James Schramko & Stephen Esketzis - Affiliate Marketing Double Header

If you want to know how I built a good community, it's by not abusing them. It's by not wearing them out, or as we might say, taking the piss. It's always understanding the fundamental core is I want them to be better off. Everything I do is for them to be better off. And I'm happy to be better off as a result of making that introduction. I have no qualms about making the sale as long as they'll be better off. And that's my job. So a big key to my affiliate marketing is to build that trust and to only promote things that will help people. And that means not promoting things sometimes where you could make some money.

What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Flow Shark podcast with your boys, Mount Wolf and Joe Fear.

What up?

Who wants to talk about affiliate marketing?

Me, me, me, me, me.

You've already talked about them.

Oh, yeah.

So I'm out of here.

This is a special two for episode. This is what we're calling a double header.

That's what we're calling it.

Yeah.

I made up that term double header just off the top of my head.

Oh, okay. I've never heard of that before, Matt.

Yeah, this is. This is called. This is. I think I'm gonna title this episode the Affiliate Marketing Double Header.

Wow.

Hopefully that's the title of this episode you're listening to right now.

Is this the first time you ever named an episode before? It's actually been really. I mean, I don't know. You always wait till the last second to name these episodes.

That is probably the. One of the things I spend a lot of time on is thinking of names. Go with that name.

It's good. Well, today, who do we have on this double header and why are we calling it a double header, Matt?

Yeah, because we've got two 30 minute interviews. So they're not our normal hour interviews.

Weird.

Yeah, they actually are from a live stream that we did with these fellas. Well, two separate live streams, actually. Actually, Stephen is at Kiss. We interviewed twice, but that's a whole nother story.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's just. But technically they were separate live streams.

Actually, we've interviewed him three times.

Carry on, Matt. So we have James Sramko as one of our. He's. I don't know if he's the first or is he the first, Matt. Well, let's. Yes, he's the first. Cause I said his name first. Okay, so, James, you're up, brother. All right, so James is a great Friend of ours, he's been on the show two or three times, maybe even four. Maybe I don't even know anymore. But we're due for another dedicated episode with him. I should probably reach out, but. Yeah. So James was gracious enough to go on a live stream with us. That's where this recording came from and was about basically the foundational, you know, affiliate strategies that he uses for his business that he teaches. I mean, the dude runs a business very, very similar to us. You know why? Because we modeled him, and he's mentored us through a lot of the aspects of our business.

Still does.

Still does. So we give him a lot of big thanks. That's why. That's why we'll put him at number one spot here. Nothing gets. Well, number two, is there anything else you want to add to James other.

Than I love James Schremco?

Oh, get a room. Jeez.

No, he's a great guy. I do really genuinely like James Schramko a lot.

Lots of love. You know what's funny? Both these guys are down under.

They are. They're both in Australia. What do you think? This is our Australian affiliate marketing double header.

Bam.

That's too much of a mouthful.

That's just too much. All right, so who's our second guest?

Our second guest today is Stephen Eskets. Did I say it right?

I don't know. Ask him. Yeah, it sounded better than me.

Well, so here's how I remember how to pronounce his name on. He actually just has his name as Steven. Esk.

Yeah, Esk.

Yeah. So I know it starts with Esk. Okay, so esketsisk. That's what.

Okay, go for it.

That's Stephen Esketsis.

Dude, this guy, we modeled him as.

Well, we did a lot of our content marketing. A lot of the affiliate blog posts that we've written over the years were modeled after what Stephen was doing, and he was ClickFunnels number one affiliate for a long time. We do have a previous episode with him too, where he breaks down even more affiliate marketing strategies. But this. This one, I think, is like a year and a half later. So we get some updates and some newer strategies that he's working on now.

Tools, all this cool stuff that he's using. Yeah, yeah.

So lot. Lots of good content marketing affiliate strategies. And also we talk about developing tools for affiliate marketing a little bit as well. And some. Two. Two really good conversations, all about the affiliates stuff.

Well, this is. You know, affiliate marketing is definitely a topic that is. Is. It's like one of the three, I guess, foundational things that we like to chat about, but also like, you know, there's this podcasting traffic. But you know, it's also a question that I think people are just looking for examples of how to do it and for their own business. A lot of folks don't feel like it's for them, but it can be. Anybody can use affiliate marketing. So I think these guys bring a good spectrum of what's possible. You have Sramko over here that's, you know, he's building a platform essentially. He has a podcast, he has a great forum and community and he has all these, you know, email lists and all that stuff and he promotes in very specific ways. Then you have Stephen over here, similar, but he takes more the blogging and the customer journey route and SEO and stuff like that. Not so much the community and platform ness of Sramco, but you can combine them.

Yeah. If you. It's kind of funny like as you were explaining that, I'm like, yeah, we kind of took pieces that we liked of Steven's model, we took some pieces that we liked of James's model, you know, sprinkle in some pieces that we like from Roland Fraser's model. And that's kind of what our business looks like now.

It's kind of that. So there you go. If you're curious about like who we, who we who are studying from for some of the big aspects of our business, these are the guys.

Yeah. And real quickly, speaking of speaking of affiliate marketing, I do want to talk about Unicorn Equity really quick.

Do it.

Yeah.

So unicorn equity is a project that we're partnered with Roland Frazier on, also our partner Oliver who runs up kind of the tech side of that thing. Basically what it is is it's a new platform that we're developing that's helping affiliate marketers get equity in the products that they're promoting. The problem with affiliate marketing right now is it's kind of a short sighted thing. Right. I'm going to promote some products. I get commissions maybe that you get some recurring commissions that you collect for like a year. But eventually those even fizzle out. And you know, you made them money, you made yourself some short term money. They have the customer, the money that you made sort of is gone eventually. Right. So we're short term, it's a short term thinking thing. And you know, we've done some things to make it a little bit more long term for us.

Us.

But what unicorn is designed to do is to help you get equity in companies so that when these companies that you're promoting eventually exit, you can have nice windfalls or if they pay out dividends to investors or, you know, or you can sell your shares on. On secondary markets and things like that. It's allowing you to create more long term potential windfall wealth off of a traditional affiliate marketing strategy. So check out Unicorn Equity IO. It's something that we're excited about. We think it has the potential to be a really, really, really big affiliate marketplace where we're helping a lot of small businesses grow their businesses and we're helping a lot of affiliates actually earn wealth from their promotional strategy. So that's over at Unicorn Equity IO. Check that out. And then, final note, let's get some notes for this episode.

Get the notes. Yeah. So we're going to be covering a lot here from obviously two different perspectives and people. So if you go to hustleandfluidchart.com computer, you're going to get the notes for this episode. But be quick. They go away in two weeks from the time of this episode going live. So get the notes. Hustleandflowchart.com comp and I don't know, they might even be longer than normal this time. I'm not sure. Probably. I don't know. They're always pretty dense. So whatever the length of those notes are, you're going to be very happy that you just took a second to pause this and go to hustleflowchart.com comp.

Yes.

Yeah.

All right, let's go talk to James. And then I don't know how it's going to transition, but eventually it's going to transition into Stephen. And you're getting our affiliate marketing double header.

It'll be magic. How's it going? Hey.

Oh, I'm too. I'm too low here.

Squeeze into your little bubble, too, you.

Know, in the frame bubble here. How are you guys?

How you doing?

Yeah, I'm doing great.

Yeah.

Morning there.

Or is it a decent hour by now?

No, it's a decent hour by now. I've done a couple of calls and I'm all warmed up.

Very nice.

Yeah. We made sure that this live stream was catering to our Australian friends. And I know we have a few listening to us as well on here, which is really cool. Yeah. So we have a. We have a great group. We've been. We've just had, what, one, two, three people on right before you. Pat was laying down a whole bunch of strategies.

Just.

That'S how he founded his whole empire.

