James McAllister Online

Category: Business

  • When To Work Hard, And When To Work Smart – Concrete Examples

    Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘work smart, not hard’?

    Wonder what genius came up with that one?

    The idea that there is some ‘secret strategy’ guaranteed to make you riches without any real effort is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as the idea that if you just work hard enough (even if you’re doing the wrong thing) you’ll inevitably find success as well.

    Therefore, ask yourself – should you work smart or hard?

    The answer, put simply, is both. Not only do you need to have the right strategy in place, but you have to back it up with enough effort and hours to execute that strategy to its full potential.

    However, there’s different times to focus on working smart vs. working hard. In this article, I intend to highlight some of these examples. This way, you can structure your work days in a way that truly maximizes your results. (more…)

  • How To Succeed In Business With Small Audiences

    When choosing a niche or simply measuring your business progress, it’s easy to focus on your total audience size.

    We all want to have as big of an audience as possible. We see websites with hundreds of thousands or even millions of visitors and think,

    “Why couldn’t that be me? What am I doing wrong? My content is a lot better then theirs, and look how successful they are!”

    This is a dangerous way to think, and can set you up for the wrong targets.

    The reality is, it is possible to make 10x the income with an audience a fraction of the size, and it’s dependent on several different factors.

    Let’s look over some of these now, and prove that audience size – for the most part, doesn’t matter when it comes to online business success. (more…)

  • Branding Isn’t Everything – Balancing Branding Vs. Direct Response Advertising

    We’re at an interesting time in entrepreneurship, particularly for small businesses.

    Things aren’t the same that they used to be. As a society, our lives are radically different than they were 10 years ago, and marketing has changed as well.

    So has the way we learn.

    New entrepreneurs aren’t getting their business advice from textbooks or college courses. They’re getting it from online gurus or major online personal brands, who may have an agenda of their own that they’re pushing on you.

    One piece of advice in particular that I’ve seen consume entrepreneurs is this:

    “Hard-selling is bad, just focus on branding!”

    I’m here to tell you why this often isn’t true, and help you find the balance between direct response marketing, and branding in your small business. (more…)

  • If You Want To Scale Quickly, You Need To Master Paid Systems

    Every action you take in business either costs you money, or it costs you time.

    As entrepreneurs, it goes without saying that we very well may be low on both of these. From the new business owner working a full-time job on top of running their business, to the cash-strapped company that can’t afford to make that extra hire, we are often spread extremely thin without much to show for it.

    Unfortunately, unless we change the way that we approach business, it is easy to stay stuck in this trap forever. (more…)

  • How Many Email Subscribers Do You Need To Make Money?

    How many email subscribers do you need to make money? This is a question that I get asked quite frequently, and unfortunately it doesn’t always have a straightforward answer.

    While I won’t be able to give you an exact number to strive for, I’d like to point out some variables that can affect your earnings per subscriber, and try to help you come up with an accurate target for yourself. Because while it is certainly possible to make money even with a very small mailing list, it’s also possible to have thousands of subscribers and still not earn very much.

    Therefore, anybody that tells you that you need X amount of subscribers to make X amount of money, does not understand what they’re talking about.

    To gain a better estimate however, let’s look at a few variables: (more…)

  • 5 Lessons I Learned Spending $100,000 On Amazon PPC Ads

    Note: This article was written over 5 years ago, and may be outdated.

    Having spent over $100,000 in Amazon pay-per-click ads across of hundreds of campaigns, I’ve learned a lot of lessons that wouldn’t have been obvious at the beginning.

    Relatively speaking, Amazon PPC is still a relatively new platform, and it is constantly evolving. New tools and advertising strategies are coming out all the time, and there isn’t as much known about the platform vs something like Adwords or Facebook ads.

    Therefore, I wanted to release this post to share all of my key findings over the last year.

    Let’s look over some key Amazon pay-per-click strategies that have been helping me to reduce ACoS and make more sales on Amazon! (more…)

  • One-Off Courses Vs. Membership Sites – What’s Best For Your Info Product?

    When it comes to selling digital products – especially courses, there are a few routes you can take.

    On one-hand, you can release your course as a one-off payment. The customer purchases it, and they have access to it forever.

    On the other hand, there has been a rise in membership sites / subscription services – entrepreneurs offering access to all of their courses, for a recurring monthly fee.

    I’ve spent a lot of time pondering what option I wanted to pursue myself, and had the opportunity to really dive deep into the pros and cons for each strategy.

    In this article, I want to help you make your decision, by covering the advantages of disadvantages to selling online courses in a flat, one-time fee, vs a recurring membership option. I don’t think there is a clear best choice for everybody, so I’m going to help you decide what the best option is for you.

