Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my online business and the strategies that I’ve employed to get to where I am. Josh Bartlett and I have sat around for hours discussing the ways that most people get started in online business. We’ve come to the conclusion that almost everyone out there is doing it all wrong.

It seems to us that most people have this strategy that consists of basically building a list as large as possible. Their number one focus in life is to build it bigger and bigger. While having a huge list is definitely not a bad thing, most people are putting their focus on the wrong thing. I’m sure you’ve heard by now that “the money is in the list”. You’ve probably also heard the counter-response that “the money is not in the list… it’s in the relationship that you have with the list”. Obviously, the second one is probably closer to the truth. Today I’m going to put a new spin on the idea…

Focus on Building Fans Instead of Gaining Subscribers.

When I talk about a fan, I’m referring to the people that purchase every product that you create just because you made it. These people have so much faith in you that they are willing to blindly purchase what you are selling simply because you made it and they trust that what you made will live up to the quality that they’ve come to expect from you. These fans will purchase products through your affiliate links because they trust you and that you would only recommend the best for them. One fan is worth infinitely more to you that even 100 subscribers on your list.

Think of Apple Computers… They have thousands (if not millions) of fans. There are people out there that will purchase every single product that Apple puts out just because it’s Apple and they’ve come to expect a certain level of quality and usability from them. We call these people Apple Fanboys / Fangirls (and day by day I’m becoming one too). When they put out an iPhone 4, hundreds of thousands of people who already have perfectly fine, working, iPhone 3s drop their old phone to go grab Apple’s latest new toy. It happens with each new product they put out… They have fans.

Another example would be the gaming company, Blizzard. They do games like WarCraft, StarCraft and Diablo. I’m a fan of their company. In my opinion, they’ve never released a bad game. As a result, I own every game they’ve ever released. I buy the games before even reading reviews because I’ve come to expect a certain level from them and they seem to never disappoint. I am a fan…

Let’s put some math behind the idea… Written on the white board on the wall in my office I have “1,000 FANS” written in huge writing. That goal has been on board for months and months now. It is my opinion that if I can build my business to the point where I have 1,000 fans, I will be set…

One fan can be worth any amount to you. I would say at the very minimum, 1 fan is worth $100 per year. Remember, a fan buys everything you release and also purchases most of what you recommend. You only need to sell 2 products in a year, valued at $50 each for one fan to be worth $100 per year. However, at this rate, 1,000 fans is equal to $100,000 per year to your business.

Realistically, though, one fan is probably worth more like $324 per year (or about $27 per month) to your business. So at 1,000 fans, you are probably closer to a business worth around $324,000 per year. At this rate, you only need about 309 true fans to have a $100,000 per year business….

It’s fun to play with these numbers. Obviously, people who only sell and promote really high-ticket items will have a higher value per fan. However, in the high-ticket market, one fan is probably a little harder to come by.

Are you starting to see how simple the concept of building a huge income becomes when your focus becomes building fans as opposed to building a list of subscribers?

How to create fans

There are a few simple rules that myself and Josh tend to follow. Do these things and you will be on your way to building a list of adoring fans.

1. Give tons and tons of high value content for free. Use your blog, create eBooks, make video tutorials, and record interviews. Then just give them away for free. People love to get for free what most other people probably charge to give. As long as the content is quality, people will stick around to see what you’re going to say or offer next. I do my best to share everything I know and learn and I usually give it away for free. The funny thing is, that has never hurt the sales of the products I sell. So don’t be afraid to share what you know for free. People will still pay to get even more details or to dig down a little deeper in to the concepts.

2. “Learn to love getting the short end of the stick” This is one of my favorite quotes and it comes from, fellow internet marketer, Eben Pagan. It basically means that when you do sell products, sell them for a lot less than you think they are worth. Have a philosophy of always over-delivering and make sure that when people purchase a product from you, they are always getting much more than they paid for.

3. Be customer service oriented. I still personally respond to most of my e-mails myself. I do my best to answer questions about my products or my ideas to the people who take the time to e-mail me and ask them. I’m not always the fastest at responding (I get a lot of e-mails) but I pretty much always get back to people. I hired people to manage my support desk as well. I want to make sure that even if I can’t respond quickly, you will get a quick response. No question goes unanswered and theres usually someone to answer quickly no matter what time you send it. These little details really solidify the confidence that people have in you and your business.

