OTO Secret Weapons is a new product from Jeff Dedrick, Liz Tomey, and Mike Steup that I’ve been beta testing the past few days. Its primary function is to let you easily create upsell and downsell pages that you can add to your own sales or opt-in process.

OTO Secret Weapons includes a database of about 400 products you can choose from to include on your upsell or downsell pages, so if you don’t have products to offer for those situations, you’re covered. The software not only creates customizable upsell and downsell pages, but the download pages as well. You can choose whether to make the pages true OTOs (one-time offers) that are programmed so your visitor only sees them once and cannot go back to them later.

The video training included with OTO Secret Weapons is quite extensive; even if you didn’t use the software and just watched the videos, you would learn a lot about how the whole upsell/downsell process works and how to do it properly.

Here is my video review that takes you inside the members area:

Click Here for OTO Secret Weapons

I had one of those amazing life experiences the other day that I just have to document so I won’t start wondering if it really happened.

I stopped in Savannah, GA for a day and a half on the way home to Florida from North Carolina, because it’s right on the way and I hadn’t been there in a few years. I drove instead of flying so I could make stops like that.

Monday night, I got in town and after stuffing myself at Paula Deen’s restaurant, I wandered around the streets looking for something to do since it was too early to go back to my room. There wasn’t much happening on a Monday night, but a neon sign caught my eye so I went to check it out. It turned out to be a famous 90-year-old ice cream shop. More food was the last thing I needed, but then I noticed a bike shop next door. It had closed hours earlier, but I noticed a sign mentioning rentals, so I mentally filed that and kept walking.

I bought a bike a few months ago and got seriously into it, but I hadn’t been on it for a couple weeks for various reasons, and it was killing me to not ride for that long.

This doesn’t really have anything to do with business, right? Or does it?

The next morning I stuck with the plan of taking the bus tour around town. That lasted 90 minutes, but included the option of getting on again all day long. It was time for lunch so I started walking toward a restaurant I saw from the bus that is famous for being famous and very old. It was a hike to get there, and the route just happened (or did it?) to go right by the bike shop,so I stopped in to get the details on that. The walk also took me by another shop that does bike tours and has a lot of nice testimonials posted on the window. So on the way to lunch I started debating with myself about renting a bike by myself vs. taking a tour with a guide.

Although the weather was perfect, sunny and 70s, my phone was telling me it was going to rain around 4, and the hourly weather on a phone is never wrong, is it? So I had a third option of assuming it would rain and doing nothing because some app said so.

The nect bike tour just happened to be scheduled for 4, so I nixed that idea and went back to the bike shop. I was disappointed that the only bikes they rent are single speeds with baskets on the front that make them look like something Pee-Wee Herman would ride. I hadn’t been on a one-speed bike since I was about 12 and big enough to ride a real adult bike, which means at least 10 speeds, right? But I figured why not, since it was only $10 for 3 hours, so if I hated the bike it wouldn’t cost me much.

I was expecting a leisurely ride, because it was on city streets with things like intersections and cars to slow me down. I’m used to riding on bike paths and roads where there are often no traffic lights or stop signs for miles, not a downtown, grid-style street system.

Savannah is famous for its squares, which are little parks with one-way streets wrapped around them, like roundabouts, but bigger and less round. They look nice but are a pain to drive around.

The first time I got the bike into a square, it took me about a quarter turn to realize that if I rode on the left of the lane instead of the right, I could go around forever without anything crossing my path except “stupid is as stupid does” pedestrians.

Then it hit me that this was not a sightseeing opportunity, but a cardio one. I started hauling ass around the squares, riding as fast as I could until I had to stop and catch my breath before doing it again.

Sometimes I had the square to myself and was surprised to see how much I was leaning into turns and so on. Pretty soon it didn’t matter if I was riding right next to a large tour bus that could barely navigate around the square, or anything else for that matter. Total Third World bike rules in effect (which means almost no rules beyond don’t hit anything).

