hey everyone this is stefan from
projectlifemastery.com and today i'm
super excited to be interviewing mike
thomas from the website mike from maine
comm and mike is a very successful
internet marketer and affiliate marketer
and today I'm going to be picking his
brain a little bit asking them some
questions about online business
affiliate marketing and have them share
a little bit of his success so Mike
thank you so much for joining me today
yeah I'm really happy to be on your show
it's kind of funny to have you being
interviewing me after all these years we
got we got started we got introduced to
each other by me interviewing you way
back in 2014
yeah totally manded and it's where is
talking off the air just it's amazing to
touch base again and see the growth and
just really goes to show you know
whatever you stick at and your is
consistent with can really change in so
many ways and I've been really admiring
your success and one thing I love about
you and I recommend everyone by the way
to check out your website Mike remain
calm because you're so transparent on
there and sharing your success or
results on how you make money online and
I think you know I do the similar thing
and I think people really love and
gravitate towards that so I love for you
that maybe start off just to share a
little bit about your story about how
you got into building online your online
business and then a little bit about
your success that you've experienced
since sure it's kind of funny I my whole
business model is in a very dirty niche
and it is the internet marketing a lot
of your audience might be familiar with
places like the warrior forum or your
Plus jvzoo it's a minefield of really
crappy products and people selling the
dream how to make $100 a day pushing a
button in your underwear and do nothing
make money like that so my whole goal in
everything that I do have money in my
show is to take internet marketing make
it transparent um and to dig into that
dirty niche and to try to bring out
the people that are actually being
honest that are actually giving value
and of course I want to make money at
the same time so I'm able to do that and
be an affiliate marketer and now I'm
currently making I just looked at my
income reports for 2016 from for the
first part of 2016 I make about $40,000
on average per month doing this so it's
it works really well however if we go
back to the beginning and the nice thing
about having income reports and being
transparent is that I can go back my I
have a horrible memory so it's really
good to be able to go back and look at
his number see if you look back to when
I first started doing internet marketing
and recording my journey back in 2011 I
mean my first month I made three hundred
fifty five dollars which some people
might be going wild like I would I
haven't made any money online yet that
would be great but it's just kind of
puts it into perspective that I've gone
from 355 and I had months where I had
actually losses of almost $3,000 because
I was spending money testing different
things out I wasn't just an overnight
success for me that I was able to get
where I am today but long story short a
lot of people when they say get started
online they always tell you to create a
product and I think that creating
product of course is one of the best
ways that you can make money online but
you have tons of products you make
products off time it's one of your
biggest income sources is putting out
value putting out products whether it's
information or software however the big
problem for a lot of people getting
started is that everyone's saying like
don't do lists to build a list you need
to create like great products and people
are going Who am I to create a product I
don't have any success I can't teach
people how to do affiliate marketing if
I haven't done affiliate marketing I
can't teach people how to maybe make
make money on ecomp or Amazon was it the
fulfilled by Amazon program what I don't
do a lot of that but if they haven't
done that yet they can't really teach it
so there's that kind of that that
problem of the chicken in the egg like
you don't you can have one without the
other and it really makes it difficult
to get started so I went headed with the
mindset of I don't know anything right
now I'm not an expert why not reach out
to people and that are putting out these
products that are experts interview them
and figure out what the heck is going on
with all of this what are these products
that they're putting out a who's who's
full of it and who's actually like who
are the people that you can actually
trust so in September of 2012 I started
reaching out to people that I wanted to
interview I would just ask them if I
could do a quick interview over Skype
with them about their product and we
would kind of talk a little bit about
the story about what they're doing and
we would come up for product at the end
so the reason why that worked and I was
like people might say oh no one's gonna
want to be interviewed by me I don't I
don't have an email list I don't have a
following I don't have a big Twitter
list I don't have big email list of
anything but it's funny because people
love to be interviewed they love to have
their their their egos are really
stroked by this they're like oh yeah
like I'm getting interviewed like with
stuff on interviewing me today it's the
same type of thing I
I'm not gonna get a ton out of this I'm
not I'm not gonna get a ton of
subscribers or sales from this most
likely but it's kind of cool to be
interviewed by someone so by doing that
and by asking people to do big
interviews I was able to make contacts
with all these people that if I had said
hey like with you in 2014 if I got hey
Stefan can you come up can you do a like
a 30 minute free call with me I want to
ask you a bunch of questions about about
what you're doing your business you'd
say all my team up first off you might
not even answer me and second off you do
answer me probably and say Mike I'm
really busy with my stuff that I'm doing