4. Never promote anything that you don’t know much about. Don’t jump on launches just because everyone else is promoting them and don’t agree to adswaps without knowing the product of the person you’re swapping with. Make sure that you do what you can to protect the list that you do have. Don’t violate the trust that you are working hard to build by sending crap that you don’t know much about. I’m not against promoting products, promoting launches or even doing adswaps. I just think that you should never mail anything to your list unless you are confident that it will benefit them. Don’t put your credibility with your list on the line by blindly mailing them everything that pops up to promote.

5. Always live up to the standards that you’ve created. If you are going to follow in these footsteps and build a business around creating fans and trust, make sure that any products that you put out continue to be high quality. Don’t let your true fans down. It may take only one misguided slip up to ruin that relationship. Don’t blow it.

Follow these steps and you will be well on your way to creating a huge list of fans. I know people with lists of 60,000 to 100,000 subscribers that get a worse response out of their lists than people with lists of a few hundred true fans. True, sustainable wealth comes from buildings fans and creating trust, not from making a list…

If you enjoyed this post, can you do me two huge favors? Click the “Like” button to let me know that you enjoyed it and leave a comment so we can further discuss it. What are you a fan of? Do you agree / disagree with this philosophy? Get your input heard.

I’ve never really told the full story of how I went from no job and very little online income to where I am today.

As of this month, my blog has now been online for one year. In fact, my first post ever was on July 1st, 2009. It wasn’t until August of 2009, however, that I really started to make some good money online. I had several blogs running all over the internet that were making me a few hundred dollars per month total but the real income didn’t start coming until August of last year.

There was actually one simple thing that I started doing that turned everything around for me. In fact, the recent changes that I’ve made to my business and my online philosophies have been because I have been looking back on how I got to where I am today. My new standards and ideals are less of a reinvention and more of me just getting back to my roots.

The thing that I really started to do in July of last year that really paid off is that I started helping people… And I don’t mean that I charged for every piece of advice that I gave. I mean that I actively went in to forums and hunted down people that were looking for help. When I found them, I wrote up long explanations and, sometimes, even recorded videos of how they can solve their problem.

My timeline looked something like this:

2006-2009 – I made lots of blogs and built them to where they were making a combined total of a couple hundred dollars per month. This was not enough to pay the bills and when I lost my job in May of ’09, this was not going to cut it.

May 2009 – I discovered The Warrior Forum. I began to jump from one “make money online” method to another. I also began actively searching out people that had questions related to WordPress and blogging. I wrote long replies and tried to do whatever I could to help them solve their problems. I figured that if there was anything that I felt like I was an authority in, it was WordPress and blogging.

July 2009 – This is where things started to get exciting! I joined Alex Jeffrey’s coaching program using a credit card because I did not have the money in the bank to pay up front. One of the first things that Alex taught right in the beginning is that everyone needs to build a blog. The coaching program was great but there wasn’t a lot of explanation on exactly how to set up a blog…

This worked out perfect for me! I joined the right program at the right time. I jumped right in to the forum on day one and started offering to help anyone who needed it. I was able to help a very large majority of his students get their blogs up and cranking. I was the most active person in that forum.

I continued to record more and more videos for people so that I wouldn’t have to explain things twice. Eventually, I registered TheWordPressClassroom.com. I now had a place to send them to watch my training videos and collect opt-ins at the same time.

July was also the month that I set up MatthewWolfe.com. I wanted another venue to teach people but I wanted it to be a place where I can expand my teachings beyond just WordPress. MatthewWolfe.com allowed me to share my goals, my progress, my personal stories, and the general internet marketing tips that I’ve been learning along the way.

Since I was constantly going out of my way to help others, they reciprocated by visiting my blog, reading my ramblings, and leaving comments and feedback. This made my blog appear to be a very popular place right from the start. My search engine rankings climbed and when random visitors popped in off the search engines, they saw all of the of action going on. They decided this was a happening blog and they kept coming back. This created a momentum that has caused my blog to just keep on growing…

August 2009 – I opened the doors to the WordPress Classroom. I had no concept of what a launch was at this point… I literally just put the buy-now button up and started announcing it in the forums, on my blog, and to the very small mailing list that I had at the time (something like 300 subscribers).

