So I have a question. How do you know when hypothermia has set in? Is chattering teeth and turning blue a sign? You’d think by now I’d start showing up to these things in sweatpants and a hoodie but I always have the urge to dress like a girl…which means, holy moly, I’m freezing. Gah! Okay, let’s focus. Up on stage we have Warren Whitlock. I recognize Warren from Twitter. I’m already at ease. Warren’s outside faux-yelling that this is the session you heard about and really wanted to attend. Heh, that’s one way to get people in the room. Another way would be cookies. Or Twizzlers. I’m on a Twizzlers kick.
ANYWAY! We’re starting! Warren sees the camera in the back of the room and waves to the people at home. He’ll be here all week. Try the veal.
Warren says it’s a lot easier to get attention for what you’re trying to do if you’re known as an expert at what you do. He’s about establishing real relationships. I already like him. Though I acted like a frightened puppy when he came up to introduce himself. I skittish.
If you can tell the difference between work and play you’re not doing one of them right. If you’re thinking you “can’t do that” in your niche or your industry, it’s just not true. Every niche has real life people with families and hobbies. The Internet speeds up real life relationships. Social media will accelerate your business beyond anything you have imagined possible. He’s always looking for ways to connect with people. The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you can make real recommendations that people will follow and be rewarded for it.
Reality is the most common illusion. You have to decide to be an expert. If you want to be an author, you just have to tell people you’re an author. There’s no test to prove it. He’s not talking about being unethical, but you can decide who you’re going to be. That’s a very important principle.
He shows a sampling of stuff people have done with the BP logo. BP tried to put out that they were the good guys with their earth-friendly logo. But now no one believes them. Today we can bypass the central authority and create our own messages. BP doesn’t get to decide what we think about them anymore. We do. To help influence you have to create relationships and conversations with these people.
“You can get anything you want out of life if you just help enough people get what they want” – Zit Ziglar
He started studying that. He was a salesmen at the time and his personal sales tripled when he started doing things this way – looking out for others instead of just pushing his product.
He mentions Robert Cialdini’s book Influence and the law of reciprocity. People buy from people they know, people they like and people they trust. You develop trust by not immediately breaking it. False scarcity works…until people find out you lied to them. And then they hate you. Forever. If you’re shopping for a new dentist and all the ads say, “SPECIAL!”, you know that’s a scam. You want someone who provides real information and that’s an expert. You want to get a recommendation from a friend.
That’s what we’ve seen with Twitter. You can create real relationships with people and identify yourself as an expert. The internet feeds up that connection. We want to do business with Sam from the general store. He knows everybody and everyone knows him. He treated people fairly because he had a relationship with them. What’s happened in the last century is that we’ve all been mass-ified. We have too many connections where we’re all just a number. Social media lets you do mass-listening. He says he has 62,000 followers and he can respond to every message. I only have 12,000 followers and I can’t respond to everyone so Warren is clearly a super hero.
The marketing of the future is:
- Listen
- Love
Establish relationships early. Don’t wait til your BP and something happens. Small business owners have a leg up because they can get in right away. They don’t need permission or buy in like the bigger companies do. Small business owners are also better at creating relationships.
Media is the growth market. People want games, education, self help, self improvement, etc. People want to consume more media. We’re all in the right thing. The difference with media today is the feedback. Everyone who reads a book can go online to talk about it. People can comment on blogs (and should). Keep in mind that most everyone out there is struggling to become an expert. They want the feedback. Most people trying to do what we’re doing aren’t into it enough that they could come to Affiliate Summit. There are a lot of people looking up to us. And when they like what you’re doing, they rally behind you like an army and you can get them to do things for you. When you start spreading an idea like this, it goes much much faster.
Why are so many successful entrepreneurs authors? Books have a unique place. We’ve had books forever – 500 years. It’s the original medium. People have a reverence for books. It doesn’t matter that we’re moving to eReaders, the influence is still there. If you buy a book on Amazon, it’s like Christmas once it arrives. They’ve tied in people ordering a book on Amazon to getting a free consult. If they call within a few days of the book being delivered, the conversion rate on the sales call went up 300-1000 percent.
He wrote a book called the Twitter Revolution. They went out and asked people what they thought about Twitter and put all those people in a book. That gave him an immediate promotional army. He name drops Chris Brogan, Scott Stratten and Gary Vaynerchuk. Hi gentlemen.
Matt Bacak has found that book leads are worth 3-10 times as much as other leads. He’s #1 on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles so he may know what he’s talking about.
Easy Ways To Create Info Products
- Answer the basic questions
- Model successful books
- Interview other experts
- Get Co Authors to Write
- Record a tele-seminar series
- Public domain works
How to Add Expert Revenue
- Choose your Web Persona
- Announce It To The World
- Make Sure You Know Where You Stand
- Develop a Social Media Presence
- Convert the leads you attract
And we’re out.
