Launch Read online

  But the real reason that I hesitated over that mouse click came down to one word—desperation. I was desperate for a change. I needed a success. I needed to make some money. I needed to turn my life around. And I had been waiting for (and working toward) this moment for too long . . .

  This whole journey started when my wife, Mary, walked through the front door in tears—a moment etched in my memory forever. She had left work in the middle of the work day, and now she was standing in front of me, sobbing from the pressure of supporting our family. Mary could no longer stand having to leave for work every morning before her two young kids even woke up and coming home at night when it was almost time to tuck them in bed.

  I had been home taking care of our babies. The politically correct term these days is “stay-at-home dad,” but back then we just called me “Mr. Mom,” and it was a whole lot less socially acceptable than it is now. Several years before that I had quit my corporate job—a job most people would probably consider a good one in operations management. I was the proverbial square peg in a round hole. I just didn’t fit in the corporate world. I didn’t understand the politics, and I felt like I was forever swimming upstream when I tried to get things done. I saw myself as a corporate failure. So when my son was about a year old and my wife graduated from the University of Colorado and landed a new job with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, I walked away from my corporate career.

  I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I just knew I couldn’t keep living in the corporate world.

  The whole Mr. Mom thing went on for longer than I expected. Soon we had a second baby, which meant I was caring for two small children. As anyone who has been in that role knows, my days were busy. But I needed to make a change. I needed to figure out a way to support my family, to give my wife a break, and to relieve all the pressure that was crushing down on our family.

  And that’s what that mouse click was all about—changing our lives, creating a new, more prosperous future. It was about launching a product and launching a business. It was about creating an income and changing my family’s fortunes. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would change the world.

  Go Ahead and Quit Your Day Job

  When I finally built up the nerve to click the button, the reaction was breathtaking . . . like stomping on the gas pedal of a Porsche 911 Twin Turbo.

  That click sent an email from my computer.

  The email went to a server based just outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

  And that triggered an email broadcast that went out to the people who had subscribed to my simple email newsletter.

  Within seconds, that email broadcast landed in the inboxes of my subscribers.

  The email was very short, containing less than 50 words. But at the end of the email there was a link to an order form on my web site where people could buy a product that I had just created. The product was a simple email newsletter about the stock market and what I thought was going to happen in the market in the near future.

  (Actually, to be more accurate, I hadn’t even created the product yet, but I’ll get to that later on when I teach you about the Seed Launch™.)

  Of course, all that took just a few seconds, but every single second after I clicked the “send” button seemed to drag on for an eternity. I felt like I held my breath the entire time. I needed to know . . . would anyone buy my new product?

  After 30 seconds I optimistically checked to see if anyone had bought yet.

  Nothing.

  40 seconds. Nothing.

  50 seconds. Nothing.

  59 seconds . . . and the FIRST SALE came in!

  A few seconds later, another order. And then another, and another, and then three more. Every time I clicked “refresh,” there were more orders!

  Within an hour, the total sales were over $8,000. By the end of the day, sales had gone beyond $18,000. And by the end of the week my humble little offer had made over $34,000—almost as much as I had ever made in an entire YEAR back in my corporate job.

  That was the launch that brought Mary home. It wasn’t my first-ever launch (that’s a crazy story I’ll get to a little later), but it was the one that convinced me that my little, fledgling business could support my family. Within a few months Mary had left her job and came home to stay. We were ecstatic. (We joke that she “retired”, but nothing could be further from the truth—in addition to being a full-time mom, she quickly took over back office operations in the business.)

  You know, money is a funny thing. For some people, $34,000 is a crazy amount of money—an almost unbelievable number (and for me, it was life-changing). For others, it might not be big enough to get them excited. But no matter what group you’re in, if you stick with me throughout this book, I’ve got some pretty amazing results to share with you.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but I was just getting started. And I was creating something that would change thousands of lives.

  How I Got Rich Helping Thousands of Others Get Rich

  So let’s get clear on one thing right from the start: This is not a “get rich quick” book.

  Yes, what I’m about to share with you has created incredible riches and abundance in my life and in the lives of many of my students. But that money, wealth, and influence didn’t magically appear overnight.

  There is a method—a formula, if you will—behind all the amazing success. And that’s what this book is all about—taking you behind the curtain and showing you that formula.

  Along the way, I’m going to introduce you to a world that most people don’t know exists, a world where ordinary people are creating extraordinary businesses. A world where people are starting businesses with almost no investment or capital, often launching those businesses from a spare bedroom or their kitchen table. And a world where those people are going from start-up to profits in a remarkably short amount of time.

  And then there are those people who own an existing business who are dropping this formula into that business and seeing a breathtaking increase in their sales.