    The Advantages Of One-Time Purchases

    This is the strategy I’ve currently been taking for all of my courses.

    However, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best option. And for a while, I was seriously considering changing it.

    There are a lot of advantages of selling things with a one-time payment though, and ultimately that’s why I chose to stick with this payment structure.

    1. A Finished Product

    First of all, let’s put profitability aside. Not all revenue sources are equal – especially if you’re trying to build a business that gives you true freedom in life.

    When you create and publish a course, you for the most part, have a finished product. There is not a whole lot of ongoing, recurring work that has to go into it.

    While I wouldn’t consider it to be passive income, it’s certainly much closer than a membership site is (more on that later, though.)

    That being said, if you want to have the most success selling one-off courses, it’s important that you approach them with a ‘never complete’ mindset. The way I personally structure my courses, I never consider them to be complete. I will continue updating and adding to them as relevant topics enter my mind, and this only adds to the value of the courses over time.

    However, since I’m not asking people to continue paying each month, there is a lot less pressure to come out with updates that have a deadline.

    Membership sites don’t have this luxury.

    2. Psychologically, One-Time Purchases Are Often Easier To Sell

    This is true even if it ends up costing more money.

    When you ask somebody to purchase lifetime access to a product, you are only asking them to make a commitment one time. When you wish to charge them a membership fee every month, you’re asking them to continue that commitment over, and over again.

    I realized this when examining my own purchase behavior. I find it easier to spend $100 on permanent access to a product, than to spend $25 monthly to receive access to it – even if I know I’ll likely unsubscribe before I ever spend $100.

    When you sell lifetime access to a product, buyers feel like they actually own it, rather than simply renting it.

    That being said, pricing does play a key role here. Once your course price gets to a level where it requires significant thought – or even life changes to be able to afford it ($500-1000+, depending on your market) than pitching the large, one-time fee can become difficult again. In this instance, it may be worth offering a payment plan that allows customers to split the payment over multiple months, but ultimately own it in the end.

    Analyze your pricing, your market, and yourself – what option would you feel more comfortable with?

    When you ask somebody to purchase lifetime access to a product, you are only asking them to make a commitment one time. When you wish to charge them a membership fee every month, you’re asking them to continue that commitment over, and over again. Click to Tweet

    3. Less Customer Support

    Because there is only…

    1. One payment being made
    2. One clear product, with a streamlined, obvious sequence to follow
    3. One place for the customer to go

    …Customer support inquiries do not occur frequently, relative to the number of customers that you receive.

    And when they do pop up, they’re almost always the same questions.

    This makes it much cheaper and much easier for you to better serve each and every customer that does need help, which lowers your customer service costs (or make your business more passive, if you’re running everything yourself.)

    4. Students Can Set Their Own Pace

    Have you ever signed up for access to something, then went through it as quickly as you could to avoid being charged again?

    I know I have.

    While there are some cases where a sense of urgency can be a good thing, you want your students to engage more deeply with your courses, and actually retain the information that they acquire after purchasing your product.

    People that feel incredibly happy with their purchase go on to tell their friends about it. They share their excitement with others, and grow your brand for you – for free!

    Without the pressure that deadlines provide, students actually have the time to deeply engage with an even apply the knowledge they’re gaining as they’re going through your course.

    That’s very powerful!

    5. All Else Being Equal, You Get Paid Quicker

    If you sell a course for $100, or you sell access to a membership site for $25 / monthly that retains customers for an average of 4 months, either way you end up with $100 / person.

    The only difference is that in the 1st scenario, you get paid that full amount immediately. In the 2nd scenario, you have to wait 4 months to receive that extra money.

    Meanwhile, you didn’t have access to those funds to reinvest into your business, improving your products and advertising to bring even more people into your marketing funnel.

    There’s a reason most websites offer discounts for annual payments over monthly payments – having that money in advance is very powerful.

    The Advantages Of A Membership Model

    As mentioned at the start of the is article, there really are pros and cons to both options. Let’s look over the advantages that a membership offer has over one-time sales.

    1. Recurring, Predictable Income

    This is perhaps the most obvious benefit, and it’s what makes membership websites so appealing.

    Once you sign somebody up, it’s very likely that they’ll continue their subscription for more than one month. This is especially true if you’re continuing to release new content throughout their subscription.

    Churn is inevitable, and nobody stays signed up forever. However, as time goes on, you’ll have a rough idea on however long you can expect someone to remain signed up for – then takes steps to optimize it.

    In an ideal scenario, new subscriptions vastly outpace the rate in which people end their membership, and your monthly recurring income grows steadily over time.

