Nathan: Hey, guys. Welcome to another episode of the Foundr Podcast. My name is Nathan Chan, coming to you live from Melbourne, Australia. It’s 3:35 a.m. here and I’m just on a roll because, yeah, we’ve got a ton of episodes, I’m just batching them out and yeah. I got a lot of work I need to do before I go to the States. I’ll go to the States in a couple of weeks. I’m super, super pumped, take my girlfriend, Emily. We’re actually going to see Gary Muller from episode number 21. We’re going to take him up on his offer to stay at his top Bed and Breakfast in the Hamptons. So that’s gonna be super fun. Yeah, long story short, got a lot of work and I’m trying to jam out so I can have a relaxing holiday and, yeah, that’s enough about me.

Now to today’s guest, his name is Ed Dale. He’s someone that I can call a mentor and I’ve learned so, so much from him. And he’s pretty much the person that’s kinda sent me down this path of creating the magazine, building an online business, and funny, my passion. Honestly if it really wasn’t for Ed Dale I wouldn’t be sitting here and speaking to you right now behind this microphone. And Ed is an extremely successful online entrepreneur. He’s a really, really brilliant and smart marketer and everything he does is listen to and follow and he’s taught me a lot.

And I had to invite him on this show because you know, one thing that I do is I try and find people that are doing things that I wanna do, or have achieved things that I wanna achieve. And I try and pick their brain and learn from them. You know, Tony Robbins has a famous quote saying, “Success leaves clues,” and guys wait until you hear the Tony Robbins interview that’s coming in September, you’re gonna love it, but let’s not digress.

Success does leave clues and I believe that you can shadow people, learn from them and really, really understand how they operate. And we’re doing all sorts of things with Foundr, we’re building on a back-end system. And you know, Foundr’s much more than a magazine, we’re a media brand and we’ve got our front-end products, but we’re also building up you know, back-end training products that you guys are asking for. You guys want more than just the magazine, the podcast and this other…all the content that we’re creating, you guys want more hand-held stuff, more courses, more how-to stuff. So really really holding your hand kinda in-depth stuff and solving really specific problems. So that’s what I’m working on, guys. I’m working on many different products right now.

And I don’t know about you but I’d love to do a famous one million dollar product launch, where you make a million dollars in five days or a million dollars in two days. And how do you do that? Well, first things first you need a very big email database, and Ed Dale has done multiple million dollar product launches. So I thought what better chance than to find out what it takes to, you know, make a million dollars in a couple of days over your online marketing and understand you know, what better opportunity…to understand how it’s done from the man himself. So let’s just jump in. If you are enjoying these episodes please do leave us a review for the podcast, it helps more than you can imagine, it drives our rankings up and it helps us get found. So now, let’s just jump in the show.

Let’s just start off with you know, what does it take? Like can you run us through the concept of a launch and just for the audience and then, yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got your job.

Ed: Yeah. So look, I’d love to tell you all about million dollars launches and I suppose demystify is what I really hope to do out of this conversation because it’s very possible. And you know, when people hear Internet Marketing, in particular you know, your audience, because you’ve got a much broader audience of entrepreneurs and people from all sorts of business you know. The internet marketing space can get tired with a bit of the, you know, get rich quick and you say all of these sorts of things. So I wanna demystify a lot of that as well.

But my background for most of your hints probably doesn’t know me, is training people to create online businesses. And I started 14 years ago, would you believe and I’m probably best known for the Challenge which is the thing that we do for free every year. Was inspired by NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writers Month. And I read about this many years ago, 10 years ago would you believe. And I remember I was there in the Trump Tower when I was reading this book and I thought how cool you know, how to write a novel in 30 days. And it’s quite simple in one sense of the word and actually, this is a moral that we’ll come back to, is you know, you write 1667 words every day for 30 days and guess what? You’ve got a 50,000-word first draft. That’s what it takes.

Now, it’s very easy to say, not so easy to do. And I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if we could teach people how to start an online business because I’ve been very, very lucky. I’ve been able to sell one of my online businesses for three million dollars, the next one I sold five million dollars. So I have been extremely blessed in that sense. And I was sitting there just after I’d sold my second online business and thought, wouldn’t be cool to see if we could teach people how to start an online business and make their first dollar. Because to me, forget your million dollar launches, it’s all about making that first dollar that I think is so much more important.

And at the time, you know, there was lots of people saying you know, you can make X thousand dollars a month or all these sorts of things and typically it was all about people saying buy my course and then I will show you how to sell the course that you’ve just bought to other people so you can make money and, of course, you making money for that those the whole time. So it was really a reaction against that.

And it started off with 927 people, did that first challenge and now over in the 10 years, well over 300,000 people have done the challenge, which is really something that I’m very proud of. And over that course in time I’ve been privileged to not only see, you know, have a ringside seat to you know, I’m very fortunate to be friends with the first person to make you know, that mythical million dollar day, was John Reese, who’s a very dear friend, he has an enormous elephantine hands. If you ever see him don’t try stare.