right now they don't have time I have a
coaching program it's going to join
Nauticus products but I really have time
for that so by doing that I'm able to by
saying like I'm gonna promote the
product I'm going to add value to them
and by putting that interview out there
into the into the internet they're gonna
see it as okay this is this kind of
branding for me
maybe this person significant in the
future who knows so yeah I started doing
that and over time I was able to kind of
build my brand up meet a lot of
different people figure out kind of how
this whole affiliate marketing thing
worked
eventually in November of 2014 I put out
my first product about how to be an
affiliate marketer how I build my
business I put that product down had my
first I made fifty five thousand dollars
in that month that was my best month
ever at that point and yeah I just keep
on doing this I interview people and I
do reviews of their products over time
I've built up a real business well
that's awesome
do you think that model can be applied
to any niche or market you know whether
let's say eating or relationships or
health and fitness weight loss whatever
it is where you just find the experts
interview them and then funnel that into
I guess whatever product or service they
might have the unique thing about the
internet marketing niche is that there
are products coming out literally like
ten products a day coming out of this
niche so it's I would say that it's
easier in this niche to do it because
there are so many products coming out
however that doesn't mean that you could
do it in another niche let's say I'm
consuming their products coming out in
and all these other niches as well all
the time I'm not as familiar with that
marketplace so I it's it might be a
little bit different with them but
there's no reason why like if you you're
gonna reach out to someone bigger and
ask to interview them and you want to
make that connection with them the
future when they put out a book when
they have a course they're going to be
much more likely to answer that to to
answer your your message this that you
have to that and to want to be
interviewed so you can you can look at
it it's kind of a way of going out there
and making that connection with them and
so that in the future maybe like I can
now if I have a course coming out I can
I think say hey Stefan I've got this
course coming out can you take a look at
it and you might not promote it but
at least like take a look at it where
someone else you've never heard of
before you would just kind of be like
who is this I don't know each person is
I don't trust them at all I'm not gonna
make you drink it every time of day but
to answer your question to an extent yes
but I think it works extremely well in
kind of the make money online online
niche totally okay cool what do you see
is the biggest benefits to affiliate
marketing doing the interviews or just
in general just in general because I
mean you mentioned you can create your
own products etc but why why do you
think affiliate marketing is one of the
best strategies affiliate marketing is
probably the easiest way to make money
online just because you don't have to
create product you don't have to do the
support for it um you don't have to like
you don't have to spend months preparing
for it it's really really easy I do
product launches and I've done three of
them so far this year we put out two
software's with why I partnered up with
it with a guy and we put out to the
developer we put out three softwares and
an information product it's stressful
like I doing another one in the in
August and I'm just like I need a little
bit of break here because if there's
just so much that goes into it and
making sure that it's successful so the
affiliate marketing part it's so easy
all I do is I pick product and when
you're promoting something is an
affiliate the product creator is is
fixing your butt because they want you
to to promote it they're giving you
everything that you need in order to do
it and if it fails like I just like my
affiliate pro who didn't do well I just
go on to another product and find
something else to promote if it fails
for them they've maybe paid a lot of
money into developing our software they
spend a lot of time there I mean it's a
big deal for them for me I just move on
to the next thing so it's it's
definitely easiest thing to do however I
will say to you that when if you're a
bigger affiliate marketer like now I
have an email list of about 20,000
people and people come to me like the
trust there now so people want to know
like I need to recommend good stuff to
them
I can't just recommend stuff just
because it's gonna make me money I need
to be like okay it's gonna it's just
gonna actually help them and am I going
to make money from this at the same time
so there's a there's a big trust thing
there as well
but um yeah it's the easiest to learn
marketing so the easiest thing in the
world it's but but there's still work
involved yeah and then that's why I love
it because I think it can supplement any
business you know if you've already got
customers there's only so many products
that you can really use some launch and
you might not be in every industry like
if you've got a software you know maybe
you don't have any you know products on
information so you can find other
products related to that and promote it
or if you you sell supplements and you
don't sell information maybe you can
find an information component or a
software component and you know be able
to leverage the customers that you have
or subscribers and be able to profit
additional income from it and even in
the case of you and me there's certain
you know leadpages and Aweber things
like that we're never going to create
that but we can partner with them and
just recommend and these are the tools
that we use the resources and it's a
win-win on both sides too so that's
another I think great benefit is it
really can supplement any business that
you have regardless of the business
