Better Internet Business

You see this everywhere right now, though you might not realize it.

Ryan Deiss does a lot of it.

As do I.

So does Vince Del Monte , Mike Geary, Jeff Siegel (from BeyondDiet.com), and even my old buddy Jason Ferruggia is getting into it…

It’s called being a Publisher.

When you become a publisher you commit to growing people beyond what they could accomplish on their own – and a lot faster as well, as Mike Whitfield described yesterday.

We’ll see a lot more of this in various industries as the “Internet Marketing” world matures.

Once you have a system in place, you can plug-and-play other great ideas and people into the system, just like Bedros and I have done with our group.

Ours works by having a series of inter-related Internet businesses that can cross-promote and sustain one another.

They are building their own eco-system, much like Apple’s iPhone/iPod support iTunes, and how the Kindle Fire supports Amazon sales. As each component of the network grows bigger, so do the others, and the entire system becomes more valuable. It’s practically a license to print money.

That brings us to my Octopus Publishing Diagram (it’s the only place where “Central Planning” can actually work).

The giant octopus of success (not limited to 8 arms though, of course) This model is based on my current fitness publishing business.

It all starts with the Central Planning component in the middle. This represents my original Turbulence Training business. In this business I have grown a large ~100,000 person email list.

I also run a Mastermind Group of fitness professionals that come together three times per year to share “what’s working” in their online information marketing businesses. That makes the Central Planning component both a financial and information hub.

The next step is to add publishing partners (the smaller grey circles on the periphery of the diagram). Each publishing partner is “seeded” by promotions to my email list. This allows us to test “Internet Moneyball” systems and develop proven promotions that we can take to potential affiliate partners.

Just as importantly, it provides the publishing partner with confidence. As you’ll learn, there’s something tremendously important to making the first sale in any business.

It radically alters your mindset from abstract (“this might work”) thinking to concrete (“Holy Cow, this really works and the possibilities are endless!”) beliefs. The earlier this mindset shift can occur, the better. That’s why we immediately arrange for the seed promotion of a partner.

Once this promotion has been tweaked, tested, and improved to make it profitable for others, we encourage the other publishing partners to promote the new partner. This provides more momentum and keeps the sales snowball rolling.

At this point, publishing partners are now expected to implement our Operations Manual and begin driving their own sales. They have an Internet Moneyball system to take to affiliates. They have passion to drive their consistent content creation duties (which lead to organic traffic and publicity). Some are even able to drive traffic through paid advertising, such as Facebook.

As they continue to grow their list, the new partners are expected to reciprocate and promote the other partners that helped them in the first place. And finally, it all comes full circle as an established new partner promotes the products that we sell in our main Central Planning component.

Let’s look at how this worked for Mike Whitfield, my most successful publishing partner to date.

The first thing Mike did, before there was any kernel of thought about him being a publishing partner, was to join my Turbulence Training Certification for personal trainers. That immediately established him as an action taker in my eyes.

Next, he came to me with a big idea and wanted to provide articles for my websites. That also labeled him as an action taker. Finally, he did this on a consistent basis. That’s when I knew he was ready for to be a Publishing Partner.

He was “shown the ropes”, and within a few weeks had finished his first product (a publishing partner must prove they can stick to deadlines) and had gone through our Operations Manual on getting the necessary artwork and sales copy on their website.

At that time, we hadn’t yet implemented the Peer Review Copy Process, but this is where we would insert that step.

Mike was now ready for promotion. Three emails were sent to my list (the Central Planning component on the diagram above). At the end of the week, Mike had a lot of sales, a customer list, and proven emails that he could take to other affiliates – showing them approximately how much money they would make per click (EPC from the Internet Moneyball chapter).

Next it was time for Mike to take his offer to the other publishing partners in the system (there were only two others at that time). They also sent him traffic and sales to continue the sales snowball momentum.

And then, it was like pushing a baby bird out of the nest – to go get his own pancakes.

He was ready to learn to fly on his own. He researched affiliates (these are easy to find if you take a look at others that are selling info products in your marketplace). He helped them out first (promoted them, wrote articles for them, etc.) and started building up his own affiliate network.

Mike has done this with an unmatched energy and passion amongst my partners, and that’s why he is the most successful. It’s not rocket science. It’s simply the taking of massive action, and there are plenty of people capable of doing this.

Of course, Mike has generated a lot of new sales for the Central Planning component, and perhaps most importantly, he’s served as an example to the other publishing partners to step up their game. Plus, he’s helping show them how to fly, but giving them what is working in his business, arranging promotions with them, and being a mentor to them.

The bottom line is that if you build a Publishing Model business that allows for these cross-promotion opportunities, then your entire business will grow faster than if all the products were separate from one another. It’s also easier to recruit most potential partners when you concentrate on a specific niche market.

That’s the power of this system. It can rapidly expand, and when you are able to seamlessly add new partners – thanks to your well-established Operations Manual – then you can see your investment, and your return-on-investment, grow quickly.

Craig Ballantyne

“To maximize opportunities, seek and master the complicated. The major solutions you find will be surprisingly simple, and the competition minimal.” – Kekich Credo #71