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- Oct 23 2006
- 259 Comments
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Hey Guys,
Tonight's teleconference with Michael Masterson has already filled up. All 1,000 lines were reserved in JUST 90 minutes!
If you were one of the lucky few to get in, then I congratulate you and look forward to you joining us tonight.
And if you missed it, DON'T worry, we have some more calls lined up. Please don't call the office and ask if you can sneak on, it's not physically possible.
But to those of you that did get in... You're NOT off the hook just yet. Registrations were coming in SO quickly we couldn't turn the page off in time...
To be exact, we handed out 1061 registrations.
Please be sure to call in early so you ensure you don't get booted. If you were lucky enough to get registered in time, then you definitely DON'T want to miss this call.
Win A Trip To South Florida to Meet Rich and Agora
If you haven't read the Final Chapter, here's a damn good reason why you should.
And if you have read it..
You have a better understanding of what you need to do in order to grow your business to the next level.
What if I told you that I would PERSONALLY pick you up at the airport, in my Porsche, and let you rack my brain for an ENTIRE afternoon?
Imagine starting out at my office and my team and I brainstorming ideas on your business. Then taking off for a power lunch. Imagine heading over to Agora (the Early To Rise office) and their team spending the rest of the afternoon working hard to solve your biggest challenges.
Well, that's EXACTLY what we're going to do.
If this is not a once in a lifetime opportunity, then I don't know what is...So for one VERY LUCKY person, we're going to foot the bill for this very exclusive trip.
How do you win? Follow these instructions.
1.) Click "Comment" Below
2.) Summarize why it's critical that your business has a consistent series of back end offers and why it's important that you build alliances within your marketplace.
The person who has the best summary will be chosen and notified that they've won.
Please don't ask for more direction, we simply CANNOT answer all of your questions right now, as we've been swamped with inquires regarding the Final Chapter.
The winning entry will be based on merit, and not based on need. So keep your summary ON topic, and show us just how smart you really are.
Rich
P.S. Good luck with your summary, and don't plan on packing tons of luggage... my Porsche can barely store two gallons of milk.
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259 Comments to “Win A Trip To Meet Rich And Agora”
Bottom line, it’s the difference between a viral and long-term sustainable business that will become a behemoth in its marketplace (with systems in place, and correctly co-opetating with so-called competitors to share lists and revenues) versus a Mom & Dad pop shop Do-It-Yourselfer (where it’s a dog eat dog attitude, and the business works you with the owner in it vs you working on the business).
Hey rich,
Here’s the deal:
1. It’s important to have a consistent series of backend offers for your market because That’s where all the REAL money is made… and… you need these backends in place and automated and consistend because the most competition, the most testing and the most time and focus should be spent on your customer aquisition pieces.
The front end of your business requires the most thought, focus and time and attention because it is here there is the most competition.
and…
2. You need to build strategic alliances because without renting and sharing and JV’ing with the other businesses in your marketplace/related niche… you won’t grow to the maximum size or profitability that you could.
Because for one reason or another you’re not going to be able to get as many names and customers into your business model as 5 different businesses in your marketplace… and you’ll eventually saturate the buyers in your market if you are the ONLY one continually marketing to them.
(it’s like what happened to Clayton Makepeace and his Weiss client in the financial newsletter markets, they were mailing 20 million pieces a year or something while others were lucky to mail 12 million pieces a year… and eventually they had saturated their marketplace and response and revenues dropped. all because there were no new names being added into that market by other companies mailing successfully.)
There ya go! Short, concise, and correct
Well, the backend must be consistent because obviously we need to have a “control backend” in order to be able to continually test what is the optimum (more profitable, and the most statistically probable for our customer to follow) path of our backends.
Alliance partners will help us in exponentially grow NOT our backend but mainly our front-end, bring our customers “home” in order them start to follow our customer most likely path (backend)
Back end offers are where the real profit is realized. Once you have paid the price to get your customer, back end offers are where you profit from your initial cost to get them. I was very impressed by your concept to have many niche websites “focused” on a single niche. It was a “light bulb” moment for me. Cross promoting your “back end” offers with this strategy is very powerful.
Building alliances within your marketplace has several advantages. You stay at the top of you market knowing the trends. You create a synergy that makes you more powerful. You learn and at the same time teach. As a prior martial arts instructor I am aware that a good teacher learns as he teaches. Alliances also get you in before the herd knows what is happening allowing you to profit as trends and opportunities arise.
I have not read your three pdf’s. I just got them yesterday. I have seen a video you did months ago. My problem was one link led to another that led to another that led to another and all the sudden I am watching this powerful video presentation. I thought I bookmarked it. And I lost connection to you. I was going through my bulk or spam folder and once again connected to you. I am so happy I did. I will read your pdf’s starting tomorrow.
Thanks and if I am not picked I want to congratulate the winner in advance.
Lee Barclay
A consistent series of backend offers is the only part of your business that needs less time, energy, and rescources devoted to it, once you have established it as successful at upselling and turning intial customers into life long customers. Having that set up is what really creates the huge profit margins on the initial customer aqcuisition, but more importantly having that consistent back end set up leaves you room to focus on different areas far more competetive, so you can demolish your competition.
It allows you to focus more rescources on competitive anaylsis, front end marketing, and that huge list of other things you need to do to build a mutli million dollar business.
The example of the european info companies compared to the american companies such as agora clearly shows how important it is to leverage the power of other people’s lists of customers. It allows everyone to share and grow explosively rather then slowly through the focus of ONLY your own efforts. I think the explosive growth is the most important part because when having those alliances you can 10x the size of your business with access to all those new customers you never would have had access to. And the quicker that happens, the more money you have to create an even bigger business and the more resources you have to actualize that. Without the JV partners, and industry networking you are setting yourself up for the mediocre slow path, rather then the explosive I’m going to do what I have to do to build a multi-million or hundred million dollar business ASAP path.
Thanks for letting me share.
My point of view after learning Rich Schefren’s material is very simple. But in all business systems there is always an inherent simplicity. If you can just find that inherent simplicity, you can manage, control and improve the whole system.
In order to build a business on Internet you need to control some crucial elements.
1) Create targeted traffic.
2) Convert that visitors into customers.
3) Optimize the system and processes and increase profits using:
A)Automated system of back-end produts.
B)Building strategic alliances to create exponential growth.
C)Tweaking and optimizing the whole system using testing procedures.
As I said this can be seen as very simple system, but apply this system with consistency, properly positioning yourself in the appropiate market niches and RESULTS and PROFITS will flow smoothly.
Just my view.
Francisco Moriones
Back end = Where the real money is.
Succinct enough?