model yeah and everyone's gonna need
tools in their businesses I mean if you
look at the the gold rush guys the guys
that we're searching for the gold
weren't the ones that we're making the
money it's like guys that were selling
them the pickaxes and the blue jeans
those are the ones that are making money
if you can give people the tools to go
up there and to to run their business
that and you can be an affiliate you not
to actually create those tools you can
just recommend good ones to them
recommend leadpages to them recommend
Aweber and you can build a nice solid
income from awesome so if someone's
watching is they want to get started and
they want to start printing content
whether that's interviews or writing
their articles or YouTube videos
whatever it is what do you recommend for
people to do to you know to get some
traction and help
people to attract to their blog or
website to get people to start following
them because as you mentioned becomes
easier once you have followers and
subscribers but when you're first
starting out what can people view to
help you know get to that point first
thing that you're going to need when
you're starting out is a hell of a lot
of patience because though it's not
going to happen immediately and if you
don't like enjoy what you're doing if
you don't like find this really fun in
the niche that you've got into and
you're not really interested in it if
you're going into the fitness niche and
like them you're you see like oh there's
a lot of money to be made in muscle
powders and pills and stuff and you're
not really excited about that good luck
you know but getting into that and
really going far with it people do it
it's happening lately but for me like I
had a pure passion in the internet
marketing niche I loved learning about
the stuff I loved the tools I loved the
different programs but if you're going
to put me in the fitness niche I would
know you're not interested in all that
stuff I would do as well as someone like
yourself that is much more interested in
that so and that enthusiasm is going to
is going to come through to anyone that
is coming to your your page or your
videos or whatever so they're gonna
understand that as well great ways you
can get free traffic you can get free
branding you do this very well YouTube
videos YouTube is just such an amazing
way of getting your brand out there
getting your face out there but just
make sure you don't put out videos just
to put out videos make sure that you've
got a real reason behind what you're
doing one of the reasons why the
interview models work really well for me
is that I don't have to sit down every
day and go oh what am I going to talk
about today I don't know I like get get
20 videos into doing like to try to
teach about a topic it's gonna get it's
gonna get difficult even if you're
really interested in that topic it's
going to get interesting to get
difficult for you so you really want to
have the the mindset of being able to
pull in other people and leverage their
knowledge as well so I mean things that
have worked for me are like YouTube um I
tried the podcast thing and
I pulled the plug on it about a year
into it just because I didn't see the
numbers and I saw YouTube giving me much
more traffic and in brand awareness than
I saw with my podcast so that might have
been a mistake who knows but I for me
podcasting hasn't been a big thing but
that doesn't mean it can't be for for
someone out there who really wants to do
a podcast so I would say I remember Pat
Flynn you know I'm pretty sure most your
audience is going to be familiar with
from smart passive income he used to say
like be everywhere and for me I actually
don't really agree with trying to be
everywhere I say pick a few places and
try to be big in those places don't try
to be I have a huge Twitter following a
huge YouTube following Instagram
snapchat like it's going to be too hard
what are you going to do at the end of
your videos okay everyone follow me on
twitter snapchat youtube yep so broad
subscribe to my podcast drop from a
youtube video it's going to get really
hard to get those calls to actions if
you could just have a couple call to
actions a pen like sign up for my email
list like everyone is good everyone that
you're going to listen to in these
interviews is going to tell you you need
to have email list because it's the
number one way everyone gets traffic and
and like when someone launches a product
they don't tweet about it they don't put
out a youtube video about it they bring
your email there their list about it
that's where that's where all the
traffic is there so build your email
list get that up there getting by
something like thrive leads from Shane
mala or leadpages or something start
building your email list use something
like Aweber or a weber is probably one
of the best ones to get started with and
start building your email list but yeah
it's it's tough it's it's not a push
button system yeah and it's gonna take
you time but if you put that time in and
just start seeing like I remember I was
I was writing down at one point I was
like okay I'm making twenty dollars a
day right now like I'm averaging twenty
dollars a day and I was like am a virgin
fifty dollars a day now and then I'm
averaging
dollars and then like now if I haven't
made $500 in a day my wife comes home
and she's like why are you depressed I'm
like idea I only paid $300 today and
like I know it can sound kind of funny
to someone that's maybe not making
anything but um you your expectations
grow as you as you build your business
as well but uh barking something amazing
not really I totally agree and yeah
there's there's so many platforms that
exist online and there's new ones that
we pay but so I mean just picking a few
you can just you can master YouTube and
have tons of success just with that or
I've got a few friends or in the book
they don't do video they don't you know
if you podcast but they just love
writing um and I even have you know
friends that they're not even the face
of the business they're behind the
