Woah! This book was epic. I learned a ton about online marketing, specifically, how to start and grow an info-product business.

This year, I made the decision that I want to grow my blog/podcast/YouTube channel into an educational company. I wanted to take course creation seriously.

I came to this realization after feeling like I had hit a bit of a plateau. I could continue to do what I was doing, and have a business that affords me a nice lifestyle, but it wouldn’t make me rich as quickly as I wanted.

Of all of the thing I’ve done in my life, the most positive feedback has come from my ability to learn and teach. By viewing my work as the foundation of an educational company, it would change my strategy significantly.

That’s why I’ve been doing many more courses this year and webinars to sell those courses.

I also realized that throughout my entire life, the info-product industry has actually had a significant positive effect on my life.

The reason why I started working out was because of Bowflex commercials. At a young age (10/11) I realized I wanted to look like the guy in the commercials, and of course, have a fit girl like the one in the infomercials.

Later, it was people like Robert Kiyosaki that got me into business with his book, Rich Dad Poor Dad. Of course, there were also other influences besides him.

I even got into personal development from icons like Tony Robbins and his book Unlimited Power. I’m sure that many other people share a similar catalyst.

One day, I found myself relaxing on a rooftop in NYC, gazing at the stars. I was smoking a tiny cigar and thinking about life (what else is new). I started to connect the dots, and I was amazed to find that so many good things in my life actually came from the info-product industry.

There are many BAD products and individuals in this industry, but there are also a lot of good ones. I think that this industry creates a separate “reality” from the mainstream consciousness.

My desire to build up existing business into an educational company is what led me to the book, DotCom Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Growing Your Company Online by Russel Brunson.

I’ve learned a ton from this book. If you’re new to the info-product industry, or you want to build your own educational company, then you should definitely check out this book.

I’m going to share some of the notes I took this book down below. This will reveal some of my major takeaways.

The great thing is that these techniques also work. I’ve tested out several of them and I started to make more sales with my existing course and I improved the conversions on my latest webinar.

At the time of writing, you can purchase DotCom Secrets for $8.69 on Amazon.