Perhaps not. Let’s elaborate a bit more:
For Podcasting Adventures Online, it’s critical that I entice people with the offer of an easy way to learn podcasting and how important it can be to their small business. Whet their appetite with a low-end but high-value product.
To follow up on the back end, the two best approaches I can conjure are:
1) Show them how ber their own podcaster via a full-blown online podcasting curriculum
2) Become their professional audio production source
Either of those pathways leads to the opening of many doors, including upsells to higher end podcast production, marketing assistance, website development, SEO, etc., of which I currently have most of the key players in my Rolodex and willing to play in this terrific little (big?) game.
Naturally, this leads to even more growth, such as informercials, copy-writing, product creation, consultation and the cycle starts all over again.
Sort of like a self-replicating Alien. But without the drool.
Do I get to drive the Porsche?
The reason it is important that our business has a series of consistant backend products.
We will be the leader in selling audio and video content created by our customers. It is important for us to keep our customers up todate on all knowledge to improve there learning skills in this industry. If we educate our buyers to the best of our abillity, they will in return educate there customers to become long term customers.
If we fail to have such knowledge for our customers, they more than likely will no longer be our customers.
This is our main goal to educate on a never ending scale. The more they want to learn the more we will provide.
This will pay off in building future alliances in our business. That our customers know that we will be always looking out for there best interest in bringing them the most up to date tecnology in our field.
Along with a structure to put it into place quickly and timely manner to create more long term wealth for them.
We will show them how to lead in there chosen industry.
Because “We have what it takes, to make people listen to YOU”
Thanks, Law
A consistent series of back end offers keeps a client’s interest so that you maintain them. The initial cost to obtain that client would have to be calculated at the beginning whether they purchase from you or not. The more good back ends the higher the rate of return from each client. The faster that you can spread the word about the offers through alliances the lower the competition and the revenue is exponentially greater.
Maureen Otto
http://adoorshallopen.com
http://abusinessassociation.com
The backend marketing is critical to converting new customers to loyal customers as well as for retention of existing customers.
In my “J.O.B” we learn that a new prospect is not a customer until they have purchased from you 4 times. The percentage of retention goes up to over 80% after the fourth purchase. Competitors come in the door; business as usual - purchasing from current “known” suppliers are much easier until the customer builds trust and develops a new buying pattern. When they begin reaching out for answers or solutions from you the fourth time - a habit has been developed and a new relationship is nurtured. The backend purchases must be in a timely manner as well - in order to cement the new buying habit. The closer together those purchases are the more loyal the customer becomes.
Not only is the backend process important for client retention and new client implementation but it is critical for the business owner for proper marketing analysis.
If you don’t have a clear understanding of how many sales it takes to retain a prospect as a customer - you have no way of knowing if a particular campaign is working or not. If the process is not systematic and consistent the data will be irrelevant.
You must have a clear understanding of what you expect from client behavior in order to measure your success and make adjustments to your programs and campaigns. How else will you know how much it costs you to win and retain a client?
If you don’t have a clear measuring tool for your backend process you could be spending more money than you are taking in to get new customers. It costs more to get new customers than it costs to retain an existing customer.
Build a loyal, responsive (hyper responsive) following by building a customer base that totally trusts and anticipates your new products. Do this by developing products that go above and beyond what you promise and always exceed expectations.
Strive for continual improvement and for the advancement of all of your customers - ahead of your own advancement and a funny thing will happen…you will achieve levels of success unexpected in common circles!
You need to know where to direct your marketing and who your customers really are. All business has the same 80/20 rule - 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers. You MUST know who your customers really are in order to invest your time and marketing dollars wisely.
Another critical factor customer retention in backend marketing is offering a variety of programs, services or systems that make it more difficult for your customers to leave you. The more “invested” they are in time and money in your process the more difficult it is for them to go somewhere else and potentially have to “start over”.
Lastly, a customer is only a customer if they are actually buying from you. So, unless you have something of value to continually offer your customers - you are giving away your clientele!
One of the best ways to accomplish the above is by developing strategic alliances with other highly successful leaders in your marketplace.
You can partner with someone who has a similar client base but a completely different product offering. Both you and your strategic partner win and so do your customers.
I’m writing a book so - the only other thing I want to say is…
I’d look great in a Porche!
Fran
So that all may have life and have it more abundantly.
Sounds simple, but that’s truly why in a nutshell.
Hi Rich,
The purpose of having a consistent series of back end offers is to keep and maintain the relationship you have with your customers by providing consistent and relevant offers for them to keep them happy and coming to you as the expert, the go-to guy.
The purpose of building alliances within your marketplace is to cultivate a relationship with the partners to leverage their customer relationship to build your own relationship with their customers, not to take away from your partner but to build upon it.
Thank you Rich,
Scott Lucas
Its critical that your business has a consistent series of back end offers because simply put…..The Money Is In The Backend.
Backend offers determine whether you make mediocre or extraordinary profits. This is regardless of the types of
business, and is also regardless of whether you’re marketing your products and/or services online or offline.
Its important to build alliances within your marketplace because it is crucial to your long-term success. Long term success
takes long term efforts. These alliances can introduce you to new prospects and/or sales on a consistent and qualified basis.
They will also allow you to meet indiividuals with whom you can partner when rolling out new products within your business.
Forming alliances takes mutual commitment and time, but your efforts will be well rewarded in the long run financially
and otherwise.
Rich,
my business model is creating membership sites that offer subscribers consisten high value.
To do this, I have to partner with other suppliers and experts in the fields. Not only does this use your outsourcing methods, but is a way to continually provide new, valuable content and products
for members.
This model has the added benefit of creating new traffic for all the partners involved which relates to more profits for them as well.
So instead of viewing ourselves as competition, suppliers in the sunject can unite to help each others business and provide continued and valuable (to the customers) backend products to the customers.
Thanks for all your great info.
Glenn Heaton
There are several things: strategy and tactics alike.
1. Backends are essential because people “want” additional quality and quantity.
When they get enough quantity, they want more quality, when they have enough quality, they want more quantity.
2. People want a developmental path.
As life goes on, people mature and develop. Providing them with a means to their ends is essential part of spiritual growth.
3. A back-end is almost always customer focused.
A good backend allows you to begin to differentiate the customer and what they want, what they buy, how they buy it…which is why the “amazon” engine works, it’s customizing, and learning all the time based on the actions of the customer.
4. A Back-end has heart.
If it doesn’t, then you don’t know what it is you’re really doing. Backends get to the heart of why people are there, why they are looking for their hope, dreams and solutions to mitigate their fears.
