Net Frontier Marketing

As you go building your business, whether it be affiliate sales, product sales, development, services or almost anything for that matter, one factor will become extremely important.

That factor is: other people.

Without other people, you can’t make sales, you don’t have affiliates, you don’t have JVs, you don’t have collaboration. That means you painstakingly have to do everything yourself and you only ever have a very small percentage of the reach you could have.

Earlier today I was re-reading Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing Manuscript. I’m not a fan of all of his work but he certainly was able to propel himself to the top of the guru heap in record time. His products continue to become bestsellers and that’s really no accident.

The Butterfly Marketing Manuscript is a blueprint of sorts on how to build a successful marketing site, have a monster launch and keep the buzz going long after the trumpets have sounded.  Did I mention it’s really good?

It also refreshed my mind as to the importance of WIIFM: what’s in it for me?

It’s the question on everybody’s mind 98% of the time. When faced with just about any decision that doesn’t involve primary obligation or responsibility, people run the proposition by their WIIFM filter.

Should I read this ad? Should I buy this product? Should I reply to this email? Should I help this guy?

Whenever you do something that requires a response from somebody, go out of your way to answer the question they invariably have on their mind…

What really decided me to write this post was a short inbox clean up. Right in the middle of the Manuscript, the WIIFM was trotting in my mind and I remembered I hadn’t filtered emails for a while.

It came up because I have products launching in the next months and of course I want to gain as much traction and momentum as possible to gather steam for the launches before the products go live.

Now, this is just business, it’s the name of the game, and yes, it’s selfish and utilitarian:

I have a folder in my email processor marked “smartpeeps”. As you can guess, it’s reserved for what I consider to be valuable contacts “smart people”.

When I place a name in this folder, I obviously ask myself first: what can this person bring me?

Do they have a list, a product, a blog, a show, newsletter or perhaps some other form of influence? Do they have a special skill or can they get me in contact with someone who does? Do they have some or other claim to fame?

If they do, I drag and drop their name into the folder.

Every once in a while, I go over this folder and check the names in it. When I see that I haven’t heard from one of them for a long time, I write them a short email.

Something very brief and to the point, updating them on where I’m at and asking if I can help them with something they’re working on, or just inviting them to tell me what they’re up to.

I keep myself fresh with my smart peeps because they will be useful in the future.

To make it to this folder, you need to have something to offer, the more obvious the better. The more related to one form of influence or another, the more stars you get.

The easiest way to be perceived as influential is to have one of two things or both: a blog or a list.

Generally, those that have created a product have at least one of these elements so they are excellent candidates.

My point in all this is that you should always try to create lasting value in whatever you do. It’s great to make affiliate sales but it’s better to build a list while doing it.

It’s fine to spend your time learning and applying, but why not create an echo of that value by starting a blog or a site and slapping up an email capture mechanism on it.

Then when people consider you, you aren’t just a random name in the webosphere, you’re the owner of content, the leader of your audience and the director behind a list. You control influence.

Beyond your intrinsic humanity, you have extra value: commercial value.

The more of this commercial value you control, the more power you have. Consider this power as your lever, the kind you use to lift things far too heavy to move on your own.

The longer your lever, the heavier the object you can move. This is how you move up the food chain and catapult yourself into the center of attention.

First you gain a little power, which you then use to gain more and more. At some point, people realize the power you hold and the offers come pouring in. Your opportunities for making money are so numerous one of your most important functions becomes determining what is a better usage of your influence: your time.

Your time is too precious to be a single use disposable commodity. Build something lasting and start today, in no time at all, people will start placing your emails in their “smartpeeps” folder…

Popularity: 2% [?]