Episode 125: How to Create a Business Online in 75 Minutes Per Day – with Mark Thompson

Episode 125: How to Create A Business Online in 75 Minutes per Day – with Mark Thompson

Mike: Hi there everyone! Welcome to Episode 125 of The Mike from Maine Show, the place where we do daily interviews with successful online entrepreneurs. This is your host, Mike Thomas. And today on the show, I’ve got Mark Thompson on and this is the other Mark Thompson. There’s two of them that I’ve had on and he’s one of the guys out there that you can definitely go to when you want a no BS anti-internet marketing, anti-hype kind of info. He’s the guy that is not into that at all and because of that, we’re gonna talk initially about why he last year took a step back and decided okay, no more WSOs. I’m not gonna released anything like that anymore and he left it and then, he actually came back in and started doing them again. So, I’m really interested to see why exactly, his psychology behind that and why he came back in. And also, we’re gonna be talking about his 75-Minute Blueprint which is a way for you to kinda get rid of all of those distractions and start a business, start a website, to get doing whatever it is that you’re trying to do but you keep on finding excuses not to do it. I have that problem all the time. I keep on talking about doing my interview membership course and after doing this interview with Mark, I went ahead and started getting the tools that I’m gonna need, like membership plug-ins, in order to get that going. I just bought a wish list member which is a membership plug-in that is highly recommended by so many people doing membership sites. Anyways, let’s get into it with Mark Thompson.

Mike: We are here today again with Mark Thompson. Mark, welcome back to the show.

Mark: Hi, Mike. How are you?

Mike: I’m good. Thank you very much. We’ve actually had the other Mark Thompson on two times since you’ve last been on. So, now you’re gonna be on I think a total of three times and he’ll be on for two times. So, you’re gonna be one ahead of him just to let you know.

Mark: It’s gonna be The Mark Thompson’s channel, isn’t it?

Mike: It is. It’s turning into Mark Thompson’s central here. Cool, now we’re gonna talk about a couple of things today. The first thing I wanted to talk to you about is you — I remember last year, I’m part of your WP Gold Mine Forum and you had kinda made a —

Mark: Income Igniter, but I get it.

Mike: Ah, Income Igniter. Sorry, sorry. It’s a new branding. So, you’re Income Igniter Forum and you had kinda made a deal about the fact that okay, it’s enough. This is my last WSO I’m putting out.

Mark: Yeah.

Mike: I’m not gonna put out any WSOs anymore and then, you did that. And then, you came back again. I just wanna first ask you why did you stop doing WSOs in the first place?

Mark: I got completely fed up about the whole system. Affiliates coming up to you and saying yeah, I left the project. I earned 100% on the front-end. Now, because I didn’t do one-time offers then. I give you 100%, there’s no point. What’s the point of creating a product and getting nothing for it? So, that — I got fed up with that. I got fed up with you promote — people would say, okay I promote it but you have to promote mine. Why should I promote yours when I don’t know what it’s like? And it’s the whole — the affiliates are working and the WSO niches, they have some good list but they tend to have people who assume that’s because a product is $7, it’s rubbish. They tend to assume that for $7 they should get absolutely the best products ever. The whole mixes — it’s a really confusing market. There are a lot of people who buy stuff there because they want to learn. Other people would just buy stuff because someone says buy it.

Mike: Do you think this whole $7 product thing is just gonna continue on, like now it’s $7 — like, usually as inflation goes. Like, prices should go up. Like, over the years it should be 7, then $8, then $9 or whatever, psychologically speaking. But I feel like in my short — I mean, I’ve only really been paying a lot of attention to the Warrior Forum for the last maybe year. But from just my general feeling of it, it seems that most of the products I’m seeing are between the $7 and $17 rank. Is it just gonna eat us all up and destroy itself?

Mark: It does seem like it’s raising the book to the bottom, sometimes. Mike: Yeah.

Mark: One of the reason I’ve come back and started to have a WSO at the moment is when you start looking at through the stats beforehand, there was a lot of product that used to do thousand sales, okay. Looking through recently — so currently, there has been probably 5 or 6. And there’s lot I’ve done and lot less than that. So, that’s like going on there. There’s also a reason why there aren’t that big launches. And I know there’s that one in January did a thousand sales in the front-end and a thousand sales on the back- end, on the OTO. And on the front-end, they give away 100%, around the back-end I think it was $19, and they were giving 50%. So, pretty much I’m quite intrigued about what was going on there. So, the only way — the best way to find out is thrashing to promote some stuff. So, I took one of my products and I promoted it as a WSO. That’s a hypocrite.

Mike: Yeah, okay. So, you came back in again and your — I mean, I guess the reason — I’m still trying to understand the reason why you came back. Is it to just kinda play around in the market?