5. Back-ends are smart systems.
Smart =
Self-organizing
Adapting
Learning
Inferring
Sensing
Anticipating
Asynchronous
Relational
In the end, the backend is adhocable based on customer needs…and the ability to create a need before they know they have it.
But most of all, backends separate the leaders from the also-rans. Backends are tough to make work as well as they can, they require dedication, systemization and follow-through.
In the end, is the beginning.
If I don’t present my customers with a series of back end offers, I’ll never receive the full revenue potential from my customers. I won’t even know which of my customers are still my customers. As such, it is critical to present scheduled offers to each of my customers.
Given that customer acquisition costs represent one of my largest business expenses, it makes sense to shortcut this process wherever possible. The most successful way to do this is to form alliances within my marketplace where I allow other businesses access to my customer base in exchange for access to theirs. In this way, we can both quickly build our businesses by helping our customers get more of what they already want.
Hi Rich,
Well, it’s critical that your business has a consistent series of back end offers because…
…not only is this where most of your profits can be made, but if you don’t continually satisfy the thirst of your market with the new products they yearn for, they will eventually become inactive and no longer be *customers*. You have an obligation to do your best to deliver the help (in the form of products) that your audience came to you for in the first place. If you stop filling that need with back end offers, they will eventually have to find “someone else” who will.
And, it’s important to build alliances within your marketplace because… its all about leverage. If you’re not focused on building alliances in your marketplace, you still don’t see the big picture. In order to maximize your efforts and potential, you simply must leverage the efforts and successes of other big players, join forces with them, and cooperate to magnify all your successes far beyond what you could have ever achieved individually.
I absolutely loved this trilogy – thanks, and very best regards Rich
Looking forward to a powerful ‘brain dump’ in my future, fingers crossed…
Kathy
Chris Crompton gets the ride in the porche IMHO
I am a distributor for LifeWave nanotech patches. It’s an MLM and as such, there are some restrictions on what I may say on my website. My site is in the process of being reworked and shall provide a lot more information on these products, nanotech, health & wellness. This is a healing product that balances the body’s meridians. I want this invention to be available EVERYWHERE in the world to anyone who wants it. In order to do that, I need to sell it online thru my site and thru direct sales letters. However, I am in kindergarten when it comes to understanding how to do this and I need mentoring. From the first day I put on these patches 2 years ago, I knew they were abundance and would be huge. I just didn’t know how to get there.I want to learn about affiliates, back ends, everything. Ay an age when my contemporaries are thinking of retiring, I’m just getting going!
Heidi Walter
LifeWave Patch Distributor
http://www.patch4wellness.com
Without a strong series of backend offers, we have no way of knowing our customer. Without a consistant series of backend offers we don’t know who is still a customer, what our customers really want and what we need to do to get those people who have previously purchased from us to help us grow.
Alliance partners are mandatory if we are to participate in the changing, expanding quantity, but subdividing and shrinking niche markets.
A consistent series of back-end offers allows you to reap the most profits from your list. The back-end is far more responsive and multiple offers allow you to create better customers and identify premium products and sub-niches to further grow your business.
Strategic alliances allow you to compensate for the reduction in the available customer universe. Alliances allow you to profitably identify, reach and serve smaller markets.
Rich,
A consistent series of back end offers is critical to the success of a business because the profit is in the back end. Establishing a series of offers enables you to maximize your Lifetime Customer Value and generate more capital to invest into distribution of the front end offer.
Building alliances within your marketplace is crucial because it allows you to leverage your assets, exponentially compounding the amount of time, money, distribution power, and other resources devoted to your company’s success.
Thanks Rich!
Rebekah
If I had the answers, I wouldn’t have to write a summary. Rich, I have a product that is deperately needed by most of the population, and I want you to tell ME how we can both make a million dollars with the main product, then follow up with the many hundreds of complimentary products available in this field. This is not your info based product, this is real life help yourself to get well product, which needs your expertise to get the message out there.
WHY YOU NEED BACK-END OFFERS:
1. To maximize your sales & profits and increase your lifetime value of each customer.
2. To maximize the value you provide your customers and to build a lasting relationship with them so you keep them forever.
3. Because you can afford to spend more acquiring customers if you have a back-end. Between two competitors, whoever can afford to spend the most acquiring a new customer will win in the end.
WHY YOU NEED TO BUILD ALLIANCES:
1. You can get access to millions of potential new customers you could never reach on your own.
2. You will get a much higher conversion rate (3 - 5 times)with an endorsement from an alliance partner than you would ever get sending the same offer to the same people on your own.
3. By working with others in your industry with a spirit of cooperation instead of competition, you will create synergy so that 1 + 1 = 3.
Joe
There are a number of reasons why consistent back-ends are critical to the success of your business.
1) you will have customers falling off the back as quickly as you are adding them to the front causing you to work harder to keep adding new ones,
2) you be losing the “easier” revenue from someone you worked very had to make a customer, but because your backend offerings were inconsistent, you will have a very difficult time developing the trust and rapport needed to turn them into a valued customer and it is very likely they will wind up spending their money elsewhere, with others who are supplying them with what they are looking for on the timetable they desires.
a. Customers/prospects are not like cheese – they don’t get better with aging. Getting that prospects attention and/or making that first sale is like a woman who is “only” going window shopping. She isn’t really going to “buy” anything…she is only going to look. But…once she buys that dress, then she needs a pair of shoes to go along with the dress and a purse to go with the shoes and some jewelry to go with the whole outfit. Without a consistent backend, it’s really hit or miss and you risk losing out on the sale of the shoes or purse or jewelry or all of the above to someone else.
3) Without consistent back ends, you have no idea what the true lifetime value of a customer really is or how much money you can actually make from a customer before they stop buying from you. Therefore, you have no idea how much money you can spend on your front end acquisitions and you can’t make accurate growth projections for your business. In my previous direct mail business, we actually lost money on the front end mailings of some lists because not only could we make it up with the back ends, but also because there we many advantages to having a lot of buyers for list rental and for use in bargaining when dealing with other mailers whose lists we rented. This gave us an advantage when we wanted priority mailing positions and protection against competitive offers, which on the good lists made up for the slight loss on the marginal lists.
4) Once someone has purchased from you more than once – the chances of them continuing to buy your offers is greatly increased. That means that you can set up your back ends on autopilot and then spend the majority of your time creating, testing and implementing front end offers. This is where the money is… the more front end buyers – the more backend buyers. The bigger your list of buyers – the more attractive you become to potential strategic partners when it comes to doing JV deals. I found from my previous business, that the backends remained “fresher” longer than did the front end mailings and therefore required less attention, although testing was still required. I also found that once I had a new front end – I could take my old front end and rework it and test it against my current backends and often replace a backend or add a new one.