When I got tired of going around in circles (or actually, rounded squares), I would just slingshot myself over to another square or ride straight down a street for a bit.

After an hour my legs were killing me and I had the bike for two more hours. Excellent.

I wsa wishing the bike had a speedometer and odometer so I could know how fast and far I went. It had to be 20 miles or so, and I would kill to see a map of my route, which reminds me that I have an app on my phone that does that, if I had remembered to use it. Doh!

This was my first time riding a bike around horses. There are a lot of horse-drawn carriages around town, and at first I tried to follow them around the square, not wanting to spook them. I always thought of horses as fast animals, but it turns out they’re trained to walk pretty slow, slow enough that riding behind them on a bike is a challenge. Riding really slow is one of the hardest things to do on a bike.

Those horses aren’t easily spooked since they’re so used to cars and busses going by them, and they’re definitely smarter than the pedestrians. So pretty soon I was riding right past the horses like that was an everyday thing.

The whole time it kept hitting me that all this fun was only costing me $10. Ten bucks, less than my pirate-themed lunch, cheaper than just about anything else I bought, but the most fun I’ve had in a long time and one of the best workouts.

I alomost felt bad for people I saw who paid five or six times as much to stand on a Segway for an hour and not see much. Might as well just take the bus tour since it’s a lot cheaper and there’s no dorky helmet involved. Which reminds me, I signed a bunch of forms saying I didn’t want a helmet, because why start now? That would have totally ruined the experience.

It was tempting to keep the bike until the shop closed at 6, but traffic started getting heavier and the IQ level of the pedestrians kept dropping as their numbers increased (as if there is a total IQ divided among all of them)… so as much as I hated to, I took the bike back at 5.

It was an intense, self-guided, crash course in urban cycling. My biking skills, everything from turning and banking to balance to riding with horses and busses, got a lot better fast, because they had to. I can now turn my head completely around to check for traffic, like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

It was also like being in a life-size video game, except there are no extra lives, so you have to max out the one you have.

I went back to my room to get fresh clothes and ended up taking a deep two-hour nap like I had been chloroformed.

I was glad I didn’t make the bike tour, because that would have just slowed me down. There’s no way they were sprinting laps around the squares like I was.

The rain didn’t show up til I was deep into my nap, and it was over by the time I woke up and went out again.

Ten bucks. And I almost didn’t do it.

Think about it.

There’s been a lot of buzz about Amazon Kindle publishing lately. I’ve been busy publishing books and helping other people publish theirs.

So far I’ve had two books that became #1 bestsellers in their categories, and I’ve hit the top of other charts such as Hot New Releases and Top Rated.

You may have noticed the flood of Kindle courses lately, some of which are teaching the wrong ways of doing this, even advising you to do things that are likely to get your books rejected or your account banned.

I just finished writing a 38-page guide on how to create, publish, and sell Kindle books, and although I probably should charge for it, I’m giving it away when you sign up for my email newsletter. *BUT NOT FOR LONG*

Before you buy another Kindle guide that might steer you wrong, check out Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know about Kindle Publishing*.

There’s a common belief online that selling downloadable products means that your profit margins are 100%. Today I will debunk that myth.

I’m sure this idea comes from the fact that there is no inventory to buy or make, no storage space needed, no packing materials or shipping costs involved, and so on.

But let’s look at the other costs involved.

Unless all your customers are sending you checks or cash in the mail, you’ll have to use a payment processor to take credit card orders, and they will charge a fee.

If you have affiliates or JV partners, about half your retail price is gone right there. (And if you don’t, you are probably missing a lot of sales you could be making.)

So you make all your sales on your own? Are you paying for advertising, such as PPC or ezine ads?

Oh, you’re just relying on free search engine traffic? Did you spend any money to achieve that- maybe by buying links, hiring a freelancer to run a linking campaign or write articles for you, using an SEO company (*cough*), or maybe paying someone $800 a month to teach you?

