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I know a few readers are going to take issue with what I’m about to say.

That’s okay. If you don’t like this or you think it’s morally wrong, then simply don’t do it.

For everyone else, riddle me this:

What do Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby), Anne Hathaway, Ann Rice, Ayn Rand, Dr. Seuss, Eckhart Tolle, Ellery Queen, George Eliot, George Orwell, James Herriot, John le Carre, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Voltaire and Woody Allen all have in common?

None of these people technically exist, because they’re all pen names.

The other day on the Warrior Forum I saw an old thread with a question that went something like this:

“I’m thinking of using a pen name when I go into a new niche. Is that alright, or am I breaking some sort of rule?”

Answers ranged from a friendly, “There’s nothing wrong with that, go for it.”

…to an angry, “What’s your problem and why are you trying to hide? Are you a scam artist or something?”

If pen names are a benchmark for whether or not you’re a scam artist, somebody better tell the writers and the descendants of writers listed above – I think they’ll be surprised.

From a marketing standpoint, pen names often make more sense than using your real name.

For example, you’ve got a good reputation online as the ‘go-to’ person in a particular niche. You want to enter an entirely different and unrelated niche. If you use the same name, readers in BOTH niches will be confused. And confusion is a sales and deal killer, by the way.

Another example: You’ve got a stellar reputation in internet marketing. You build rapport with your list and you only try to sell them something now and then. But you want to try the churn and burn method of marketing, in which you promote products several times per DAY via email. Naturally you will want to use a different name for this list.

(Churn and burn is getting as many people on your list as possible, and promoting to them like crazy until they can’t take it anymore and get off of your list.)

And by the way, no matter how much you and I don’t care for the churn and burn method, the fact is that it’s highly profitable. Which is why so many big-name marketers use a pen name to run their own churn and burn lists.

Another use for a pen name: You can recommend products created by your pen name, and have your pen name recommend your products. Again, a lot of big name marketers do this. I’m not advocating this method, but it does work.

I’ve also known marketers who only worked under a pen name and never under their own name. Usually this is because they have a name that is virtually unpronounceable and unspellable by most people on the planet, so really it’s a question of branding.

And speaking of branding, you could always choose a name that fits your niche particularly well. For example, if your niche is gardening, then calling yourself Rosemary Greenfield or some such might be a nice touch.

There is one reason for using a pen name that – in my opinion – beats them all, and it’s this:

When you use a pen name to build an entire business, you can then SELL that entire business to someone else. They keep the pen name, and customers don’t even necessarily know it changed hands.

If anything goes wrong with the business after you sell it – for example, the new owner doesn’t deliver on the promises of the business – it won’t affect you or your reputation in any way because your name has never been associated with it.

Bottom Line: There is nothing unethical about using a pen name. They’ve been used for hundreds of years by some of the best writers in their field.

And there are some dynamite advantages to using one.

Imagine for a moment that you want to create a product in the dating niche.

In fact, you even know what kind of product you want to create, who your target audience is and so forth.

Now if you could just get someone to show you exactly what to do…

• What kind of emails should you use?
• What sort of branding?
• What kind of follow up sequences?
• How should you position your product?
• What might the sales copy look like?
• What kind of pricing will work?
• How many upsells should you have and what should they cost?

Here’s an idea: Hire a $3,000 a month coach.

Here’s another idea: Reverse engineer funnels that are already in place.

Before we go any further on this… I am not advocating you steal anything, especially copy. I’m only advocating that you see what’s working and WHY it’s working. 

Okay, let’s get back to it…

You want to make a dating product. So, you go to someplace like Clickbank, find a product that’s similar to the one you’re creating and you become a customer.

You go through the entire sales process, copying every URL along the way. 3 upsells? You copy the URL’s. Oh yes, and you buy everything in the funnel, too.

This person has done all the work already. You can guess by their gravity how well they’re doing. If they’re on a platform like JVZoo, you can tell EXACTLY how well they’re doing, how well they’re converting and so forth.

As you’re going through the funnel, look at it with two sets of eyes – customer and marketer.

What does the squeeze page look like? The sales letter? The thank you page with the first upsell, and so forth.

Study how it works, how it’s put together, what kind of language they’re using, how they’re appealing to the customer, what kind of proof they have, how they present the offer and so forth.

How does the whole thing make you feel? Which parts do you think need improving? Which are working? What’s missing?

Go back to the squeeze page and put in a different email address from the one you used to buy the product.

Now watch your emails for both sequences – the sequence you get as a buyer, and the sequence you get as a prospect.

