Limitless

[AndrewNC]

They say we should workout our body for 20-40 minutes a day...but how often do you workout your mind? (and no, I'm not talking about reading books)

The Problem: The only thing holding us back from success is our mind

People in all areas of their life do not realize their limitless potential. They don't have the belief they can accomplish the big goals they want to accomplish in life. And they don't always seek out the tools to guide them on their journey to success. Everybody lives in their own reality, and often times that reality puts a box around them that blinds them for what is really possible.

People need help:

1. Believing that THEY can do it.
2. Removing limiting beliefs.
3. Overcoming Fears.
4. Discovering their "step by step process" to reach their goals.
5. Getting past procrastination and learning how to get motivated to take action

The Market: Myself - One year ago. (Anybody who wants more in life and needs help getting there. Fitness/Health Success, Relationships/Dating, Business, Acting/Singing/Sports, etc.)

The Solution:

1. Inspiration to make people believe it's possible so they begin walking down that road to success, and
2. The education and tools that will help them get in the right mindset to get there.

You ever have those gut feelings that scream that you should be doing something? I've been getting that for a while telling me to help other people in this area of life. I already know that this is going to be successful.

The Business Idea:
Do whatever it takes to solve the problems for my market, and learn how to deliver it to them.

The site for anyone who wants to follow along: LimitlessAcademy.com

 

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[AndrewNC]

Launch date March 9th, 2015 - What I've done so far:

• Setup website with wordpress.
• Created mindset information product with amember software.
• Used Ultracart, Authorize.net, and merchant account for payment processing (integrates with amember).
• Wrote some inspirational articles.
• Bought fastlane forum ad.
• Began running paid traffic on 3/24/2015
• Used leadpages for landing pages for paid traffic.

Next steps - Only take the important actions that will get more people to my website:

1. Continue to learn how to run paid ads.
2. Optimize ads and landing pages.
3. Email marketing sequence to provide value and inform prospective customers about my products.

 

[AndrewNC]

I honestly could have released this course months ago, but I hated the way my voice sounded on the screen recordings. This was one of the mental blocks I had to get over. Then one day I just F---ing did it. The first training video I did about 50 re-recordings of, and then edited it like crazy before uploading it.

After the 20th video, it was like second nature. The initial customer feedback said my voice sounded fine on the recordings...Sometimes the only thing holding us back are those imaginary fears in our minds.

Lesson #1 - The importance of getting your product into market and getting feedback

I had so many ideas of how I could structure my online course, and what information to put in it. I could have dreamed up the solutions to it and perfected it for years before I launched. But my own thoughts mean nothing, because I'm not the customer.

Initial customer feedback (name removed for privacy):

[3/18/2015 7:44:36 PM] xxxxxx: one thing you might want to consider is like a "schedule" element
[3/18/2015 7:45:26 PM] xxxxxx: lots of people, myself included, like the idea of doing specific stuff over a determined timeline
[3/18/2015 7:45:38 PM] xxxxxx: so break it into weeks or something

[3/20/2015 2:22:46 PM] xxxxxx: I am on lesson 4 now
[3/20/2015 2:22:57 PM] xxxxxx: really enjoying it too!

"Wow! Lot of changes to that training start page since Friday. I like the graphics. And it looks like a whole separate section of new content at the bottom."

Once again, no criticizing of my voice, and real - actionable feedback to improve my product. Within a few days, I created a 30-day action plan for people to follow and will continue to make changes as they come in.

Even if I waited another 6 months to launch, I wouldn't have thought up the ideas they asked for.

Something weird happened when I had customers:
I felt obligated to do everything in my power to make their purchase as worthwhile for them as possible. This provided one of the best motivations in the last month to get to work.

I also had one customer pre-order my advanced mindset training course (which I promise delivery by May 15th). You ever have those times you set a goal and a deadline and you let it drift away because there is no need to accomplish it on time? When people are trusting that I deliver something by the date I promised...I can't not deliver. I have all the information I need for the advanced course, but now I just need to put it together and deliver.