Mark: No, probably to play around the ensembles. I’ve got — in the last year since I did my last WSO, I’ve done a lot of products that I’ve priced at $47, $97 and because I did a lot of WSOs beforehand — I’d be honest, it’s difficult sometimes to sell a product for $97. I haven’t gone access to the affiliates that can do it. So, I’ve been creating these products that at even at $97, give a lot of value. And it can be really difficult to sell them. Don’t believe what people say when they say yeah, self it for high price. Fine, it’s great to have that idea but if you can’t get affiliates to buy or sell and promote them, then you’re gonna struggle. So, there seems to be a huge big divide. Now, you’ve got — your affiliates are doing webinars where $1500, the product that they’re selling. And they do sell maybe 10, 20 of it. So, that’s a viable business model. You’re doing one webinar a month. Then, on the other hand you got the guys who are doing lots and lots and lots of WSOs and they’re trying to crank out 5, 600 sales a time. So, it’s interesting to see how it’s going. And I mean, a lot of people now and everyone saying, it’s getting harder and harder to sell stuff.

Mike: What I’ve been seeing lately, and I’m on the verge of releasing a product teaching people how to do interviews and I’ve been really fighting with myself on how much to sell it for because if I push a $7 price-point, I think it’s because it’s more of a niche product that it’s just I’m not gonna get the value, I’m not gonna get enough sales to make it worth putting in all the hours recording the videos and really creating a great product. But like, if I do it at $7 and give a 75% commission or a 100% commission, okay I might get a bunch of leads but again, I’m not making money with it. If I charge a higher price and I really — if I charge maybe a $100 or $200 for it, it’s also gonna give me the ways that I can buy, I can invest more in it, I can invest more in graphics for it, I can invest more in marketing for it. So, it’s — I think it’s really hard in — as a product creator, you have to find a point like okay, like you backed away from WSOs last year. And I think some people don’t wanna be associated with WSOs because it might give their product a lower — I don’t know, a lower perception. Like, I think you know Shane Melaugh.

Mark: Yeah, Shane Melaugh.

Mike: I emailed him. He’s a great guy. I emailed him and I said, ‘Shane, I’d love to do an interview with you about your WSO’. And he said, ‘For one thing, it’s not a WSO’. And I was joking with him about it coz he was saying he doesn’t do WSOs, he releases products on his own terms, on his own — I guess, his own platform for that. But he got offended when I called it a WSO. What do you think of that?

Mark: Shane does some great products and Shane’s price-points are around $47, $97 or $147. And he’s built up a lot of fans who are happy to buy his products at those prices because they’re good quality products. And he’s got a reputation for producing quality at that price. On the other side of things, there’s a WSO released last week that made lots and lots of sales. I think about 5000 sales. And it was a video product. I won’t mention it coz I don’t know how the guy feels about us talking about it.

Mike: Sure.

Mark: But it was a fantastic product. It was probably the best product on video available. And there are a lot of other products out there about video and they are — they cost around $97 — $100-$97. This guy sold it as a WSO and they have it on big discount within two days. This guy got great products. And I don’t understand why somebody who has got such a brilliant product — I mean, it was brilliant, would sell it as a WSO. And he had access to probably top 100 affiliates or so the top 100 affiliates working at the moment. And he’s still decided to do it as a WSO. And it — I don’t know. I don’t know why.

Mike: I mean, I can see it as — what a lot of people say is the reason why they launch products as a WSO is that it will give them kind of a launch into — it’s a great way to launch, it’s a great way to get feedback immediately back especially if you have a software product, you can find out what the glitches are immediately coz you got all the people buying and then everyone’s gonna be putting in a support ticket after that. So, I guess it’s a way for people to launch —

Mark: It is a good platform to test your sales copy, test if the product’s got a — if it got legs, if it’s gonna — if people are gonna like it.

Mike: Sure.
Mark: It’s a good way to get testimonials. Mike: Yeah, it’s true.

Mark: That’s — but as, the way a lot of people do it is that they do a WSO. Then, they give a 100% to the affiliates because they want to build a list. And then, they start promoting other products as an affiliate. So, they’re not actually — they’re selling, yeah I’m the product creator. But they’re actually an affiliate marketer. And they actually use their product to build a list. So —

Mike: They’re using their product for lead generation.

Mark: Exactly. Yeah.

Mike: Cool.

Mark: Which I’m not saying is wrong but it’s interesting. It’s — there are pros and cons to it. And you get a lot of people that, ‘Oh, it’s a WSO. It must be crap’. Not that it is, there are some absolutely brilliant products that come out as WSOs.