Notice what other cross-promotions they’re doing, what offers they’re making, and how everything is presented.

Again, I’m not advocating you steal anything. I am advocating that you do your homework and figure out what’s working.

This is the cheapest and yet the most priceless education you can get on how to build your own funnel.

Now go back and look for any other products that are similar to the one you’re producing, and repeat the process of reverse-engineering everything.

This could well be the best blueprint you could ever want for how to create and position your funnel for your own product.

If you’ve been in marketing for awhile, and you cater to the online marketing crowd, then you’ve gotten an email from a subscriber that looks like this:

You’ve gotten that email, too, right? I think we all have.

Which got me to thinking…

What if you set up a squeeze page that has an offer like this: “30 day course on how to start your business and earn $X money in 30 days. Pay nothing now, and simply send me $100 when you’ve earned your first $1,000.”

Do you think you would get some subscribers? Of course. This isn’t your typical offer at all, and people will recognize this.

So, you get your subscribers and every day they get another email from you with another step in how to build their business.

For the content, I recommend getting one of those big PLR courses with 30 steps or 40 modules or whatever number of lessons that teach how to build an online business. The number of steps will determine the number of days your course runs.

Each day you email out a link to the next step / course / module.

Pretty soon your new subscribers will realize that this is a lot of work, and they’ll be wishing for a shortcut.

~~cough cough~~

And you give it to them, of course.

This is a much sexier course, such as how to earn $5,000 in the next 20 days by working one hour per day, or whatever.

You place the link in each email and on each daily page of the course.

And you will make sales.

Now then, if you’ve been paying attention, then you realize this is simply a variation of a very tried and true method:

Teach them step-by-step how to do something, then offer them an easier or faster way to get the same or better result.

You start out teaching, but when things get too hard or time-consuming, you come to the rescue with a shortcut.

People love shortcuts, and they gladly buy them every day of the week.

This is just another way to frame it, and you can use this method in other niches as well.

“Pay nothing until you find your dream spouse.”

“Pay nothing until you find the home of your dreams.”

Pay nothing until your investments earn you at least $x money.”

“Pay nothing until you land your dream job.”

And so forth.

It’s all in the positioning. And because this method hasn’t been done to death, I guarantee it will afford you plenty of traction and a good amount of sales, too.

I do a great deal of reading and researching on the topic of online marketing. I have to, it’s how I make my living. I imagine you do the same.

Which is why you may have noticed that a lot of people tend to over complicate the whole online marketing thing.

Really, you need a product to sell, someone to sell it to and a way to persuade them to buy.

That’s it.

In fact, I said that exact same thing to an aspiring marketer the other day, and he responded with, “That’s OVER simplified, tell me how I’m supposed to do that.”

Okay, here goes:

When you get someone on your list, your job is to build rapport so they like you and your content. Once you do this, it’s a lot easier to convince them to buy your recommendations.

That’s why I start out by telling them something about me and my life. Not a full-blown biography – I’m not that fascinating. Just enough so they feel like they know something about who I am and how I think and live.

Then I send them content and offers, same as any other marketer.

Except, I don’t try to appeal to everyone.

In fact, I don’t want to appeal to everyone, because when you make that your goal, you wind up appealing to pretty much no one.

Imagine if you tried to create the perfect food that EVERYONE likes. Any flavor is going to turn off a certain segment of the population, so you’ll have to remove all flavor to make everyone happy.

Except, of course, when you remove all flavor, your dish will be as bland as paste and it will appeal to no one.

Time and again I see marketers trying not to have opinions or offend anyone. And these same marketers struggle, despite having 5 or even 6 figures of subscribers on their lists.

When you appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one.

So what I do is ‘let it all hang out,’ so to speak.

I state my opinions. I give my thoughts. When I disagree with something, I politely but firmly make my case.

In other words, I’m myself. I don’t try to be an ‘everyman,’ I just work at being me.

Which I have a lot of practice at, so it’s much easier than trying to be someone I’m not.

Some people don’t like me or my opinions, and they unsubscribe. Hence the name, “repulsion marketing.”

Other people resonate with me and what I believe, and these folks not only stay on my list, but they also open and READ my emails.

And click my links.

And buy my stuff.

They’re receptive, enthusiastic, and fun to have as customers. I’m continually building my tribe, and part of that process is weeding out the people who aren’t a good fit.

I never worry about how ‘qualified’ my traffic is or what ‘quality’ it is.

My only job is to get people onto my list and then just be myself.

