Online course building for smart fellers - part 4
Published: Thu, 04/06/17
After this, you have no excuse for not selling a high quality course if'n that's what you want.
And here. we. GO --
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BEN SETTLE: Talking about launching, though, and I want to ask you this. I meant to ask you, actually, Oceans 4, believe it or not, because I like to get different people's opinions on this sort of thing. I think this goes hand in hand with what we're talking about. If not, well, I guess people get a bonus answer to something, but what is your opinion of these internet marketing launch strategies, and I see one going right now, as we're recording this, there's a big one going with a person I respect a lot, so I'm not going to name him, but I do. I just don't agree with how they do it, but I'm curious what you think. People get all their affiliates at one time, all promoting at the exact same time, as opposed to saying, "Okay, this affiliate, we're going to do this for you now, and then later, we'll go to another affiliate the next week, one at at time." What are your thoughts on that, because I see you doing things a little bit
differently in that arena, too.
DANNY INY: It's funny, I know who you're talking about.
BEN SETTLE: Yeah.
DANNY INY: It's funny that you bring this up because just from some of my friends and colleagues, I made a video, a half an hour long, about where I think the industry is missing the boat on launches. I think there is a value to doing a big launch with lots of partners promoting when there is a reason to do that, when it's like a big event. I can see a rationale for that, but when it becomes very template-ized. You know what I'm talking about, you know, video 1, video 2, video 3, when everyone knows ... You click on a link in the email. It's not one email, because you get emails from a hundred marketers, and you click on a link in that email. You get on the page. You see this is video 1. Video 2 is coming soon. Video 3 is coming soon. You don't even read the headline or start the video yet. You're like, "I know this guy is trying to sell me something." Why is that a problem?
Its' a problem because if you think back, back in the day when Jeff Walker devised the product launch formula, the whole innovation was the sideways sales letter. It's not one giant long sales letter. It's like, let's teach, let's teach, lets' teach in pieces, and then we get to the offer. In other words, let people listen with an open mind. Get people to think to absolutely think critically about your offer, but not from the first second. You want them to just listen and be open to learning how you might be able to help them, where there might be a need and an opportunity before they start critically evaluating everything. The shape of a launch telegraphs that this is the case. I also really don't like that you have dozens of partners. On the last day, everyone's like, "Last chance. Get my bonus, get this bonus."
I understand why people do it. It makes sense for their business in the short term, but it's really bad for the industry, as a whole, in the long term. It's bad for the business in the long term because it means you're- I've met so many people who have said, "I've just lost respect for a lot of you so-called gurus because the way they're behaving, it doesn't feel to me like they're looking out for what's in the best interest of the audience." That's the challenge. We do big launches, occasionally. We're not doing any this year, actually, but we did last year, and it was very successful. We've got one that's going to happen early next year, but we run them very, very differently.
It's not a complete answer, and I'll send you that video. I think you'll appreciate it, but yeah, I don't know. Does that answer the question?
BEN SETTLE: Okay, so moving on to another thing, I'm not going to divulge anything that was talked about Oceans 4, but the topic of teams, and businesses who have teams and want an actual organization versus people who have 10 VA's that duct tape their businesses together and all that. I know this is a like a big thing for you. Do you need a big team, or a team, or employees to pull these things off, or can someone do this solo? There are some people, like me, who don't want to deal with it. Danny, out of full disclosure, I just did a big launch of a membership site, and I hated dealing with all the teams. I'm just a solo guy. Would I be able to do your course launch-type thing, or is this mostly for people who want to have a team, and all that, an organizational structure, kind of like your company has?
DANNY INY: That's a great question, and the answer it totally works both ways. What you need a team for is certain structures of the business, potentially for scale. Like you said, I'm very big on teams. I love my team and I love building teams. I can do half the things I do without my team, but everybody doesn't need this. We're also doing revenue numbers that most people aren't doing. When you're doing bigger numbers, bigger results, that involves overhead. I don't know anyone who's running a business that is in the several million, many million dollars a year and more, who don't have a team, but a lot of people don't want that. A lot of people would be very happy making half a million, a million dollars a year working on their own with a couple of VA's. Like building courses and following our process, our process is the most efficient way to build a course, get it out there, and get the money sooner rather than later so you
can create something better, and continue that cycle. How far you want to take it in scale and grow, that's really up to you.
BEN SETTLE: That's good, so you can build this to suit your preferences?
DANNY INY: Yeah, absolutely.
BEN SETTLE: What advice do you have, because we're going to wrap this up here in a few minutes, but what advice do you have for the raw, wriggling newbies who, they're fresh off the turnip truck. They just started this. This is their first exposure to any of this. What advice do you have for them about creating a launch in courses?
