I’M NOT INTERESTED IN WHAT SOMEONE CAN
DO FOR ME TOMORROW. I’M INTERESTED IN
BUILDING UP REAL RELATIONSHIPS THAT ARE
COLLABORATIVE IN MY FIELD.
realized that 95% of our earnings come
from a specific 5 percent of our affiliates.
In most businesses, you look at the 80/20
rule, in which 20 percent of your activities yield 80 percent of your revenue.
When I saw our numbers of 95/5, I knew
that creating those strong relationships
and bonds had really paid off.”
WRAP IT IN CHEESE
There is no question that Silver has been
able to be adventuresome and connect
powerful people today because he was
so successful in the world of online marketing, which makes readers (and this
writer) want to know what some of his
best secrets are.
“I don’t know if there’s really one
secret recipe. For the online world, I’m a
big believer in attaching your personality
to everything you do. This is especially
true for experts in the world of speaking, consulting, coaching, etc. There is
a lot of general knowledge about your
area of expertise that can be found anywhere nowadays. My topic is online
marketing, entrepreneurship, and business. There isn’t really a shortage of
knowledge out there on any of those
topics. But, where I think that we all can
shine, is by putting our personality and
unique DNA mark on it. There is a lot
of competition on line. So you need to
have your unique voice.
For example, I recently had a “Save
Yanik’s Marriage Sale”. My wife wasn’t
too happy about the boxes that were
building up in the garage and wanted
me to get rid of some things. So, I took a
picture of me surrounded by cardboard
boxes and let my followers know that my
problem had become their opportunity.
Fun stuff like that can really engage your
customers more than just a typical sales
letter. There is only so much information
in your area of expertise that your audi-
ence will engage with, but you can wrap
that in something that will keep their
interest. It’s just like if you have a sick
dog, the dog won’t take the pill to make
it feel better. But if you wrap the pill in
some cheese, the dog will lick it right
up, pill and all. Your customers need
your content wrapped with more fun
and personality.”
like crowdsoure.com or 99designs.com
where you can have designers competing
to get your business. Then you just hire a
coder to put the design on your site.
GETTING STARTED
“Speakers are in a great position for mar-
keting their products. They can use the
platform to sell their products, when it’s
appropriate, and test out which products
have legs and which ones don’t.”
Silver says that if a speaker has 10
products, one or two of those will be
home run hits. Two to three of those
products will flop. And the rest will fall
somewhere in the middle. Speakers can
learn from their audiences which prod-
ucts they should pursue marketing online.
“The best part getting into marketing products online right now is that
there are so many great tools out there
that let you do so much for so little.
I just was in a meeting with someone
today and they showed me their new
website. They spent $35,000 on it. It’s
a nice looking website, but I hate seeing
that when there are so many other less
expensive options. There are resources
That’s it. You can get traffic through
push and pull strategies (blogging or Pay
Per Click, as examples). Then you need a
way to capture emails using simple tools
like AWebber.com or more in-depth
tools like Infusionsoft.com. Then you
need a shopping cart and a way to take
funds, using something like PayPal.com
or getting a merchant account.”
The world of online marketing
can be very seductive. The notion of
making money with little to no effort
and waking up in the morning seeing
more funds in your bank account is very
appealing. Silver has proven that it does
take a bit more effort than that, but
with the right tools, the right strategies,
and creating the right relationships,
anything is possible.
Sharí Alexander is the co-owner of the Expert Message Group. EMG works with speakers and authors to publish their books, craft their speeches, and build
their businesses. On the platform, Sharí shares
her experiences as a presentation coach and
speech writer to help organizations improve
public speaking and communication skills.