If not, then you probably put a lot of time into getting and maintaining high enough rankings to get that free traffic.

Maybe you are just marketing to your own lists… if so, you are missing a lot of potential customers. And didn’t you invest some money and/or time into building those lists?

If you’re making 100% profits I assume you are using free hosting, free autoresponders, and so on. You’re either doing all the work yourself or found someone who will work for free, and apparently you (or they) don’t assign any monetary value to time.

You’re probably also running an illegal business if you aren’t spending any money on licenses or taxes.

Let’s look at an example with real (rounded) numbers. A $40 ebook is sold. The payment processor, such as Clickbank, PayPal, 2checkout, or your merchant account, takes $2-4 of that.

Oops, did I call 2checkout a payment processor? How silly of me! It is actually “an authorized retailer of goods and services provided by a vendor”. Even though the only reason you as a marketer would use its services is to process your payments.

And Tony Soprano is in the waste management business.

If an affiliate was involved, there’s another $15-20.

Now we’re down to $16-23 on a $40 sale, without considering any overhead or product development costs or taxes.

Oh, some of my products involve a partner who gets half of the “net”, so on this $40 sale, I’m down to as little as $8 for me on a $40 sale. That’s 20%, quite a bit less than that 100% the others are claiming.

If I used PayPal (cheaper fees), there was no affiliate, and I used a really good PPC ad, I might have $30 out of the $40 left. That’s 75%, before splitting with a partner.

So what’s my point? I’m not here today to demonstrate my math skills, but I have some key things to point out that you should recognize:

1. You (and other people) are not making as much as you think you are. In other words, don’t confuse your sales (gross) with your income (net). I make a lot of sales through PayPal, so when I see $300 or $500 or whatever come in, it’s easy to think I made that much. But I still have to pay for advertising and affiliate commissions and a bunch of other things from that.

It can be tough to tell exactly what you’re really making (i.e., your “take home pay”, what you can actually spend outside of business).

2. Your profit per sale is less than your customer thinks it is, and you should ask yourself how much of your time people are entitled to when they buy a low-priced product. To them, they spent $40 and downloaded the product, so they think you made $40 profit. So some customers think nothing of expecting you to provide hours of free consulting, answering unlimited questions about whatever subject your product covers.

I’m not talking about basic support issues, like people who had downloading problems or lost login info or things like that.

I’m talking about people who buy an ebook on something like weightlifting, and then expect you to set up a customized workout plan just for them, for free.

(Of course, I’m assuming your website doesn’t promise this type of personalized service. If it does, you need to deliver.)

I’ve found that the more questions like this someone asks, the more likely they are to ask for a refund after using all your personal time. It’s sad but true- you might spend several hours over a month answering a dozen questions for someone (most of which are covered in your product), and the thanks you get is having to give back the money. You just went from making Wal-Mart wages to zero.

There’s something about the Internet that raises people’s expectations. In the offline world, nobody would expect this type of free consulting. If you bought a Donald Trump hardcover book, would you think that entitles you to spend an hour or 2 on the phone with him? Or have him personally answer your email questions? Of course not.

Maybe you think Trump is a clown, but you still have to agree it’s pretty silly to expect some of his personal time to be included with your low-priced purchase.

You need to decide how much of your time you’re willing to give in exchange for that $15 or $20 you just netted. Should you have to spend 3 or 4 hours answering questions? I don’t think so, unless you have some back-end consulting program and are providing some free help to get clients into it.

Or maybe you are doing this to get testimonials for a new product, or compiling people’s questions and your answers for a followup product. Those are good ideas.

I know some people will misread this, and say I’m telling you to ignore your customers, not help them, and so on. That’s not the case at all.

I’m not saying don’t answer questions, just keep in mind what you are really making per sale and what your time is worth.

Say you made 10 sales of this product per day that netted you $200. If each customer expected an hour of your time, there’s 10 hours a day right there. When are you going to get your other work done?