But John was the first one to do a million dollars in a day and it was sort of like a four-minute mile for online businesses. And we’re talking niche businesses here, we’re talking about businesses that are focused on, you know, Apple and Amazon make a million dollars in turnover every minute. But well, actually a slight exaggeration although with Apple not actually that far off the truth but you see my point, right? We’re talking about this a real business. And this is why I think it’s particularly relevant for your audience, Nathan, is that I really want people to understand that these are people who are making, you know, doing really large launches for their products. And I think a launch…and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a million dollar or it’s $6,000 that…depending on where you’re at a $6,000 launch could be the most awesome thing to ever have happened to you and that’s great and I want to go through the elements of what’s involved.

So I’ve been very, very, very lucky to have a ringside seat to a whole bunch of them, Jeff Walker, the godfather of launches is a dear friend. And I mean, he’s a mastermind with John Reese. Which is I don’t know how I’ve managed to wrangle my way in there but we were very dear friends. And so, I’ve been fortunate to see what’s required. And the first and most important thing that I think everybody has to understand is that it requires an enormous amount of work. You know, for all of the…and contribution and service, work, contribution and service to me are the cornerstones of actually having a successful launch. And what I mean by that, Nathan, is that John for two years prior to his launch would travel to conferences, he’d jump on anybody’s, well it wasn’t podcasts in those days because they were very rare on the ground but he would do the equivalent, he would jump on webinars, he would jump on conference calls, remember those, everybody? Where we actually dialed up on the phone to a conference line number you know, we would do all those sort of. And would turn up for anything and he would speak, he wouldn’t charge for it and so he built up this enormous, you know, bank account of goodwill.

And I think the bank account of goodwill is a really, really good metaphor. Because I think if you’re planning on doing a launch the more deposits you can make in your goodwill bank account by appearing on other people’s podcasts, by helping them, by serving them, by doing favors, promoting their stuff, anything that you can do in terms of building up this goodwill bank account towards launch is going to stand you in good stead. Because he’s the deal, Nathan, you ready? This is the ultimate secret, right? Everybody pins out. This is the ultimate secret for launches, okay? This is it. This is what it’s all about.

An online launch is driven by this one thing and one thing only, it’s simply the sheer volume of email that you send out. And I can tell you there is a direct correlation between the most successful online launches and the number of emails sent out. So, in other words, the biggest launch of all time…and in fact the, I think the amazon.com boys [SP]…and again, I’m talking niches here, I’m not talking Beyonce albums, I’m talking niches and people with online businesses serving very specific markets, right? And it’s sheer volume, right? It is volume of the email sent is the direct correlation to how much you will make. You wanna have a million dollar launch? Make sure you send well over three million emails. And it’s not you sending three million emails, it’s you and your partners, your joint venture partners. The people who are helping spread the word during this compressed period of time. Because why do we have launches, right? Why have launches in the first place?

Launches are awesome because if you’ve got a new product it has a compressed period of time and we all know, everybody listening to this, we tend to react to deadlines. You know, I put up on my…all of our offers have deadlines. So I have countdown clocks and honestly, I don’t like countdown clocks. It’s not manipulative, it’s true. Like when they’re over they’re over. Don’t ever put a countdown clock on something that you have no intention of taking down, that’s scamy, I’m not interested in that, right?

But the facts are people react to deadlines. And look at Apple, they’ve just announced that there’s gonna sell Apple watches in the stores for the first time on the 26th of April, Friday 26th of April, you watch what happens, right? There’s gonna be lines, there’s gonna be people everywhere and that’s just the way it works. And when there’s a new iPhone launch or you know, people react to deadlines. Because if you think about it, and this is what everybody has to understand, your customer, people, and even if they genuinely really love you, right? I’m talking about fans not just customers, even though your fans think you’re awesome and really love reading and watching and listening to everything that you do, the reality is you are one of how many multiple thousands of grabs for their attention that they’re hitting every single day. Your brain is in desperate triage mode. Every single moment it is trying to save you from these daily…we’re just not as human beings genetically bred to sort of accept the amount of messages that we are receiving every single day.

And so, with that, a launch means that there’s a deadline. So if we don’t have to make a decision or a choice about something we will put it off. Because what we know now, the science of willpower which has advanced so much in the last two years, fascinating topic but a completely different discussion. But the relevant point here for launches is that every decision you make during the day with talk about bank accounts, you have a willpower bank too and every single decision you make, and I don’t care whether it’s buying this product which is what we’re interested in or it’s what am I going away today or should I take this route or this path to work, every single one of those is a decision and we know for a fact it makes withdrawal from your willpower bank account and your brain is very very aware of this. And because it’s aware of this anytime it doesn’t have to make a decision it says, I’m gonna save that. That’s a little bit of energy literally that I don’t have to expend right now and the brain expends more energy than anything else.