scenes and they just have content
writers and blogging is a thing in SEO
so I totally agree um so is YouTube that
the number one way that you get traffic
or you do a lot of SEO or social media
marketing or or anything outside of
YouTube traffic is a tough one and I'll
I always struggle everyone wants more
traffic they want to convert that
traffic into leads and sales right now
where I get most of my traffic from is
my email list but to build that email
list I had to hit either those people on
the list so in the beginning when I
first got started I bought solo ad
traffic which some people will say like
for those of you that don't know it's
when you pay someone to send an email to
their list and they send traffic to a
squeeze page can be hit or miss there's
a lot of garbage traffic up there that
being said there's some good traffic out
there as well so I've built my list that
way in the beginning then when I would
promote people as an affiliate what I
would started doing and this is where my
business really started growing is I
would ask them to put a bonus in their
members area so let's say someone has a
product and and they just put like a
little a little image that links to a
lead page that
would you like to get free gift like I
did a free case study on how I made like
$1400 from two videos and that's that
gets people on my list
those people are proven buyers there in
my niche so I know that they're
interested in in buying affiliate
marketing like like internet marketing
products so they get on my email list
and just like I keep promoting as an
affiliate I keep getting my back and
bonus in these members areas I keep on
promoting affiliate my link mine list
gets bigger and bigger and it just kept
on like that was a huge change in my
business once I started doing that
however in order to do that in order to
be big enough so that people will want
that you to have their like will give
you that because they're giving you
their leads in order to do that you need
to be able to send some sales to them in
order to have them compensate you like
that so in the beginning you can buy
traffic with solo ads I've tried
Facebook Ads I haven't had much luck
with Facebook um I did SEO traffic to my
blog I don't get a ton of stuff I get
maybe about a hundred hits a day from
Google and which isn't a ton you think
that it would be more but I really don't
I just don't get it I don't focus on it
either um but but yeah that's pretty
much oh and of course product launches
like a new launch product that's when I
that's when I get a huge like I'll get
anywhere from a thousand to three or
four thousand new subscribers onto my
list and then I can promote affiliate
products and you do a lot of you mention
you to interview the also do product
reviews and product reviews for those
are you just primarily you get access to
a product and you're just sharing your
honest opinion of it your experience
with it and then you publish against the
video and the blog post and then when
people search there's a lot of people
before they purchase something they'll
search for a product they want to see
other reviews of it etc and has that
been successful for you and it's
wrapping people really really successful
what I do now is I do the interview and
I do the review and I see people out
there being really successful
just doing the review by itself I do the
interview just because I like the human
interaction and I like the fact that I
can build a stronger relationship with
that person not just like chatting back
and forth on sky give me the affiliate
link and I'm going to promote etc I
actually get to talk for the person so I
use the interview as a pre sell for the
product it's a value-added free sell my
audience understands that we're going to
be talking about the product it's not
like I go in there and like oh by the
way this person has a product launching
a lot you'll see a lot of podcasts will
do that Phil what they'll do in the
podcast is they'll just like have a pure
value podcast where they're purely just
talking about like a specific subject
and then at the end they'll say oh if
you want to learn more information about
this you can go ahead and check out this
link and they'll give like either an
affiliate link or an often link so then
the person is running the podcast will
get a commission from that as well
instead of doing that I just go right to
the like we'll talk about stuff inside
of the like like stuff that's not
directly related to the product inside
of the interview but it's mostly like
let's let's see what this product is
about let's do a demo of it let's see
what's actually inside of it if they're
making claims on the sales page I want
to see proof that these claims are
actually like if you're if you're saying
that you're making five hundred dollars
a day like let me see your PayPal
account let's see your accounts let's
see if you're actually doing that so
it's kind of like let's let's see if
this person's really doing what they're
talking about and I screen people before
they come on my show now if in the past
I wouldn't do it and I've had people
that have slipped through the cracks
that now I would not let on my show it
just they wouldn't get through because
they I don't believe now that they are
actually doing what they claimed that
they were doing so the interviews the
pre-cell I send that out the night
before the product goes live as the
pre-sale video people watch that and
then the next day when the product goes
live two hours before I send out a
review video walking through it's more
of a walk through of the product if I'm
reviewing the
product I'm not going to say this is
complete garbage because if they've
gotten that far then that means that I
I've given them the okay I don't waste
my time doing doing reviews of products
and saying this is horrible I just think
that me not reviewing it means that like
that that could be assigned people email
me they're like Mike are you promoting
this product I'm like no and they're
like is it good I'm like well I'm not
