by Sean N. Henderson
Presented by : Mike Brooks, Monday, March 16th, 7:30 p.m, at the Danbury Hospital Auditorium.
Many new faces were in attendance for DACS’ rescheduled March 2015 General Meeting on starting an online business. The presenter, Mike Brooks, with Nuclear Chowder Marketing, gave an informative talk and Q&A on how to start an online business in one’s spare time.
The meeting began with DACS’ Tom Zarecki warming up the audience with some introductions between audience members and introducing DACS board member, Cathy Quaranta, who spoke briefly about current DACS volunteer opportunities. Cathy was followed by SCORE rep Dennis Dougherty, who spoke about his and Mike’s experiences with SCORE, and who then introduced Mike Brooks.
Mike lead off with asking the attendees “Why start an online business?”, to which he answered “to make money while sleeping.” Many nodded in agreement. Later in the presentation he suggested that the ease with which some of this was done a year earlier is gone and it now requires in-person daytime effort besides evenings and weekends.
Mike then gave some background on himself and his company, Nuclear Chowder. Mike was an IS/MIS major and worked in tech for 10 years, after which he came to be an owner in a martial arts school. At that time he started selling an “info product” to similar schools. This experience is where he “fell in love with online marketing”. His efforts grew the school and he eventually sold it back to the original owner.
An interesting point Mike made during the presentation was that the rewards of doing such an online business are often inconsistent with a person’s intelligence. He offered anecdotal stories of smart people who cannot get their business off the ground, and of less intelligent persons running a successful business. With that end he described the conversation with his business partner about “A student versus B student.” The slide at this time was a humorous meme that made some chuckle. Afterwards, the topic turned briefly to initial capital, when he indicated it can be done for nominal amounts per month.
Mike calls his secret formula for Online Marketing Growth the “OMG formula”. He described it as finding interesting work that fills a need. He went on to qualify that one doesn’t have to love it but does need to like it. He also emphasized that it’s important to be THE expert, and to become the missing solution to the identified need.
Mike described joint ventures as a profitable way to either monetize one’s list or use the power of someone else’s list. He said that building a network and community is done one person at a time, and organic networks take time. At this point his presentation was picking up in pace, and the other points he spoke on were:
- The money is in the list (e-mail, Facebook, Pinterest, or otherwise)
- Know the sales funnel and what the lead is expected to do once exposed to marketing material
- Systematize everything
- Reach up and don’t be the smartest person in your group or team
- Being laser focused and not succumbing to “Shiny object syndrome”
- Copyrighting – meaning writing good sales copy that matches the desired customer profile
Mike suggested that there are four things to running an online business – product creation, technical tasks, creating traffic, and conversions. He went on to mention that traffic without conversions was not an effective way towards sales.
Audience members inquired how can all this be done in one’s spare time? Mike simply stated that one needed to “Make the time, don’t sleep, and work early mornings.”
The next part of Mike’s presentation was a case study for an info product. The numbers were impressive and demonstrated important aspects of creating the right sales funnels and using targeted marketing. Regarding marketing costs, Mike said there was always a cost for traffic, either in affiliate overhead, pay-per-click, or in time building one’s own list. He further explained the necessity for conversions (turning site visitors into customers), and then emphasizing upsells. He described in his case study the initial earnings per click (EPC) and the EPCs with the upsells included, and the difference was impressive. He also gave what he considers to be a minimum EPC value, which won’t be repeated herein, and what his case study did, which was about double that. The EPC value is the figure that would be given to a potential affiliate for them to determine whether to do business with someone.
Getting back to copywriting, there were some in the audience unfamiliar with this term and what it meant. Mike had to back track a little and give some “marketing 101” type background to the audience, including book recommendations on copywriting. He indicated that if hiring someone skilled in copywriting, such individuals would command an up-front fee in addition to “a piece of the action.”
Some other advice Mike gave was about mentors, and how finding a good mentor is important. In his own case, he disclosed that he has paid for mentorship in the past when he first started out.
During the last few minutes of the presentation, Mike gave some reasons to consider Nuclear Chowder Marketing’s consulting offer to the group – the OMG Formula. He went on to explain some of the benefits of this program.
During the Q&A following Mike’s presentation, there were a few questions, but it was plain that the audience was still digesting all the useful and thought-provoking information Mike had just given.
After the meeting, instead of the normal restaurant, attendees were invited to casual networking at the hospital’s café.