Remember, the whole point of selling downloadable products like ebooks is supposed to be that, once the product is created and set up on a site, the sales and delivery is automated so that you can focus on marketing and creating other products.

So why put yourself in a position where you have to all this after-the-sale pro bono consulting?

Even if you love doing it, what happens when you start selling 50 or 100 per day?

3. Keep #2 in mind when you are the customer.

Since search engines are the first stop for many people on the Internet looking for goods or services, the position your website appears in search results is an important factor.

If your site shows up far down the search results list, the chances of people never finding you increase dramatically. Once you get a high search engine position, make sure you maintain the high ranking you have worked so hard to achieve.

This means you must come up with a strategy to monitor your search engine positions. This strategy is crucial to the success of any marketing campaign. Think of your search engine positions as your online portfolio. Would you let your stock portfolio be ruled by chance and market fluctuations, or would you keep close tabs on your stocks so you could buy and sell when the time is right? This is the way you must consider your search engine positions.

At first, after you have launched your search engine campaign and done all the right things to increase your rankings, you will most likely see a continual upward climb. What you need to be on the lookout for is the moment that upward climb reaches a plateau. When this happens, your search engine position campaign moves into stage two, the monitoring and protecting stage.

In stage two, do not be concerned about the short-term fluctuations in your positions. These are similar to the subtle rising and falling of stocks in a portfolio. Short-term movement is an integral part of the whole process. It’s the long-term changes that you must watch for and prepare to act on immediately.

Analyzing the long-term trends of search engines positions is imperative. The way in which search engines rank websites may change at the drop of hat. If you are unaware of these changes – many of which are subtle yet can be deadly to your ranking – your position may drop to the bottom of the list before you can get your bearings. To prevent this kind of precipitous drop, you must create a system to monitor your positions on a monthly basis. Keep tabs on your top ranking positions or your top pages, and make sure to watch “the market” closely.

Each search engine uses an algorithm (formula) to compute website rankings. When a search engine changes this algorithm in any way, it may raise or lower your ranking. Some search engines use a number of different algorithms, rotating them so that an algorithm doesn’t become overused or outdated. Depending on which algorithm is being applied, your search engine position may suddenly drop or rise in rank significantly. Therefore, you must check your positions frequently in order to catch when a search engine changes algorithms and what effect it has on your positions.

You must also deal with your competition – a crucial factor you must always be vigilant about. Your competitor’s position may suddenly rise, automatically lowering your position. Or their position may drop, pushing your position higher. Each month, expect position changes due to the continual changes that are occurring in your competitor’s position, and be prepared to adjust your marketing strategy to compensate for decreased rankings. Monitoring these fluctuations will also give you vital information about how to improve your website to increase your position in search results.

Another factor to monitor carefully is a sudden drop of your positions in all search engines. This is not the same as monthly fluctuations – this is a neon red warning sign! It could mean a number of different things.

If all your search engine positions have plummeted, it may indicate that search engines have found some type of problem with your website. If you have recently changed the code, for instance, the engine may become utterly confused and consequently drop your positions disastrously. If a spider tries to visit your website when it is down for adjustments or changes, you may actually disappear from a search engine index entirely.

Or a search engine may drastically change its formula, and suddenly all of your website come up as irrelevant.

Some search engines rely on the results from other search engines, and it is vital that you know which engines these are and keep track of all the engines they influence. The biggest problem here is that search engines will sometimes change affiliations, and this can create a major shift in the geography of the Internet. For example, Yahoo used to display only results gleaned from Google, but now it has its own spiders and creates its own rankings.

Finally, pay attention to your keywords. Keywords are the foundation of the entire search engine system, and they demand individual scrutiny in your monitoring efforts. If you have found that a number of your positions have plummeted, it may mean that a page of your website has become invisible or inaccessible to search engine spiders. Or the competition for that particular keyword or phrase has recently soared.