Mike: And I thought the same way as you, really. I thought like all of it was crap in the Warrior Forum and I was just fed up with it. But after kinda going around, I mean there are still some gems in there. So —

Mark: Yeah. I’ve got picked up loads of plug-ins and software that now were selling at $47 for $7 when they first launched. Some of those stuff I still use today. I picked up as WSO 2-3 years ago. And I mean, there are some bad product creations there. There are some people who I know will take my product that I’ve got there at the moment and they will basically just copy it, take some piece out of it and create their own product. The last product I did which why I did a video product, that was stolen by somebody else. And within the last three or four weeks there’s been another product, when I looked through, I went, ‘Hang on a minute, I recognized almost everything in here. It was working out on with my product’. That’s the way it goes, I suppose.

Mike: Yeah. It is, it is. Well, let’s move on into the 75-Minute Blueprint which is your most recent Warrior Special Offer. What is this all about?

Mark: Basically over Christmas, I’ve got some certain clients that I got in my circle, etcetera. One of the things that a lot of people say is they don’t have time to build an internet marketing business because they’ve got to look after their kids, they’ve gotta work. So, I basically sat down and I though okay, there must be a way to do build a business in a little amount of time. So, I looked at what was all what people were doing and how they were doing it. And a lot of stuff people are doing, you don’t need to do. They were focusing on basically the rubbish elements, rolling the bits. They’re actually not taking actions and stuff. Building a blog, setting up a blog and getting a blog out there and then, working on it. They were working out what they’re gonna do and how they’re gonna post it. So, I set it up to basically strip out completely the what you don’t need. And to be able to build a business, you just need some 75 minutes a day as seen in this 75-Minute Blueprint. It’s just the important stuff in there.

Mike: There’s so many people — I’ve seen this so many times when they are trying to figure out, okay they’re gonna set up their business, they’re gonna put up their website and they’ll spend days, weeks, maybe even months just figuring out what their logo is gonna be. And I’ve done the same thing. I’m guilty of it. I remember way back when I set up a website about Washington D.C., I was all concern about the name, which of course is important and the logo, which of course is important. But —

Mark: Eventually, it’s important.

Mike: Eventually when you have a business set up, then there’s no one saying that you can’t go back and change your logo. No one’s gonna go, ‘Hey, What’s going on here? How can you go about changing your logo now?’. Or even your slogan like my show here, I’ve changed the slogan a couple of times now and I’m sure I’ll change it five times more in the next few years. Like, as things change, as things progress over time, look at you forum. WP Gold Mine is now Income Igniter — is that or what was it?

Mark: Right. Income Igniter.

Mike: Income Igniter. And no one in the forum, I’m a member, no one’s going, ‘Hey, Mark. What’s going on here? We didn’t sign up for this —

Mark: Exactly.

Mike: — What the deal?’.

Mark: For example, last week I come up with an idea. It’s a very simple idea to set up a rebates website and said okay. So, I could have sat back, I could have planned a whole series of launches and I could have planned how to get traffic and I could have set up some logos designed. Nah, I didn’t bother doing that. I set up a blog — bought a domain, set up a blog, put — negotiate for one product to launch with, got it out there in four hours and it made $100 in the first day. I could have sat back —

Mike: That’s great.

Mark: I could have sat back for 3 or 4 months planning this. Actually, I got another site that I’ve been planning for 6 months to a year now.

Mike: But look what happens. But look what happens when you take action and you actually do something. Like, but I’m guilty of it now with my Interview Course. I’m sitting back and I’m puzzling over all these little things, what angle do I wanna go with it, how do I — what membership platform or plug-in do I wanna use, do I wanna do it like this, like that. The best things happen when you just put it out there and you just get it get going. One perfect example is I think you know Spencer Haws who has — he’s at nichepursuits.com and he has a great keyword research tool called LongTail Pro. When he originally released that in the forum, I think it was over a year ago, it did okay. He had some fairly good sales with it but then, within I think it was two months ago, he re- released it and did hundreds of thousands sales. Now, if he had waited all that time, like he released it, it wasn’t perfect. He found out what people wanted. He built up the software, he kept working with it and he released it again. There’s no one saying you can’t release it again.

Mark: Yeah. Now, it’s — when I do a product, I always tell you you’ve seen it. If I do it — If I release within a forum or within a WordPress, I will always have a comment section open. And if there’s anything you don’t understand, please let me know and I’ll create a new video for you.

Mike: Yup.

Mark: So, I might release a product with 10 videos, by within two or three weeks, it’s got 20 videos because people said I don’t quite understand this. Can you go on with this in more depth? Fine. It’s not a problem. It’s what I expect people — I don’t expect to know every little thing people want. I tell people what I think they want to know but other people will want to know is exactly completely different. So then, if you build in to your products and channel some people that can talk to you and tell you what they want, everyone’s happy. People don’t mind waiting a day for a bit of extra information.