I opened the doors late at night on August 1st, 2009. When I woke up in the morning on August 2nd, I looked in my Paypal account and started jumping up and down and dancing like crazy. I had 20 people join The WordPress Classroom over night. That was the first time that I ever made more than $100 in a single day online. This wasn’t a million dollar launch and I still haven’t paid off my mortgage but this was the day that I realized that I was going to have a legitimate online business. I knew from that point, that this would turn in to something much bigger.

From that point on it’s been somewhat of a blur. I kept working on more and more ways to get people to visit the site. I was introduced to the concepts of things like adswaps and JV giveaways. I also learned that I could sell The WordPress Classroom on the Warrior Forum, where I had originally gotten my start, and get it in front of a very targeted audience. That was a huge revelation for me and it eventually led to my first $1,000 day.

In April of this year, I launched The Autopilot Cash Formula which basically taught people the business model behind The WordPress Classroom. This time I followed the full launch process and had another huge success. It was a great product and it received a great reception but I always felt like The WordPress Classroom was my baby… If it wasn’t for me trying to teach people WordPress, I wouldn’t be anywhere today…

This leads me to where I am now. I have completely decided to go back to my roots. Hopefully, this has become evident by the fact that I’ve refocused my e-mail campaigns to almost nothing but cool free content. I’ve also shifted the majority of my focus on what got me to where I am today… The WordPress Classroom.

The WordPress Classroom has come a long way! It has just passed 750 members. To make things even better, I don’t think I’ve ever had one person tell me that they were unhappy with it.

Just this last week, I opened the WordPress Classroom 2.0 which features new videos, new themes, a new layout, and, best of all, a brand new forum where myself and the members can do the one main thing that got me to where I am today… Help people.

If you are interested in The WordPress Classroom, you can learn more by clicking this link. Check out the new design and the free videos that I’ve provided. If you feel like upgrading, there’s a special bonus offer in there too.

I am so grateful to be where I am today and if you intend to make a good living online, the best advice that I can give is to help as many people as possible. I give you my 100% guarantee that it will pay off!

“You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar

If you like this post, do me a huge favor and click the “like” button. Please leave your comments. I love reading your feedback!

So I’ve finally opened up the WordPress Classroom 2.0. It’s been months and months in the making but I’m finally live with it. I’ve got new videos, new themes, search capabilities, and, best of all, a brand new forum so that everyone can interact, help each other out, and request new videos from me!

Here’s a look inside… Let me know what you think!

Leave comments below! I’d love to hear your thoughts!

As many of you may already know, I work very closely with a good friend of mine named Josh Bartlett. Josh and I probably have about three to four brainstorming / mastermind type calls each week. A few days ago we were talking and it hit us, “why don’t we start recording some of these calls and share them with others?” Well that’s exactly what we’ve decided to start doing.

Yesterday, Josh and I had a pretty in depth discussion about something that everyone needs to implement in their business. You may not need this immediately… But at some point, you will find that you can no longer grow unless you follow the advice in this call.

Anyway, I’ve posted the call below. There’s nothing for sale, I’m not looking for opt-ins and you can feel free to download it and share it with whoever you want. It’s just pure content and nothing more. The call lasts a little less than 40 minutes and we drop some really good tips at the end. By good tips, I mean NOBODY else is doing this yet.

So check out the call and please leave your comments. Your feedback has been amazing and I love to hear what you think about this stuff.

After leaving a comment, head on over to Josh Bartlett’s blog at JoshBartlettBlog.com. Josh is one of the good guys. The topics discussed in my last post where the result of a previous call with Josh. We’ve definitely got similar philosophies about how to treat people and how to ethically market to people.

Yesterday I sent out an e-mail to my mailing list basically pledging that I would never send them junk. I promised that if they received a suggestions from me via e-mail it would be because I had thoroughly reviewed the product and that I think it is something that people would really gain something out of. I’ve seen a lot of junk out there and even I have been guilty of mailing about products that I may not have really reviewed before I mailed. I’m turning over a new leaf…

I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about what I feel is wrong in internet marketing. My opinions here may not be shared with a lot of other internet marketers but I’m going to talk about them anyway. Maybe other people hoping to get in to this internet marketing game will read this and decide to avoid some of these things…

Mailing without actually knowing what the product is about.
This is something that really frustrates me and I know it has to frustrate a lot of other people. People do adswaps in which two people both mail out to their lists for the other person. Adswaps can be great and I think it is probably one of the best ways to grow your list when you are first getting started. I would never tell people not to do them and I even still do them from time to time. My issue comes with the fact that most people don’t even look at the product of the person that they are swapping with.