For anybody reading this: The one thing to takeaway is that your ideas are worth nothing. By getting your idea or product into market, you finally begin to learn what people really need help with.

 

[Chaseb731]

Everyone hates their own voice, trust me. I've been told I could do voice overs by voice over / acting coaches...I think I sound weird on recordings.

 

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[AndrewNC]

I just launched my first paid advertising campaign and made $30,000 overnight

...said nobody ever.

Course of Action 1 - Become one of my customers

I decided to target a very specific market that I don't think is being served to their full potential. It's time to get inside of their heads:

• What are their specific problems?
• What is going on inside of their minds?
• What current solutions are out there?
• What can I do better? What unique angle can I market from?
• What language do they speak?

Action steps so far this week:

1. Created a 7 page guide fixing one of the pain points people in this market face.
2. Created landing page on Leadpages.net
3. After they opt int, created a sales page for the online course I created
4. Launched paid marketing campaign and wasn't getting enough impressions so I upped my ad spend to fix it.
5. Wrote a 4 part email autoresponder series providing 90% value and 20% sales pitch.
6. Yes, I can do math.
7. Bought 4 books at B&N so I can learn "how to speak the language" of my market.
8. Reached out to someone in the industry with 20 years experience and will be recording a webinar with him.

Up next:

1. Read books I bought,
2. Join online forums,
3. Get target customers on skype calls to learn from them,
4. optimize paid advertising campaigns based on what I learn.

 

[pickeringmt]

Great to see this thread!

I am really looking forward to watching this develop

 

[Andy Black]

Great to see this thread!

I am really looking forward to watching this develop

+1

Also, very well written and formatted @AndrewNC ...

The one thing to takeaway is that your ideas are worth nothing. By getting your idea or product into market, you finally begin to learn what people really need help with.

Amen.

I've just posted this in my own progress thread too.

"You don't learn until you launch" - Dan Norris

 

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[K.Y.]

loving this! now I don't need to message you asking you how it's going

 

[AndrewNC]

Week 1 Update - $17,528 in sales
...is me just creating a number out of thin air as my April fools joke...One sale from paid traffic so far.

I'm failing left and right
Spent over $100 on a paid traffic campaign. Turns out the targeting was way off and I was getting impressions for things completely unrelated to what I'm offering. Also, out of 42 email opt ins for my lead gen form, only 25 double opted in. (anyone good with email marketing know if that's average?).

To fix that, I had my 'redirect page' from my opt in form go to a page instructing them to double opt in (and not to sell them right away).

Just created a new campaign that is more narrowly targeted, upped the budget from $30/day to to $65/day so I can get more data quicker.

Also working on getting CPV to track exactly what target the clicks and sales come from.

Mindset shift of the week: It's really resonating that time is more valuable than money (i've heard it and understood it before, but now it's sinking in). This time last year I would be 'saving up' an extra $2,000 from my corporate job before I run ads. Now I'm just putting it on a business credit card so I can get data quicker. Riskier move...but in order to get new results in my life, i'll have to take new actions.

 

[throttleforward]

This time last year I would be 'saving up' an extra $2,000 from my corporate job before I run ads. Now I'm just putting it on a business credit card so I can get data quicker.

I hear you-just had to do the same thing with purchasing business equipment at retail with a credit card vs waiting 45 days for a shipment from China. Im tired of refunding customers due to being out of stock.

 

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[MTF]

Mindset shift of the week: It's really resonating that time is more valuable than money (i've heard it and understood it before, but now it's sinking in). This time last year I would be 'saving up' an extra $2,000 from my corporate job before I run ads. Now I'm just putting it on a business credit card so I can get data quicker. Riskier move...but in order to get new results in my life, i'll have to take new actions.

Good stuff, Andrew. Love the last part - "in order to get new results in my life, I'll have to take new actions."