  This isn’t the world of high-flying, high-tech start-ups where a few geeky programmers get together, work 20 hours a day, try to “get funded” by some venture capitalists, then sell out to Google for $100 million dollars. (Or, more likely, go bust amidst a pile of greasy, old pizza boxes and empty Red Bull cans.)

  If you want to go down that road, I wish you the best of luck. But this isn’t the book for you.

  What I’m talking about is creating a business (or building an existing business) and generating profits right out of the gate. A business with low overhead, low start-up costs, and minimal or no staff. A business that is highly profitable and gives you great flexibility in your life.

  And, last but not least, a business that creates great value in the world and allows you to “do good” at whatever level you choose.

  I know, it all sounds like the land of milk and honey, right? All beauty and grace? Can’t possibly be true, right?

  I know, I know.

  In fact, I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it for myself, over and over again.

  The reality is this: The Internet has completely changed the game for anyone who wants to have their own business. It’s now easier, faster, and cheaper to start and run a business than at any time in history.

  And if you already have your own business, the Internet gives you the power to grow your current business more quickly and easily than ever before.

  And I say all that from experience. I started my first online business in the “Internet Dark Ages” of 1996, and I’ve been profitable every year since then. Right through the dot-com crash, right through the Great Recession, right through every Google update. I’ve sold tens of millions of dollars of my products online in four distinctly different markets. And along the way, I’ve taught thousands of online entrepreneurs how to start and grow their businesses. My students and clients have done more than $400 million in sales (and counting).

  And thou
gh I generally don’t like to toot my own horn, I think it’s safe to say that I’m widely regarded as one of the top Internet marketing experts and leaders ever. (I try to stay away from the term “guru,” but, yes, some people refer to me as a “marketing guru.”)

  However, as you’re going to learn, it wasn’t always that way. I wasn’t born with any type of marketing super-powers. Before I started my first online business I had never run a business before. I had absolutely zero sales training and no marketing skills. In fact, I was always the kid who couldn’t sell more than one bag of doughnuts for the Boy Scouts fundraiser every year (and that was the bag that my parents bought).

  The Rules Have Changed

  The world is clearly in the midst of a huge transition. The very nature of our communications and daily lives has changed radically in just a few short years. We live in a more transparent world . . . a world with a seamlessly connected client base that can instantly pull up thousands of reviews about hundreds of competitors. A world with an ever-increasing level of competition for your prospects’ attention. A world where the “marketing fog” grows thicker with each passing day. A world that puts ever-greater value on authenticity and congruency.

  The rules of business and marketing have changed, and those changes have killed many businesses. But the changes have also created enormous opportunity for thousands of others. If you understand the new playing field, grabbing your prospect’s attention and building a relationship with him or her has actually gotten a lot simpler in many ways. And that’s what this book is all about.

  So whether you’re in a time of transition and you desperately want to start a business . . .

  Or you’re running a department or a profit center at a major corporation . . .

  Or you’re a solo practitioner or service-provider (such as a lawyer, massage therapist, Ayurvedic astrologer, etc.) and you’re sick of the dollars-for-hours shuffle . . .

  Or you might already have a successful online business, but your sales are stagnant and you need to inject some momentum into your business . . .

  Or you might even be an artist (such as a painter, author, jeweler, recording artist, etc.) and you’re struggling to get noticed in a very crowded digital world . . .

  The fact is that you need to launch. Every successful product, business, and brand starts with a successful launch. You can’t afford to show up slowly. You need momentum and cash flow, because they are the very lifeblood of every successful business.

  Million-Dollar Days

  After that $34,000 launch, after Mary quit her job and came home to stay, my business just kept on growing. My launches got better and better, and my results got better and better. At that time, my best launch had done more than $106,000 in seven days—all from my home, all with no staff, all with almost zero costs.

  These were the “quiet years.” There were lots of great things about my business, and I loved my business and my life. I was making more money than I had ever dreamed of, Mary could stay home with the kids and be a full-time mom, we were able to move to my dream hometown of Durango, Colorado (where I could pursue my passion for all kinds of outdoor sports like mountain biking, whitewater kayaking, and skiing).

  That all changed, however, when I went to an Internet Marketing Seminar in Dallas, Texas, in February 2003.

  When I got off the plane in Dallas for that seminar I didn’t think my business was all that special. I figured there must be a lot of people with online businesses who were doing product launches the same way I was doing them. The success I was having was breathtaking for me, but I didn’t know that making six figures in seven days in a little one-person business was the type of thing that would stop people in their tracks.