Your search engine marketing campaign is an investment. It costs you time and money on a continual basis. Protect this investment as diligently as you would your financial portfolio. In the same way, track your positions from an objective perspective, and monitor your positions on a regular basis. Make sure your time and effort reap rewards by keeping your eye on the big picture – your long-term marketing campaign.

A great way to keep track of how your pages rank in the search engines is by using software. I use Market Samurai, which runs on Windows and Macs. One of its many features is to track the pages of all your websites in Google, Yahoo, and Bing. It produces charts and graphs showing which pages are indexed in which engine, and monitors this over time, so you can easily tell if your sites are getting fully indexed. You can even use it to monitor your competitors’ sites.

Sometimes you can learn how to do things by watching others do them poorly, then avoiding their mistakes.

Here is a story that illustrates that.

A while back I found out about a giveaway JV and signed up. I’ve built a lot of my list this way, so much so that I created a product based on the idea… so I’ve participated in quite a few of them.

I got my login info and looked for where to submit the details of the product I would be giving away. I didn’t see any obvious place to do that.

Then I noticed the fine print.

It explained that they were using a point system, in which you get points for each new member you refer to the site. When you get enough points, you can apply to be a JV partner.

In other words, you get to send them traffic for nothing, and if enough people you send them sign up, then you get to be a JV partner.

That’s assuming their point-counting software works – how would you know if it doesn’t? There’s no easy way for me to know if someone signed up, unless their system notifies me.

It also assumes they accept your gift once you finally get to submit it.

Oh, you have to send them 100 members to become a JV partner. Yes, one hundred.

Not 100 visitors, but 100 people who sign up on their site (which not everyone who goes there will do).

Until then, you can’t even submit your gift details.

Until then, all the new people signing up on their site won’t see your gift, so you won’t get them on your list.

Wow. What a crock, and what a one-sided arrangement. It’s sort of like having a store at the mall, but the mall owner won’t let you unlock the door to let shoppers in.

A JV is supposed to be a two-way street, benefiting both sides.

(Actually, it should also benefit the customers / subscribers, but it’s too hard for my brain to picture a three-way street.)

Maybe 100 doesn’t sound like many, so let’s look at some numbers.

Let’s say you have a list of 1000 people and send them an email promoting this offer.

Maybe 300 will open your email, if you’re lucky.

Of those 300, maybe 50 will be interested enough to click the link to the site.

Of those 50, maybe 25 will actually sign up.

So that’s 25 of 1000 who signed up for FREE stuff.

Meanwhile, you could have used that email message to tell them about some other product or service, or sent them an article, or whatever.

My problem here is not so much with the number 100. I’m confident I could send them 100 members if I really tried.

But why should I bother, with the apparent attitude of the person running the JV? What he is saying in effect is that unless and until you send him 100 members, he doesn’t even want to look at your gift.

Do you like that attitude in a partner? I don’t.

Is this thing run by some big-name “guru” with the clout to make strict demands? No, it’s somebody I (and probably you) have never heard of before.

I’ve been following the Internet marketing scene for years, so if I’ve never heard of someone, they probably aren’t very big.

Now don’t get me wrong; this person can make whatever rules he wants, as long as they’re legal, since it’s his site and his promotion.

But giveaways don’t work too well if you can’t get others to promote the site!

I wondered if maybe I was having a bad day and thinking too harshly about this one, so I contacted some of my marketing friends for their opinions.
Some of them could send the guy 100 members in a few hours if they wanted to.

They all thought the arrangement stinks and said they would not get involved.

Here’s what I predict will happen: most of those who sign up intending to be JV partners will be newbies or those who don’t read the fine print. They will promote the site, but 90% of them won’t send 100 members, so the guy running this JV will benefit some from their work, but they’ll get nothing for it.

Those with big lists will just laugh at the arrangement and avoid it. These are exactly the people you’d want to work with.