So this is why we have the deadline nature of launches as such an important part of what we do. And if we look at the sales curve of the launch, when you first open the shopping cart as we say in the trade, so when you first have your…you know, people can actually online drop down their credit card you have a burst. But the vast majority of sales will be what we call the last 24 hours before your cart closes before you stop taking orders for that particular launch and so there’s that psychology of that. So that’s a very broad overview I suppose, Nathan, of the fact that launches are a combination of factors of A, how much contribution and service you put into your market in the period leading up to the launch. You know, the worst thing you can do for JV Partner is the first contact they’ve had from you in two years is, “Hey I’ve gotta launch coming next week. Please email.”

Nathan: Yeah, that’s right.

Ed: It’s not gonna happen, right? So a launch is the longer you can prepare for a launch and by that I mean putting in the effort, serving your market, being an influencer, being a contributor in that market is so key because then…because what we do know about the success of a launch, it is directly and incontrovertibly related to the amount of email that’s sent during that launch process. And I don’t mean you send all million or three million emails in one day, it could be over the entire sequence of a launch process. And we might wanna go into the sequence of that as well, Nathan. But to me, that gives you the overview.

Nathan: Yeah. Look, I’ve been scribbling like crazy. There are so many notes I’m taking here and I’m a little bit selfish because like as mentioned, you know, I have a launch about to come up and I’m nowhere near getting to that million dollar, but that is a goal for me one day and you know, I just want to pick your brain. So I’m a little bit selfish on this one. So I’ll just get…

Ed: No, and the goal you know, if you want to have a million dollar launch, have a plan to have many millions of emails sent. And keep in mind as I said just to put this into context for people because they’re thinking millions of emails what are we talking about. Well, you may have a list of 30,000 people and now typically a launch, the actual launch itself happens over a two to three week period. Where we have what we call the pre-launch period, where we again, massive contribution to the market so we’re educating people we’re providing incredible value on the topic of what we’re eventually going to launch and then there’s the open car period. So that could be over three weeks.

So if a JV Partner will typically send 6 to 10 emails over the course of that two to three week period supporting your part. They say the most successful JV Partners who will make the most out of being a JV Partner where you typically compensate them for that, will send 6 to 10 emails over the course of that period. So all of a sudden somebody with a 30,000 list has just contributed 300,000 emails to that pot. You see how that works? So it’s cumulative. So it doesn’t mean that you expect all that email happening on one day but over the course of time.

So that’s why you know, you can get a lot of email going for people with small lists as long as people understand that there’s real value. And it’s so important now because of the launch process and, again, a lot of people will be dealing with markets where, you know, I can just hear them thinking that’s all right for internet marketing but I’m in a hipster market who’s a boar’s marketing. And I get that and I work in a lot of inverted commas hipster markets that are boar marketing, Launches work just as well if not better in those markets, you just…

Nathan: Yeah, because people aren’t used to it.

Ed: They’re not used to it and more importantly a launch is about providing incredible value. That’s what a launch is all about. It’s not about, you know, people think I wanna make a million dollars. That’s your thinking but do you wanna make a million dollars? Provide $10 million worth of value to your market. That’s how you do it, right? You’ve gotta have a product which is…you know, my mentor Gary Halbert, used to say to me, it doesn’t matter what your sales price is, doesn’t matter what your launch is. If your offer is fantastic and provides enormous value, true legitimate value to people then you’re gonna do great, you’re gonna do fine.

So, it’s very important when you’re looking at the launch process, and by the way for people who want a great, not my book I wish, that Jeff Walker wrote the book “Launch It.” So he’s the guy who really you know, masterminded this whole online approach to launches and he’s got a book out which you can get at all good and bad bookstores called “Launch.” I would seriously suggest if you’re interested in this, having a read of exactly that and he’ll outline the process in a lot more detail than I can here.

Nathan: It’s a great book.

Ed: But I want to ram home these points though of that the launch process is one of giving extraordinary value. And people say well hang on a second, I want them to buy my product, if I give extraordinary value in the launch they might not wanna buy my product. No, it’s completely the opposite. And again, this is something that Gary Halbert taught me, the more you give, the more detail you give, the more value you deliver during the launch process and this goes for anything in general, the more sales you will have, right? You cannot reveal enough stuff in your pre-launch.

You know, put your best strategy out there and people go, are you crazy? No, I’m not because you’ve got to look at what value you’re providing after launch. Maybe you’re providing support, maybe, and this is where product offering becomes part of the launch design process. Because it’s one thing, and we all know this right, it’s one thing to know the information, it’s another thing entirely to implement it. Are you providing support, are you providing forums, are you providing a community to half the back of the launch? Who knows what those things are?

But in providing a whole lot of value you can’t do enough for people. You can’t contribute enough, you can’t serve enough because the more you serve, the more you contribute, the better off any launch you do will be. Because you’ll have just head that goodwill bank account, you’ll head lots and lots of deposits. Because when you run a launch, make no mistake it’s a withdrawal from the goodwill bank account. Now, that’s fine, if you’ve developed lots of…you’ve put lots of savings away for the launch that’s great.

But understand that it’s the withdrawal. So you need to make sure that you are well and willing credit because we all know what happens if you rock up to the bank you try to take out a $100 and you’ve got nothing in your account, right? And that’s, I’ve gotta say that metaphor there is what a lot of people do when they do launches. It’s like, hey I wanna do a launch, I’ve got an awesome product here mail for me, it’s gonna be brilliant, why do I even need to explain why that’s the case. And they let you know you know, two weeks before it happens.