It’s like real life – some people think you’re a jerk, and other people become your friends and lovers.

And it works really, really well.

Are you willing to work like crazy for 5 years (give or take) so you can retire?

If so, I’ve got a business plan for you. And I don’t care if you’re 20 or 70 – this can work.

One note before we get started: Anything that you either can’t do, don’t want to do or don’t have time to do, you outsource.

If you’re going to actually, really, truly retire in 5 years, taking this from zero to a 7-figure payday, then you need to get work done FAST.

And in many cases that’s going to mean outsourcing some of this.

Oh yes, did you notice how I covertly slipped that “7 figure payday” in there? I’m serious about that. Doing what I’m about to lay out for you, you can indeed retire in about 5 years with about 7 figures.

Your results may vary – in fact, they might be a whole lot better than that, I don’t know.

Let’s get started:

What I’m about to propose isn’t rocket science. It’s not even new. But it is profitable, and here’s the key:

You can do this in parallel, meaning instead of doing just ONE of what I’m outlining, you do several.

I recommend 3 – 5 of them.

What you’re going to do is build an entire business from the ground up, with an eye on selling it.

That’s right – the entire time you’re doing this, you have your exit strategy in mind.

It’s sort of like someone marrying for money, knowing they’re going to be asking for a divorce in 5 years. The money is a sure thing, they just have to put in the time and work.

Okay, that was maybe a bad analogy, but you get the point.

If you put in the time and do the work, you will get the money.

You’re going to choose a very popular and not too broad topic. For example, weight loss for busy women, dating for men, traffic generation for online marketers, etc.

It needs to be a topic that has plenty of interested people willing to buy plenty of products, and of course there needs to be plenty of affiliate products continually coming into the market.

Now that you’ve got your topic, you’re going to build a sales funnel.

Run a free offer on a squeeze page to get subscribers and place a couple of products in your funnel for them to buy.

Maybe you’ve got a $7 report and a $37 video course, or whatever.

These should be quality products that YOU own. And yes, they can be built around PLR, or you can outsource, etc.

For your high-ticket offer, create a membership site and drip feed content into it. Your goal is to get lots of people into that membership site.

I know what you’re thinking – thus far I haven’t told you anything new, except for the fact that you’re doing all of this with an eye to selling it.

Yet who does this? Very few people, but those who do end up with BIG paydays.

Do everything under a pen name.

Make no mistake – EVERYTHING must be under your pen name.

And for each of these businesses that you build, you need a different pen name.

Okay, you’ve got a squeeze page to capture names, a funnel with a low-priced product, a mid-priced product and a membership site.

Now you need a blog. Get a great logo, excellent branding and make it look super professional. Do NOT skimp on the branding and logo.

Post on the blog at least a couple of times a week, preferably more.

Link from the blog to your free and paid products.

Make each upsell in your funnel a stand-alone product, too, and promote those on your blog.

Promote affiliate products to your list to make some good money as you go along.

Now write a book. See? I told you there was work involved. You can use content from your blog to create your book, or hire someone, or just write it yourself.

Link from inside the book to a squeeze page to capture more subscribers.

Get a great book cover. I mean a cover that looks like it should be on the New York Times bestseller list. Don’t skimp on this, either.

Put your book on Amazon and get your subscribers to review it for you. Yes, the book is under your pen name, too.

Don’t worry too much about promoting the book. Your real motivation here is to build credibility. A book on your topic with your pen name on it looks AWESOME when you put the thumbnail at the TOP of your blog.

Wow! You (your pen name, actually) are an EXPERT.

Cross promote from any existing lists you have to get more people onto your new blog and get more subscribers there.

If you create a big product such as a $200 – $1,000 course, get affiliates to promote it. Or get affiliates to promote your memberships site.

Your goal is to build your list BIG, make some nice income along the way, and put together a very professional looking business which you then sell for six or seven figures.

If you do this simultaneously in 3 to 5 different niches, you will have an AWESOME retirement in about 5 years or so.

What I recommend: Start in ONE niche and get everything into place. Hire someone to write the blog posts for you and do some promotion.

Now that you know everything that is involved, take some of the profits from your first site / list / business and those profits to outsource a lot of the work in your second, third, and fourth businesses.

You see where this is going. Five years of hard work, along with rolling some of your profits back into the business, and you then get to sell them.

Sites like these that have products, big lists and a BOOK sell for a healthy six figure income. Sometimes even seven figures. Apiece. And you’re going to have 3, 4, maybe 5 of them.