So well. And for you. Yeah, I was basically telling everyone we've had the pleasure of having you as one of our mentors, but also been on your podcast multiple times. Your community, the ones that you've cultivated, they just seem like at a whole new level, a whole different level than what you typically find in business owners online. And they seem to all hide out in the super fast community that you built over there. And they become some of our best fans too. And I'm sure a lot of them are here. But talk about that really quick. Just, just a quick little brief of what your business is. And, and we talked about owning the race course because. So this will kind of pivot into that in affiliate marketing as well.

Yeah, I think that the genesis story is really interesting because I started out as an affiliate. That was how I got my first the proper online income and learned the ropes. And through that process I started to developing. First list that I built was a list of buyers. I didn't even capture opt ins of prospects. Like I just went for people who had already purchased a product and wanted to claim their bonus from me. So my database was built from buyers. So I had this super high quality list. And then of course I started to understand more about what other problems they were having, what other challenges they had, and then I find solutions for that too. And as I got better at affiliate marketing and then I got this sort of idea that I really should find recurring things to promote instead of one time things, then I started thinking, well, this is great, but I think I could get some more control or ownership of this. And I actually started my first community in 2009. So beginning of 2009 I started what was called superfast results. And it's that community has more or less been in play till today, just has had like a couple of name changes along the way. But super fast results will rise again as it turns out. But what it meant was I got to grow up with my audience. And as I went through the first phase, like it was me learning how to build a website and me learning how to write copy and me doing my own graphics, that's pretty scary if you know how bad my graphics are. Me figuring out how to put a video on a webpage, me, you know, trying to learn how to do a podcast. And over time, you know, I built team and then stepped away from being hands on. And as I had to make a decision, do I want to stay teaching those things or do I want to move with my audience? And what's happened is over the Last decade I've moved with my audience and now we no longer build the website and we no longer do the graphics or write the copy so much. And we've got a team to do that. So I basically grew up with my business. That's why my peer group now are more like the Pats and the Ezras and those guys who are at a certain level in business. And by being in tune with that peer group, you sort of set filters for, you know. The business that makes me the least happy is trying to do the startup thing, which is funny because I'm sort of going through that phase with my own children.

Yeah, I'm literally teaching one of my kids on a daily basis affiliate marketing from scratch. So it's been like a. Whoa, is.

That opening up some new things for you? Or like, I don't know how to.

Teach people how to start. It's, it's like, it's a hard one. It is the hardest thing of all to do. The starting phase, that's, that's the crawling over broken glass phase. And not many people get to the other side. You know, they won't put up with the cuts and bruises that it takes once you get over it. Like, that's the area that I, that I really specialize in. When people have got momentum, they've had their tough lessons, they're ready for innovations, I'll go and spot all the opportunities for them. I'll show them where there's quick wins. I think I remember speaking to you guys one day saying, hey, you know, you should put a products page of all your recommended products. Like, that's a, that's a really easy win. When someone's already got a database, when they already know what products sell, just sticking them in front of their customers on the most highly visited page on their website is a really good idea.

Yeah, that's one that Pat actually said as well. Even for just affiliate products, have a whole list of recommended resources and categorize based on the avatar that might land on that page. And it's perfect. Yeah.

And there's a few other tactical things we can talk about with affiliate marketing. Like, I'm not going to be the biggest affiliate that you have. I've definitely specialized in selling my own products and services. However. However, I do think affiliate marketing, it's how I started and I never stopped doing it. I still have a decent affiliate income, but it's not my prime focus. One of the big changes was I stopped doing those sort of spiky launch type promotions where I could Generate in some cases, you know, 60, 70, 80, $100,000 off a campaign. But I dedicate all my energy to that ranking, all the pages, doing all the emails.

Providing bonuses and so forth. And it wasn't really building my business, so I was building income, but it was exhausting. So I focused more on the evergreen ongoing income aspect of it, long term solutions rather than sort of like this month's launch. And the other thing that I noticed was it really used to bother me that I would drive my fantastic, amazing customers who've been with me for years into some launch funnel and then they just get rolled around and tumbled and rumbled and then passed around to the next five or six launches and just, and, and I would see from the coaching side, these people had just, they were exhausted and they'd spent a lot of money on all these products and, and they weren't executing on all of them because they got caught up in the sort of hype mode. So you'll notice I generally don't do launches. I'm more of a kind of release guy. I'll just release a new product or service and I'm going for the long sustained. If you, if you want to know how I built a good community, it's by not abusing them, it's by not wearing them out, or as we might say, taking the piss. It's always understanding. Like the fundamental core is I want them to be better off. Everything I do is for them to be better off. And I'm happy to be better off as a result of making that introduction. I have no qualms about making the sale as long as they'll be better off. And that's my job. So a big key to my affiliate marketing is to build that trust and to only promote things that will help people. And that means not promoting things sometimes where you could make some money, but it's not really going to be helping the customer. And I think that a lot of that comes back from when I was in my early days of selling. And I'd watch the salespeople look through the stock sheet and find the biggest bonus. And then no matter who walked in the door, they would try and sell that car. And I'm like, that went against every fiber in my body. I'm like, but that's not the right car for them. Like, yeah, but I'm going to get the biggest bonus. But they're never going to buy from you again. And they're like, well, I don't care. And you know, they would have to go and Find new customers all the time. And within two years, 50% of my business was repeat referrals. You know, another car for the wife or, you know, Joe buys a Mercedes Benz and Matt sees it and he wants one now. So, you know, they felt comfortable making a referral. So just think long term. That's really one of my biggest messages possible.

Yeah, I feel like kind of been a theme of the live stream is, you know, you can make affiliate marketing successful as long as you're just focusing on doing right by your affiliates. Don't do it for the money first. You know, some of the things that have come up are things like if you're going to promote a product, don't promote a product you've never used yourself. You know, don't be going and tell your list, this is the best thing since sliced bread if you've never tested it yourself. You know, don't be going and, and pushing launches on people because you're trying to get on some leaderboard or something like that. You know, focus on, on your community and what's going to be beneficial to the community. And I feel like that's sort of the, the overarching theme of, of what we've been talking about today. One thing I, I did want to ask though, from your perspective, because we, we've kind, from kind of everybody so far, is if somebody was watching this and they're starting from scratch and they, and maybe they don't even have a following yet at all, but they wanted, they want to do something and maybe affiliate marketing is going to be their entry. What would you recommend right now, kind of in the current world that we're living in, what would you recommend to kind of get going?

I'd look through their credit card statement and find out what they've already bought because they're probably an expert on that. They've already bought it, they already use it, they know why they bought it, they know what other competitive offers are out there. They've been through the buying window and they could easily talk about why they chose that with integrity and find other people just like them. Because that's exactly how I started. I could not build a website to save my life. And I tried and struggled so hard and tried different solutions and it was like Goldilocks. And finally I found the one that was perfect and I just wanted to tell other people about it. I'd be taking the kids to soccer games, talking to the other parents like, hey, I found this thing. You can build a website. Like, you know how hard it is without this thing, like, I do assisted sales, I'll go and sit with them at their laptop for them to buy it, you know, if they had any interest in whatsoever. Even if they didn't sometimes. But I'd get them so excited about it. I was very enthusiastic about, about the product. So, yeah, I think, I think survey what you've already bought. But if you already have a database, survey them and find out what they already buy. What have they already bought? It's such a good indicator as to where to land that's in a pretty warm spot.

Would you recommend something as simple as, you know, I absolutely love this product. I want to tell everybody about it. Maybe I'll just make a post on Facebook and tell people on Facebook how much I love this product. Or, you know, what would be that kind of entry point once you've. You've figured out this product that you want to get?

Having just been through that with, with my son, it's like the entry point is to get a PayPal account.

Yeah.

