The secret that was left out of The Millionaire Fast Lane Book

[CarrieW]

it looks to me like you got tons of very very VALUEABLE advice in this thread. I wouldnt expect a magic answer. even if someone knew what to tell you it would be of no use to you because you dont seem to want to "get it"

 

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[PatrickP]

How to build a business beyond seo? This is how I did it and how anyone can do it. Hard work NOT being smarter, better etc. Not tooting my own horn just giving actual numbers so others can see that it still is possible.

Go on forums 10 hours a day, be helpful, gain a good reputation and offer a product. Within 6 months received an order for 20K+ I couldn't fill it and was so scared what to say I didn't even reply to the email. I didn't have the money to even buy the product to fill the order.

3 months later they came back again in an email upset I never replied. I said ok to the order and finally 3 months later I filled the order.

When I started I had $0 for advertising/promotion etc. I didn't spend anything on advertising/promotion for the first few months until enough to spend a TOTAL of $300/mo in advertising/marketing budget and built the business to sales of 1.4 mill last year and over 1 million already this year. Net after ALL expensed but before taxes of that 1 mill is approx 400K. Took approx 5+ years.

Again Hard work NOT being smarter, better etc. Not tooting my own horn just giving actual numbers so others can see that it still is possible.



As to MJ and seo or PPC He has stated before that the value of his company was lower because the majority of the traffic was SEO. Why would he lie about that? No reason to so I take it as the truth of course.

 

[Disruptive]

Hi PatrickP, thanks for dropping by.

You are talking about B2B, 1 big client makes a big order.

I'm talking about B2C, many small clients make many small orders.

In B2B you can solicit 1-1 easily, you don't need advertising per se. B2C is a different game.


I didn't said that MJ was lying, I believe in him and he has a lot of merit.

What I say is that, when he built his company, he was able to rank for some keywords, maybe the competition was low... and maybe the cost of advertising was way cheaper than it is today and it was a viable option for him beyond seo, so he got scale.

But if he was to do it again TODAY, from scratch, with the current competition and advertising costs, I doubt he could make it.

If he was to go with SEO, he would find many established players on the keywords with most volume, with a lot of SEO work that has been done for years and years... deep pockets and dedicated full-time SEO teams.

If he was to go with paid advertising, PPC for example, he would find that the money he made from his leads wasn't nearly enough to pay for the advertising costs.

What remains is the low volume, long tail keywords... and if you can't afford paid advertising to grow those long tails... you are stuck with low volume.

That is what I'm saying...

I'm trying to find some alternative to this problem.

 

[PatrickP]

I started business to client and built it to 16K per month with 60% being before tax profit.

Did it the same way.

No matter what anyone says you will see things the way YOU want to see them.

That is fine, you are right it is impossible we are all lying about our success. Please go do things the way you see fit satisfied in the knowledge that you showed all of us that without PPC you can not do it.

 

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[Felix II]

Like what, toothpicks?

Products I have personally designed that have about 1000% margin:
1. Costs $27.00, Sells for $400
2. Costs $130, Sells for $1400
3. Costs $150, Sells for $900

These are just three out of close to a dozen with similar margins.

(Note: I designed these for a company, hence I am still slow lane)

 

[Disruptive]

In the book, MJ talks about "explosive and exponential growth"...

Some of you are saying that you did it mostly with SEO.

Can someone explain to me how is that possible?



I've been an affiliate for 5 years, I can understand exponential growth via advertising. It's very simple:

You run 1 website selling a product > product converts > you expand by advertising for example on adwords for 10 related keywords > you get 5-10x the result next day

This is instant scale. I really thought that this was the explosive growth MJ was talking about in his book.


I can't understand how can you achieve "explosive growth" with SEO, when it takes at least 6 months to rank for any given low-competition-keyword.

If someone can explain this to me, I would really appreciate it.

 

[Milkanic]

I can't understand how can you achieve "explosive growth" with SEO, when it takes at least 6 months to rank for any given low-competition-keyword.

Why are you so hung up on SEO? You realize businesses scaled and existed before the internet, right?