Remember to keep everything separate on each site. Separate hosting. Separate autoresponders. Separate everything. This makes it super easy to turn control over to someone else when the time comes.

Turnkey online businesses are always in demand. From a buyer’s perspective, they pay a big chunk of money but then they get a guaranteed stream of income. All the buyer has to do is continue what you started.

You can even turn over your outsourcers to the buyer if they don’t want to do the work themselves, and often they won’t. For them it’s an investment in their future. For you it’s a major payday and a plane trip to the islands.

One more thing… if you would like to continue to make a nice, easy income after you sell your sites, then I recommend you promote your own personal site to the folks on these lists you’re building.

For example, your pen name is Jon Smith. Your real name is Abby Jones. Jon Smith often recommends Abby Jone’s product or blog or freebie to his readers.

Thus you get people subscribed to your list, too, who get to know you, not just your pen name.

You retire, and you can continue to send out emails promoting affiliate products.

So not only do you get a big payday – you also get some large lists of your own that you can continue to promote products to.

Remember – 5 years of hard work, and then you can retire.

No job in the world that I know of, offers you a retirement plan like that.

If you’re looking for headlines or titles, try checking out the magazines in that niche.

For example, if I needed a headline for a bodybuilding program, I could look at the bodybuilding magazines for inspiration.

Here’s what I found today:

• Build a Perfect Chest
• Super Wide Shoulders
• Beast Mode: Serious Mass in 6 Weeks!
• Your Best Back Ever!
• The Real Secret to Size
• BIG Arms in 13 Moves
• Torch Body Fat in Just 6 Minutes
• Serious Gains! More Mass in 8 Weeks
• 4 Moves for Killer Abs

You can use this in any niche that publishes magazines.

No magazines in your niche? Try perusing the book titles and subtitles on Amazon, as well as the chapter titles inside books.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some way to know exactly what to charge for your products, so you could make the most money?

After all, if you price low you’ll make more sales. Price high and you’ll make fewer sales, but each sale will be worth more.

You could look at your competition for clues. That’s how most marketers do it.

You could ask your customers.

You could ask your peers.

You could draw random numbers out of a hat…

…do you see where I’m going with this?

NONE of those answers is the right one.

The only way to know for a FACT which price point will make you the most money is to TEST.

Yet very few marketers do this.

And when you test a price, remember to take into consideration the number of refunds, too.

If it’s a membership site, keep track of how long members stay at each price point.

Here’s a quick example of why this matters so much:

You test two different price points on your membership site:

$47 a month and $17 a month.

At $47 per month, you get 2% of prospects to sign up, and on average they stay for 2 months.

At $17 per month, you get 4% of prospects to sign up, and on average they stay for 6 months.

Out of hundred prospects, the first month you’ll make $94 at $47 apiece, or $68 at $17 apiece. So it looks like $47 is the winner.

But when you take into account how long each member stays, it’s an entirely different story – $188 versus $408.

Always always always test your prices. You might be shocked to discover you’ve been leaving a heck of a lot of money on the table.

Actually, I wanted to title this… “How to get the best affiliates to promote your products, put your links on their download pages, give you free solo ads, place your products in their funnels and send you lots of money and prizes.” …but obviously that title would be a bit long.

If you’ve ever promoted a product with a big launch, then you’ve probably seen those things called a ‘leader board.’ Usually it’s the top ten – although it could be top 15, top 20, etc. – affiliates at any given moment during the campaign.

Here’s the thing about leaderboards – everyone who is in on the launch can see them. And everyone knows who is at the top and who finishes at the top, too.

Being at or near the top of a leaderboard means of course that you are making good commissions, but it can also mean prize money. Some affiliates and list owners make five figures a year in prize money alone.

But being at the top of a leader board gives you a lot more than money – it also means you’re going to get some great offers from other product owners who want you to promote their products.

They’ll contact you asking you to mail out for them, and in return they’ll offer to mail for you when you launch products.

These reciprocal mailings can get you a lot of money, and not just from the people who ask you to promote.

When a product launches, there is a group of affiliates who are in on the initial launch, and another group who sees the launch happening and decides to jump on board at the last moment.

So having even one or two big name marketers promoting your product can result in dozens of other affiliates promoting as well.

But what if you don’t want a reciprocal mailing? Then you can ask for something else, like a free solo ad to their lists, an ad on their download pages, or you can ask that they promote one of your products in their product funnel.

Frankly, you can ask for anything you want. Free membership for life? Sure. Special deals for your readers? You bet. Advice and coaching? Yes.