I think that most, if not all, of the most successful guys who are able to scale fast and build huge businesses much more quickly than the average businessman are just less afraid of taking risks and leveraging money. Bootstrapping is fine in the beginning, but after some time it's just scarcity mindset and exchanging time for money (which is the worst trade of all).

 

[Andy Black]

Just created a new campaign that is more narrowly targeted, upped the budget from $30/day to to $65/day so I can get more data quicker.

I don't know what network you're on, but sometimes if you're hitting your budget cap then you can just drop your bids and get more traffic for the same total spend. That assumes that dropping bids doesn't affect the quality of your traffic.


Somewhat related:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/newbie-mistake-1-limited-by-budget.52616

 

[piti]

Andrew,

First congrats on great actions so far ! I would like to provide some feedback that hopefully help with your progress:
Have you consider putting this on Udemy ? I personally looked at some NLP offerings some time ago and nothing stood out so might be good opportunity to grab additional audience - I think they only take their cut from traffic they brought and you got to keep 100% of income from traffic you bring there.
I haven't seen your email sequence or other LP channels but what I'm personally missing on your main page is description on what exactly you are providing in terms of content (eg. 20 videos packed with actionable solutions for your daily struggles...).
I'm definitely subscribing to follow your process and wish you best in growing this "beyond measure".
Good luck!

 

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[AndrewNC]

Andrew,

First congrats on great actions so far ! I would like to provide some feedback that hopefully help with your progress:
Have you consider putting this on Udemy ? I personally looked at some NLP offerings some time ago and nothing stood out so might be good opportunity to grab additional audience - I think they only take their cut from traffic they brought and you got to keep 100% of income from traffic you bring there.
I haven't seen your email sequence or other LP channels but what I'm personally missing on your main page is description on what exactly you are providing in terms of content (eg. 20 videos packed with actionable solutions for your daily struggles...).
I'm definitely subscribing to follow your process and wish you best in growing this "beyond measure".
Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback! This is the second time I've heard someone mention Udemy - I'll take this as a sign lol. Added it to my list of things to do for sure!

The main page on the site is slacking for sure in terms of the marketing aspect of it. My original plan was to follow what a lot of magazines (mens fitness, dog magazines, etc.) have for their homepages - In terms of blog posts/content.

Were you referencing the sales copy on my banner ads that I have on my site in terms of missing what I am providing in terms of content?

Right now my focus is on paid traffic that leads to an email opt in page -> and an email sequence (90% value and 10% call to action in each email). Once I begin to see more organic traffic coming to my site, I'll shift the focus to touch that up. One debate I'm going to go through is to keep the front end filled with content....or make it more of a 'sales page' type of setup.

Thanks again for the feedback, and I'll be updating this weekly on my progress.

 

[BrenndenK]

I believe he's talking about the sales page with the $47 price tag.
It says Video Series but other than that, it's hard to tell exactly what you're getting until you buy it, which can cause some hesitation.

Otherwise, I bought the program and I'm happy with my purchase. I've heard of NLP through my study of "pickup", but this really broke it down in a simple and content independent format. Even though I sort of understood NLP, I learned alot from this. I especially liked the idea of anchoring emotions, and altering the submodalities of your memories to change your association to it.

Here's what you get:
It's a 2 part lesson:
The First Part is a 10 lesson video series on reprogramming your subconscious to allow you to have more confidence and clarity in what you're doing.
The second part is 7 part series on how to set and achieve your goals. It's very interactive, and by the end you should really know where you're going.

As someone who feels a little lost at sea, this product is really cool. It's opened my eyes a little more to all the unconscious things I'm doing to set myself back and create excessive amounts of self-doubt. It's also helped me set up a path to get where I want to go, and feel more motivated to get it done. I'm about to go back through it again, and take better notes, and set my goals a little better.

Thanks Andrew! Keep up the hard work.