    2. There’s Only One Product To Sell

    Some may see this as a disadvantage, but I actually see it as a huge benefit. It was this point that caused me to ponder the idea of pursuing a membership model for my courses in the first place.

    As your collection of products grows, it can be more difficult to manage the marketing to them. How do you know what product to promote in a given situation? What order should you present your products in? After somebody buys one product, what products do you promote next, and how do you set your marketing funnel up in a way to guide people towards the next sale?

    It can be a huge headache.

    Every time I release a new course, I not only have to go back and update old content to promote it, I also have to make drastic changes to all of my email marketing automations, create new ones, and change a bunch of other smaller things around.

    Because I eventually believe I’ll be releasing 30+ courses (with the help of other experts), I can’t imagine what monstrosity of a system I’ll have to deal with as everything grows.

    Membership sites don’t really have this problem. While you still have to change things around to adequately promote your new additions, you’re ultimately still selling access to one core product – your membership site, which contains all your courses inside of it.

    3. Membership Sites Tend To Be More Engaging

    If you’re trying to build a sense of community, or really engage your audience with your brand, there are advantages to running a membership site vs. selling one-off courses.

    If people are going to pay for continued access to something, they’re going to justify that action by returning to your offering more frequently. New content is more likely to be consumed, and it’s easier to build a community of members because of that.

    This may make it easier to up-sell additional services (like one-on-one coaching), but not necessarily – this would be something that you’d need to test.

    4. You Don’t Need As Much Content To Start

    Typically speaking, it’s good practice to raise the price of your membership site as its value rises  – at least to new customers.

    This also means that you can begin selling access to your membership site straight away, so long as you’re actively adding content to it, and you start your price low.

    Then, you can raise it over time as content is released.

    Or, you can also set content to be ‘dripped out’ after a certain length of time. For example, you could offer one month’s worth of content when the user signs up, then have the next month’s content done in advance – but not make it available to the member until they’ve been signed up for the 2nd month.

    This also makes it possible to create an entire year’s worth of content in advance, making the membership sites a tad bit more passive.

    Conclusion

    Becomes there are pros and cons to both strategies, it’s up to you to decide which is better for your business, and your life as a whole.

    Personally, I chose to publish one-time, digital courses as I feel it provides a better value for students, and gives me more flexibility to run my other companies as well.

    At the same time, I still feel like I’m likely to publish a membership site one day – just with different offerings. I truly love the membership business model, and I’m sure a membership site will be one of my offerings in the future.

    I’d love to hear more about the products you plan to create going forward, and how either one (or both!) of these will fit in your strategy.

    Finally, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.

    To your success,

    – James McAllister

  • The 7 Pillars Of Exceptional Customer Service

    One of the easiest ways to differentiate your business from others in your industry is to make customer service a priority.

    Every business likes to think that they have good customer service, but there is an enormous difference between good customer service, and truly exceptional customer service. And your customers can clearly tell the difference.

    Fortunately, crafting an exceptional customer service strategy is not all that difficult. The simple fact that you even care enough to read an article like this one shows that you’re likely to do well with the information I’m about to share with you.

    There are a number of customer service principles that help buyers at all stages of the sales cycle feel valued and cared for. In this article, I intend to cover each one of these in detail.

    Without further ado, here are the 7 pillars of exceptional customer service, and some information on how to implement them into your business. (more…)

  • 7 Powerful Reasons To Implement Live Chat On Your Sales Pages

    One of the quickest ways to improve your website’s conversion rate and increase your sales is to implement live chat.

    Live chat may be the most effective way to offer customer support – both pre-sale and post-sale, in today’s day and age. It’s far quicker to communicate than email, and allows you to accomplish so much more than just using the phone.

    That’s not to say the others should be ignored, but it’s a fact – live chat has insane potential.

    In this article, I want to cover some of these benefits in detail – sharing with you why live chat is important for every business, and giving my recommendations on how to set it up today. (more…)

  • Repeat After Me: I Will Never Compete On Price

    What makes your company unique? Why do people buy from you?

    In business, you can typically offer two of these three things, if you work hard:

    • A high quality product or service.
    • An impressive overall shopping experience, with great customer service all around.
    • A low price.

    However, you can not realistically offer all three of these at the same time. Nor should you try to.

    If your goal is to actually build a large, profitable company, competing on price is not only incredibly challenging, but it offers the highest amount of risk for the lowest reward. It is a loser’s game, and by simply adjusting your strategy, you can position yourself to do far better while practically ignoring price completely.

    In this article, we’re going to make clear why you should rarely, if ever try to compete on price, and cover actionable strategies to take instead.

    Let’s get to it! (more…)