and then will include a special rate for people to come and have dinner with him and they'll only be fifteen seats at that dinner table and he'll sit and speak with each and every single one of you for ten or so minutes whilst getting involved with everyone else as well. People will pay for access; those in person retreats are becoming more and more popular. And finally, good old fashion getting up on stage and speaking live. One of the oldest ways to be able to build on your brand and make money from your brand is to be able to train at conferences and expos and events and that sort of type of thing. And you know what? At the end of the day, this is extremely important stuff if you truly want to catapult your brand to the next level. I have found that through speaking myself at live events, it's definitely helped me in regards to building my brand. Now I've found that there are three key ingredients of really good quality, ongoing monetization of brands. Okay? And they're all so simple that you're probably going to just kick yourself for overthinking this one. And that is that every single person I've seen that makes money from their brand on an ongoing basis, number one, publishing content regularly. They'll either blog regularly, they'll podcast regularly, or they'll update their YouTube or they'll update their online TV show regularly. The fact of the matter is that people will stop tuning in if you stop publishing so you have to carry on publishing very, very regularly. Particularly if possible, on the same day of every single week so you might want to blog on a Monday and podcast on a Thursday or whatever, however you mix it up, just make sure it's regular and it's consistent. The second key ingredient is to write a book. Publishing your own book nowadays has become easier than it ever has been in the history of business, I mean it absolutely is. Amazon with their Kindle platform has allowed pretty much everyone to become an author literally overnight and I think you'll find with Amazon's services like CreateSpace which allows you to not only get listed on Amazon with your book as an author but also to print on demand copies of that book. To sell physical paperback copies. This stuff is great. Everybody's got a book in them; every expert, everybody that wants to build a brand and that includes you watching or listening to this right now. You have a book in you. If you haven't already written one I suggest you do it. And the final key ingredient of people that have strong brands, that continue to monetize their brands in an ongoing basis, is to really get on stage. Like I said, speaking has elevated my brand to the next level. Every single time, and I mean every single time I speak at a conference or any kind of an event I see all of my sales go right up and I mean across the board. And not just sales, not just monetization, but also opt-ins, blog traffic, podcast downloads, YouTube subscribers, the whole kit and caboodle. So get yourself on stage, don't be scared, get out there, try it out and try to blow a few minds in the process if you can. If you look very closely on that wall to the left you'll see a little bit of brain matter. Oh, yes, I try and blow some brains, baby. Anyway, most importantly, think about playing it safe before you actually create your product, okay. We're talking about pre-selling here. There's a few reasons why, okay? First and foremost, it will avoid you wasting your time. Just imagine, let's say, you put together a fantastic video course. It takes you three months of hard work, a couple of hours every day, to put that course together. You're super pumped about it, you build your landing page, you mail your list of five thousand people and only twenty people buy it. You, my friend, have just wasted three months of your life, literally. Chances are the reason why is that you didn't survey your audience to see what they really wanted.
But pre-selling really does avoid wasting time. It also reaffirms your thoughts as the for-leader, as the brand, in terms of what you think people want or do not want and finally it allows them to get excited. It allows your audience to get excited about what's coming up. Here's a couple of quick ideas in terms of pre-selling. First and foremost, let's say you're creating an e-book. You can create a blog post, publish that, and then right at the end of that blog post tell them that it's a free chapter in your upcoming E-book on, bum-bum-bum-bum- bum. This way they've already consumed the piece of content that they ve enjoyed and now they've just found out that they're going to be more to it in the same kind of mindset and the same flow coming up which they're going to have to pay for and you'll see in the comments section of that blog post, with a little bit of luck, that everyone's looking forward to your new fantastic e-book. Let's say you're going to put together a live event or you're even just thinking of putting together a live event. Ask your people where they might attend. I did this recently on Facebook when I was mentioning my new business mastermind road show which will be ongoing this year in 2014. I m going to be doing around five or six different cities around the world and I asked them outright, I'm coming to you. I'm going to go on the road, what cities do you want this to happen in. I had over 70 comments within a 24 or maybe 36 hours period and it became very clear that there were some very serious front runners that were out there in terms of cities that I should or should not go to. Ask people where they might attend their live event and that gets them thinking about it and they know that obviously live events, nine times out of ten, unless you've got a great sponsor, are going to be paid for events. Another example is a video course just like this one. You can create the sales page and a little pitch video and then get it up there just like I did for the Branding Boot Camp course. Anybody that really gets involved and goes through this course in the first week or two of February, you would've pre-purchased this back at the end of 2013. This is what I m talking about, I pre-tested this, I pre-sold this entire idea. I had the feeling that my audience wanted a course from me on branding because of the feedback and the enthusiasm that they had shown, however I wanted to test it. I needed to test it to make sure that I wasn't going to be wasting my time doing exactly what I'm doing right now which is recording it and luckily I had over a hundred sales come in over the space of a week and they just reaffirmed my idea to put this all together. Now, after all this has actually, sort of manifested yourself and put itself in front of you, you've got to deliver the goods, okay? Even if they re not perfect, even if you know that you're going to update it in the future and even if there are competitive offers out there. Just like I said, right, this is what it's all about. It's about you getting your stuff out there, not only delivering on it but getting it devoured, getting it consumed and then, ultimately, hopefully shared around the interwebs. Because at the end of the day, every leader needs to be seen to sell. It builds authority to be seen to sell. If you're not selling anything at a certain point in your brand, your brand lifeline, if you're not selling something ultimately you're not going to be seen as a true blue leader in that niche. Every leader needs to be seen to sell. Let's have a quick recap here, okay? First and foremost do not focus on monetization. Stop thinking about that, okay? Just go through the process of building a great brand and getting your audience ready for it. Survey your audience, okay? Build something that you know that they need and that means that you're really edging your bets right there. Creative with your solutions and most importantly act quickly before someone else in your niche does and sell before you create anything that you put together. That's called dry testing in the infomercial business, where those sort of 2:00 AM TV commercials trying to sell you stuff. Well, they will nine times out of ten go on TV without having any of those products in stock. They're going to try test them because buying media costs tens of thousands of dollars. Even just a two minute commercial costs several thousand dollars so they're going to put that stuff up on TV and see how many times the phone rings before they actually
order the products. I know this because I used to work in the infomercial business and I tell you right now a lot of the time people will say it will take 45 days to deliver your product and that is because it takes 30 for that stuff to come in from China and then another 15 days to get packed and out to you. Another thing you must do is to publish content regularly. You've got to write a book, you've got to get on stage, and once you've got that course, that event, that E-book, whatever the case may be put together, you've got to ship it. You've got to ship it. You've got to be seen to sell, to build authority. That's the end of module five. In module number six which is our free bonus module, I'm going to show you exactly how you can turn a lot of this brand building and managing work over to a virtual assistant so you can continue focusing on creating content that converts visitors into subscribers into customers. I'll see you in a while. What action are you going to take first, based on what you learned in this module? Be sure to let me know by tweeting me @chrisducker, and using #brandingbootcamp