 

[AndrewNC]

believe he's talking about the sales page with the $47 price tag.
It says Video Series but other than that, it's hard to tell exactly what you're getting until you buy it, which can cause some hesitation.

Otherwise, I bought the program and I'm happy with my purchase. I've heard of NLP through my study of "pickup", but this really broke it down in a simple and content independent format. Even though I sort of understood NLP, I learned alot from this. I especially liked the idea of anchoring emotions, and altering the submodalities of your memories to change your association to it.

Here's what you get:
It's a 2 part lesson:
The First Part is a 10 lesson video series on reprogramming your subconscious to allow you to have more confidence and clarity in what you're doing.
The second part is 7 part series on how to set and achieve your goals. It's very interactive, and by the end you should really know where you're going.

As someone who feels a little lost at sea, this product is really cool. It's opened my eyes a little more to all the unconscious things I'm doing to set myself back and create excessive amounts of self-doubt. It's also helped me set up a path to get where I want to go, and feel more motivated to get it done. I'm about to go back through it again, and take better notes, and set my goals a little better.

Thanks Andrew! Keep up the hard work.

Perfect! Thanks for the good words, and I should definitively work on my sales copy!

I started putting together some content for the advanced course which I see you pre-ordered. I feel like I didn't even scratch the surface yet with what I've been learning lately. Excited to get the new content up by May 15th for the pre-orders

I keep adding stuff based on feedback, so shoot me a PM if theres anything specific you want me to work on and i'll add it to the course.

Here is some information I put together that shows how we are unconsciously motivated. You should have access to this page if you signed up.
http://limitless.academy/amember/page/motivation

 

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[AndrewNC]

Also working on getting CPV to track exactly what target the clicks and sales come from.

For anyone running paid traffic, MAKE SURE YOU GET PROPER ANALYTICS BEFORE YOU RUN TRAFFIC. In the beginning, you are BUYING DATA. That data is useless if you're missing key pieces of information.

After my first $150 of ad spend - I had NO CLUE where my clicks were coming from or which ones converted.

EDIT - Google Analytics should not be considered proper analytics in my book.

 

[Andy Black]

Google Analytics should not be considered proper analytics in my book.

I hardly use Google Analytics. If 1,000 people saw your ad and 10 clicked through, then Analytics will help you find out more about those 10 visitors. But what about the other 990 that saw your ad and kept going? What were they looking for? Why did the ad not appeal?

Say you spent $10 for those 10 clicks. Then you've also bought 1,000 impressions for $10. Why not learn from the people who didn't click too?



I'm aware that you're not using paid search, but these two posts might interest you:

• Simple example of using AdWords to validate
• How to get profitable or fail fast with AdWords

I'm biased towards paid search for a reason:

• What's better than low hanging fruit?
• The online buying lifecycle

 

[theag]

Google Analytics should not be considered proper analytics in my book

For someone who just figured out that tracking is important, this is a pretty interesting statement. Because Google Analytics is widely regarded as one of the top analytics solutions by online marketing experts, especially since its free.

So, why do you think that Google Analytics isnt proper analytics?

My guess is that you confuse on-page analytics with traffic source analytics and you set up both of them wrong or at least in a way that they dont work together properly (@Andy Black seems to be confusing this, too, despite his experience ).

Its sounds like you're buying traffic on Adwords. There is nothing better out there for Adwords campaigns then Analytics because of the seamless integration. Have you set this up properly (linking accounts, importing data to adwords, making sure there are no redirects in your links, etc)?

You are partly right in regards to the usefulness of the Analytics data. Its hard to draw conclusions from the data, especially with low traffic volumes when you cant run experiments (a/b tests in analytics). But the same is true for low volume data in adwords or other traffic networks.

What really helped me in the beginning was watching how exactly customers used my site by recording their actions and watching playbacks. That way I figured out where they struggled and could improve those choke-points. I used inspectlet for this. Well worth it. http://www.inspectlet.com/

 

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[tafy]

Inspectlet looks cool, thanks

 

[Andy Black]

For someone who just figured out that tracking is important, this is a pretty interesting statement. Because Google Analytics is widely regarded as one of the top analytics solutions by online marketing experts, especially since its free.