You look at the best people who do the best launches, they’re letting people know well ahead of time what’s going on and before they’ve even let people know about the launch they’ve made sure they’ve been serving and helping out and contributing wherever they can. The first communicate…you’ve lost, if the first communication you’re having with somebody is, hey I’ve got a launch coming out and I’d really love your support. That is a dud, right? That is really really bad.

The first communication should be where it’s all about you helping them and you’re very good at this, Nathan. In a recent interview you did with me when the tables were turned you pointed out that one of the keys to getting incredible interview subjects like you do, you’re the master at these, is that they are asking you or self how can I serve these people, how can I help these people? Same deal here. It’s incredible. And that’s why hopefully the hipster entrepreneurs listening to these shouldn’t feel dirty about marketing and internet marketing. Because the most successful best, not the scamy stuff, you can’t do scamy stuff anymore, you’re dead in social media. You may get away with it once but then you’ll be screwed in social media forever. It’s very short term. Twenty years ago you could get away with it, even 10 years ago you might be able to get away with it but you can’t get away with it anymore, your social media profile will be destroyed. You can’t afford to do scamy stuff, it’s stupid. But there’s still like the poor old used car salesman, right? There’s a stink and a stain, which doesn’t…it’s not deserved but hey, that’s the way it is.

Because the best internet marketers, the most successful internet marketers know it’s all about providing extraordinary value both in the offering, in the launch process, the first communications that you’re having with people in your market you know, if you’re targeting influences in your market the people who have got the list and you should be a little bit calculated about these you know. This is where the science of this comes in. You should absolutely know who are the top 20 influencers in your market, you should know those, right? And you should understand who’s got those lists and you should be following them on Twitter and you should be on their Facebook page.

And you should be ready at the drop of a hat because there’s always opportunities to serve, there’s always opportunities to help. And it might be a silly thing, right? I remember one opening  that I got with somebody that I was trying to, you know, want, they’re a key influencer in the market. And they were basically looking for restaurant suggestions in Melbourne, right? They were traveling through Melbourne. And I said, you got to try this place and they did. And that was the connection and I was able to mention that later on and they remembered that it was me that gave that recommendation, boom, right? That’s what I’m talking about.

It doesn’t necessarily mean to be… You might notice that they’re a, I don’t know, a guitar fanatic. And you might see an article or something that’s really interesting on guitars or something and you say, “Hey, have you seen this?” You know, even if there you get no response, and by the way, 9 times out of 10, 99 times out of 100, you won’t get a response because they’re busy people. There’s a reason they’re influencers in the market is because they’re serving their market all the time. They’re here for you, they’re here for their market just as you are for them. But they appreciate it and they do understand.

And don’t worry, psychologically, you know, these people will say, I don’t look at my ad replies you know, what a lot of trot, everybody looks at their ad, of course, you do. Everybody ego searches, you know you do. You always need to be, don’t even try to tell me you don’t because you do, right? And if you don’t your mother does and she sends stuff. Oh my goodness, you know, when they started there was a raft of those ads before Google cracked down of here’s a dial of scam artist, right? And my mother would see this on Google because she Googles and then I get a phone call, “What’s this all about?” And I say, that’s just somebody advertising them what can you do. Anyway, but point being these people notice and you build up points. And you know, if you, like I say the metaphor of the bank account is a great one.

You wanna make sure that the first contact you have when you’re asking somebody for something is why, why, why, why, why, after the contact where you’ve been helping them out with different things. And if they’ve got a book maybe you can interview them and promote their book. Maybe if they’re doing a launch get in touch with them and say, look how can I help send out stuff to miles, with no expect… If you’re doing this, by the way, this is a great point, if you’re doing this for the sole reason, for the sole expectation that you’re expecting reciprocity when it comes time for you to have your launch then you’re doing this with the wrong intent and you’ll find yourself in all sorts of problems, right? You can’t think that way.

You’ve gotta do it because you’re being cool in your marketplace. This is the marketplace you’ve chosen, this is the market, this is the niche that you’re in, it’s much better to be the cool guy or girl in that market than being the asshole in that market. So just be cool. Do cool things for your audience, do cool things for your colleagues in the market.

You know people…I remember when we were an IP owing the company there was a big section which should be in every document which is about who are the competitors in your marketplace. And I was saying what are you talking about competitors in the marketplace? There are no compe…of course there are competitors in your market, but they know the people who are selling at my marketplace they’re not competitors, they’re partners, they’re potential joint venture partners. If they don’t buy my stuff maybe they’ll buy their stuff.

By the way, I completely acknowledge that there are a hell of a lot of markets on the planet within not as enlightened as mine. And that’s just the case, right? That’s just the way it happens but this is a really, really, you know, I think if you’re in it for the right reasons, hopefully, you’re in your market because you love it, you’re passionate about it, you wanna do amazing things in that marketplace and the way he thinks is by helping people out in your marketplace. That’s the only thing that moves the needle. So focus on that and then the launch stuff becomes so much easier.