And then to join the program and be honest about your list size and your method of promotion. Because, you know, some affiliate programs are going to go and look you up or whatever, and then you have to do your research. Like, there's no substitute for research. You got to understand the pain points in the market and the problems going on. And then you have to be able to articulate that. So, yes, you could make a little video and put it on YouTube. You could make a post to your friends on Facebook. You could start building an email list. So what we're going to be doing is to create something of value. Now, he doesn't know that much about this yet, but he will soon because he's like, he's got 16 hours a day to learn about the sort of stuff that we know about. Turns out he's like most kids. He's very good at using the computer and researching. He can ask other people for bonuses. I've got. Our friend John Linton and me have agreed to put in something that he could give away as a bonus. Maybe you guys want to give him something to give as a bonus. So, you know, you could actually get other people who are already experts to give you things that you could bundle up and give away to start building your database. Because make no mistake, the real asset at the end of the day is the ability to contact someone, to reach out with them, to educate them, entertain them in some cases, but to be able to find out about them so that you can solve their problem and even to this day, a great many of my conversions happen as a result of a conversation. The con. The conversational conversion process is strong for my business, whether it's my help desk or me. When we start really understanding a customer and providing the correct solution for them. And I don't mind providing a solution that's not mine. I'm happy to send people somewhere else. I mean, I actually, while you guys were on this call, I sent you a referral of someone who I believe.

Because I just like, it's too good not to happen. And you just build little value credits.

In the world and you do that. I mean, and I think we actually really got that from you, the conversational conversion, you know, like, I brought this up to Pat, but you know, we're sending loom videos. I think I got that initially from you, right? When we joined your mentorship. We got a bombbomb or something from you. I think you're at the mall just with your kids or whatever. And I'm like, so cool. It was only like a 30 second video, but it stuck. And that's a post purchase, but you could do that. Obviously you're making a.

Like, if you had time and you're in the beginning stages, like, you're gonna have to do some bhw, right? That's bloody hard work.

When I was selling my software as an affiliate, in the beginning, I had a Skype me button on the website. Like, if you're on my page, you can Skype me. People would sometimes click on it and they'd call me up and they'd say, hello, I'm like, hi, can I help you? And they're like, yeah, I'm just on your page right now. I'm like, okay, well what would you like help with? And they'd say, just, I just want to check if this is legit. Is this really good software? I'm like, it absolutely is and I'm here to help. And they're like, yep, I'm just buying it now. So just that that personal step that other people aren't able to do or prepared to do will put you ahead. So if you've got time and you have the intention, by all means, send personal messages. They're still the only cold emails that make it through my firewall is an actual personal message.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty obvious. And. And yeah, my little shortcut is a loom embed. The OR or bombbomb works, but an animated gif, especially if it's your face. I'm like, come on, who is not going to open that or at least click that, that email.

So that's, that's great. I want to talk really quick because I know you mentioned John was a 10x pro, right?

Yeah.

Talk about, like, because it's interesting. I like how you're now and Pat mentioned this too, and he didn't get into it, but partnerships, you know what you started as an affiliate, I'm thinking, and I think he's in your group too, but you have a partnership with him. Do you have others that you do that with as well? And is that kind of a strategy that you select?

Literally, the last thing on my list here for you guys is develop your affiliate programs into revenue share partnerships.

Yeah.

So the simple idea is, look, if you're really good at promoting a product and.

Sounds a bit braggy, but like at phases, I was a really good, strong affiliate for some of the products I promoted. But I was one of the top sellers of the Excite Pro software I sold in the world. And then I went on and I was one of the top affiliates for LeadPages and a top affiliate for OnTraport. And until you guys, I was a good affiliate for ThriveCart. Right. So.

I've realized that's a good sweet spot for me. I've got an audience of people who need these solutions. So when you find a good solution that's good and you start to take a good interest in it, you could offer a lot to a product developer who's really good at making the product, who might have a great marketing understanding, but really just wants to make the best product. And you can be their marketing department, you can actually go the next step beyond affiliation. And that is, well, let me have a little piece of the whole pie. And what that does, it actually unlocks you from competing with the other affiliates. Instead of saying, oh, look, I'm not going to go and get my customers to become affiliates because that will just eat into my market share. Now the opposite is the case. It's okay, you guys should be affiliates of this because it's a great program and it really helps people. Very low refunds, it does the job better than any other product on the market. And so you can go out and actively grow the business and you can basically become an affiliate of the entire business instead of just the amount of sales you directly sent. And I like those arrangements. So I've got about a dozen of those now. So basically my starting was to affiliate as a nobody selling products online. And then I progressed that up to the point where I became a Somebody to the point where now I can have better relationships with those product owners and where they see that I can really power up their business, then we can just become partners and it's still their business and they have the control and they own it and all the rest. I'm just taking a little bit of the upside that I can bring to the table and it's all documented, agreed upon and it works well. Now the interesting story in this particular example is I actually took a smaller cut by making that adjustment than I could have made as a straight out affiliate in the beginning with the view that in the long term my cut will be worth more in five years from now than it would have been for the first two or three years.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

And that's that long term approach.

Yeah. It seems like it's an easier sell. You know, you already have a relationship, but at least you're kind of. I want to call it an earn in, but you're definitely proving yourself even more so as marketing team.

Yeah, I could make 40% as an affiliate or I could make less as a partner. But you know, I really believe that it's a great viable option over the long haul. So it's like, okay, it's an easier thing for him to agree with and it's an easier thing for, for me to think because I know what can happen over the long haul. I've seen it before.

Yeah, right.

I love it. I've got audience questions here. Did you have other stuff on your list that you wanted to cover or do you want me to jump into some of these questions that people are asking here?

Didn't specifically come up. I sort of just glossed over it. But a really great way to differentiate from all the other affiliates is to have bonuses and not, you know, you got to get creative. There's been a lot of bonus inflation. But by far the greatest bonus in the beginning for me was my cheat sheet. But then the one that beat everything was access to my membership. And I sold quite a lot of. In fact, I started my membership as a bonus for people who bought a few thousand dollars product. And that was really an amazing thing. If you think about the fact that I've had that membership for 11 years.

That's insane.

Acquiring income for 11 years off the back of what was initially a 60 day bonus. That's. That's the one that pays.

Yeah, no kidding. Awesome. Yeah. And that was a big thing. I don't know if it was Pat or someone, maybe it was Mike that we just had on. But yeah, take something that you might already sell and yeah, you can give it either way for free completely, if it makes sense. Or maybe it's a trial for 60 days like you said and just like, hey, here's the best of. And you can blow people away. We've done that before many times with affiliate sales.

I love that bonus of the membership too. Just out of curiosity, were you giving them like lifetime access to the membership or was it like here you get a year of it or what?

What, what lifetime memberships. One of the dumbest things ever.

I, I like and I did. I used to give when people got the, the Excite Pro cheat sheet. XSP cheat sheet. I called it XSP cheat Sheet because I didn't want a trademark problem. It's very dangerous building on someone else's trademark. And I used to give people access to a membership. That's the first membership I had was this portal where I'd put the cheat sheet. And then I actually got a go to webinar account in about 2007. So I've had it for a long, long time. Right. And then I'd run webinars and then transcribe them and stuff. So it's kind of my practice run. But they would get access forever and it's good. When I did updates, I'd keep sending them updates so they would never leave the list. So that's good. But also I stopped getting paid after the first sale, so that's bad. So yeah, I used to give them 60 days access and then it would start billing after. And I had a big decision to make back then and it's, it was bold. It was do I give them 60 days no card, and then try and sell it at the end of 60 days or, you know, I just went into my card and I put, you know, 60 days for free and then billing at a founder's rate. And everyone, to my surprise, 70 something, 78 members put in their details. I didn't get a single person query it. I sent a very clear and and specific reminder that billing event is going to happen soon and they can leave before that if they want. I got only, only a few left. I still had 65 go through to payment.