Fab.com is doing 100M in revenue almost exclusively through free social media.

 

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[911Carrera]

Your real problem is that you're looking for a secret to wealth, you're looking for someone to give you a guaranteed way to build a profitable business, you're looking for a step by step guide to wealth and success. You won't find that and anyone who promises that is scamming you. That's a recipe for failure. MJ gave you the blueprint you need to help you become successful. But your success relies on how bad you want it and what you're willing to do to achieve your goal.

 

[CarrieW]

your right. you cant do it with seo... you cant do it without seo. you just plain ol cant do it... if you cant do this. find something else. sitting here repeating the same info over nd over again is getting you no closer to your goal. find a different avenue to explore where you dont have as many limiting beliefs...

 

[mayana]

your right. you cant do it with seo... you cant do it without seo. you just plain ol cant do it... if you cant do this. find something else. sitting here repeating the same info over nd over again is getting you no closer to your goal. find a different avenue to explore where you dont have as many limiting beliefs...

We probably could have avoided this entire discussion by just saying this from the beginning

On the other hand, this is an interesting thread and I've learned quite a bit from reading it.

 

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[LightHouse]

People have explained it to you, you are just fishing for what no one will give you, which is a step by step plan. We have all seen this here before time and time again. You are looking for an answer you aren't going to get. So get to work already

 

[Deleted5250X]

I'll give an example:

Suppose you build a website where you sell your widget and you SEO it to #1 on your keyword

Your website gets 100 visitors per day.

You sell 2 widgets per day to those 100 visitors @ $10 each / gross profit per day = $20

You buy the widgets @ $5 each, so net profit per day = $10

Why would you sell a product for only $10 each can you tell me one product that is sold at this low of price?
If the Product only Cost $10 I don't think the pay per click will be .50 Cents especially if you choose to show up on the number 7-8 spots on google. With the fast lane you have Control if your read the end of the book where he talks about commandments, you can decide the price you'd like to charge, factor your marketing expenses into the product price because the odds are competitors will have the same marketing cost as you.

Suppose you build a website where you sell your widget and you SEO it to #1 on your keyword

Your website gets 100 visitors per day.

Choose a Larger Market, no point entering a market where #1 for your keyword gets 100 per day, if you focused and learned SEO and marketed and your company you should be getting more than 100 visitors per day. Your stuck in the frame of mind of an affiliate, I was there also, all the SEO guru's tell you to target long tell low competition keywords. If you spent a 1-2 Years SEOing your site and learning spending 5-6 hours a day on it, you could easily rank #1 for some high competition keywords.

Am I the only one that realizes that certain niches / business models are just dead ends without exponential growth potential?

I assume most people here realize it, that's why we don't see everyone hopping into the door to door magazine subscription sales business.

But if he was to do it again TODAY, from scratch, with the current competition and advertising costs, I doubt he could make it.

This is an irrelevant argument as timing is everything in entrepreneurship, you need to fill an unmet need in the market. Don't choose lead generation only because you see others made money with it. Choose a market that has not been commoditized, which lead generation has almost become. If your stuck on lead generation than innovate and find a new way to deliver higher quality, higher converting leads to consumers.

I guarantee you could sell leads to real estate agents if you had appointments booked for the agents as most of the real estate lead generation companies are selling extremely low quality leads for high prices. These people have only searched for houses when captured.

I can't understand how can you achieve "explosive growth" with SEO, when it takes at least 6 months to rank for any given low-competition-keyword.

Your way off on your estimates, in six months you should be ranking for high competition keywords if you spend enough time. If it's a low competition keyword it will only take a week or two after launching the website. I think your overestimating the complexity of SEO.
Read this article in the Wall Street Journal about SEO and stop focusing on SEO if that business model is saturated innovate a new business model.
Google Penalizes Overstock for Search Tactics - WSJ.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?pagewanted=all

You get to #1 and a journalist finds your page, and writes an article about your company on the homepage of inc, that's explosive growth, SEO is a marketing method and is not innovative, SEO is only part of a larger strategy.