People go in to forums or chat rooms, find people to swap with, and then agree to swap based on list size. I would say that a vast majority of the people who swap don’t thoroughly look in to the product of the person that they are swapping with. This kind of behavior only ruins your relationship with your list. People end up taking the swipe copy that’s given to them, pasting it in to their autoresponder and blindly mailing out to their list.

There is a lot of junk out there. If you blindly arrange swaps, you’re going to end up sending your list a lot of crap and that’s going to reflect badly on you.

On the rare occasion that I arrange an adswap, I thoroughly investigate my swap partners product. I opt-in to their list myself to see what the page looks like after they opt-in. I look at the product that they are offering to make sure that it’s not rehashed junk. If your site looks spammy, refers my subscribers to an affiliate link, or makes it insanely difficult to find the freebie, don’t bother lining up a swap with me. I will deny you.

This same type of behavior is often seen with affiliate promotions and product launches. List owners need to make a couple extra bucks so they will line up a product promotion without ever checking out the product for themselves. For all they know, they can be sending their subscribers to a total scam or some rehashed PLR product. This will result in lost credibility and probably a lot of refunds.

If you are new to affiliate marketing, buy the product and check it out before promoting it. Once you are a little more established, you can start requiring that you receive a review copy of the product before promoting it to your list.

My only exception to this rule is for new product launches from people that I really trust. The Frank Kerns and Mike Koenigs of the world have proven themselves to put out quality products. These types of promotions, however, are the exception and not the rule.

Sweet Ferrari
This has almost become comical to me. You get people posting pictures of themselves in front of “their ferrari” or sweet new ride. The internet lifestyle has been good to them and now they need to show the world how good their life is by standing in front of their new car.

Does this even work anymore?

I don’t mind the people that go out and buy the awesome car because it was their dream and now they can finally do it but do they really have to pose in front of it on their sales pages? I see someone posing in front of a Ferrari on a sales page and I think “What an asshole”. Half the time, I know for a fact, it’s not even their car!

When you start studying copywriting and the psychology of selling, you learn that you want your customer to relate to you. You want your customer to see that you are just like them. How does posing in front of your rented Ferrari make me relate to you? I know that you’re selling the lifestyle but, in my opinion, the time freedom is a much better selling point than the car that’s most commonly bought by middle aged, recently divorced, men who have some sort of anatomical deficiency.

The car is an ego thing and nothing more. It’s someone saying “look at me, I’m better than everyone else”.

One day I may have a flashy car too so I can’t talk too much crap about them. However, you’ll never see me posing in front of it at night with my shades on for the sake of selling a product.

Selling “how to make money online” products without ever having made money online.
People think that the easiest way to make money online is to create a product about how to make money online. Do people really think that others can’t see through this? I can spot a product from someone who has no idea what they are talking about from a mile away by now. There is so many things wrong with this career path.

First of all, if you do this you are a scammer and a con-artist. This is like someone who has never made a single investment in their life selling investment advice to others. You will quickly be found out about and exposed as a liar and a scammer.

Second of all, these people are completely wrong about how easy the “make money online” niche is. In fact, it’s the most over-saturated niche on the internet. Everyone is out there teaching their systems and customers have thousands of options of what the best formula for them is.

If you’ve made a good income online and you have a system that honestly works then, by all means, teach it… And charge a lot for it. Otherwise, start out in a niche that you may know something about.

I created income-generating blogs for three years before I ever decided to create my first product. When I did create my first product it was about how to setup blogs. After a year of documenting everything I had done to make money online I finally released my product about how I did it.

With that being said, I don’t even know if I would make another product about how I make money. It’s a tough niche and a lot of people just don’t take action. You end up with a lot of people claiming your methods don’t work when, in reality, they never took the action to make it work.

It’s a tough niche to be in and there are a lot of people who have absolutely no business being in it.

I guess that’s enough of a rant for today. I’m sure there’s many more things that I can come up with that really frustrate me about what’s going on in the industry. Please give me your feedback in the comments below. I really appreciate all of the comments.

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