Wow.

And, and ever since I've had very low churn. I get no chargebacks. We occasionally get someone who got billed that day or the day before who didn't intend to stay and asks if they can have it refunded, which we do. So we have like a, like a less than 1% refund rate across My entire business. And it's only usually like a billing error or something like that. So it's very important if you're going to try that, that you spell it out. What I don't recommend you do is if someone buys a one time product, don't automatically bundle them into a recurring subscription, especially if you don't tell them all about it. A lot of people have had trouble with that. So I'm just going into specific detail on that because I think that answers your question. Trial and then billing. And I did have them start the trial at the beginning because they're the most ready to do that at that point. But these days especially I'm seeing in this environment a lot of people are having success with a no card free trial access and then they have to resell it. But that's fine. They're keeping people busy. You know, I heard yesterday like udemy's adding like 8 million users a month or something. So there's a lot of people coming into the online education space right now.

Yeah, yeah. So here's a question that that Tracy put into the chat box. She says, as you're helping your son get started, what are the top three to five things that need to be done, such as an email list, website, social platform? I'm sure right now with you doing this with your son, it's like you're sort relearning all the stuff that you probably forgot you had to do in the beginning.

Well, it's like I'm looking for where's the best course on this. I sent John an email and said could I get him access to the academy because he's got a start. Build your own course in a weekend course in there. And that's what I'm going to use for him to build his information product because it takes you through the process of market research, creation and stuff. But the main things you need is a way to get paid. So you'll probably need a PayPal account, you probably need an active campaign or similar type email system. Because our strategy will be to build an email database. You probably need a phone or a laptop of some kind to create content or to be able to email people to give you content.

So we're going to go down the channel. I think at first you'll probably use Facebook or YouTube to start some content marketing, just to get a feel for it and ease into it. No one's going to be watching it in the beginning. But if he chooses the right sort of keywords or phrases and he answers the right Challenges, you know, it won't take too much from someone in the market to maybe give it a share or something and then away he goes. I have to be careful not to assist him too much to give him a false sense of possibility, which I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs do. You know, sometimes they send a link out to go and buy their kids thing to give them some motivation. But I think that is not what I'm going to be doing. He'll have to be doing this on his own steam, teaching him how to fish.

I mean, at the end of the day. And that's it. Yeah. Are there any others? I want to make sure because we have. Yeah, a few minutes.

Another question, but it looks like they sort of kind of worked out among themselves in the comments. But I'll go ahead and put it on the screen. So was asking if English isn't your first language, do you do. Should he do affiliate marketing in his own language, which is Portuguese, or should he do it in English?

So you got to think about the market size in. In that I have helped people in other markets. In particular Italian market, the German market, the Spanish market.

There have been some people who speak Portuguese and also I've got a Ukrainian customer. So they do stuff in their own market. Sometimes these markets are quite raw. I mean, I went to Dubai nine years ago and it was a pretty open. Like it was just brand new. All this was brand new for them. But they had other limitations. Some. Some markets, especially like Eastern Europe or whatever, they can't do PayPal or they can't do recurring credit card subscriptions. So they have to just like go to a shop or make out a check or something and deposit it in a bank. I think I heard, you know, mindvalley with Russia had some limitations on how their customers could actually buy their stuff. So there's upsides and downsides. Sometimes there's less competition, but there are some barriers to being able to do business. It's also super easy if you're concerned about it, to just hire people to translate and do voiceovers and you can create content with an American accent.

If you want to access the English market, then.

It'S quite a big market. It's more mature, it's pretty competitive, but a lot of the things have been worked out. So the answer is, I guess you could try it and see. But the first step is always research. What are other people already doing? Are there people already in that space? How have they already solved the problem that you're having right now?

I like that and that's the cool thing is a lot of folks, other markets, traffic might be a little cheaper, competition might not be as much.

Way cheaper in the Spanish market, but the conversions are way lower because the commercial capacity is much lower.

Yeah, very cool.

We got Steven.

Steven.

He's about to hop on. Is there, Is there. Is there anywhere you want to send people after listening to this? Or is superfast business the place to go?

Let's just keep it simple.

There we go.

Stephen, welcome back for the second time for this interview. Third time in total. How you doing, man?

Thank you, thank you. I'm good, I'm good. Cool.

Yeah, no, last time we tried our best, we thought we were doing great with the interview. We did this live stream, affiliate livestream, what, two weeks ago or so. And yeah, it was like 10 minutes and we're like, crap. We have no audio, no one on Facebook can hear us, and we don't have the video. Great.

And the tool thought was actually recording the whole thing. When we got done, we realized it hadn't recorded any of it. Well, it recorded all of our video. Just everybody was silent.

So it was the best interview. No one will ever hear.

Sorry. So we'll try to recreate that now.

We'll have to top it with this one.

We will. Confident? Yeah. No pressure at all. So, yeah, Steven, so thank you again for being on. And you were the last guest of that four hour day or something like that. And I think what we were talking about, I mean, really, Matt and I were talking to you about how we found you originally, which was going through some of your click funnels Funnels, basically all the quizzes and all these little tools and assessments you picked up or you set up on the web. I think we talked a lot about the tool stack. I'm just trying to go through the list of things we hit so we.

Can do that again.

Basically how that happened was I was googling, I think click funnels vs leadpages or leadpages vs click funnels, 1 of those variations. Your blog post came up and it was just this mega in depth, probably most detailed blog post comparison I've seen. I skimmed through it and then left. Your site was on Facebook and then I saw an ad on Facebook. I don't remember the exact details of the ad, but it was an ad where it asked a bunch of questions about your business. And then at the end you recommended a funnel, and then the funnel was through click funnels. So you said, here's the perfect funnel for your business. If you get click Funnels. I'll just install it into click funnels for you. And I just thought that was such a brilliant funnel affiliate marketing play with click funnels. But that was how. How we originally sort of stumbled across you. And then I think we had. We were buddies, we go way back with James Schramko, and we were talking to James at one point and James was like, have you had Stephen on the podcast? We're like, no. And then, so then James made the intro and everything came full circle.

Yeah, it's been cool. Yeah, it's been good, man. So, I mean, I guess let's get into, you know, the way that you do affiliate marketing primarily because I know, you know, usually there's all these different types of affiliate marketing out there. So I guess explain what your, I guess what your theories are and how you run affiliate marketing for yourself, and.

Then maybe we just take it from there. Yeah, I mean, so for me, I've mainly done affiliate marketing in the B2B space. So recommending software tools, you know, similar to kind of you guys and a lot of other people who are influencer, I guess people in the space. But mainly I started because I use the tools, right? Like I used to do a lot more funnel consulting, building funnels, hands on. So I used to try all these tools, try testing them, playing with them. And I still do do a lot of that, but I just don't do as many reviews anymore. So basically I started using click funnels before they even launched. You know, was learning from Russell and kind of following him. And then that launched and that was a really good opportunity to be like, oh, wow, this tools, like at the time. And it still kind of is revolutionary. Like no other tool allows you to build a full funnel. Most of them just landing pages, most of them are just checkout pages, most of them are just this or that. There's no upsell flows. Like, it's still probably one of the most unique tools today that does end to end. And there's, you know, there's bugs and things like that and you know, that's with every tool. But like at the time it was like, wow, like shit. Like, this is brand new. Like, I want to talk about this and share my opinion on it and what I thought about it. And then LeadPages was the other one I was using at the time. And I thought, well, okay, well let's just pair them against each other. And initially, like, I knew it was going to be an affiliate play, but it wasn't to make money, funnily enough. It was more just like, I know this tool really well and I'm sure others are going to want to learn, so I'll just blog about it. And then obviously down the road I realized, well, wow, this is making a bit of money just through, you know, SEO affiliate stuff. I should really build it out and put some more effort into it. And that goes through the quiz, the, you know, the customer quiz that I've built, which you guys went through. I built that out. And then, you know, another marketing tools list, which I also built out on the website.