Strategic alliances in your marketplace are important for several reasons:
1) The right alliances give you a source of more back end products for you to sell to your customers and thus increase your revenues without having to create new products.
2) Typically, the best buyer for your product is the buyer of a similar product. Therefore your product should sell better to your strategic alliance partners than to the general market place. They are easier to find and identify because they have already raised their hand. Years ago, the magazine industry wouldn’t rent their customer lists to each other because they feared they would lose their customers. What they discovered was (much like in the newsletter example) that the best lists they could rent were those of other, like magazines and the businesses grew as a result.
3) You can learn a tremendous amount from the sharing of information and knowledge and people that are allies are typically more “free” with what they share with each other.
4) You can grow bigger, quicker when you ally yourself with strategic partners are bigger than you – they have more customers to recommend your product to!
Hi Rich,
Back end offers and affiliates? Use every method imanginable to generate revenue and build that invaluable client list !!!
John
It is critical that your business has a consistent series of back end offers because:
If your business has a consistent series of back end offers, you will be able to find out:
1. How many “customers” you have
- By knowing how many real “customers” you have, you can accurately predict your future profit and set asides budgets and expenses accordingly.
2. The days in between 2 purchases or conversion steps (latency)
- By knowing the latency, you will be able to make offers according to that time frame. i.e. It would be silly for you to send an extra offer before the latency period. And if a customer has not make a second purchase after the latency period, you will want to take additional action to put them “back on track”
3.How long you have a customer for (customer life cycle)
- By knowing a customer life cycle, you will be able to determine the life value of a customer (how much the customer is worth); you can also formulate your selling around the life cycle of your customers, by making your customers make subsequent commitments to you (buying), you can move them up the chain from initial conversion to hyper-responsive customer.
4.How much a customer is worth (customer life value)
- By knowing how much a customer is worth, you will know how much you can afford to obtain a customer (cost per acquisition).
5.Who are the “hotter” buyers
- By identifying who are the “hotter” buyers, you can contact or sell to the hotter prospect first.
6.When the buyers are “in heat”
- By providing products to buyers who are “in heat”, not only will you sell more, you will also prevent buyers to go to competitors to fulfil their need, thereby increasing customer’s loyalty to you.
It is important that you build alliances within your marketplace because:
An alliance can share the amount of time a valuable resource has available to you that you cannot
Fill, thereby making use of economies of scale.
Good alliances can provide you with access and connections to world class talents.
Due to micro-niching and fragmentation of the marketplace, consumers are now forced to get their information from many different sources because each guru only knows a small specialized fraction of the whole market and most people are on many different lists.
As a result, strategic alliances provide business owners a way to compensate for the reduction in the available customer universe due to the above phenomenon by
1.increasing income through cross promotion of products
2.using alliances’ lists to grow your own list
3.give you an opportunity to engage customers in another purchasing “commitment”, therefore enhancing customer lifetime value and loyalty
First, a consistent series of back end offers (i.e., bigger ticket sales)is the main cash-flow generator in your business. The more automated your marketing, sales, and delivery of these to the client, the more reliable and efficient your business cash flow. This is where your passion, expertise, and hard work have been converted into assets that generate residual income and grow your business by allowing you to do other, more creative and forward-thinking projects with your time. Once you are free to focus on the passion that drives your business missions and purposes, you continue to create new back end products and services that meet your markets’ needs. This is a virtuous cycle that keeps you and your business evolving and developing new sources of revenue. The entrepreneur thrives on learning, creativity, and growth that solves client problems. Your passion is providing complete and comprehensive sets of solutions to your markets’ problems. In this way, you create customers for life and continually seek to anticipate their next need in the cycle of goals, problems, and solutions.
Second, you must build alliances within your marketplace, not to “crush the competition,” but to reach as many potential customers as possible. And to learn what you do not yet know. And because it is just plain more fun! The world wide web is more than a way of doing business. It is a constantly-evolving model of knowledge aquisition, cross-fertilization, and collaboration. The web has no strand that is not interdependent with another strand. It is alive and we co-create with it. There is no “I” in web. For those who wish to be excellent at solving client problems, joining forces with other passionate entrepreneurs is completely natural. Synergy comes from reaching out, not withdrawing inward. Go forth and be excellent.
Why it’s critical that your business has a consistent series of back end offers:
The reasons given in your report are threefold: testing for the best sequence of offers to make the most amount of money, to enable a business to develop predictive modelling systems to maximize revenues from every customer, and, most importantly, the only way a business can keep their customers current is to keep them buying, i.e. to keep the attrition rate low.
Why it’s important that you build alliances within your marketplace:
Organizations cannot always cope with increasingly complex environments from internal resources alone. They may see the need to obtain materials, skills, know-how, finance or access to markets, and recognize that these may be as readily available through co-operation as through their ownership.
Also, if a company takes too much time to introduce new products to the market, it can result in others copying their products and capturing leadership on the market, both domestic and foreign. A company, both large and small, should form longstanding strategic alliances (licenses, joint ventures, consortia, etc.) with companies that operate in each market segment that the company is active in, simultaneously establishing market leadership. This strategy would provide a sufficient size market to justify the large initial investment and lower unit costs. In addition, if entering into foreign markets, the company need not worry about being kept out by trade barriers, since its partners would be “insiders” in the foreign markets. On domestic markets, its partners would have the skills, know-how or other resource that your company needs for its growth and for the expansion of the market.
“Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open” by Thomas Dewar.
I want my customers minds open, functioning, focused on my products, and ready to buy from me as much as possible. So backend offers are critical in this process. Continually exposing and offering high quality products that your customers are looking for thru backend repetitive offers are critical to automating huge revenues. I know every time I send out an offer with new products a certain % will open the email and a certain % will buy.
“Know yourself, and know your competition. If your competition is better than you are, you need to offer some quality they lack” by Donald Trump.
I think building alliances allows you understand and know your competition, help determine what your real strengths are and at the same time you can benefit from others strengths. Then you can ultimately be on top as you will know exactly what qualities in a product need to be offered in your particular market.
Rob-
Here is how it works…say I show up in Florida. Then get that ride in a conspiciously small vehicle, even a Porche.
That is the front end…or this message is…the ride is a part.
Whilst taking that ride, with a captive audience and speaking with a slight German accent for credibility, I make a rude comment about the compactness and the difference in a Mercedes. To create a very fertile ground too; just happening to have items for sale to rememdy that little—literally, problem…and sell them…that not only will be aimed at my initial market but will bring in the big bucks. Do you realize how much funding Rich has?