Mike: I really like that. That’s a strategy of launching with like 5 or 10 core videos and then, just reacting — like, you build what you think they’ll want, what you think they’ll need but you’re not gonna know. You’re not gonna know everything and if you react to what they want, they’re gonna be super pumped and thankful that you’re actually there responding and it’s just gonna make it an even better product.

Mark: Yeah. And also, you build a better relationship with your customers because they know you’re not gonna abandon. So, next time you do a product, they’ll come along and buy it coz they know that hang on, he didn’t sold me out last time. I didn’t know he’d actually help and obviously, he’ll do it again. As long as you have — you gotta have a channel where people can contact you. You gotta be in contact with your customers. And the other things is a lot of people think they know what they want and they don’t actually want that. And you gotta find this as well. People will tell what they want on your product. Okay, so you make it and then, that’s the one part in the product that nobody ever looked, comments about or ever looks at or never has any feedback on. But that’s the stuff that you think, that’s not what they want is generally that stuff.

Mike: I love it. I love that, that’s perfect. Okay, so people are gonna learn in general how to build — how to start building a business, get rid of all the time wasters and just the kind of get things done and build their business with not having a lot of like, people that have other jobs and that they’re doing other things and they’re busy. I guess, if I was — one of my questions here was who is it for, I guess it’s people that are busy. Is that what it’s for?

Mark: Yeah. Basically, it’s for anybody who wants to build a business in internet marketing and is a little bit short of time. Even for people who work full time, they can learn from it. Using what I taught in here, myself I created two reports last week in about 90 minutes because a year ago, I could take a month to create a product. Seriously, coz I started — I’ve gone playing golf or going to this or I will look at it, there’s a new picture of cats on Facebook. Now, I actually practice what I preach. So, I’m basically for 6 hours a

day, I just create and I just focus on what I’m doing and outside that time, then I can do whatever I want. I’m getting stuff done. So, I’m setting myself a target, setting myself task, completing the task, job done. What’s the next task?

Mike: Mark, when — I always here this, people say creating reports. Is it like case study? What does it mean when people are saying create reports?

Mark: Basically, it’s create a PDF with a bit of information in it. Mike: So, it’s like create a mini-product.

Mark: Yeah, a mini-product. It’s like a 5- to 10-page, 2000- to 3000-word product. I did one on squeeze pages last week, I did one affiliate — Amazon affiliate. Basically, writing a product Amazon affiliate review.

Mike: Are you selling these like for 7 bucks on the Warrior Forum?
Mark: No. I give them away to my subscribers. And I give them away as bonuses and stuff like that.
Mike: Okay. So, it’s just extra little nice and nuggets of info that you can give away and create value for your subscribers.

Mark: Yeah, exactly. I send them on my list, occasionally. I’ll tell them here’s a product on squeeze pages or whatever. Here’s a report on doing this. So, it helps and educate them. And then, occasionally I do send out an email promoting something, they know that okay. It’s like I can’t promote everyday unless I give me some value, so much they wanna hang around on the list hopefully.

Mike: What’s the one-time offer?

Mark: On the 75-Minute Blueprint? It’s actually webinars for outsourcing. And it was actually an outsource. How good is that? It’s done by Vick Shink and it’s two webinars. One is for employers and the other is a webinar where you can show your employees. So basically, he got the book 75-Minute Blueprint, saw the process and he put together a package to outsource it.

Mike: Were there things like outsourcing a website getting created or locating stuff. Is it that kind of thing?

Mark: Yeah, how to choose the niches and how to make them work properly, how to make sure that your VI is doing what you want them to do, how to recruite them, that kind of thing. So, it’s for people who want to take it to another level. Not just work 75 minutes and take people to work it for them.

Mike: How did you guys work that out? Did he come after — he reached out to you or did you reach out to him?

Mark: I came back with a JV partner and he brought him on board coz we’re looking for a one-time offer. So, we get to test him and test everything else he is doing and just see if it works, so.

Mike: Well, Mark. Thank you again for coming back on the show today. Is there anything that we didn’t mention that you wanted to talk about before we wrap up?

Mark: No, not really. You know me. I never promote any of my stuff. Go to my blog, take a look. mjthompson.net. There you go. Mike: Great. Well, we’ll link up to that in the show notes and your forum which I’m also a member of, a little disclosure there. Thank

you, Mark, again for coming on.

Mark: No problem, Mike. Thanks.

Mike: I hope you enjoyed the interview with Mark. If you’re interested in going ahead and checking out his 75-Minute Blueprint, go to mikefrommaine.com/75minute. That’s mikefrommaine.com/75minute. Thank you for watching and I’ll see you all tomorrow.