And then funnily enough, more recently, I've been meaning to go back and revitalize a whole bunch of reviews that I did on my website and write a whole bunch of new ones. So you might be seeing that in the not too distant future. But that's kind of been my play. It's always been like, review the thing that you've been using, write it. And I like writing really in depth things as well, because whenever I went to blog posts to review it, they're always crappy little short articles that was like, really? They're not answering the questions I have. Like, as a marketer, I want to know, doesn't integrate, does it break? What are the pricing? Are there any upsells? Like, what's the benefit? Like, what are the different intricacies of the actual tool? Yeah, and I think in that initial post that you read, like, I was talking about the different elements you can drag and drop and the benefits of those elements. And like, can you get the evergreen timer to go onto that page? When you're running an evergreen webinar, is that included or not? Like, all the different bits and pieces. And that's why I probably got to like 6,000 words or whatever it was. Like, it just got so long. So I wanted to talk about all those different intricacies, but I think that's just the best way to share someone's opinion about it too. And that's kind of why I've always leaned towards reviews working really well, not only because they rank well in Google, but because I think you build a lot of trust with someone before they purchase something. And if it's a better review than the person next to you, then you're gonna earn that click and then earn that referral.

Yeah, I mean, there's like nothing more frustrating than when you're thinking about buying a tool and then you go Google, like that tool's name and review. And the entire front page is just, you can tell they're just affiliate marketers they're not real reviews. They're basically pieces designed to sell you that product. They're not reviewing the product, they're just basically saying buy it through my link and sort of veiling it as a review. And I think what you did differently was you went and legitimately just kind of put all of the information out there. Like I even remember reading the leadpages vs clickfunnels one and I don't really remember all the details but I do remember you didn't really flat out say you need click funnels, it's better than leadpages. You kind of put all the information out there and said here's everything about both of these. You decide which is best for you, which most people wouldn't do. Most affiliate marketers are going to go and try to push you into one of the products so they can get the commission, even if it's not necessarily the best product for that person's needs.

Of course. Yeah. And I think it's funnily, it's very similar in the hosting world. Like I don't know if you see many people pushing hosting. Like some of these hosting platforms I see people pushing these are like the worst shared hosting, bottom of the barre that pay the biggest commissions. I'm like, you know, like the person using it, the person promoting it doesn't use this. Like it's just purely garbage hosting and everyone's just trying to like make some money out of it. And I think I've just seen like, like you said so much of that stuff in software as well. And you take me, you typically see that with a lot like fly by Night software, you know, and ebooks and stuff like clickbank, jvzoo products. Like all of those kind of reviews are all just obviously, you know, affiliate based. But, but I think now more and more people are switching on to writing better quality reviews and content because it's getting more competitive and you need to improve your content game if you want to become a better affiliate, myself included. So I think that's just. Yeah. The more value you can provide, you get repaid for it in the long run.

I think is that kind of your approach is always to present all the content or all the information you possibly can that's kind of unbiased basically like just from your perspective and then give them an open like here's, here are your options. It's up to you where to go from here.

I'll only review tools I know and like. So it's a little bit biased because I'm not gonna go reviewing tools I've never used before or that I don't recommend. Cause I'm like, well, there's. I don't really care. Like, I don't want to give. Tell them review, you know, some crappy tool versus a good tool. So I'm a little bit biased, but at the same time, I know the tool inside out, and I use it. Like, another one that I was using that I'm not even an affiliate of, that I did a review for was ahrefs. A ton of SEO talking about that, and I love that tool. I tried to actually talk to the guys there, and I was like, hey, can I be an affiliate? Like, I want to recommend this. Like, I recommend it anyway. Yeah, we don't really have a affiliate platform.

I've asked him the same thing about four times, and every single time they're like, yeah, we used to, but we don't. Like, Come on.

Well, now they sponsor our show, so that's our workaround.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. Nice. So, like, stuff like that. I know Semrush has one. I think I did one review on that.

What else was there? A couple other things I can't remember off top of my head, but stuff like that, that I think that I know work well, that I know I've used the tool before. And then I'll do the research on. Yeah, I'll just go dive deep into it, talk about the benefits of that versus another tool that's either really good or okay, that I think is pretty good. And then, yeah, kind of present that information to someone and use it. I mean, if I'm not paying for it and I don't like it, I don't feel comfortable. Recommendations, and it's just like, you know, that's what I've got this gone.

I was gonna say, I don't think there's any problem with having a bias as long as you're sort of upfront about it. I think where the issue happens is when people Google something and then they read a review that sort of implies that this is an unbiased review, but it's completely just a sales letter, you know, but, you know, we'll write articles around tools that we like, but I'll flat out say in the intro, like, I'm biased. We use this tool ourselves. So, you know, I'm putting that out there before you read this, but I don't think it's a problem. I think where there's the problem is when people sort of put it out there as if it was unbiased to try to make the sale when it really is truly biased.

Yeah, it's so funny. I got a marketing tools page that I created a while ago as well. It has like 300 tools on there. I know we mentioned the last interview, but like it's got tons on there and filters and this and that. And one of the things I've got a little badger. You can put like Steven's pitch. So I know people can see the tools that I recommend in this huge list. So. And then next to that, I've always got like a little review badge. And if you click that, it'll go to the review on the website. So you can instantly see like all 300 tools. Here's my ones really quickly. Here's the ones that got reviews. You can go read them. And obviously there's alternatives in that list as well. So you can compare the pair or look at all the other ones as well. So I think that's. I found that a really easy way to kind of organize it, you know, then people can see what I recommend, they see what other options are out there. I'm not signed up as an affiliate for like 300 tools. I've just got like the ones that I like and use, you know, so if people want to sign up on them, that's great. If they don't, no worries. But then they've got those options there. Like I would have wanted to.

Yeah. Now with your mega blog post that you're writing your big sort of in depth reviews, are you doing 100% of the writing or are you getting any help with the writing?

I've done both and I prefer to write them, but I just hate writing. So like it just takes so long. I used to have a lot more time and being able to sit down and just map it out like something like clickfunnels. I've used inside out. So I know that it's probably not too bad and I can just sit down and do it. But I don't know, I'm kind of in between because every time I've had someone write, it's just not been as good as my own. It'll never be because I know how to use it and why I use it and the benefits and then, yeah, I don't know, I've kind of done both. So what I've tried to do and I think I'm gonna do for this next round of revisions on a lot of these tools that I have used or, you know, they need an update or refresh is have someone go in that's familiar with it and just make a bunch of notes for me, Things that have changed, things that I should check out, things that, you know, I want to update, things that are, you know, are not. Don't make sense anymore. And then I'll go in and make those changes. But I've got a list of notes I can work off, you know, So I do, like, a hybrid version of what you're saying, so I don't have to sit there and write it all from scratch and I don't have to work on it, you know, with someone else and rely on their content.

Yeah, we've kind of done the same thing, more of a hybrid method where we'll get somebody, we'll hire them, ask him to write a blog post. We'll tell them the intention is we want it to review this tool. And I don't think I've ever. I can't think of any article where I've gotten it back and went, yes, this is perfect. This is exactly what I wanted.

So usually, yeah, it's not performing right either.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in most cases, we'll let them write it and then I'll get it back, and then we'll just overhaul it. But at least we're not starting from scratch.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That's really cool.

Well, you have a team, right? Because at least on the podcast, can you give us just a fast breakdown of the team and kind of your process, I guess, to putting one of these things out?

So I've got a team for our media properties, which are outside the marketing space. But for the marketing side, I know riders because we've had things written before, but usually for my website, it's really just me, and we've got a couple of VAs that handle some of the automation, like the publishing of content and this and that. But.