A consistent backend is essential for a thriving business because it really doesn’t do any good to get customers if you can’t keep them. You put in a lot of front end work to get them, but that is not the end of the job. To keep the business alive and growing, you must then create very satisfied cumtomers. Happy, satisfied customers return. Back-end products are more lucrative
products, so your business cycle is complete and continuous.
Building alliances within the marketplace strengthens the business and will make it exponentially more successful! Hoarding information or knowledge is not the way to success. Working together and collaborating gets more results than working alone!
I would love to have this opportunity! I would love some guidance in building an online business. Thanks for the consideration.
Too many small business owners are struggling. Not to make $1 million dollars, not to make $100,000 - some of them are struggling to make their first dollar, or just to make enough to support their businesses, without having to take away from the family income.
As was mentioned in the “Final Chapter” more than 75% of all businesses are going to fail in the first five years. The main reasons? According to SCORE and the SBA, it’s because:
1. Lack of a business plan and/or failure to follow the plan
2. Lack of sufficient business capital
3. Lack of training/experience on the part of the owner
4. Isolation, not enough connections.
I have a win/win solution - for my business, but also for other entrepreneurs who are struggling.
A critical part of this solution is to be able to consistently provide a series of cutting edge backend products and services - that are snapped up by consumers everytime they come on the market.
From the begining,a part of the proceeds from all sales of will go into a special micro loan/grant fund for entrepreneurs in the program - and is also used to pay other business owners for providing necessary training to those in the program. (The trick is to continually provide real backend products/services that aren’t “fluff” or watered down versions of the pablum that’s floating around the Net.
The products/services have to meet these requirements:
1. Honest and real - information/tools/resources that will actually give the buyer the answers they were looking for.
2. Are purchased at a fair price from entrepreneurs who are a part of the network - whenever possible. (The laborer is worthy of his hire).
3. Sold at a fair price while making enough of a profit that eventually the proceeds fund the rest of the project (an endowment fund).
But that’s only half of the story. Short Version: The rest comes from creating a series of strong alliances between entrepreneurs within the network. They provide each other with needed support (mastemind team, brainstorming, sharing resources), cost-effective marketing (co-op list and marketing campaigns) and business building programs (creating partnerships and joint ventures, and offering their expertise and knowledge as mentors to new members). Because each business is unique, step-by-step training is done in a “cafeteria” style - each entrepreneur chooses from the “menu” the training/tools/resources they need the most.
In order to maximize resources, we’ll show members how they can resarch, track down and apply for the services or programs they need the most. (Creative Business Capital Resources). We’ll also work with them and show them that creating forward thinking, strategic plans for building allaiances and creating long-term partnerships.
While in the training portion of the program, each entrepreneur creates a strategic business plan - that uses their own innate strengths as well as the carefully planned strengths of their buisness.
Business funding is then applied for either through a microenterprise grant(which requires an agreement to provide service for a set number of hours within the “community” - either virtual or the entrepreneur’s own with a nonprofit organization of their choice), or a micro-loan.
Experts in different fields are paid or provide ongoing training as volunteers. Grants committee oversees each project, and makes recommendations or provides additional support as needed.
Loan recipients work with a peer lending group, and are assigned a mentor to help them build their business.
If a grant was received, once the community service hours are completed, the applicant can apply for a loan.
As the loan is paid off, the recipient can apply for a larger amount of money.
Some basic training/resources/tools are always provided for free to anyone who needs help.
Because the “community” is online, geography is not an issue. Neither is age, gender or type of business (with a few exceptions).
The only requirements for acceptance into the program are:
1. A solid business plan (or idea)
2. Creating a solid business strategy based on each entrepreneur’s own core values, strengths and successful business models.
3. Working with their team and mentor.
4. Taking action - and learning from mistakes.
5. The willingness to give back to the community and help others.
Thanks - yet again - for sharing some really amazing ideas, inspiration and motiviation. You’ve created a kind of “quiet revolution” for a lot of us - and I look forward to seeing what happens next, when the volume - and bar - are raised.
Warmly,
Cheryl
Rich,
Thank you for this opportunity. You most definitely give more in “use value” than you ever expect to receive in “cash value.” It’s greatly appreciated.
I’m always reminded of this Will Roger’s quote whenever I read anything you have written or said:
“The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can’t make anybody believe that he has it.” ~Will Rogers
Rich, you are unquestionably the man with the telescope! I hope my summary demonstrates that you have also helped us believe and understand the vision—it’s what makes you so popular!
“Why is a consistent series of back-end offers and building alliances in my marketplace important?”
In a nutshell, the back-end process means I have a profit model! Building alliances in my target market is the difference between thriving and surviving; they mean massive growth instead of a slow, frustrating death.
Expanded version:
A formalized back-end process with a consistent series of offers allows me to identify, and exploit, the emotional need of my “hotter” customers to make purchases, thereby turning them into loyal, “hyper-responsive customers” who refer new customers. This means higher profits and time saved to focus on the front-end.
Building alliances within my marketplace is important in order to leverage the efforts of successful marketers and their list-building activities. This is a synergistic partnership that leads to substantial expansion of both the business and the market.
You asked that we show you how smart we are, so I threw in the expanded version. But like Will Rogers, I like the simple straight-forward approach. So I stand by my nutshell summary and prefer it.
I wish you continued success,
~Tom
1. You have to build long-term mutually benefitial relationships with your customers to really grow your business. To grow your relationship, you should think through hard in advance about all the specific products/services to give to your customers once you get them to satisfy their needs in a semi-automatic fashion so that you can concentrate on fierce competition on front-end to acquire customers.
2. You can own only a partial list of potential customer universe with your only own effort and cross-marketing with your JV partners will strengthen your marketing effort by expanding customer reach and also product offerings. That way, you will also get more branding and market recognition as well.
1. cash flow
2. additional cash flow
If a business owner does not understand the lifetime value of a customer, they won’t ‘get’ the need to build relationships with their customers, and provide them with a series (hopefully ongoing and ever-evolving) of back-end offers - designed to enrich the lives of their customers. Most of us know how much more expensive it is to acquire a new customer, and that the easiest sale is to our existing customers, who have already proven to us that they are hungry for what we have to offer. We’ve already developed a level of trust with them, and can continue to ask them what they want, which helps us to develop more back end products.
The business models may vary a little, but generally call for a ‘funnel’ mechanism to bring clients along a path to higher-priced ‘investments’ over time. The expectation is that fewer and fewer customers will opt into the higher-priced offerings, which explains the ‘funnel’ analogy.