Nathan: So what I’m hearing is you’re a big fan of affiliate stuff. So you believe that you have to do it with affiliates.

Ed: Look, no no. That’s not right actually. I’m glad you picked me up on that. No, it’s not only that. It’s also you can do a launch and we do this all the time, we call them you know, the trade term is what we call an internal launch and you launch something to your own list or you do your list. And in fact, that is incredibly good practice for, like…you do not wanna be testing your launch sequence with somebody else’s traffic.

Nathan: That’s so true. Like I had something that I was thinking to myself like you know, people are asking me, do you have an affiliate for this Instagram course that’s coming and stuff like that and I’m like, I’m thinking to myself, well I wanna get my sequences, what works, what are the buying triggers, what are the benefits that people wanna see, what are the objections and work out the best way to promote the cause before, for myself before I even hand it over to you.

Ed: Yeah, exactly right and that is absolutely key. And it’s something that if you run through this whole…and we do this basically every single time. And it’s also a chance, by the way, to reward your audience because part of the cool stuff about a launch is making a really great offer for people. And you can offer your tribe members, your fans, first crack at something and do it at a really okay discount. I’m not a big fan of price discounts because I think it should be all about increasing value but maybe you do have a special prize for your tribe members.

And so they see that when it goes out to the broader market that it’s something that they got as a special deal. And so, definitely. And the other great thing you can do then is you can then go to the market and say, “Well, I’ve run,” because there’s a lot of science in this now and people may or may not have heard the term earnings per click, but say in a hyper-competitive space like internet marketing, one of the first questions you’re gonna get from an affiliate or a JV manager is what’s your EPC, what’s your earnings per click?

And what that means is, for every person who clicks on your link in the email that they send out, how much money are they going to earn? That’s a calculation that people expect you to know and that can be, in the internet marketing world that can be anywhere from a couple of dollars to $14, $15, $16 per click that people earn. So you need to know those numbers. And they are what they are, but at least you’ve tested them.

And you know, another thing and this is a great tip too, is use Facebook advertising to target your audience. Here’s a great strategy, before you go to your full-on launch, okay. So I don’t know if people are aware but you are able to upload your email list into Facebook. Now, don’t worry what they call is they hash the email. So you’re not like giving Facebook the actual emails themselves, right? They don’t store those. But what they do is they match those emails with people on Facebook.

So then what you can do, Nathan, is you can then create what’s called a lookalike audience. So they take that entire mass of data and they say, based on all the profiles of the people who are in your tribe here are people on Facebook that are similar. And guess what? You advertise to that group, so you’re not going to your existing customers because we wanna see how does your funnel work with what we call again, the industry term cold traffic? People who don’t have a relationship with you because the numbers will be very different. And that makes sense, right? If I’ve developed a relationship with my tribe over time when I say something is cool I hope my word is worth something and it’s gotta be, otherwise they won’t be part of my tribe for much longer. You can burn that trust incredibly quickly in this day and age.

But the thing I think…you can run then a Facebook campaign to test cold traffic. And so you can say to people when it comes time to doing your launch, “Look, here’s how I tested it on my traffic, this was the only spare click, I then tried it on a lookalike Facebook campaign and here’s the cold traffic earnings per click which tends to…” It will be a lot less but still, and that then gives people some sort of quantification of what they can expect. And that’s the cool part of an online business, right? There’s this, what does Dan Kennedy say, he calls it psychology plus mathematics, right? That’s what we do. And I think it’s a great description.

And that’s the mathematics of this is, one of the great things about having an online business is there’s no need to guess, right? There’s always ways of finding things out and often very cheaply. So you know, what I just described is you’re not talking of thousands and thousands of dollars exercise, it may be a couple of hundred dollars and by the way, hopefully, you’re selling your product and you’re covering your cost. It may work out that after the launch you can have now even what we call an Evergreen Sequence, which means a launch that goes all the time to new traffic. You can create what’s an evergreen launch. So that it just happens in a role, so you take people through a particular funnel every single time. So there’s plenty of options like that that people can do, Nathan.

Nathan: Yeah, I know. Look, this is great stuff. You’re really bringing the absolute best stuff, Ed, so thank you. I wanna keep parrying you, I’ve got a few more questions. Now, this is totally selfless for me. When might we launch out, like I wanna build up like a few different products because I’ve identified some more needs that our community needs, that our community is asking for. So my question to you is like, I know like you don’t offer your products on your website and you add in that scarcity, that deadline, you know. I actually wanna offer our products on our website but I wanna do launches too. Now, is that like what’s your thoughts on that, what’s your take on that?

[Crosstalk]

Ed: That’s absolutely legitimate. I mean, in the next let’s face it that’s what a record launch is… well, I remember records, folks. I’m giving my age there. That’s why where Beyonce doesn’t have a huge launch on iTunes of her surprise record and then take it off and have it no longer available.

Nathan: That’s right.

