Introduction
In this blog post, I share with you how to use permission marketing to succeed online.
Permission marketing is about turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers, as Seth Godin says in his best-selling book of the same name.
Permission marketing is about building mutual relationships without expecting anything in return.
By so doing, you build trust and the customer not only perceives but sees your sincerity.
When the customer believes and trusts you, you become partners in progress.
At this point the customer opens up to you and you can work together to transform the customer’s life.
The opposite of permission marketing is interruption marketing, where you seek to force your wares down the customer’s throat.
Needless to say the customer will see through your chicanery and call your bluff.
The 7-Step Business Success Model
My 7-Step Internet Business Success Model (or Formula) as the name implies has seven steps with Relationship Building as the 3rd Step. We will return to it.
Learning: The 1st step in the model is Learning – as you’re learning now about permission marketing. Unless you’re willing to learn and humble yourself to be taught, you’re dead in the water and will be spinning your wheels, as the Americans say. Learning is very critical and must never stop because change is fast and furious. Here are the top 8 things you must do as you gear up to learn day and night. Learn:
- How the internet is evolving
- How to be visible
- How to connect with people
- How to build a list
- How to write scripts
- How to create products
- How to make your products discoverable
- How money is made online
Visibility: The 2nd step is offline and online Visibility. Unless you’re visible, you don’t exist and no one knows about you or even cares. You’re smiling in the dark when you’re invisible. Your intellectual properties, website, search engines, social media, your speaking platforms and other people’s platforms all play a part here. Here are the top 8 things you need to do to develop visibility:
- Develop Evergreen IPs (Books, Courses, E-Guides)
- Have a Home-base (Websites, Blogs)
- Have Embassies (Social Media Platforms)
- Have Listening Posts (Mailing Lists, SMP, Podcasts)
- Have Satellite Towns/Cities (Top Friends, Guest Posting.)
- Stage Events/Develop Your Own Platforms
- Use Other People’s Platforms (OPP)
- Court the Media
List Building: The 4th steps is List Building. When you do steps 1 – 3 well, list building becomes fun as people would be falling over themselves to know and befriend you. As the gurus say, your list is your most important asset, so build it daily with wisdom and not trickery. Here are the top 8 things you need to do:
- Start a mailing list from day one
- Begin with the low hanging fruits, then medium hanging fruits, then high hanging fruits
- Build a segmented list or database
- Employ an affordable mailing system
- Invite people personally and be persistent
- Give away valuable incentives
- Keep people in your list engaged
- Keep at it day and night
Product (Service/Solution): The 5th step is Product Creation. As those who really know say, we’re in the business of transforming lives and step 5 is where your “solutions” in the form of products come in. Having done steps 1 to 4 with the dexterity of a monk winning souls, you’ll know your customers’ pain points as a seer and you’ll be able to deliver the exact solution your customer needs with precision. Your customers will love you for it and will be begging you to collect more of their money. This is true as some of my clients do come back to pay me more than we bargained. Having created trust, you can start building your value ladder to take your customers to the place they never ever thought existed. Here are the top 8 things you should do:
- Write and refine your IP to perfection ready to be converted to products
- Develop irresistible courses, events and platforms
- Master the required technologies for production
- Master the required technologies for delivery
- Be consistent and focus on things that will last
- Focus on one product at a time as you’re starting out
- Let your product be the best in your niche
- Specialize and deliver and do so effectively
Marketing & Sales: At step 6, which focuses on Marketing & Sales, you optimize your entire value chain to work as a well-oiled machine. Your products fly off the shelf because your customers trust you and instinctively know you’re working in their best interest. Indeed, your customers are the ones calling you and begging you to sell more to them. This is called “Pull Selling” or “Pull Marketing” – as you like. Here are the top 8 things you should do:
- Master how to use marketing to grow your biz
- Understand the psychology of buying
- Learn how to build your business pipeline
- Learn how to build and optimize your sales funnels
- Learn how to craft sales scripts that convert
- Learn how to use social media for marketing
- Learn how to set up your landing pages
- Learn how to sell without sounding salesy
Scale: Finally, you arrive at Step 7, which is about leveraging everything you’ve got to SCALE. At this stage you’re ready to launch your sales funnels and host your courses on all-in-one platforms like Graphy, MailerLite, Vonza, and a host of others. I’m gradually falling in love with Graphy because it’s so easy to use.
Trying to scale by putting up a fanciful website, creating fantastic landing pages and sales funnels, and throwing in Facebook, YouTube, and Google adverts in the mix, without passing through steps 1 – 6, is like putting the cart before the horse. It will be money down the drain as your horse can’t gallop to your El-dorado. The guru, Ramit Sethi, founder of Growth Lab, author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and co-founder of PBWorks, has a favorite saying, “Don’t try to be 40, before you’re 40.” Don’t jump to step 7, when you’ve not covered the bases through steps 1 through 6. Here are the top 8 things you need to do:
- Master and refine your winning game plan
- Master the four phases of online business success
- Develop a long term view
- Keep keeping things evergreen
- Diversify into adjacent winning areas with more products
- Develop offline assets
- Migrate all your services online and automate
- Repeat and build on the principles of excellence
Building a “Laptop Lifestyle”
Having weathered the storms from steps 1 to 7, you’re ready to migrate fully online, employ auto-responders and evergreen funnels to put your business on autopilot and start enjoying the proverbial “Laptop Lifestyle.”
