subject: Internet Marketing Speed With James Schramko [print this page] Internet Marketing Speed with James Schramko
Today Ive got really special guest on the call today and his names James Schramko. And, I wanted to get James on the call today because Ive been speaking to James previously and hes got a really, really interesting story that I wanted to share with you and with my business here and also his business, we all like to look at creating a lifestyle and also looking at generating different types of passive income so I thought why not get James whos also an Aussie, from Australia and also I wanted to share with you his story.
How Did James Success Start?
James started part-time like pretty much everyone else and he found it very difficult like everyone else. And, the fact was he was running Mercedes Benz dealerships in his dayjob. It was lots of stuff and it was quite intense job and he figured that he should be going to apply his business skills to the Internet Marketing side of things realizing that the Internet gives you a lot more opportunity for automation and for leverage, he just found it so hard and he tripped away with it for several years until finally he could break free for full-time work. My goal was to match my income which since he was on $300,000 a year which was quite objective.
"And that was about 2 years ago, I quit my job then. And, ever since then the Internet business has been growing and sort of led to other opportunities as well. As you know, hardly any business understand Internet Marketing so Ive got myself in a position now where pretty much anyone I want to work with is happy to collaborate or give me equity in their business, or profit share thats why I joined forces with them. So thats a bulk on my business now, its getting involved with businesses and turn them into more profitable business using especially Internet Marketing skills." James added.
How Long Does James Work Compared To Now?
James spent probably about 50-60 hours a week in his full-time job because he was in the general management role so he's managed to widdle it down a bit from 70 and he was doing about 3-4 hours a day on his Internet Marketing business on top of that, 7 days a week.
James' Shift To Earning Big In His Dayjob To Earning Passively Online
"..because of the business model and the strategy that Im using, I am working more than I would have to do and it also comes back to what sort of income level you want to grow your business. So if I was happy just to make 3 or 4, $500,000 a year, I could probably work for 30 minutes a day because I have about 12 different businesses that Im operating at the same time and each one of them is a 6-figure business. So if I wanted to pay it down to some of the more active ones, then it would reduce my work. For example, I have a mastermind group, it takes me 2 hours per week and it generates in excess of $150,000 a year."
So if he just wanted to do that, he could work no more than 2 hours a week. The reality is he's building a 7-figure empire here thats on its way to 8 figures so he's well into the ones now for the million dollar plus turnover, and his goal is to get to $10M a year. For now, James is prepared to pour in to 4 hours a day.
"I became an affiliate, I built websites selling software and I got very good at the whole affiliate thing offering bonuses, creating free newsletters, getting traffic to it from forums and blogs and articles, and PayPerClick and search engine optimization. And then I created products that helped people do those things and then I became I guess an Information Marketer and built up my customer base slowly and steadily full of buyers."
What Did James Do To Be A Successful Affiliate?
James explains, "So I just always focused on buyers and after I got that, you know every step of the way I was able to lock in that sort of profit and then add extra services and extra pricing levels. So I built a membership community which is one of the staple businesses I have, and thats very, very profitable business. And from there I was able to leverage into masterminds, mentoring and then finally building a sort of doing business deals where I can assume companies and do them over and sell them basically. Its been an escalating hierarchy."
"I think every single person watching this should learn how to sell. If you look at all of the most successful marketers and business people, they are able to sell. And for us weve called it copywriting but if you can learn how to sell if you can compel people to take action, regardless whether its your product or someone elses you can make it attractive for people to move forward, then that is skill that is going to translate in everything you do."
How James Started With Outsourcing?
" I did the numbers in my head. I thought well if I get, if I pay extra to have them written then I can make more than that in commission I should be doing that. "
He outsourced a help desk which allowed him to provide more services because service-related businesses require more support but theyre also more profitable. Then he started outsourcing design, because he's not a good artist that cant use Photoshop and it was ridiculous for me to spend this time trying to learn how to create banners and stuff when he can just pay someone to do it.