Edit: Wanted to include that explosive growth is not about how you advertise and market, realize that SEO is a way of marketing your product, service or company. Explosive growth is about having a product that is able to scale using many different marketing techniques, not limiting yourself in the number you can produce. A single franchise is not explosive because you can't bring in 10,000 people a day its unexplosive. A internet Lead gen is only one example of explosive if the market is large enough with not enough competitors. I think MJ listed the business models as examples and most fast lane businesses use a variant of each of those models. Your taking Lead gen and the way MJ did lead Gen as the only way people do lead generation. This is incorrect.

 

[Likwid24]

This guys impossible. Can we change your user name to "can'tman". Stop making excuses and do something already.

 

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[PatrickP]

Why would you sell a product for only $10 each can you tell me one product that is sold at this low of price?
If the Product only Cost $10 I don't think the pay per click will be .50 Cents especially if you choose to show up on the number 7-8 spots on google. With the fast lane you have Control if your read the end of the book where he talks about commandments, you can decide the price you'd like to charge, factor your marketing expenses into the product price because the odds are competitors will have the same marketing cost as you.



Choose a Larger Market, no point entering a market where #1 for your keyword gets 100 per day, if you focused and learned SEO and marketed and your company you should be getting more than 100 visitors per day. Your stuck in the frame of mind of an affiliate, I was there also, all the SEO guru's tell you to target long tell low competition keywords. If you spent a 1-2 Years SEOing your site and learning spending 5-6 hours a day on it, you could easily rank #1 for some high competition keywords.



I assume most people here realize it, that's why we don't see everyone hopping into the door to door magazine subscription sales business.



This is an irrelevant argument as timing is everything in entrepreneurship, you need to fill an unmet need in the market. Don't choose lead generation only because you see others made money with it. Choose a market that has not been commoditized, which lead generation has almost become. If your stuck on lead generation than innovate and find a new way to deliver higher quality, higher converting leads to consumers.

I guarantee you could sell leads to real estate agents if you had appointments booked for the agents as most of the real estate lead generation companies are selling extremely low quality leads for high prices. These people have only searched for houses when captured.



Your way off on your estimates, in six months you should be ranking for high competition keywords if you spend enough time. If it's a low competition keyword it will only take a week or two after launching the website. I think your overestimating the complexity of SEO.
Read this article in the Wall Street Journal about SEO and stop focusing on SEO if that business model is saturated innovate a new business model.
Google Penalizes Overstock for Search Tactics - WSJ.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?pagewanted=all

You get to #1 and a journalist finds your page, and writes an article about your company on the homepage of inc, that's explosive growth, SEO is a marketing method and is not innovative, SEO is only part of a larger strategy.

Edit: Wanted to include that explosive growth is not about how you advertise and market, realize that SEO is a way of marketing your product, service or company. Explosive growth is about having a product that is able to scale using many different marketing techniques, not limiting yourself in the number you can produce. A single franchise is not explosive because you can't bring in 10,000 people a day its unexplosive. A internet Lead gen is only one example of explosive if the market is large enough with not enough competitors. I think MJ listed the business models as examples and most fast lane businesses use a variant of each of those models. Your taking Lead gen and the way MJ did lead Gen as the only way people do lead generation. This is incorrect.

I would like to request that you post more often.

Especially about SEO.

Thanks

 

[kwerner]

Just wanted to say "Thanks" to Vigilante for sharing your experiences on this thread, it's good to see you back, man!

 

[Vigilante]

I'm addicted to you people.

 

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[Disruptive]

So far, only MJ, JamItFast and Vigilante have contributed any value to this thread. The others are just giving pointless answers.

It kind of reminds me those "law of attraction" guys that keep saying "you just have to keep visualizing! you are not yet truly believing you can do it!"... C'mon guys... get out

It's extremely annoying how many of you come to this thread and reply like I have no idea of what I'm talking about.

I wonder how many of you who have replied actually experienced this problem to be capable of understanding the situation.

This is serious guys.


@JamItFast

Why would you sell a product for only $10 each can you tell me one product that is sold at this low of price?