For the website, when I'm publishing content, usually it's just kind of myself. And if I really want to put out a new article, I'll get a writer to do a bunch of research and then put it together. Maybe it'll be a thousand, two thousand words, like an article, research, and then I'll pretty it up, tidy it up, rewrite it. So that's generally the process. But yeah, in terms of teams, I've got a team for, like, the media property side of the business. And then my personal site is mainly me and just a couple of VAs who help with publishing and editing and adding things like that. So nothing crazy.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. So there's kind of two separate sides. So is the affiliate side mainly just you or is that a.

That's it? Yeah, it's just like me and some tools and like if I need to bring a writer in or design something one off I'll get some contractors but it won't be anything full time.

Yeah. So that, that other side is that. So is that client work and you said it's in other spaces, other niches.

Yeah. So that's where I've got like the media properties and like the content websites that we've got a team in the Philippines mainly and we've got a couple scattered around that we do like a whole bunch of writing, content, SEO where we make affiliate marketing and things like that. So we have a big health blog, skincare site.

A couple other like lifestyle blogs. So that's where the team is that does all the writing. I don't touch that. The content, the processing, the publishing, that's.

All mostly affiliate marketing based stuff as well.

Yeah.

So that one we monetize through either Amazon or direct affiliate. So if your product is like has an affiliate program will go direct. We do advertising on there. So like even like Google Ads essentially but we use a few different partners. We even do some paid link placements every now and again which I know Google's not fond of but sometimes we partner with people anyway. What else was there? Yeah, there's just lots of bits and pieces. So we monetize like a bunch of different ways like clickbank offers this and that, like skincare products. So we're actually now in the middle of bringing out my own skincare line actually. So that's kind of taking a back seat. Now we're moving into E commerce. So that's the big thing we're working on right now. The last six months we've kind of building this new skincare product. So that's going to be the big thing. And actually I don't know if you can see there's a neon sign.

There is, yeah. Some in space and space.

Yeah, yeah. So that's the new skincare brand that we're launching probably in the next month or two, if not less. And that's the one we've been working on probably for the last six months. So that'll be the main focus moving forward in terms of E commerce business and the media properties will be helping launch that out. We've got such a platform and so many people with all those.

That's super cool. Now with, I'm curious about the going back to the tools list that you have, the giant tools list. Do you ever see people taking the ones that aren't the, you know, the Stevens picks or are the Stevens picks the ones that mostly drive most of the clicks?

They're the ones that drive mostly clicks just because the other ones, like they'll click them and they'll check them out. But I mean the majority just see the badge there and they know that it's been checked out, reviewed and whatever. So they're the ones that drive most of the clicks. Yeah, yeah, but I mean we. The other thing having a tool having like a page like that is I get hit up all the time with people. Can I get added to your list? Can I get out to the list? Like, so it's such a good resource for new startups and new businesses to approach. Like new software companies that want to get listed somewhere with already some traffic. So yeah, it's really funny. Like, I reckon once a week I'll get hit up with five or six different software companies I want to get added to the list.

And they'll just say, yeah, can we be added under here, under there? And I've got a couple of, you know, I check them out. If they're good, then they can get listed. If not, then, you know, they don't make the cut. But it only has to be like a reasonably sized, good quality product. I guess half the time I'll either want to sample just to play around with it or just to check out the tool or something like that. We just come across. Had some great tools that have come.

I was gonna say, yeah, you get free access to pretty much anything you want.

That's it. But I mean, half of them, I don't have the time to use them or anything. But yeah, it's cool. It comes with some perks.

Yeah, that's one of the perks I've found of doing a lot of affiliate marketing is I can't remember the last time we've paid for a tool. Most people kind of just approach us and say, hey, you know, I know you guys promote a lot of tools. Check ours out.

But again, other than Ahrefs, we are paying for that.

There's some tools we do pay for. Funnel still too. Never free clickfunnels account.

Dang it.

Good timing.

This is what I. So this is interesting because now I think we're seeing more of the picture of like your business. You have your personal side and then you have the other side. The both affiliate marketing did one like which one started first? Like what Was it started because of something. And then like now you have E Commerce, it's like you're kind of, you know, stair stepping your way up, it seems, hopping around.

So like I started on. So I started like going back to 17, before that, before even ClickFunnels was out. And when that launched, I started doing a lot of sales funnel consulting, just helping people with their funnels. And then from there I started blogging at the same time. And then I got started working with ClickFunnels directly as their head of content marketing. And then so I kind of paused all my blogging, but my affiliate stuff was still doing okay. But I didn't do as much because I was working with them directly. And then as towards the tail end of working with them directly, I launched the media properties because I thought I wanted to build like more of an asset rather than just a funnel, something that I can actually sell at the end of, you know, doing it all. And because I was diving, I knew SEO really well, I kind of dived into that. So I was like, well, I want to attack a bigger niche, something a bit bigger rather than just Internet marketing. See if I can do it without me being the person writing everything and automate that process. So moved into that and then I left ClickFunnels, got back into my affiliate marketing, did a bit more of that, but then it was kind of just focused on the media properties from then forward up until, you know, six months. Six months ago when we started moving into E Comm. And yeah, that's gonna kind of be the path forward is we just leverage the properties to build the E commerce business and then the affiliate marketing. I mean affiliate marketing, something like ClickFunnels, which I've been a partner of for a long time and has recurring revenue and I do really well with that early on. It's been really nice to have as just like passive kind of income.

Well, it's a foundational taping.

Foundational type income. Yeah, exactly. So it's been really good. I still promote it, but not as actively as I used to because I want to build other bigger businesses. And I just think that the competition as well now has increased. Takes a lot more work. Like it's still a chance, but like I could make more money elsewhere essentially. So that's kind of where my focus has shifted.

And I'm sure that content still kind of ranks out there. So it's still probably.

I honestly haven't checked it as much. I used to be like refreshing daily checking the rankings up one, down one. Oh who's this guy?

Like.

Exactly. And you guys know how it is, right? Like you've probably checked in the same rankings for all your reviews.

Of course it's the same thing. So doing that this morning with videos.

Yeah, everyone's playing the same game. You know, YouTube, Facebook, Google. Like they're all, you know, everyone who's in the review world or you know, affiliate worlds doing the same thing. So yeah, that's kind of how it starts. I've still got the affiliate stuff like kind of just plodding along. I might do a big refresh coming up soon just because of coronavirus. I got a bit more time on my hands but otherwise it's just been, yeah, focusing on the media properties and then now ecom. So I think we're gonna probably sell a couple of media properties pretty soon. Keep the one or two that are applicable to the new business and then invest that into the E Commerce brand because that's what we really want to scale. Very cool.

Now the sort of last topic I wanted to touch on while we have you is the actual quiz thing. So when I landed on your page, I got retargeted on Facebook to the quiz.

So I have a couple questions there. So first of all, what was the sort of tech behind it? So when somebody clicked on your ad, they went over to a quiz. How did you build that thing? Was there a tool you used? I think you might have told us that you custom built that. But how did that whole thing look?