Then, he eventually moved into having other people build his websites and run his PayPerClick and now have teams all around the world. He's even got a whole team in India who do just traffic and search engine optimization, he also has a team in the Philippines who do everything from transcriptions, design, website construction, content, traffic, backlinks, optimization conversions, analytics, videos, and account creation, they do everything.
"I know you write about that, you talk about the 80/20 rule and Parkinsons Law and its always that same thing. Jay Abraham talks about it too. The best and last purpose for my time is tois to be the strategist and the marketing guy, thinking of how I can leverage all of my resources in better."
"One is for new people, they say what would I outsource because they dont actually know what the right things are. Thats one of the big challenges, it took me a long time to figure out what the right things are. And, once you know what youre supposed to be doing, once you figured out a way to convert and make profit then you feel like a frustrated artist like how can I get more of this out? How can I be doing ten times of this you know."
"Once you know the trick that makes the money come in, you want to do as much as you can like for example yesterday, I bought 34 domains from somebody that are all around the same product and topic, now I cant wait to have these developed and up there and getting the traffic design. Now I can make money from them, theres no question because I already half a dozen websites in that exact same market so the big tipping point is knowing how it works."
"And for some people, they might have to it themselves originally to get that profit. As soon as you get to a point where you can make $1 turning to $1 plus something, you know a dollar ten or $2, thats when you should outsource like crazy. Because for most people, the big is the chicken and an egg. You know, Im not going to outsource so that I make big profit but you want to make big profit until you outsource." James concluded.
Since then, James had more or less recreated an old job but with all the good bits and not the bad bits-- the bad bits were not having control and having to drive off to work everyday in a suit so he's recreated that leverage of having a team but he does it on his own terms and thats probably the most important element of freedom its doing something because youre driven to do it, because youre passionate about it and because you enjoy it and it gives you the choice to do that.
James And His Online Projects
"I have a million projects. Ah, just at the top of my head I have lets seewell a little bit of my affiliate at the moment is directly to training my Filipino team when moving into local business market, a little bit more detail. Ive been doing that for oh gee, four years. And, you know a lot of people have an outcoming to the market saying its hot in this and that. I mean I really know how it works and Im automating the whole thing having them approach clients in a special way, get the business and then fulfill it automatically so I think its doable and that will be a big part of their growth. Im also developing a probably close to a thousand websites at the moment for domains that Ive bought in the last six months and some of them are very premium domains and were building out the websites and turning those into businesses"
"So well pick the best ones and well collaborate with the offline business and probably sell the entity so thats another project. I have a live event coming up in a week and a half which is very exciting because Ive got my best sort of friends and experts who are collaborating and flying from overseas to share information about that and Im very excited because Ive got experts like John Carlton, Ed Dale, and you know people who supplied the products that I use like the guy that runs my shopping cart called Josh Anderson."
"Ive also got my mastermind groups going very well. Its in second phase now and I think we all wrapped that up, its called Silver Circle. And, people are getting astounding results from it, thats where we do our weekly calls and I think the basically tapping straight into my experience and Im having to live through their businesses as well so Im quite enjoying that. And weve got an SEO business thats growing quite rapidly and we have a web development company and the affiliate marketing, Ive got a few sort of surprises there too. Ive got a number of products and a strategy around developing that out as well trying to automate and leverage that as much as we possibly can."
So the first test of that went really well. James thinks he's made $1500 in the first few days of launching and it was pretty much completely done by his team so where he could go and make a lot of money himself.
His whole goal is trying to get it done by someone else and when he can spin a few plates at once, then it works. At the moment, James' Filipino team is sitting at some around 15 people so he's got enough depth there to continue that and to grow it now in a sort of measurable rate because theyre getting very skilled.
Really, James' story is interesting as it relates to how life wouldnt be any happier when youve pursued your passion. Whether its quitting your day job or continuing it, its always how you could draw the lifestyle youd want to live in the near future and thats how you can also prepare yourself for an early retirement!