Two reasons:

Reson 1)

If you follow most of the models suggested by MJ in the book, you will be brokering something / selling advertising / lead generation.

In any of this models, you only get a share of what you make.

If you are getting 10% commission and you sell a widget that costs $100, you get $10, despite being selling a relatively high-unit-price.

In lead gen or advertising, you get to keep even less in most cases.

So, it's not like you are selling a low priced item, it's more like you are only getting a share of it.

Reson 2)

If you decide to sell higher priced widgets instead, to compensate for the "low margins", you market will narrow.

The more expensive something is, the less people can afford it.

Most "mass market" products are all very affordable.



Now, regarding SEO...

I just need someone to explain to me how scale is achieved through SEO - real scale, enough to generate 10.000 visitors a day.

Do you rank for a long tail keyword, and when you are successful you start ranking for other related long tail keywords?


I don't get it...

Even in the offline world, the people I know start by direct mail... buying just 5000 names...
if they make it work... they buy more names...
when the list is used, they look for related lists
when there are no more lists, they get a half page ad on a magazine
if it works, they get a full page ad
if it works they expand to other magazines
and so on and so on, and eventually they get into television.

I can understand this.... it's logical...

I can understand how someone could do something similar on the internet... trying ads for one keyword, and if it works, buy ads for related keywords... etc

But SEO?

It's not only slow, but the growth seems to be linear.

I'm not talking about a PR stunt that can give you a boost, I'm talking about something stable.

I don't see where's the explosive growth, or how you can scale something to 10.000 visitors a day on SEO alone, when most keys with volume are really a tough nut to crack and will take an undefined amount of time to rank for.

It's seems slow, unreliable and unpredictable.

It's really different from the instant/exponential/explosive growth I know from paid advertising.


I'd love to be proven wrong, or that someone shows me what I'm missing.

 

[PatrickP]

lol I laid out EXACTLY how I built 2 different businesses.

BTW where ever did you come up with your forum name???

Troll might have been even more appropriate.

 

[CarrieW]

scale isnt done with seo. you are right. you get to a point of saturation and then thats it... there is no more growth. if the only thing you want to do is make money using seo. you cant do it with 1 website... if you want 10k daily visitors you need probably many many more websites. so start today, make and seo 5 a day and maybe in a year you will have the numbers you want.

you are the one who thinks seo is the way to go. noone here has actually pointed you in that direction.

you wont get into the fast lane hocking other peoples products. that right there is your fatal flaw. you are creating yourself a job doing seo forever.


just becuase you cant see the value in the others postings, certianly doesnt mean there isnt value to be had. just maybe not by you.

 

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[Disruptive]

@CarrieW,

scale isnt done with seo. you are right. you get to a point of saturation and then thats it... there is no more growth.

Alelujia! Someone who gets it!

That's exactly my point.



So what do you do when you reach the point of saturation with one site?

- Do you try to rank for other keywords with significant traffic?

it seems not only slow, but very unpredictable... who knows if 1 year after you'll be ranking at all, or if google doesn't change its algorythm...

- Do you get into paid advertising?

if you are brokering/selling advertising/selling leads you'll have a tough time going paid on ads... probably you won't be able to afford it


The question really is...

Is there any other option for high volume, constant traffic when you reach the point of saturation with 1 site, other than these 2 ?

you wont get into the fast lane hocking other peoples products. that right there is your fatal flaw. you are creating yourself a job doing seo forever.

Can you expand on this?

 

[kwerner]

I just need someone to explain to me how scale is achieved through SEO - real scale, enough to generate 10.000 visitors a day.

Why are you caught up on 10,000 visitors a day?? Why do you think you need that many visitors a day to make money?

In lead gen or advertising, you get to keep even less in most cases.

Regarding lead gen, there's a couple different ways you could do it - 1) sell the lead to multiple buyers or 2) sell the leads exclusively to one buyer. If you set your prices right, you could definitely do PPC and make $$ with lead gen.


I'm not sure if you're over-thinking all of this or if you're just tunnel-visioned on an unsurmountable roadblock, but either way, try to change your perspective from how it can't be done to how can it be done. It's not rocket science man.