So, why do you think that Google Analytics isnt proper analytics?

My guess is that you confuse on-page analytics with traffic source analytics and you set up both of them wrong or at least in a way that they dont work together properly (@Andy Black seems to be confusing this, too, despite his experience ).

Its sounds like you're buying traffic on Adwords. There is nothing better out there for Adwords campaigns then Analytics because of the seamless integration. Have you set this up properly (linking accounts, importing data to adwords, making sure there are no redirects in your links, etc)?

You are partly right in regards to the usefulness of the Analytics data. Its hard to draw conclusions from the data, especially with low traffic volumes when you cant run experiments (a/b tests in analytics). But the same is true for low volume data in adwords or other traffic networks.

What really helped me in the beginning was watching how exactly customers used my site by recording their actions and watching playbacks. That way I figured out where they struggled and could improve those choke-points. I used inspectlet for this. Well worth it. http://www.inspectlet.com/

I don't think Andrew is using AdWords (and I'm waiting for someone to tell me to stfu about Adwords ... lol).

You're right about the distinction between stats in the traffic source and on-page analytics. I just don't use much on-page analytics. (We could probably start an interesting separate thread on this as to why I don't... and I'm always happy to learn new tricks.)

For anyone running paid traffic, MAKE SURE YOU GET PROPER ANALYTICS BEFORE YOU RUN TRAFFIC. In the beginning, you are BUYING DATA. That data is useless if you're missing key pieces of information.

I totally agree that in the beginning you're buying data.

However, I'd say that for most people, getting a campaign running without analytics setup is preferable to delaying starting a campaign because you're trying to learn and implement analytics/tracking first.

As soon as you have ad spend you're going to ask what you're ROI is, and then you'll be pretty damn motivated to put some analytics/tracking in place, even if it's just daily clicks, cost, sales, revenue.



The thing about data is that you can get insights from the bare minimum if you look at it. Then every time you add another metric or dimension, you get exponentially more insights.

If you just had the dimension of the date, and had the clicks, cost, sales, and revenue metrics, then you'd learn a lot, especially as it trends over time.

Then when you add one more dimension, say device, you get exponentially more insights.

Every new dimension you add brings exponentially more possibilities for insight.

For every insight you get, you'll have a stack more questions. Then you can take a baby step to improve your reporting to answer those questions. Which will bring more insights, more questions, and another iteration as you improve your reporting.

I think you've started exactly right Andrew.

The trick is to just get started, make use of the data you have, and fix problems when they arise not before.

 

[AndrewNC]

So, why do you think that Google Analytics isnt proper analytics?

http://www.cpvlab.com/

I prefer this because it gives me data in real time, automatically filters between landing pages to split test, it gives me desktop alerts if my ROI on a campaign falls below a certain point and hits certain filters. There might be a filter to automatically cut off a specific landing page if it doesnt convert as well for that campaign - i havent used that so i could be confusing that with something else.

For example, I got about 150 clicks to my email opt in page on one target within my campaign - and 0 email opt ins. CPV can give me data before my advertising source even showed i began getting impressions.

Whenever I used google analytics, I had to wait overnight for data to refresh. If I spend $100 on a campaign in the next couple of hours, I get my data right away and can pause campaigns.

 

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[theag]

I know CPVLab and used it. Its a completely different usecase though. CPVLab is link-tracking and Google Analytics is web analytics.

It works well for affiliates but for offer owners like you and me things are more complicated because stuff like ad attribution, time lag and cross-device tracking comes into play. And you can track stuff like that way better when using built-in tools like Google Analytics, Facebook conversion tracking, Adwords conversion tracking etc. For mediabuys outside of FB/Adwords it get more complicated but IMO GA is still your best shot there.