Notes on Dotcom Secrets

• “Ultimately, the business that can spend the most to acquire a customer wins.” – Dan Kennedy.
• Who are your dream clients, where can you find them, what bait will you use to attract them, what results do you want to give them?
• Need to create a continuity or monthly program.
• Flesh out my value ladder. Price and value goes up with each level.
• “A percentage of your audience will always want to pay you the premium to get more value.” There is no end.
• “In a perfect world, I would immediately be able to talk my dream client into purchasing my best, most expensive service. But, I haven’t provided value yet. It’s almost impossible to build a company just offering your high-end services. You need a full range of offers.”
• “Provide value to each customer at the unique level of service that he or she can afford.”
• A sales funnel is the process that you use to take people through the levels of your value ladder.
• Target market: What are their pains and passions. What do they desire. What do they think about and what do they search for online. Dig into your own experience.
• Understand the strategy, set up the systems, and hire people who are good at the tactics.
• Traffic you own. Traffic you pay for. Traffic that’s organic.
• The attractive character: we love them, want to be like them, relate to their stories, and therefore buy what they’re selling.
• Shared something with the audience and there is a new segment attracted to his persona. They could relate, and therefore had enough trust to purchase.
• “I want to be like _____.”
• “I kept seeing examples of this trend. The people who related to my stories were the ones who bought my products.”
• Four elements of an attractive character (can be you or not you).
  • Backstory: You’re unable to relate to someone without a backstory. He’s just another dude eating subs. If people can relate where you came from, they will want to follow you to where you are now. You’ll seem unreal otherwise and untouchable. If they see you were once in a similar situation, they instantly identify with you. Relate it to what you’re selling though.
  • AC speak in parables: Easy to remember and illustrate a relevant point. Amusing or memorable story. Use the things that happen to you to teach and inspire others. “When you stop teaching facts and start teaching through parables, your message will stay with an audience longer.”
  • AC shares their flaws: A character with vulnerabilities and flaws makes them interesting that people CARE about. “No one wants to hear about the perfect person – because you can’t relate.” Flaws create empathy.
  • AC uses polarity: Being neutral is boring. Stick to your guns. It turns fair weather fans into diehard fans. “It’s very interesting that we will spend as much time listening to, talking about, and sharing things from people that we despise as we do from our favorite people.” If no one’s talking about you, no one know who you are.
• The Leader: You have a similar backstory to audience. The result has been achieved by the leader.
• Adventurer or crusader: Curious and set out journey to discover the answer. Shares the answers with them rather than leading audience on journey to find them result.
• Reporter or evangelist: Interviewing people to discover the answers. Also share your own experience. People will associate you with high-profile people over time. “My status went up because I was constantly in the company of high-status people.”
• The Reluctant Hero: Don’t want the limelight, but share your findings out of obligation. Shy.
• Storylines:
  • Loss and redemption.
  • Us vs. them (polarize audience – draw raving fans closer and give them a rallying cry against the outsiders).
  • First I was _____. Now I’m _____.
  • Amazing Discovery. Good for webinars. They help people “believe that the answer they have been searching for is finally available to them.”
  • Secret telling.
  • Third-person testimonial. Sprinkle them liberally. Case studies.
• Soap Opera Sequence: Create bond with Attractive Character. Use story to get character attention. Can use cliffhangers. Start story on part of high drama. Then events that happened (backstory) to get to high drama moment.
• People are open to your answers because they are stuck. Bring on personal journey with you. Where you hit the wall. Open loop and promise to close.
• Focus on hidden benefits.
• Seinfeld emails: Be entertaining. Tell stories. Tie it back to your core offer.
• For competitors, nail down: offer, landing page, traffic source, and ad copy. “It’s more likely to be what gets people in the door, while the real moneymakers are down the line somewhere. The first offer is just the tip of the iceberg, and I need to see their ENTIRE iceberg during this research phase.
• Pre-frame in order to get the outcome that you desire. The state of mind you put someone in before you move them to the next step.
• The frame people are in before they enter your website is the best thing to know.
• Determine traffic temperature in terms of unaware -> problem aware -> solution aware -> product aware -> most aware.
• “If your prospect is aware of your product and has realized it can satisfy his desire, your headline starts with the product. If he is not aware of your product, but only of the desire itself, your headline starts with the desire. If he is not yet aware of what he really seeks, but is concerned with the general problem, your headline starts with the problem and crystallizes into a specific need”
• Hot traffic: know who you are. On email list, podcast read blog, talk to them as friends. Personality driven communications.
• Warm traffic: joint venture and organic social media.
• Cold traffic: ads, banner ads, etc.
• Cold traffic bridge is the holy grail of online marketing. The secret of growing massive companies. Learn how to convert cold traffic.
• Cold traffic: don’t use any jargon. talk in more broad terms.
• Match messaging to traffic’s temperature and knowledge.
• “If people aren’t willing t give their email addresses at this point, they are highly unlikely to give me money later.”
• Qualify subscribers. Then quality buyers. “A buyer is a buyer is a buyer.”
• The list of subscribers is different from the list of buyers.
• Hyperactive buyers = in some kind of pain right now and will buy more than one thing at a time. Selective sequence for them and upsells.
• Change the selling environment to sell high-ticket items.
• Include “value of” to make the thing seem worthwhile.
• Qualify subscribers (I know how to do this well). Qualify buyers by getting them to pay for something.
• Offer is distinguished based on how you make your money back.
  • You might lose money on the offer when it comes to free plus shipping, trials, trip wires, etc. But, you can break even with up-sells.
  • A self-liquidating offer (SLO) is when the front end product liquidates your ad cost so that your up-sells can become pure profit.
  • Straight sale offers are $97 and up. They are best offered to a warm audience and people who have gone through funnels or watched webinars. Need stronger bond with AC. Need more selling.
• Qualify hyperactive buyers. First qualify as buyers then offer up-sells.
  • Bumps on the order form
  • One-time offers (compliment initial purchase). Must add value to initial offer.
  • Downsales if say no to OTO. Different product or payment plan. 20% can say yes.
  • Affiliate recommendations.
• Unaware -> Problem aware -> Solution aware -> Most aware.
• Start with SLO or F+S for cold traffic.
• Introduce to the buyer qualification for the organic traffic + bond with attractive character.
• Humans can’t resist the word free. Hershey’s Kiss experiment.
• Free + Shipping script: Who, what, why how. Catch. Urgency. Guarantee. Recap.
• “I’ve got __ that’s going to show you ____.” “If you’ve been struggling with __, then you need this because it will ____.” “Just do x,y,z” “I’m do this because___.” Urgency. guarantee.
• OTO – Longer process did not help. Just do right after the purchase. When customer buys something, don’t sell more of the same thing. They’ve scratched that itch. Find the next thing the customer needs to accomplish core goal. Or “do it faster” just don’t say not complete or will be mad about first offer. Could also do “need help.”
• OTO – Confirm decision to limit buyer’s remorse. Keep the loop open. Say made smart decision and why. Tell them about the ONE Thing that stands out in product. Can’t explain everything. Future pace. Value stack. Testimonials.
• SLO – cover expense of buying traffic. Use questions to get prospect to think about what they desire most. Agitate past failures. Big promise.
• Story: Drama, backstory, problem, epiphany, solution path, first sign success, conspiracy, big lie and not your fault, common enemy, rapid growth. case studies. hidden benefits.
• Solution: pain and cost, ease, speed, so benefits, social proof, the offer, build value, price anchor, “if all,” reveal price, guarantee, scarcity, future pacing, call to action, post selling.
• Webinar: big promise. Hook to end. Command attention. Future pace. Break their belief patterns. The stack. If all.
• PLF = Wow+how you and others are using it, people look over shoulder as walk through process, ownership and what it’s like to live with this in their life, the offer.
• High ticket – how do people feel about where they are. Pull out the emotions. What are their hopes and dreams. What would money allow them to do? Find the reason why the person will buy this.
• Simply a lack of knowledge blocking success and you can provide him with that knowledge. If you knew how to ___ would you do it? You have to get them to admit they don’t know what they’re doing to some degree and need help.
• Get them to say why they will be successful with the program.

Tons of more great findings.

At the time of writing, you can purchase DotCom Secrets for $8.69 on Amazon.