  In the next three days at that marketing seminar, as I met lots of new people (and forged some friendships I value and enjoy to this day), I realized that no one else was doing the stuff I was doing. And they definitely weren’t doing launches the way I was or getting the results I was getting. In fact, I was shocked when I realized that I had basically invented a new way of marketing—an approach that would eventually come to be known as the “Product Launch Formula®.”

  One of the people I met at that seminar was a man named John Reese. He’s one of those guys you realize is brilliant the moment you meet him, but at that time he was mostly flying under the radar. He was a true Internet marketing expert, but few people knew it at the time.

  We stayed in touch after the event and became friends, and I shared my product launch “secrets” with him. In 2004, John put my techniques to work on two launches. The first one was for a three-day seminar he put on. It did almost $450,000 in sales and proved to me that my techniques would work outside my little business teaching people about the stock market.

  John’s next launch was for a training course on how to generate traffic for one’s web site, and this launch was a game changer. It generated $1.1 million in sales in just 24 hours—a million-dollar day! What makes that number even more shocking is that his business was a tiny, micro-business he ran from home with almost no staff or team whatsoever. (I think John had one person helping with the launch and a part-time customer service assistant.)

  I was stunned that this new marketing approach I had invented could generate such insane results. But at the time I was still publishing my financial newsletters, and even though I was starting to get regular calls from people looking for help with their launches, I was largely still behind-the-scenes in the bigger Internet business world. I had a wonderful life—living in Durango, running a great business, going skiing and mountain biking with my kids. I was happy behind the scenes and not looking for a spot in the limelight.

  But after John publicly thanked me for my help with his launches, the cries for me to consult on launches kept getting louder. And after urging from John and several others (especially Yanik Silver), I decided it was time to publish my work . . . to start teaching others my Product Launch Formula®.

  The Day Marketing Changed

  I suppose the real test came on October 21, 2005. I had decided to launch my Product Launch Formula training course, and my reputation (and my business future) were on the line. After all, the proof really was going to be in the pudding. If I claimed to be an expert on product launches, I better do an outstanding job on my great product launch, right?

  But even though I had made successful launches—and helped others do the same—there was an extra challenge this time. I was creating an entirely new business, starting over from scratch. All my previous success had come from teaching about the stock market. Now I was going to be teaching people how to launch products and businesses online. I didn’t have an email list of prospects in this new market, and my old list of stock market investors wouldn’t do me any good at all. I didn’t have expert positioning in the market; I was largely unknown except to the few people I had helped with their launches. But that didn’t slow me down, because I knew how to get around such limitations. (I’ll show you how when I teach you about JV Launches.)

  So the pressure was on, but by this time I was an old pro. My launch was a crazy success. In the first week I sold just over $600,000 worth of my new Product Launch Formula (PLF) program. And with that launch, I had instantly created a new business and developed hundreds of new clients and a list of thousands of new prospects.

  The proof was in the pudding, indeed. :-)

  Since then it’s been a wild ride. Over the years I’ve continually updated and revised the Product Launch Formula so that it has evolved into a complete training/coaching program. PLF arguably has become the largest-selling Internet Marketing training product ever.

  I have thousands of Product Launch Formula Owners, and many of them have enjoyed jaw-dropping success. It’s hard to quantify their total results, but I know that my students and clients have done more than $500 million in sales, and that number goes up every day.

  Remember, most (but not all) of those PLF Owners are small, even microsized businesses. That’s not like G
oogle doing another $500 million in profits. These are mostly tiny businesses, and the impact of those sales are absolutely huge. And I’ve had many PLF Owners equal my “six figures in seven days” success, and more than a handful have had million-dollar launches.

  People have used PLF in every type of market and niche you can think of and realized tremendous success. In fact, it’s almost become a hobby of mine to keep track of many of those markets. Here’s just a partial list of some of the markets:

  dating advice

  test preparation

  Photoshop tutorials

  loan officers

  realtors

  juggling

  college admissions

  baseball coaches

  mixed martial arts

  SAP programmers

  knitting

  crocheting

  mutual fund investing

  trading (forex, futures, stocks, etc.)

  dressage

  real estate investing

  learning guitar

  training doctors to read ultrasounds

  learning piano

  business coaching (around the world)

  health food

  raw food

  massage therapy

  romance (writing love letters)

  personal trainers

  medicinal herbs

  fiction writing

  horse training

  pet care

  meditation

  dog agility training

  marching band accessories

  tennis instruction

  yoga

  youth soccer coaching

  songwriting

  hand analysis

  indoor bicycle training

  brain science

  self-defense

  adventure travel

  cake decorating

  Remember, in the interest of brevity, I gave just a partial list—there are dozens and dozens more examples. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it won’t work for your business or market.