Thus, with a combination the initial purchase, recurring billing (such as subscription sites or newsletters) and additional back-end offers, and joint offers with partners, a business can attempt to maximize the lifetime value of its customers.
As to the alliance question, it’s pretty easy to look at what has happened historically, such as the case cited in the final chapter reprot where US companies exploded their revenues while European companies stagnated.
Alliance partners provide an introduction for you, immediately elevating you to a level of trust, making it easier for you to make your initial sale. And these prospects will likely be on a list that is at least peripherally related to your industry. Your partner believes in you and is willing to stick his neck out on your behalf, because he’s seen how you operate and he trusts you.
Because of your relationship with your partner, you now have a boatload of new hungry and primed prospects who want and need what you have to offer. How much easier is it to convert these prospects to customers, as compared to a ‘cold’ list of prospects, regardless of how good that source may be?
In addition to growing your customer list, you’ll have the opportunity to learn (a LOT) from each other as you go through the process of forging your new friendships. There is likely more value in these new relationships than in the list-building that happens as a result of the partnerships!
Smart business is big business. Building consistent series of back end products and alliances is smart business. Both will give your business the boost it needs to enter the “big leagues.”
Now why would having a SERIES of CONSISTENT back end products be smart business? Having a series is smart because: 1) more money is made from repeat business than the first purchase, 2) if a person buys from you twice he/she is more likely to buy from you a third time (this could either be because of more credibility on your part, or the person knows where to go to get what they want, etc.), 3) if you only have one back end product you are seriously missing out on extra sales you could be generating.
Having consistent back end products is even more important than having a series of products. Why: 1) You have no idea what that particular customer is looking for, except for products that are consistent with ones they ALREADY bought, 2) You establish yourself as more of an expert in your field when you follow up your sales with similar products that help your customers solve the same problem, 3) Your customers will trust that you are looking out for THEIR welfare rather than just trying to make a quick buck.
The trick to building alliances with other companies is to do so with companies who share your same target market. If you don’t do it that way, you will not have as much success. Why? If you both target the same people then each of your customer bases can profit from what the other company offers. But, for instance, if I am a clothing company that targets young teenagers, I would not be able to profit from teaming up with a drug company that targets elderly people with Alzheimer’s. So, building alliances with other companies within your marketplace is important because: 1) You can produce products or services together that neither of you would be capable of on your own; 2) because of your ability to produce things you couldn’t on your own, you can increase in sales when other companies similar to yours may be losing sales; 3) you improve your market share by coming into contact with customers you may never have found without the alliance, 4) you are able to act as a larger company than you really are, which means you can beat out other competition more easily.
As the Final Chapter shows, success requires all the critical elements to be in place and THE DIFFERENCE between successful companies and OUTRAGEOUSLY SUCCESSFUL Companies is the ability to leverage your affiliates customers and visa versa — we can see in our business that alliances are helpful and thank you for putting this into such a clear picture
We help kids who learn differently and with these strategies and tactics we can increase the students we reach manyfold
All business plateau.
A businesses success in a niche market actually causes it to plateau - a market is siphoned or saturated.
Because of this gradual business decline (An ‘S-Curve’ inflection point, when it begins to move from growing to aging.) or “tail off” (The long tail), a backend selling strategy thus becomes necessary for new business growth. This back-end can, in turn, cumulatively outnumber or outweigh the initial portion of any “front-end” sales capacity, such that in total the back-end profit actually comprises the majority of long term revenue thus creating a truly sustainable long term business . The problem then becomes supply to the multiplying back-end opportunity (Long Tail sub-niches) or “hunger” of a hyper-responsive group, hence the need, nay, the necessity of alliance partners, JV relationships etc, to help supply back-end offers.
It’s critical for Love Quitting Smoking to have a consistent series of back-end offers so that we can offer the best value to our customers.
By developing long term relationships and loyalty 3 major things are accomplished.
1. We become experts at creating both front-end and back-end products that meet the needs of our customers.
2. We offer a great assist to our company growth by increasing our customer retention rate (while continually adding new customers - i.e we do more than spin our wheels)
3. We are able to generate more income and more leverage financially and as a brand. (and ultimately make more of a difference in the world.)
It’s critical that I build strategic alliances within my marketplace for 2 key reasons
1. So that I am strong enough to dominate the competition (or keep new ones at bay)
2. Because it’s better, easier, more efficient, and inspiring to work towards mutual gains while reaching the maximum people in my target market then to piddle around alone serving a handful.
And, the bonus of developing a consistent back-end system while building strategic alliances for me, personally, is that (if I get this right) I can continue to create services that can really make a difference and in doing so make a difference in my mine and my own family’s future -creating limitless possibilities for my 3 yr. old daughter.
Thank you for this opportunity.
I look forward to speaking with you and meeting you soon.
All the Best,
Joey Keim
http://www.lovequittingsmoking.com
Having alliances in the market place leverages their marketing efforts along with yours, their list along with yours. Share a cut and achieve enormous growth. Presenting an ongoing array of products is much cheaper than acquiring new customers and is easier to sell to them since you already have a trusted relationship = more profit..
I don’t know anything about front-end or back-end offers. What I do know is that unless we switch to the use of renewable energy we wont have a world in which to worry about either. So I need all the help I can get to promote this opportunity. What we are combining is a community-oriented marketing approach, the presentation of only suppliers and products that are environmentally friendly for building homes and any other type of structure with a superior composite material made from waste that replaces concrete block, concrete & lumber–which like oil we are depleting at a rapid rate–wind, solar, geothermal systems, and more. We need people like Rick Shefren and the others at Agora to help with this initiative. So I hope I get to meet you. All the best, Dr. George
902-657-0345
Nova Scotia, Canada.
Rich,
Thanks for the great info…I learned a lot from reading your report.
It’s critical that your business has a consistent series of back end offers so that you can measure and realize your lifetime customer value.
It’s important that you build alliances within your marketplace because it’s just too hard
to do it all yourself, you need to be a part of an inter-dependent community.
Thanks again.
Looking forward to meeting you
backends are damn important coz selling to ‘live’ customers converts the best. plus it’s our duty to keep selling to them coz they want more & more. and that’s the ONLY way to have them as loyal & live customers.
and JVs are important because..
if we won’t do it.
we’d have to conquer the whole world (our market) ourselves..
which is damn hard & kinda silly.
With less time involved to make choices and the multitude of choices available to us, our purchasing decisions will be based on locating someone who is an expert or an expert referral from a company we have previously done business with. The beauty of the internet is that there are many uncontested niches that are inexpensive to reach but these niches subdivide into smaller niches that can make a business’s long-term viability almost impossible. Strategic Alliances allow a company to compensate for the reduction in customers in their individual niches by expanding their potential customer base exponentially faster than the company could on their own.