Ed: You know, a launch can be a fantastic way for a new product to hit the market and then it becomes available and you can, of course, do that and that’s something you should do you know. Actually, a great opportunity for me to say something about launches. Launches can be like heroin for a business. You know, the first hit’s awesome but then it kills you, right? And I’ve seen this again and again and again because it’s incredibly addictive, all the site, you know, more money…and I don’t care whether you’re a tiny, tiny little niche or a massive niche, you know, you have that launch and you have that massive infusion of money and you think this is the best thing ever and so I’ll continue doing the launches, right?

Nathan: Yeah, how good is it.

Ed: Like I said, it’s heroin, right? The first hit’s awesome and then if you rely on it you’ll die. Because your market has a capacity to absorb only so many launches and your JV Partners will naturally…they might be very enthusiastic of the first one and maybe they did well and they’re really enthusiastic for the second one but if you come back for number three and number four and number five, particularly you know, and I know some people who try to do it every three months. You’re just not gonna get people mailing, you’re gonna see that dramatic drop off in mail, which, of course, means dramatic drop off in response.

So a real business is about having products that are available at all times, or actually rephrase, a real online business, to me, job one on an online business is this, is build a list, right? Is continuously build your list. If you’re not finding people who are fans and you convert them into true fans, people who wanna buy stuff from you, that’s job one, right? And then you know, if you’ve got in those funnels that you provide people where you’ve got awesome products and services that will really help them in their chosen endeavor or solve a real problem for them, that’s a business to me. That’s what we’re talking about and that is something you must do every day of the year in my view, 24 four hours a day, 7 days a week. That’s your job.

And if you rely on launch, you know, launches are special events and they’re special events because they’re special and they’re rare, right? Relying on a launch all the time as I say is a great way to maybe have a good year but then you’ll blow up. Because what will happen you’ll have all that goodwill bank account that you had, you will have made massive withdrawals for each launch and you’ll soon be in the negative and you just might be able to get the volume of mails that you need to do. You need to be serving your market at all times. One of the great questions you can ask yourself is what have I done that’s really cool for my market this week you know, for no money.

Nathan: That’s a great one.

Ed: For no money. It’s just what cool thing have I released to my market this week that’s gonna help them be awesome and, you know, how have I been awesome to my market this week? And that’s such a cool question because if the answer is you’ve done nothing for them this week that’s a problem. And if you answer too many weeks in a row and then the only communications you’re making to your markets are “buy my stuff,” that’s a problem, that’s a relationship that’s not gonna last.

So you need to think how have I contributed, how have I been awesome, how have I being cool? Like you know, it could be, did you release a podcast this week. That’s a cool thing you know, they didn’t have to pay for it. I released a couple of really cool videos on my YouTube channel this week, really awesome content, might be featuring somebody with initials NC. Really like a couple of incredible techniques on getting interviews and using Instagram to get leads and I can hand on heart as it’s we’re recording this on a Friday, I can say you know what I’ve released some really cool shit to my market this week, job done.

I think that’s everybody listening to this, whether you’re a dirty internet marketer who just thinks the word sales and selling is, you know, they break out in hives and their beats start dropping out, that is what you have to, you know, you have to understand. Because you can’t survive in this market. If you wanna be in your market over the long term and if you look at any key influencer, the reason they’re influencers is because they’re continually doing cool stuff for their market. That’s the trick.

Content times consistency is how you become an influencer in your market. And the more that you become an influencer in the market the easier it is for when you pick up the phone to speak to somebody, it’s much easier to speak to somebody, oh huge tip. I’m so glad I ramble on. This is worth that last five-minute ramble.

The best possible thing that you can do is A, hang out with your influencers in the real world, speak to them on the phone, text them. Having a relationship with the other influences that has nothing to do with the business itself. I bet everybody listening to this event has known this feeling. You get this feeling where you’ve sort of been like you’re a targeted animal that’s being stalked. Like you see these people at trade-shows and maybe it’s a networking breakfast event or something and they pump up to you and they have this smell, they give off this vibe, you’re a bit of prey in their sights and their whole goal is to get their email so that they can transact business with you.

If I look at all the best relationships with the influencers I have we’re friends first. You know we text incredibly childish and insanely rude pictures to each other. We have a laugh, you know, we’ve seen the videos, I just sent and if people haven’t seen that Kung Fu short movie that is going around, it’s a take-off of all the ’80s Kung Fu movies you know, as soon I saw that I thought wow, I know some guys that really really gonna want to see this. That’s important. You wanna be friends with the people in your marketplace. And that, god, I don’t want to call it clinical networking because that’s the wrong, if you’re doing it from a networking perspective to me you’ve lost before you’ve begun.

Nathan: It shouldn’t feel like a strategy.

Ed: No, exactly right. You genuinely wanna hang out, be curious, be interested, how can I help, how can I serve? That’s the way you’ve got to be. And if you do that everything else falls into place, in my view.

Nathan: Yeah, I know. This is awesome. Just a question around like because I’m sure a lot of people would think this, they might think like oh this person’s my competitor or they are an influence in my space, why would I wanna hang out with them, why would I wanna give them my business? Do you have any thoughts or comments on that?