Yeah, so I was kind of wanting to add another layer on the affiliate stuff because everyone was doing reviews and they still are. Like no one's really gone beyond that to offer that extra value. So I was like, alright, well how can I make it different? So my thought process was I wanted to create like a menu, like a restaurant. And you select all the ingredients, like all the things you need for your funnel and then you get delivered it at the end and you plug it into click Funnels. So but that was the thought process behind it. And then the technical side was literally if you landed on my website, I was retargeting you for like 30 days with hey, you should fill out this. Do you want a free funnel? Take this free quiz and you can select everything you want for your own custom funnel build. And it was custom because I just at the time I couldn't find anything that was great. And I think I shared on the last interview there's a couple of tools out there now that do it. Leadshook is one of them. That's really good for some more advanced quizzes, but you could probably do it in type form and things like that as well. They've all got conditional logic these days. At the time that stuff wasn't around, but I wanted something really like super clean, super like really mobile friendly, pixel perfect design really well. So we spent about, I spent about four or five grand I think just on that tool to get the custom plugin on the development, the design which is these days it's part of a whole new website. Like I could have got a whole new site for it, but I was like, no, I'm just gonna get it done because this was the money maker. I was like, I'm gonna, I want to leverage it for lead gen because people have to opt in before they got the free funnel and affiliate marketing. So literally, you know, you guys have gone through it. You go through select your funnel types. If it's a webinar funnel, the next one is you get an 8 part or 6 part email series for webinar funnels free, that are all templated. You click that. After that you get like a templated lead magnet. So it's full on like fill in the gaps lead magnet, like a checklist or something like that. I think the next question was, you know, what's your traffic sources that you're using? And you tick Facebook, Google, YouTube, whatever. And then based on what you tick there, you get sent to a blog post talking about different strategies for those traffic platforms. After that was are you using any of the following? It was like heat mapping, spy tools, blah blah, blah. And then I'd recommend the best ones in those categories. And then it was a intermediate or advanced. So I'd get an idea of where that person was on the spectrum of marketing. And that was more for my own segmentation on the back end in the CRM. And then I think there was one or two more code I can't really remember off the top of my head, but I think that was roughly it. And then they go through, they hit name and email submit. And then the custom bit that I had to get developed was I wanted an email to go through based on those selections. It sends attachments and links depending on exactly what was included.

I remember that. That was cool. I remember getting the attachments and all the. Just basically all the resources you need to do that thing that you just put together.

Yeah.

So I'm like, who does that? You know, like that was the thing. I just want to stand out. Like nobody's going to go to that effort. All of Them are just going to bullshit you with some basic crap segmentation. And then you end up in the same funnel or the same, you know, hi, name, welcome. And here's the webinar. Like, right. No one goes to that effort of segmentation, of actually providing value. And I think that's why it worked so well.

Yeah, I don't think I even realized at the time until you just said it now that all that additional sort of tagging and segmenting was going on in the, you know, in your autoresponder and stuff. It was in my mind. It was like, you answer some questions and then here's the resource. But all of that additional automation that was happening on behind the Scenes was pretty, pretty ninja. I didn't even realize that that was going on. You only see it from the perspective of whatever I filled out. I didn't see all the various elements of it. I just saw from my view.

Now you see the matrix, Matt.

So you've invested what, 4 or 5k into this thing? Did you have MVP prior to that? That made you feel confident that this shit was gonna work out? Because people don't usually have those kind of balls.

I mean, mine was literally just like, I saw the affiliate, like there was some revenue coming in from affiliate marketing at the time, which was click ons and a few other tools. But like, I was like, you know what? If I really wanna scale this, I wanna make it better. Like it's gonna stand out. Now's the time to do it. Like, what else? I could see the ROI there and I just wanted to get it done. I could probably get it done cheaper these days and use some tool. But at the time I was like, the biggest problem was there's so many badly designed tools. Like they're ugly and you click on them. I'm like, I just feel like I'm getting sold to. Or it's like an Internet marketing 1990s product with all the big headlines of yellow or highlighting the other lines. Like, this is just crap. Like, it had to be sexy and good. So that was one of the reasons I designed it that way, was putting effort into getting really quality design mobile responsive. Like even on today on mobile, it's still perfect. Like big thumb buttons, everything. Like, I just really wanted something good. And I think that people these days are slowly getting there, but I still don't even think it's there. Like, the quality of presenting valuable content is such a big gap. And I actually had this thought like a couple years ago when I was working on the media property Stuff I'm like, man, I would love to create just a review site for tools. Make it beautifully designed, no ads, no crap, not even like it doesn't have to be personality by this stuff but just like really unbiased reviews on every single tool out there. And you can have a link and just like a button at the end just says if you like this, buy it through this link. Like straight up, super clean. You know, it probably take. If you designed it well and you had a really good content team and you dive deep and you made it look good, probably take like 10 grand maybe and you'd have like five of the top four or three or four, you know, really good quality reviews at a really nice site. Just no, not linked to anything else. And I still think that, you know, maybe I'll do that one there but like out there maybe you guys will do it one day.

But I just, maybe we'll give it a shot. It's pretty close to what we do anyway.

We've actually started to build similar concepts already and then just realize the magnitude of the work to put it to like.

Yeah, it's a lot of work, right? Yeah. And then you've got to SEO it and rank it with your backlinks and content. It is a full time job. It can be, but it can also be a really profitable passive income as well. That's the thing with affiliate marketing.

We bought the domain name marketers toolchest.com and we're going to build that kind.

Of thing on there.

And I think we put like five reviews on it and went, yeah, this is a lot more effort than we're willing to put in. We've got going on.

Yeah. And I think the mechanism is a big piece. Like you said Steven, the reviews have like people are just stuck in review world. And you took it to tool world now or like personalization basically. And Matt actually even programmed something. It basically is a sorter tool. Kind of has not the same concept but it's a sorting and it's a novel thing. It's like these little tools I know in the financial space. We interviewed another guy, Larry Ludwig and he sold a whole business around these little mini tools and affiliate marketing in the personal finance space. And he said the same thing. It was like you need. These are new novel things that you know, they're great for Legion customization and, and it's sellable too. Like you said.

Yeah, that's.

Yeah.

So when you said marketing is great. Yeah, like exactly what you're saying. You can, you can if you just layer a little bit of difference on top of what everyone else is doing. Mm. Everyone's doing like bonuses. Everyone's doing like, you know, all the same stuff, but something a little bit different with a lot of value. The thing is, you know, funnels, back then I used to charge thousands of dollars to get one done. Sure, just get one done for free and just opt in. Like, the value was there, the customization was there. It was all real, it was all quality. There's no, no catches aside from, hey, just sign up to this affiliate link.

And you know, if that's like, I think the value far outweighed what you're offering if you're going to use the tool anyway. And keeping in mind people who are reading reviews, they're at the point where they're comparison shopping now. You know, they're not saying, oh, I don't even know what this is. It's like, well, I'm looking for something, but which one's the best? And if this person can offer me the best value and they can give me something before I get started, I'll go with them. So it's just, you know, also just getting in the consumer's mind.

Yep. Yeah.

And meeting them where they're at in their journey there to buy.

Yeah.

So I kind of have like a sort of final, like wrap up question here. So right now, obviously there's a lot of people kind of stuck at home and the whole Covid thing and people are looking for new ways to start businesses, new revenue streams and, and we've sort of suggested that affiliate marketing might be a good way to get out there and get started, even if you don't have your own products to sell. So if you were kind of starting from scratch, kind of knowing what you know now, if you're starting from scratch, how would you build like an affiliate business right now?

I actually had someone ask me this two days ago, being like, hey, I heard about this thing, affiliate marketing, like, what should I do? And she's like, brand new to my Internet marketing, doesn't know anything about it. But I was like, well, like, all right, here's what I'll do. So I think it depends on two things as well. Number one is your time and your budget. Do you have a budget, number one? Or if not, you have to invest a bunch of time into it, into affiliate marketing. So I think that's the first thing you got to realize and decide which pond you're in. And then let's say if you've got the time and Right now with Coronavirus everything. But you don't have a lot of money and then you want to start this new income stream. I would say reviews are a great place to start. Just from my experience, doesn't cost you anything and you can do it now on multiple different platforms. So I would even say like blogging is a great way to do it. If you like writing and you get familiar with the tools, you know, whatever. Doesn't even have to be. I am. It can be anything. Like, you know, health. It could be products, it could be anything on Amazon, it could be whatever it might be. And I think YouTube is also the second one. I would look at YouTube reviews because I just think there's so much of an opportunity doing a review there and doing blogging kind of or just like, you know, talking about products there, that's another spot. I think you can really take advantage of that. I think more and more people are. I never did or not much. I think I put out like one video, but that was it. Like it wasn't anything big. I stuck to Google. But I think those two points and just sitting there and just going deep on reviewing and talking about products and really getting the valuable questions you want answered out before someone makes a purchase, I think that's just low hanging fruit. It's more competitive. And you'll have to learn a little bit about SEO or ranking on YouTube or whatever platform you decide to use. But I just think that in terms of content, that's the easiest one to create, publish content on and then you can learn, go deeper down the rabbit hole in terms of how do you get it to the top of that platform.