DANNY INY: That they should do it. It's the kind of thing that people push off. They're like, "I need to wait for me to have more time, more money, more resources, more reach, more audience, more expertise." It's like no. The way you get all of those things is by launching your pilot, launching your course. It's how you're going to validate that you're on the right track. It's how you're going to bring money in the door. It's how you're going to sharpen your saw, by practicing what you preach. It's how you're going to have something out there that is a beacon for people to say, "Oh wow, they're an expert. They know what they're talking about. I've got to check out their stuff." It's the catalyst. I would say start, and starting doesn't mean starting to work on your course in your Bat-cave for a year. Starting means following a process, mine or if you have your own, that's fine, too, but following a process to sell it first, to
get people to give you money because they want what you're going to do for them.
BEN SETTLE: Nice, and if all they do is read about this, and listen to stuff, and never do anything, they're just wasting their time anyway. This leads in, and I did do this on purpose. This leads right into the next step, and you have a way of demonstrating more of this without them having to put a lot of money up or anything. You have a whole other training beyond this. We're not even scratching the surface here, so tell us about that. What's the next step for them after reading this transcript?
DANNY INY: For sure, so the next step is a special training workshop that we put on called 60 Days to Build and Sell Your First Course. It's literally a process that you can follow to go from wherever you are, it doesn't matter where you are. You can do it, in 60 days. Assuming you put in the time, do the work, actually apply what we teach you, you can have built and sold, your course is ready to go, it's out the door, it's making you money in 60 days. I've had a lot of people say, "Oh, I watch a lot of webinars. This is different." We literally teach so much stuff in this training, it's crazy. You're going to learn how to validate that your idea is right. You're going to learn how to figure out what your market wants. You're going to learn 4 different strategies for filling your pilot with paying students. The reason we give people 4 is different people have different contexts. We want to make sure that at least one will work
for you, so you will be equipped to go forward. It's a fantastic training.
BEN SETTLE: Now, just so everybody knows, you're not the one training this. One of your top students is, right?
DANNY INY: That's right.
BEN SETTLE: Someone who's gone through this and has ... They're probably almost better than having you do it, because it shows people this is a real thing.
DANNY INY: It's better for a bunch of reasons. The person delivering this training, her name is Dianne Holmes. She is a student of ours. I mentioned her earlier, actually. She's the one who didn't have an audience at all, so she did sell her pilot with JV partners. She's one of our top students. She's had great results. I love her energy, so I said, "Come on board. I want you to join the team and help us spread the word about this," and she's delivering these trainings. This kind of gives you the best of both worlds. I've designed this training myself, so you're getting the benefit of my expertise and my insights, but a lot of people, they go through these trainings. They're like, "Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. Sure, Danny can do it. He's Danny." Not that I have anything special, but once you achieve a certain level of success, people forget that all you have on them is a head start. They think you have some special magic power.
Dianne was exactly where you are, you being whoever is listening to this, or reading this transcript, yeah, six months ago, a year ago, not even. She's going to be able to show you these strategies, show you from the perspective of someone in your shoes, how they will work, how they will be effective for you. She'll be able to give you the inside scoop and the inside track, answer your questions, and lean on all the best practice expertise that I've developed.
BEN SETTLE: This training starts Tuesday, August 9th.
DANNY INY: I wouldn't miss it.
BEN SETTLE: I'll just add one more thing, in my Danny fanboy-ism. Everybody reading this who's been reading this stuff for any length of time know I don't do a lot of joint ventures. In fact, I've rarely did them. I can count on, probably, one hand how many I've done in the last year, and Danny's one of the only ones I do these things with, so I know he takes care of everybody. I know he treats you really good, treats you with respect. He's not going to hard sell you, or pressure you, and all this. You can either take advantage of what he can help you with or not, and like he said, he's eating steak. It's just an expression. I don't know if you eat steak or not, Danny.
DANNY INY: I'm a vegetarian by marriage.
BEN SETTLE: He's eating lettuce. Anyway, it doesn't matter, okay, so it's all good, but thanks. Danny, I do appreciate this. I just like talking to you about this stuff, so this has been fun for me, and I hope everyone reading this has had a good time, too, and thank you.
DANNY INY: It was totally my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
END PART 4
That wraps up this 4-part interview with Danny Iny.
The valuable training (which you can access free) is later today at high noon PST (3:00 EST). Be there or be nowhere as far as creating courses you can sell before you even complete them.
One more thing:
Just because it's free doesn't mean it won't be valuable.
You will learn all the what to do's if you're a do-it-yourselfer.
But, if you want help, support, coaching, etc through it all, there will be a pitch at the end.
Here is my blatant affiliate link:
http://www.EmailPlayers.com/course
Ben Settle