Getting onto the leaderboards can do wonderful things for your business besides earning you commissions.

So how do you get on the leaderboards?

Obviously having a large responsive list full of people who trust you is one way.

But what if you don’t have a large list yet?

Then you might want to team up with other marketers. You’ll have to share in the commissions, but then you’ll also get to share in the perks as well.

Just make sure that your name appears on the leaderboard, and not some generic business name.

You want everyone to know that you’re on that board so you can get some of the perks that come from being a top dog.

Let’s say you’re reopening a membership for a limited time, or you’re launching a product just for your list.

And by the way, this is a great way to test the waters on a product and see how well it converts. Once you go through this sequence, you’ll then be able to tell future affiliates what you did and how well it converted.

Okay, so you’ve got a product you’re going to be offering to your list for a limited time – let’s say three days.

After the three days, either the product is no longer available, or the price goes up.

Yes, there is nothing wrong with offering special deals to your own list on your own product. In fact, I think it’s a great idea, because people on your list should be rewarded with special deals no one else can get (hint hint!)

In this example you’re going to be sending out a total of 6 emails. Yes, you could do 5, or 7, or… but I’ve found this sequence works well, so it’s what I do. Your mileage may vary.

I suggest you write all 6 of your emails ahead of time, and here’s why:

First, you can schedule them and forget them. Nice.

Second, you can see if the entire sequence flows and makes sense.

Third, you won’t forget to write and send one of the emails (I learned that one the hard way) because they’ve already been written and scheduled.

Your first email will go out the day BEFORE your launch, and it will say something like, “Watch your email tomorrow for a very special limited time offer for my subscribers ONLY. I think you’re going to love it!”

This first email is low key, short, fun, and only sells them on watching for the next email.

On the day of the launch, you’ll send out two emails, one first thing in the morning and one in the evening.

How much selling you do is up to you. Generally, if I’ve got a great sales page, then I’m mostly selling them on clicking that link.

But if my sales page is lacking, then I do product selling right there in the email.

The first email of the first day of the launch gives all the great reasons to buy, only abbreviated. I like my sales page to do the heavy lifting.

The second email of that first day tells them how the launch is going, how many people are buying… that sort of thing.

Yes, it’s written ahead of time, so yes, you now know one of my secrets – I’m guessing how well it will be going when I write it. 😊

On the next day I send one email in the middle of the day to remind them that this offer isn’t going to last, and to remind them of the big benefit they’ll get from the product.

On the final day I send two emails. The one in the morning says something like, “Last 24 hours.”

The one in the evening says, “Last chance, last email.”

I get a LOT of my sales from that final email. In fact, that subject line, “Last chance, last email” gets more opens than any of the other five. Some people ignore the first 5 emails, open that sixth one and buy.

I’ve used this same sequence of 6 emails many times because it’s effective. It works. And it gives me plenty of sales which I can then show to affiliates to get them to come on board and do their own launches.

As mentioned earlier, I recommend you make a special offer that is available only to your own list, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a special price. It could mean a special bonus that only they get. That way your affiliates can offer it at the same price point to their lists, too.

One more thing: If you’re only working with a handful of affiliates, you can make a special page for each one that says, “Special deal for Jane Smith’s subscribers only.”

I’ve found that using this technique boosts conversions by about 10%, depending on the offer and the list.

The great thing about online marketing is you can do it from home.

The bad thing about online marketing is…

…you can do it from home.

Which often means endless distractions from the internet, the kids, the pets, the neighbors, the housework and so forth.

Here’s how to improve your focus and get productive, starting today:

1. Follow your own natural rhythms. Some people are more productive and focused in the morning while others do better in the evening. Figure out which hours work best for you, and then block those hours out. Schedule nothing during that time except for work.

2. Notify your family, friends and anyone else that you have working hours and don’t want to be distracted.

3. Have a place to work where you do nothing but work. If your workstation is also your play station, your browse-the-internet station and so forth, it will be too easy to get distracted.

4. Put on music or tones that help you to focus. You’ll find these on YouTube when you search for focus music, or tune in to your favorite commercial free music radio station online.

5. Set deadlines for everything you do. If you have deadlines to honor, you’re more likely to get the work done.

6. Plan your breaks. Set a timer for 20 minutes, and when it goes off, get up and walk around or do jumping jacks for a minute. You’ll be re-energized and ready to get back to work with clearer focus than if you just try to power through.

Working from home is fantastic in its flexibility, as long as you manage to focus your time.