Ed: Yeah, you’re a tool. It’s true. It’s such short-term thinking. When there was a scarce market in the old days where there are only very limited channels to reach people you know, radio, TV, newspaper, then maybe competition was a thing. In this day and age, it’s insane. You don’t think other people know about other people in your marketplace?

Now, there’s a thing, I don’t know, you may have heard of it, the internet, right? If people are interested and think about somebody, think about the last time you got really excited about a niche, did you go to the bookstore? Remember those? Like if you’re interested in golf, for example, I remember when I got into golf, did you just go buy that one book on golf walk, you know, for the next 12 months intently practice every technique in that book to improve your game and break 80? No. You went and you bought 15 different books, a bunch of different magazines, probably bought a whole bunch of equipment before you even started. That’s what an enthusiastic beginner does in a marketplace.

So if you think people don’t know about your competition and if you think that your stuff is so weak that people are going to want to buy off a competitor because you’ve let them know, then get out. Get out of business now. You’re not gonna survive. It’s 2015, it’s not 1870. People will know about your in rid comps competitors. So it’s just damn stupid and insane.

Does that mean that there aren’t small minded people in your business that will give you the short shrift and might talk to you at blah blah blah? Of course, of course, they will be. Not everybody is as zen and Buddhist as I am. If you could see the air quotes and the sarcasm on my face right now, you should really see me. But it’s true, you know. It’s just nuts. This is the connected economy, right? People know people. They know all the people in the market. And guess what? People are so connected now they can deal with more than one person in their  marketplace. It’s just stupid stuff to even think.

And you know we’re the best…let me give you the example of this where I see this playing out the best. I am fascinated right now about the YouTubers, the professional YouTubers. These are people who are making you know, really good money, five, six figures just doing the YouTube channel. And if you dig in and look at how they do things and how they all started, guess what? They were all appearing on each other’s channels.

Nathan: Yeah, that’s so true.

Ed: By the way, you see this in podcasts as well, right?

Nathan: That’s right.

Ed: It’s the same thing. And it’s that network econ and by those connections, everybody’s network gets boosted. And you know, the ones that do it best, it’s not about whether, your audience is only 3,000 a month and mine’s 300,000, that’s not their thought process. Their thought process is how can I serve. If I go on a pod…you know, I don’t care about how many people are listening or not listening to a podcast or YouTube stream or whatever, it’s not about that. If I can reach one person you know, this is sort of a great way to start to wind up on.

Here’s the deal, you know, that fabulous Anderson article you know, “A Thousand True Fans,” people really have to understand this. You know if you can have a thousand people in your marketplace that are prepared to spend one day’s wage, which in most western countries equates to about $100 and then I ask all of you just before you think that’s unrealistic, think about your favorite hobby or whatever it is right now and then ask yourself this question, have you spent more than $100 on that hobby this year? When I asked that when I’m speaking live people just start giggling and laughing because of course, you have, of course, you have. I spent $100 on apps in the last week. Yeah, it’s just, please.

But here’s the thing, right? A thousand people on the planet, a thousand people who are prepared to spend $100 with you in over the course of an entire year, guess what? You got $100,000 business. And bless the online business world, you know, your margins are quite excellent. So you know, let’s say being generous they’re 30% margins, that’s $70,000 and that is enough for you to work full time. Hey, we’re not talking lifestyles of the rich and famous and boats and fancy cars and all that sort of thing. To me what’s far more exciting is that you get to spend for a full time, just like you did, Nathan, you’ve undergone this journey and it’s been wonderful to watch.

Nathan: Thank you.

Ed: To get to the point where you can work full time in what you love doing, that’s the goal here. For me that’s my mission, right? Be able to do the thing and make sure, you know, you kids can go to the right school. You can go out to dinner wherever you wanna go out to dinner, you can travel, you can do these things, you can operate a business wherever you happen to be. Flexibility, that’s what it’s all about to me. When people start hitting me with this scarcity stuff of, I’m worried about competition [inaudible 00:47:10] I just keep thinking you require a thousand people, a thousand people.

And then I mentioned piano is stool restoration because one of my favorite mere cast is a mere cast that is on piano stool restoration. Yes, you heard me right, piano stool restoration. It’s a thing. People get pianos stools and restore them and they make all sorts of crazy things out of them, aquariums, pot stands, it’s crazy, right? That’s a thing. And there are over a thousand people on the planet who are into piano stool restoration. So if there are people into piano stool restoration, folks, there are people who are gonna be into what you’re doing and that’s what’s exciting. That’s what makes online business. That’s what gets me up in the morning. I hope it’s what gets everybody listening to these up in the morning  because that is what’s so awesome about this.

And launches are a great tool in that arsenal to be able to you know…because you’ve got that list here’s another thing and this is again for the hipsters just because they’re going, “Hmm? A launch is all terrible.” Well, what the hell is Kickstarter? What is it?

Nathan: Yeah, that’s a great one.