The biggest names in internet marketing without exception: Brendon Burchard, Joe Polish, Russell Brunson, Tim Ferriss, Ramit Sethi, Eben Pagan, Frank Kern, Marie Forleo, Noah Kagan, Neil Patel, Pat Flynn, Evan Carmichael, Brian Dean, Amy Porterfield, Ryan Deiss, Ali Abdaal, and Uyi Abraham, to mention 17, all passed through these 7 stages to build their empires.
It took some of them 10, some 15, and some 20 years of toiling, failing and persisting, before becoming “instant celebrities” that we know today.
Depending on your experience and background, it could take you 18 to 36 months to figure out what works and what doesn’t. So it’s a long game, requiring persistence, consistency and HARD WORK.
Watch this video on 10 Plus 1 Things You Can Do to Jump-start Your Online Business
YOU In The Model
As you can guess, YOU are at the centre of this whole process.
Your mindset is critical. A generous mindset, a winning mindset, a mindset that does not accept defeat is key to moving through the three stages of internet transformation: Crawling, Walking and Running. At the Crawl stage you’re struggling to make about $100,000 per year; at the Walk stage you’re grossing between $100,000 and $1million per year and at the RUN stage, you’re hitting $1million and above per year, and your income is growing by leaps and bounds.
At the RUN stage as I mentioned, things are working on auto-pilot. You’re employing some of the best tools and hands out there and even outsourcing some of the more tedious jobs, like video editing, content creation, etc. to friends to help you out. If you’re like me, you’re migrating from marketing through WhatsApp and text messages to all-in-one platforms like Graphy and Vonza.
If you wish to speak directly with a Graphy executive, click this link.
If you remain humble and keep your learning attitude, nothing can stop you once you reach step 7 and beyond. Indeed, you’ve arrived. Your years of toiling, giving, and learning are paying you back 10 fold, and as a Nigerian Blockchain sensation and founder of Patricia, Hanu Fejiro Agbodje, recently said, “you don’t even know how to count the money any longer.” Here are the top 8 attitudes you need at this stage as an online entrepreneur:
- Develop gravitas by positioning yourself to command respect
- You’re the business and the brand – Who do people say you’re, what does your brand stand for?
- You must be credible by developing a vast IP
- Sharpen the saw – keep sharpening yourself
- Keep yourself evergreen by investing in yourself and being at the cutting edge
- Don’t shrink because you can’t shrink to greatness
- Create outsized impact because in the end, it’s about influence
- Pay yourself first, reinvest in the business and keep scaling
Technology
As you can see, I’ve not put much emphasis on technology, as technology permeates every step and phases of the journey. Technology is a powerful enabler and you only need to understand the basics of HTML and coding.
Here is an additional resource to help you.
Technology has no body to kick and soul to damn, it does your bidding. As the saying goes when it comes to technology, “garbage in, garbage out.” The wise use of technology, and not being slave to it, is the golden rule. Online business is about connecting with people and being helpful in ethical ways, while using technology as an enabler. Here are the top 8 things you should note:
- Understand the technologies that matter e.g. SEO
- Develop a team of trusted service providers
- Spy and see what competitors are doing
- Avoid being enslaved by technology
- Outsource to those that know
- Ask friends and foes what’s working
- Keep it simple and uncomplicated
- Master new SM platforms that emerge e.g. TikTok is the rave of the moment and others will surely join, so be prepared.
A Note On Some of the Courses That I Offer
So, back to where we started. Are you marketing with permission? Seth Godin’s book, Permission Marketing, is a good place to start.
These are some of things I teach in Internet Business Mastery School, which houses iBFC (Internet Business Foundation Course, iBMC (Internet Business Mastery Course), Book Writing Clinic, and Content Marketing, to mention four.
If you’re interested in learning more about iBMC here is a link to get more details sent to you. iBMC will guide you through the Crawl Phase of your transformation and position you to win on a sustainable basis.
You need intellectual properties to establish your credibility and expertise. Learn how you can write your first book by clicking this link for details.
If you’re desperate to get your book off the ground without waiting 3 to 5 years to get it done, join my Book Monetization Challenge by clicking here.
If you believe you know all the strategies and just want to get fool-proof tactics the most advanced internet marketers use, iSchool is your best bet and here is the link to jump in for more details.
As the saying goes, iron sharpens iron. You can’t succeed online working in isolation. You need a community of like-minded and driven friends who play to win. This is the link to my Digital Ninjas Community where you can be sure your back is covered.
Conclusion
If you use permission marketing as your guiding philosophy in everything you do online, and humble yourself to learn the winning strategies and tactics, you’ll be on your way to success. And you’ll come back and thank me and even beg to pay me more.
If you want to succeed online, start today by watching this video.
If you want to publish your book with the same publisher that I use, click this link.
Best.