I'm not your commission except Fi let me
decide it out much yeah so then I sent
out the review two hours before and then
when the product goes live I send out
another email
hey it's live check it out now that's
three emails in in about a what a
12-hour period so it's it's a lot of
emails I get a lot of unsubscribe people
that don't want that many emails but I
get a lot of people who stay on my list
so the people that I'm worried about
people that I care about are the ones
that stay on my list and they want to be
they want the interviews they want the
reviews they want to know when the early
bird discount is for the products they
they want to stay in the know on that
and if if they want to unsubscribe but
they still want to see my reviews and
interviews
the nice thing is they know where my
blog is they can come and check that out
they don't have to necessarily be on my
list to see that that's awesome and I
think what you said is really key
because there's a lot of crappy products
out there and every nation marketing
claims and all that sort of stuff and
you know for you you have an obligation
to to if you're going to review a
product you got to be honest you got to
make sure that if you're going to
endorse or recommend something you've
got to put your audience's needs above
your own because there's many
opportunities I'm sure you have all the
time that you can make a lot of money
from but if you're promoting something
that's you know not a good product
that's going to kill your reputation
people aren't going to listen to you
they're not going to follow you on I
think there's you know there's there's
kind of like a shady side of affiliate
marketing where it's just you know a lot
of people that are just in it to make
money they don't care what the product
is and all that and it sounds like
you've been successful because you build
a relationship and a trust with a
demographic of people
so they rely on you and they trust you
and they're going to listen to your
recommendation because of that you maybe
comment a little bit on the mindset
around that if they don't trust me
they're not going to buy for me
I if I say every single product that I
review is the best thing in the world
and that it's like this is amazing you
guys need to buy this drink now that
doesn't mean anything anymore
so instead of trying to sell them each
product I try to make it so that they
can make the most important decision on
whether this product is going to be
right for them and the way that I do
that is when I do my review of the
product I'm able to I walk them through
the product I show them we take a look
at the sales page and kind of walk
through what product is then we go and
I'll show them the download area of the
product the membership area this is what
you're going to get this is what's
inside
I'll show them the one-time offers or
upsells that they should expect I want
them to know that upsells aren't a bad
thing there's something that is just a
part of it's like you you want fries
with that yeah you don't get angry at
the McDonald's employee they ask you if
you want fries with that or if you want
up to supersize or whatever you need to
say oh yeah great or no thank you
like that that's all that is and I just
want to make sure that people understand
what the upsells are and I tell them
there's something that I don't like
about the product I'll tell them what I
don't like about it if maybe I I think
that the maybe it's missing something
and if that's that's a great opportunity
if it is missing something you as the
affiliate can fill in that gap and you
can add a bonus in and maybe that this
is all about building an email the
products all about building an email
list so they don't talk about traffic
well it's my special bonus I'm going to
do a live webinar and show you exactly
how I'm getting traffic if you pick it
up through my link all you're going to
get that special bonus for me which is
going to increase your conversions and
it's going to make your customers even
more even happier to purchase through
you
so yeah just make sure to paren sheight
yourself add bonuses in bonuses are a
huge thing which we haven't talked about
bonuses are or another thing that took
me to the next level and in the
beginning when you don't have a big
email list when you don't have like a
big reason to spend a lot of time on
bonuses I can understand it's not in
your best interest to go out there and
to create some custom bonus for
something if you're only going to make
maybe one or two sales or maybe zero
sales from a promotion but once you get
bigger it makes more sense to maybe
offer one of your past product or offer
a free training or you can even
sometimes your bonuses from the the
vendor they give out bonuses to give
away
there's PLR bonuses that you can give
away to people who promote through your
link and some people might say oh well
they're Pilar they're not very valuable
we'll try to find the good ones and also
you'd be surprised how many people if
they don't have their PLR bonuses there
they're not very happy about it they
want to get more they want to get as
much as they can with their purchase and
if you're able to increase the value of
the product by adding other things into
it you're going to make more money in
the long run it's awesome do you have a
certain criteria that you look for in
for example you know obviously it's got
it in some cases we're starting you know
you might not care as much about the
amount of money you're gonna make for
sale but you you know are you aiming for
50% Commission's a certain dollar amount
you know you your due diligence and
whatnot of the creator the product
itself you have a certain criteria like
that or things you look forward before
you decide okay this is a product I feel
comfortable recommending it's going to
work well for me so what do you do for
that it's hard because sometimes like
I'm in business you're in business we
want to make money weren't we're not in
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