For real-time data CPVlab is good, but you have to be careful with that. In the beginning I optimized my ads like you do now, but it lead to sub-optimal results because I didnt let ads run long enough. Also split testing landing pages when your traffic is inconsistent wont give you accurate results. You can easily split test using GA by the way. Its called Experiments and its better because you split test all traffic, not just the traffic on that particular link.

But I get it because I have been there myself.

Once you have some stuff thats works I would recommend only optimizing your ads once a day or even only every 3-4 days to get enough data.

Btw if you arent using Adwords/FB, you probably should. Check out what Mindvalley are doing, they have a pretty similar product and strategy.

 

[AndrewNC]

People need help:

1. Believing that THEY can do it.
2. Removing limiting beliefs.
3. Overcoming Fears.
4. Discovering their "step by step process" to reach their goals.
5. Getting past procrastination and learning how to get motivated to take action

I think I started off trying to do too much as it relates to marketing. Trying to solve too many problems at the start had me jumping all over the place.

Can you answer this question in one short sentence?

What do you do?

After choking on my words for 10 seconds, I put together a long jumbled line of about 50 things I can help people with. Who do I help? Fitness people, pickup artist community, singers, doctors, lawyers, EVERYBODY!

What do I do?

I help startup entrepreneurs overcome procrastination and get motivated to take action to grow their business.

Even reading that makes me think it's too long.... i'm sure I'll refine it over time.

What do you do!?

 

[MTF]

How about...

• I help entrepreneurs grow.
• I help entrepreneurs go past their limitations.
• I help entrepreneurs perform at the highest level.
• I help entrepreneurs reach the next level.

You don't need specifics like "overcome procrastination and get motivated to take action." There are more aspects of what you do, and a general term explains your holistic approach better.

By the way, the word "startup" is redundant. Moreover, I'm sure I'm not the only entrepreneur who detests this word. When I think of a "startup," I think of a young guy building an "innovative" business nobody cares about. Actually, when I hear someone talking about his "startup," I immediately think he's a wantrepreneur lol.

 

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[AndrewNC]

How about...

• I help entrepreneurs grow.
• I help entrepreneurs go past their limitations.
• I help entrepreneurs perform at the highest level.
• I help entrepreneurs reach the next level.

You don't need specifics like "overcome procrastination and get motivated to take action." There are more aspects of what you do, and a general term explains your holistic approach better.

hmmm... perhaps more benefit oriented?

I saw a video from a marketing conference where the speaker talks about a two sentence 'reverse sales pitch'.

Sentence one - The purpose is to be quick and evoke the response from the person "WTF is that"
Sentence two - State who your target customer is, and how you solve a problem in their life.


What do you do?

"I'm a personal trainer for your brain"

WTF is that?

"I help rewire the mind of entrepreneurs so they can accelerate the growth of their business in a short amount of time"

(still needs work)

Thanks for the response!

 

[MTF]

I like this one. It's more general, but explains the benefits better, and flows better, too.

As for my ideas, I was thinking about it more in terms of explaining what you do, not to use as a tagline or something. It made me think of this: http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/5words-i-like-to-create-things.

 

[AndrewNC]

Current updates - Decide to give my prospective customers as much value as possible up front in the form of a free webinar.

Running traffic on a traffic source I've never had experience with before.
Doing a marketing strategy I've never done before. Saw some other people doing it and trying to model their approach. Why reinvent the wheel when the marketing strategy works for others?

I have no clue what I'm doing, but I'm confident in my content and have a good feeling it will work out because I got rid of that 'self talk' that prevented the old me from taking action.

 

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[MTF]

I think that webinars could work really well in your niche. Model them after the most successful guys. Clickfunnels make it very easy to set up a webinar funnel if you're interested in it.

 

[AndrewNC]

Model them after the most successful guys.

I was going through webinars and saw this really interesting tidbit... Putting the Paypal interest free financing in the sales copy. Watched a few webinars recently. Thanks for the input!