You end up with:
• More Customers
• New or Additional Distribution Channels
• New Products or Services
• Specialized Knowledge, Expertise or Experience
Everyone begins to nurture and grow each other’s lists.
Is your customer list still profitable?
A customer who isn’t buying is a customer with no value and will soon lose interest in your business.
If you don’t give your customer an opportunity to buy, your business will soon have no value…and you will lose your business.
If you don’t have a back end product it is impossible to determine who is still a customer, whether your customer base is shrinking or growing or what your customer value is. So unless you have ongoing services or products to sell, your customer may just be someone who hasn’t bothered to have you remove them from your mailing list or simply deletes your newsletters.
If you have a large number of customers spending only at the lower level of your offerings, then you are missing those higher value customers. Customers may experience your offerings at the lower levels and then wish to purchase more valuable services at higher prices. Wouldn’t you rather have 20% of your customer base bringing in 80% of your revenues while slowly moving them up to more expensive offerings?
The point at which I have installed a consistent series of backends is the point at which I can finally understand my metrics and therefore my business. Without a consistent series of backends, I am unable to understand what my lifetime customer value is and as a result I do not understand what my cost per acquisition can and should be. Understanding that the money is in the backend is nothing new. The real genious behind what Rich has shared with us is that the understanding of the business model (or metrics) is in the backend. Think about it. When my backends are consistent, I can start measuring the lifetime customer value. If my backends keep changing, it is impossible for me to measure the lifetime customer value because focusing on creating different backends will create different results. And therefore it is impossible to have a good understanding of what the customer lifetime value is.
Because the backend is consistant I can also focus on the part of my business that requires greater and greater innovation, the front end. In the Information (overload)Age, it is harder and harder to get people to enter your customer life-cycle. Setting up my backend correctly also means that I know exactly how to move them through their customer life cycle. So once they are in, it is much easier to move them through. When they enter into the customer life-cycle I can figure out each step they need to go to in each part of the lifetime customer value.
By focusing on the frontend, I can spend the majority of my time on the part of my business that needs me most.
Once I know the lifetime customer value, I can then determine what cost of acquisition of each customer makes sense. By knowing these metrics and what the competition is doing, I can enter a market I know I will win in.
Alliances within my marketplace are essencial because without them I am capped. There is only so much I can do without them. I can achieve a good lifestyle and even wealth but there will be a limit to them. I am limited to the amount of growth I can achieve and possibly the life of the business. If I don’t make the correct alliances, those that do will more than likely put me out of business. I need to make as many good alliances as possible to maintain my business growth and even keep my business from being squashed by those who enter the market to win.
It’s rather ironic actually - the one factor that makes Internet Marketing so accessible to everybody that wants to get involved (which is the low cost and availability of the Internet) is also the reason that most people fail at this business!
All of this time most marketers have been approaching the Internet Marketing business as an opportunity, with the mentality that they must continue to create new product after product in order to continue to make money.
While it is important to create new products, it shouldn’t be viewed as a “launch product, make a lot of money, then move on to the next product” system (if you can call that a system).
Instead it should be viewed as a “launch product, where will this take me next?” system, where the product launch isn’t the only time the product is sold, and back-end products are already in place (or will be shortly) to continue to build revenue from existing customers.
Consider the difference between the “typical” marketer who continues to create new $97 products, compared to the “profitable” marketer who creates a $97 as a front-end, then adds a $250 or $500 product in the back-end with a $97 per month subscription. Later on he/she adds a $997 home-study course which builds momentum towards a $5000 coaching program or seminar.
Now the $97 has more than one purpose. First, it is to gain a customer (and not just a prospect). Second, it is to prepare that customer to purchase the more expensive back-end (which is designed of course to help them even more than the $97 front-end).
Once that kind of system is in place the marketer can then look at how to get more customers to the front-end.
The most profitable way is through alliances and joint-ventures. Sure, the efforts of the marketer to generate traffic can do much for the business (we see examples of John Reese who generates millions of visitors to his websites) but the true power comes in when others who are doing the same work as you share their results, in essence, you “multiply” your efforts by using the efforts of others (and they multiply theirs by using yours).
The real exciting part comes when you build your backend to be so profitable that you realize that your front-end customer is worth far more than that $97, which allows you to spend even more on getting that customer (which your competition can’t afford to do because they have no such process, allowing you to gain even more customers at a much faster rate).
This would have been impossible if all you had was that first $97 (or $47, or $197, whatever it was) sale, and will allow you to eventually profit wildly from your efforts, while creating LESS work for yourself.
All the best,
Matthew Glanfield
http://www.affiliateminute.com
Rich,
1. It is critical to have a consistent series of backends because that’s where the money is and the bigger the backend the more you can spend on front end marketing and client aquistion - which allows you to crush the competition, position yourself as the expert, and dominate your market.
2. You must build alliances within your marketplace because that is the best way to leverage your position as the expert, dominate the market, and increase backend opportunities through affiliates, jv’s, cross-selling, etc.
BTW - this business building program has changed everything about how I think about business, approach the market, and develop my strategic plans and I’m forever grateful Rich. Thanks!
I am trying to post to this blog, but for some reason it isn’t working.
Perhaps I was writing too much?
Matthew
Your pool of customers who have purchased a front-end product contains some that don’t care for you very much, some that like you, some that like you a lot and some that love you.
It is your “lovers” that make your business the real money.
If you don’t have an adequate back-end you will never identify your lovers – they will simply be customers.
It is through your back-end offers that you give your lovers – the “hyper responsives”, the value they crave and in return they give you lots of cash. The more value you can offer them the more they will give you.
It is your duty to fully and profitably satisfy their cravings and the only way to do this is to have the right mix of back-end offers.
By having better back-ends offers than your competitors, it means you have a higher lifetime customer value than your competitors which means you can afford to pay more on the front-end to acquire customers than your competitors. This gives you a lot of market power.
Market alliances are crucial for a number of reasons.
Firstly some alliances give you “endorsed access” to a pool of potential new customers. From this will come new lovers.
Secondly, there are alliances which provide you with additional back-end offers with which to service your lovers.
Alliances greatly speed up the processes of customer acquisition and/or product development and hence create rapid growth.
The combination of great back-end offers with great strategic alliances is exceptionally powerful.
I’ll break this up into two posts then:
————————
Part 1
————————
It’s rather ironic actually - the one factor that makes Internet Marketing so accessible to everybody that wants to get involved (which is the low cost and availability of the Internet) is also the reason that most people fail at this business!