That is true because I mean, with each of those platforms, if you just put in the work and be consistent with that and be a little strategic, use things like Ahrefs we've already mentioned and they have a $7.70 trial too. So just try it. That's like an unnecessarily plug for them. But yeah, like, and same thing with YouTube though, because we just put an ounce of effort. But whenever it's like consistent, like with ThriveCart for instance, that's a tool that we've gone deep on. And in YouTube, you know, if we just stay consistent, nothing super fancy, we see results come from it. And I mean really anyone can do it. And then you can layer on the magic of SEO or maybe some paid ads or linking, whatever and you know, there's strategies galore around each of these things.

I think one thing people don't realize too Is that once you start doing it, it actually gets easier over time.

Right?

Because like, if you've got a blog that ranks for stuff, it actually gets easier to rank for future stuff. If you've got a YouTube channel that gets. That gets ranked for a lot of stuff, then as you add more stuff, that stuff ranks easier and easier and easier over time. So it's always the hardest in the beginning, but there is like a snowball effect that happens that once you've got some traction, it does get easier and easier as time goes on.

And platforms reward consistency. That's what exactly what you're saying, you know, like, I'm terrible at it. And that's why you guys were saying, you know that marketing chest that you have picked up? Like, we're like, we've all done it, we've all started something. This is gonna be so easy. It's just gonna be a little bit of work. And then day eight, we're like, I'm never touching this again. Like, it's just, you know, we all, we've all been there and it's just consistency. I think people now just, if you're gonna do it, stick to it. Like, don't start something, just gonna leave the side. Because it won't get results. Even if 30 days, it probably won't get 60, 90 days might not get results. But by month three and four, if you've consistently put up content once a week, even doesn't even have to be once a day, you know, spend a whole week to review whatever you need, put it out there and then do it again and do it again and do it again. And that's what I started doing really well early on. And then I got busy with other projects. That's what's helped build our media properties because we do a lot of content there every single day. Link building, outreach and content publishing, they're the only two things we did for about 12 months straight, 14 months straight. And we went from zero to, you know, a million visitors a month in visitors just in 12 months from a brand new zero visitor website. Just doing those two things every day. And it's possible, like, you know that and that's in a niche and like that was in health. Like, I don't know, I'm not a health guru. Like, we had writers and stuff to this. Like, this isn't me. So if I can do.

It's super competitive too. And it's competitive. Yeah.

It's just like if you put in the work and you do it consistently, that's the Hardest part is remaining consistent. Same with health, your fitness, your lifestyle, whatever. Like, it's all the same stuff. It's really nothing new. But it doesn't take a genius to go and check out these tools and review them or, you know, to do anything like that or start a video or whatever. Like, it's just consistency is the hardest part, and I'm sure you guys would probably find the same thing.

It's true. Yeah.

That's why your podcast as well. Like, you know, I'm terrible podcasting, and you guys have been going for ages, and I love it. Like, consistency is really where you see yourself shine.

That's. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. And it comes through. Not everything's consistent. Like, I know. For us too, you know, and you as well. Like, you said, with podcasting, not your thing. So it's like, if you can pick something that you're consistent with, I mean, go deep on it, and maybe if that's an affiliate marketing thing you can layer in there, then do it.

Oh, and I think in the podcast, we went way deeper on what you were just starting to talk about, like, the outreach and the team and all that stuff. So if anyone's interested, we will link that below this video here, too.

Anything else, Matt? I'm good over here.

I think we covered a lot of ground, and I think we actually had you for about 10 minutes longer than when we initially interviewed you. So bonus, for the people that missed.

It the first time, you're even more awesome, man. Stephen, where can folks go? Dive in deeper, Maybe to your tools page. We'll also link that. We have the link already to that Steven and Zedkis.com, right?

Yeah, that's it. Just head straight to our website. Yeah. Even just put in Google Steven Eskets. You'll find it. Like, it'll come up. It's a hard one to spell, so just. I'm sure Google suggestion will come up there. Actually, it's funnily. Like, the other day, first time ever I've seen someone bidding for my name in Google Ads. It was such a good feeling. I felt famous as hell. Like, I'm like, am I really getting that big? Like, I don't really publish that much content. But now I'm ballin'. Like, now we're like, now I can click ads for my own name and someone's paying for it.

That's awesome. What was it pointing to? Was it, like, not a porn video or something?

If you guys go search my name, you'll probably find it. Get those volumes Hits up like. I don't know. I think it was just like some. It was definitely some software or some webinar, some bizoppy thing.

I can't. That's funny. Check it out.

That's like the I've made it moment. Like, you know, when someone's bidding for your name.

That's.

That's.

Oh, yeah, Go retire now. It's all good.

Live on the beach.

Yeah, you're all good. All right, brother, thank you very much. For the second time, second round. I think we achieved it finally.

Awesome. No, thank you, guys.

Thanks so much for tuning into that episode. I hope you dug it. I know Joe and I dug it. I actually kicked Joe out of the room. He's not here right now. Because I wanted to tell you about a tool that I really, really dig. We use it in our business. We recommend it all the time. It's called Easy Webinar. And it's a tool that lets you do live webinars, automated webinars, hybrid webinars, and, you know, pretty much any other kind of webinar you.

If.

If there are other kinds of webinars. But anyway, this tool is kind of like your all in one, do it all tool for anything webinar related. It's Easy Webinar. It's put out by a dude named Casey Zieman. He's been on the podcast. If you haven't listened to that episode, it's a killer episode. He's a really smart dude, but his software is amazing. It does everything. It's, you know, the title tells you exactly what it does. It's an easy webinar platform, and we use this in our business to run automated webinars all the time. We don't do a lot of live webinars these days. We like to do the kind of automated webinars where somebody can register and then it, you know, they can either watch it like 15 minutes later or they can watch it the next day, but it's just kind of always running. And it's a system that helps us make autopilot sales off of our webinars. Super cool tool. If you haven't tried it yet, you know, it's, it's, it's an amazing tool. And Casey is actually hooking you up. He said for listeners of Hustle and Flowchart, I can't believe he's doing this, but he said for listeners of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, he's giving 25% off of. Of the membership to use Easy Webinar. It's already super, super inexpensive for what it does and all the cool features it has. But he's hooking you up with 25% off because you're a listener of Hustle and flowchart. Go to easywebinar.com hustle. That's where you can get that 25% off discount. That's easywebinar.com hustole. It's a awesome tool. You're gonna dig it, so just go grab it. Check it out. Easywebinar.com hustle See? No, not see ya. You'll hear me in the next show. I don't know. I don't know how to close these things. Go get easy Webinar. Talk to you later. Thanks everybody for listening to this episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, for taking the time to listen. We want to give you something a little bit special. Every single episode that we do, we actually have somebody on our team take notes. We basically have a Cliffs Notes version of every episode where you can go and find all of the tips and tactics that they laid out out, all of the resources that they laid out, all the good stuff from this episode. We actually have a nice simple notes version that you can find on our website. So go to evergreenprofits.com find this episode that you just listened to and give us your email address and we'll send you the notes. Thanks for listening.

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