 

[Milkanic]

Is there any other option for high volume, constant traffic when you reach the point of saturation with 1 site, other than these 2 ?

Let me tell you a story.

One time I was on reddit.com and seen a post for some cool artwork for $25. In the post was a link to fab.com (I'm not affiliated - just using them as a model). I (along with several thousand others) follow the link. At the top of the page is an offer to make $25 for every 10 friends that sign up on Facebook.

Shit, I can get this sweet artwork for free if I post a link to my FB wall and get 10 friends to sign up I think.

So, I get 10 friends to sign up and get my free artwork. 2 of those friends do the same thing and now the link is broadcasted to 1000+ users on FB. The chain continues and you have 10,000 people on your site a day (with zero advertising money) buying artwork they didn't know they even wanted.

long story short, shut up about SEO.

 

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[CarrieW]

@CarrieW,



Alelujia! Someone who gets it!

That's exactly my point.



So what do you do when you reach the point of saturation with one site?

- Do you try to rank for other keywords with significant traffic?

it seems not only slow, but very unpredictable... who knows if 1 year after you'll be ranking at all, or if google doesn't change its algorythm...

- Do you get into paid advertising?

if you are brokering/selling advertising/selling leads you'll have a tough time going paid on ads... probably you won't be able to afford it


The question really is...

Is there any other option for high volume, constant traffic when you reach the point of saturation with 1 site, other than these 2 ?







Can you expand on this?

sure. essentially all you are doing is making yourself a sales man for someone else. the money is in creating the product or value and having other people do seo for you and selling your products on your behalf.

you want to be the top of the food chain not taking the leftover scraps that fall on the floor.

 

[Disruptive]

Milkanic,

What you just suggested IS paid traffic. In fact, you are paying $2.5 per "signup", hardly cheap.

That's exactly what I'm suggesting from the beginning.

I say that to achieve significant scale... to the tune of 10.000+ people on your site a day... you have to go into paid traffic.

When most people here, including MJ, say that they have done it mostly with SEO.


The problem is, most models suggested by MJ can't be scaled significantly and profitably via paid traffic, the advertising costs today are simply too high for a business model that relies on commissions.

So you are basically "stuck" with SEO.


So what do you do when you reach saturarion via SEO if you can't afford to grow via paid advertising?

Are you going to keep trying to rank for long tails with low traffic, and hopefully, after you build 100 websites you get your scale?

Where is your scale when paid advertising is not an option?

 

[CarrieW]

and sure everything you said is right... you get to a point of saturation and then the choices are continue to hone in on more keywords to saturate(eventually you will run out) or you move to a different product/ page and start all over again... basically it will become a never ending cycle of constantly replacing the worn out websites/keywords. forever!
that is why people are saying what they are saying... you are in a very limiting belief cycle... you need to break that and look at the situation from a differnt angle.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Dude, give it a FN rest.

Nothing we can say will change your mind.

You're convinced that no internet business started in 2012 can make money by using a mix of SEO, PPC, directory advertising, affiliate marketing, social media, word-of-mouth, and traditional marketing. (And yes, any successful startup NOW [or started 10 years ago] will require a mix of this, not "just SEO" or "just PPC".) Building traffic is a tiresome, evolutionary process requiring a mix of all the above.

You're searching for overnight success and "exponential growth" yet, you don't want to put forth any effort for it. You talk about 10,000 visitors a day but refuse to examine how to FIRST achieve 100 visitors a day. Nope, you want to launch and in 2 weeks, be at 10,000 visitors per day. Then you whine that "SEO is too slow." (Translation: I'm to lazy to do the hard work; I'd rather pay my way in)

You suffer from what I call the "silver bullet syndrome" -- you want someone to give you some secret magic formula that works in any market, in any industry, in any year, and an any economy. Essentially, you want someone to hold your hand and tell you "Do A+B+C+D and then you'll be RICH" AND you want it to be guaranteed. Moreover, your assumptions are constructed in a vacuum as if the market is static and not evolutionary.

Do you think my startup got to 10,000 visitors a day in a few short months? Years?