All of this time most marketers have been approaching the Internet Marketing business as an opportunity, with the mentality that they must continue to create new product after product in order to continue to make money.
While it is important to create new products, it shouldn’t be viewed as a “launch product, make a lot of money, then move on to the next product” system (if you can call that a system).
Instead it should be viewed as a “launch product, where will this take me next?” system, where the product launch isn’t the only time the product is sold, and back-end products are already in place (or will be shortly) to continue to build revenue from existing customers.
Consider the difference between the “typical” marketer who continues to create new $97 products, compared to the “profitable” marketer who creates a $97 as a front-end, then adds a $250 or $500 product in the back-end with a $97 per month subscription. Later on he/she adds a $997 home-study course which builds momentum towards a $5000 coaching program or seminar.
Now the $97 has more than one purpose. First, it is to gain a customer (and not just a prospect). Second, it is to prepare that customer to purchase the more expensive back-end (which is designed of course to help them even more than the $97 front-end).
—————–
Part 2
—————–
Once that kind of system is in place the marketer can then look at how to get more customers to the front-end.
The most profitable way is through alliances and joint-ventures. Sure, the efforts of the marketer to generate traffic can do much for the business (we see examples of John Reese who generates millions of visitors to his websites) but the true power comes in when others who are doing the same work as you share their results, in essence, you “multiply” your efforts by using the efforts of others (and they multiply theirs by using yours).
The real exciting part comes when you build your backend to be so profitable that you realize that your front-end customer is worth far more than that $97, which allows you to spend even more on getting that customer (which your competition can’t afford to do because they have no such process, allowing you to gain even more customers at a much faster rate).
This would have been impossible if all you had was that first $97 (or $47, or $197, whatever it was) sale, and will allow you to eventually profit wildly from your efforts, while creating LESS work for yourself.
All the best,
Matthew Glanfield
http://www.affiliateminute.com
Hi Rich,
It’s critical for my business to have a consistent series of back end offers because then I’ll be able to focus on the front end. In The Final Chapter you had discussed the back end as having higher conversion rates and makes bigger profits. The back end is where the money is made; the initial sale is just to get the potential customer over the hump or fear of purchasing from you. Once they have shown that they will buy and have a good experience during the initial transaction with you they can become very valuable clients for life and you can guide them through your marketing funnel. Having a consistent series of back end offers allows you to test the best sequence of offers, allows you to develop a predictive modeling system, allows you to monitor the attrition rate by watching the latency period and find the 20% of the most profitable customers. Once you have that back end established you can work on the front end which is the hardest sale to make, faces the most competition and requires constant innovation.
It is important that you build alliances so that you can leverage the resources of others and grow both your business as well as the business of your alliances. Potential clients are not a single product purchaser; they purchase a wide variety of products and services that may be associated with the field that you’re in. So you can cross sell and do joint venture promotions to people. By aligning yourself with alliance partners you can acquire front end traffic and clients much more easily than most other methods for free or very low cost. Also, you can promote similar but non-competitive products and services to your alliances list. After people have outgrown your products or services you can direct them to an alliance member and get a small or large commission. Having alliances means leveraging and growing the potential pool of people who can come in contact with you exponentially.
Your business can only market and do so much, but by leveraging alliances the marketing, customer, and awareness of your products and services is multiplied geometrically or exponentially at little to not cost from you.
Regards,
Ted
Rich,
The reason that your business needs a consistent series of back end offers is because without them, you don’t have a business, you have a promotion. There’s no leverage.
The reason you need to build alliances within your marketplace is to leverage the “longtail.” It will provide you with an ever expanding supply of new markets for you to enter with very little cost.
Why businesses need consistent backends, it helps promote the business when most needed. The reason for building alliances within the marketplace, is that it gives more sustainability within the business.
Rich,
Wow what a great opportunity to spend an afternoon with you and the Agora Publishing Group.
To answer the questions in simple a straight format. All post agree Number
1) The backend is the profit center of the business and the customer relation department. This is where you build loyalty, retention, repetitive buyers, total brand awareness…
If you do not have the backends in place and more importantly on an automated systems of follow ups, upsells, upgrades etc you’re losing money and some one else is picking it up. You need the “proverbial machine” running and developing the business “YOU”.
From this more offers will be found and new products introduced as the demand requests them.
All of this cannot be accomplised without the front end aquiring of prospects, leads and initial buyyers. This is where the strategic partners will make this process happen much more effectively than trying to break in to it buy yourself. As well as the market break n you are able to broaden your market share to a base of customers that you never had before. Also new opportunities arise from these alliances, new profit models and new products as a result.
One big idea turns into a one hundred million dollar business by the process of business’ working together for the common goal of growth and profits.
The backend is all about relationship. The more you “talk” to your customers, the better they feel they know you and that you know and understand them. A good backend program should feel like a good buddy helping you out, not like you are being sold.
No surprise here; affiliates work the same way. There are people that don’t know you, but know and love writers on other sites because they have been successfully nurtured with their backend programs. Since these people trust these writers, they will respond positively to a recommendation of your product because they trust the source.
It is not about all the complex behind the scenes technology and nerdware. It is about friends buying from friends.
And to close the loop I feel compelled to provide a backend offer of my own. I’ll pick you up at the airport in Calgary and take you skiing in Banff to continue the mutually profitable discussion we began in Florida.
I just had a scary thought. Imagine if Rich started consulting for Microsoft.
Microsoft has succeeded in spite of the fact that they don’t form alliances within their marketplace. Nor do they present their customers with a series of back end offers.
Imagine if they did.
On second thoughts… it’s not so scary, the results may be the best thing that’s ever happened to the software world.
You need a back end for your business because without a back end, you are in sales, not business. Strategic alliances are important because they multiply your growth speed - they give you access to a proven segment of the market that it could take you years and years to find on your own.
Ok, here’s the cut and dried version:
A true business is a process, a complete set of steps that generates on-going residual profits, hopefully without you being there. The first of those steps, the front end, encompasses lead generation and conversion. The front end is the relationship builder. But, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The back end is the rest of the iceberg, just hanging there waiting to be milked. The back end allows us to reinforce that relationship built by the front end. A consistent series of back end offers will determine how long we keep that relationship, which will determine the lifetime value of our client. So without those continuous offers, all the effort of the front end fall’s away faster.
Alliances = market reach = leverage.
Alliances speed up the front end and give us the ability to exponentially grow income and profits, while minimising our own efforts. Your alliance partner is really doing your front end work for you. Having a number of partners also increases the number of different ways you generate income. If one falls away, you might experience a small drop in revenue but the business won’t fail.
Kind regards,
Peter