Ed: It is a launch. That’s pure and simple. It’s a trendy hippie launch. You’ve got a 30-day deadline, you’re emailing to people, you’re providing as much content as you can through the videos and communicating with backers and all this sort of thing through a fixed period of time. Guess what, folks? Guess what, hipsters? That’s a launch. That’s exactly a launch and I love that. What an amazing thing. People will actually fund you before you’ve even created the product.

Nathan: That’s validation right there.

Ed: Exactly. And if the Kickstarter doesn’t work, guess what? Well, you don’t go ahead and do the product and nobody’s hurt. But again what’s a successful Kickstarter? It’s a launch. So what’s a successful launch? It’s the number of people who find out how many communications can you send about that launch. Same deal. You know, Kickstarting, Indiegogo, crowdfunding, in general, is just another fancy hipster word for a launch.

Nathan: Love it. Look, Ed, I know we’ve gotta wrap up in a couple minutes. I’ve got two last questions and then the last question is best place to find you. First one is affiliate commissions, how do you work out what to give?

Ed: One of the things is to do your research and what’s common in the marketplace. Typically for a digital product, most people give 50% you know, half-half, you split it down the middle. For things that require a lot of service after the event, so it requires a lot of your time or energy or support, that may drop down to say like a 30%. And for people who are doing on very very small items where they may be selling a book or something small for lead generation purposes they may go up to 70%, 75%.

Because that launch is all about building a list of buyers because we all know the science that, you know, a person who buys something from you is, you know, incredibly more likely to buy something else from you. So buyers are incredibly valuable. So that’s why people are prepared to give away the vast majority of what they’re making to build a list of buyers. So that’s another thing. So that very, very rough rules of thumb but my best advice is, guess what? You don’t need to guess. Have a look at what’s going on in your market. Your people are all too happy… If you wanna promote their product for them, don’t worry they’ll return your calls and they’ll show you what their JV percentages are. Start understanding what’s going on there, signing up to the other people’s JVs is a great way to just do that research.

Nathan: Awesome. And two more questions. One, how do you work out how to price the digital products, same kind of thing just knowing your market and what else is out there in the marketplace?

Ed: Yeah, totally. As a first rule of thumb have a look at what else is out there. Ultimately, as you get a feel for the marketplace and I hope, you know, the calculation should be and you not always, of course, can do this in a financial perspective. But that calculation should be 10 times the value. So if I’m asking people to buy something for $197, are they getting $1,197 worth of value? And you can look at that you know. So you look at what you’re doing, for example. I could easily see for that Instagram course that you’re doing, I think you were charging $197, weren’t you? How much was it?

Nathan: We launched it for $97 and then this time we launched it for $497.

[Crosstalk]

Ed: I mean $97. Thank goodness. Because right, if you asked me would I get $4,997 of value out of that course? Are you kidding me? Of course, you are, right? So that’s the sort of thing that you need to have a look at. So ultimately you will look on value that you provide and so you’re providing 10X value. But in the initial circumstances often you’re gonna be good at, have a look at equivalent products, do your research in your marketplace. No excuse, it’s all there, it’s all online. You heard this thing called the internet, it’s all there so do your research and figure out what’s there and place it and charge accordingly. And start from there and experiment. Ultimately it comes down to testing and seeing that if you use that value equation that I just gave you, that can be a really good way to…

Nathan: Yeah, that’s awesome.

Ed: And you can do that in cake decorating for goodness sake, you know. You can say you know if I’m charging $97 for these, I don’t know, 100 cupcakes are you bringing $970 of value. And maybe the question is no, I’m not really you know. People aren’t gonna make cupcakes to the tune of $970 so maybe that’s too much. I think it’s still a good way of looking things.

Nathan: Yeah, fantastic. Okay. Last question. This was an amazing interview. You’ve provided so much value, where’s the best place people can find you, if they wanna join your tribe, find more of your work, here more of your epic advice and gold?

Ed: Eddale.co is my blog, Eddale.co and you can find most things off of that. But I will highlight I’m on Twitter and I love getting feedback from people on Twitter. I do look at my @ replies and that’s @Ed_Dale. Yes, I’m sorry about the underscore, greatest mistake of my life, but anyway there you go. And the other thing I’ll point out because we’re doing a lot of really cool stuff with it is my YouTube channel. So if you just go into YouTube and do a search for Ed Dale, you’ll see my YouTube channel, subscribe to that and we’re often putting out some really cool stuff. In fact, if you go there after you listen to this interview you might indeed find a couple of really cool videos with this guy called Nathan Chan who drops some amazing gold for some really cool technique. So you might wanna do that.

Nathan: Awesome. Thank you, Ed. Thank you so much for your time and taking your day to speak to me, past the hour. It’s been awesome.

Ed: My pleasure.

Man: The Foundr podcast has come to a close but it’s not time to sleep, it’s time to hustle. Download the Richard Branson issue of Foundr Magazine for free right now by visiting foundr.mag.com/branson. Again, that’s an absolutely free download of the Richard Branson issue of Foundr Magazine, containing an exclusive interview with the man himself. It’s only available at foundrmag.com/branson. So download it now and we’ll see you next time on the Foundr Podcast.