How about this forum? Think the traffic here happened overnight? Did you know this forum is over 5 years old? Where were you 5 years ago?

Anything substantial requires an effort that requires you to start at the ground floor from nothing.

You?

It appears you want to start at the top, or at least, find the elevator that will get you there fast and of course, have it be a sure-fire bet. You can't PAY your way to the top, you have to EARN it.

While I appreciate your support for TMF , my tolerance is thinning fast. You've asked for help, got it, and then shoved it back in the faces of people who took the time to respond.

I'm cool with you thinking whatever you want - it doesn't change my reality or the reality of people who are out in the trenches "doing it" versus bitching about it, and then trying to convince everyone else it cannot be done.




And BTW, I don't advocate affiliate/arbitrage marketing (earning commissions on other people's products) and none of the models in my book do either -- your entire argument is premised on a course of action I openly oppose.

Quit making shit up.

 

[Disruptive]

MJ,

With all due respect,

You talk about 10,000 visitors a day but refuse to examine how to FIRST achieve 100 visitors a day.

I said that it was absolutely possible to rank for a couple of long tail keywords and get some traction and make some money.

Totally possible.

My question really is, what do you do when you reach saturarion via SEO if you can't afford to grow via paid advertising?

Are you going to keep trying to rank for long tails with low traffic, and hopefully, after you build 100 websites getting 100 visitors each a day, you get your scale of 10.000 a day?

Where is your scale when paid advertising is not an option?

That is the real question no one seems to be able to answer.


I don't want the silver bullet.

I simply want the route that will give me more results for my effort.

Isn't that what MFL is all about ? Being more efficient?


Would you spend years of your life building a dead end business that has no way to grow significantly in the future, or spend some time searching for a more efficient way AND THEN spend some years building it, like "shuma" and his contraption?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

My question really is, what do you do when you reach saturarion via SEO if you can't afford to grow via paid advertising?

I NEVER reached "SEO saturation" with my business. There was always room to be ranked better.

Tell you what, once you reach "saturation" on SEO, report back here.

Ill bet you'll be able to afford to PPC advertise because your ROI on that effort will be nearly infinite. (You should be making a boat load). Sounds like your problem isn't SEO saturation, but a market that is too small. Scale is also a function of total available market size.

Where is your scale when paid advertising is not an option?

Word of mouth? Social media marketing? Sharing? SEO? Affiliates on a pay for performance? Content marketing? Video marketing?

You keep talking about SCALE as if it is this thing that happens overnight, or in a few short weeks or months. Do you know HOW LONG it took me to earn six-figures monthly? YEARS. The point of scale is to have the ability to move higher and higher incrementally -- with no ceiling -- not to do it suddenly overnight. (Although that's possible too with virality and PR).

 

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[CarrieW]

I suggest reading rich dad poor dad and cashflow quadrant. it may help you understand the things you arent seeming to grasp that people are trying to explain to you.

 

[Disruptive]

MJ,

NOW we are getting somewhere...

That's quite interesting, I thought you reached SEO saturation at least to some degree, a point of diminishing returns... where all the keywords left were low volume and just didn't worth the effort.

I agree that I might be focusing on markets that are too small... that's a fair statement.

Also, I come from an affiliate background, where growth was totally based on paid advertising, I hadn't this idea that SEO was a viable option for scaling.

Initially I thought that 80% of your 12.000 daily visitors must have come from paid advertising, and only 20% from SEO... because from all the people that I know that are marketers, mainly direct marketers, that's how it's done.

I'm starting to see things a bit differently... now thinking that maybe SEO can be a viable scaling option after all...

Maybe I have a wrong assumption and most businesses that get to 10.000+ daily visitors, get most of them mainly from SEO, and not paid advertising as I thought.

If this is the truth, that's very interesting...



What is your recommended growth strategy in a bigger market SEO wise:

- Focus on a big volume, short "generic" keyword ?
- Focus on a lot of smaller volume, longer tail keyword ?

and if you do focus on a lot of smaller volume, longer tail keywords, how do you make the transition to the big volume, generic keywords with time?

Thanks.