Those who do manage to send 100 members will get a few subscribers, but not many, since I don’t see this thing drawing much traffic in the first place.

Am I going to contact the guy and tell him what he’s doing wrong? No, I’ll let him figure that out for himself, if he can. Some people get upset when you try to point out problems like that.

So let this be a lesson: when you try to set up a JV or other business arrangement, make sure there’s something in it for the other people.

Put yourself in their shoes; pretend you are them reading your offer, and ask yourself how eager you would be to accept the offer if it were sent to you.

That should be common sense, but common sense is rare these days.

Did you know you can get lower PayPal fees if you do a lot of business there? (This is for people with a premier or business account only- the types that let you accept credit cards.)

If you did more than $3000 in sales in your PayPal account the last calendar month, you can apply for lower fees. (They don’t lower the fees unless you do this.)

Their standard percentage is 2.9%, but when you go over $3000 a month, you can get it cut to 2.5%, at $10,000 a month, it would go down to 2.2%, and at $100,000 a month, it’s 1.9%.

It’s not easy to find the application in your account, so the easiest way to get to it is to login, then paste the following URL in your browser:

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_merchant-app

(I realize people are leery about PayPal phishing tricks, so that is why I’m suggesting copying and pasting that URL, after you log in directly… or feel free to poke around your account and find the screen yourself. Look for “Merchant Rate pricing”.)

The application only takes a minute or so to fill out, so it’s well worth doing if you qualify. Once you’ve done this, your rate will automatically go down when your volume increases. There is no charge to apply for the fee reduction, and this will save you a minimum of $144 a year (based on going from 2.9% down to 2.5% on $3000/month).

After you apply, if your sales drop below the minimum, your fees will go back to the original rate, but when sales increase, the fees will drop… no need to apply again.

If you haven’t reached the $3000 mark yet, don’t apply, and don’t get discouraged. Just save this article for when you do.

I don’t usually post other people’s videos on my blog, but today I have to make an exception. My friend Ryan Magin just put out a video that I think you should watch:

I hope that resonated with you.

He’s essentially saying to take action, and keep doing so. That really is the secret to success, as simple as it sounds.

Oh, by the way, adult language warning on that video.

I’ve known so many people in situations like these:

• They’ve been going to marketing seminars for years but haven’t made a dime online yet.
• They’ve been studying Internet marketing for years but haven’t put a single web page online.
• They’ve been creating a product for years but are nowhere near trying to sell it.
• They’ve spent more than a year trying to decide what niche to pursue.

Do any of those sound familiar?

Those issues all come down to not taking action, at least not the right kind of action.

He might not have specifically said this in his video, but I think Ryan would agree with me that you have to take the kind of action that can lead to making you money.

There’s nothing wrong with attending seminars, studying marketing courses, and so on, but in and of themselves, those things don’t make you money until you apply what you’ve learned.

Neither do forums, Facebook, and lots of other things people spend lots of time on while not making money.

There are a lot of ways to make money online, but just about all of them come down to selling something. So if you’re doing things unrelated to selling products or services, realize those are the activities that don’t directly make you money.

Start doing more things that can make you money, like putting up web page that sell things, getting people on a list and sending them offers, and so on. It really is that simple.

And keep in mind Ryan’s other main point, that you have to keep taking action. Some of the actions you take, even the right ones, won’t pan out. No one bats 1.000 for very long, and everyone who is a success has had (and continues to have) more than their share of failures along the way.

So thanks to Ryan for making the video and inspiring me to write this post.

We all need a kick in the pants sometime.

I suggest you go watch the video again, then get to work.

If you’d like to listen to an interview I did with Ryan about affiliate marketing, you can do that here.

A few nights ago I went to a sports bar with some friends to watch some preseason football, and I was reminded of what a lousy job of marketing some big companies are capable of.

The Miller Lite girls were there, but kept a low profile. Except for the small Miller Lite patches on their shirts, it wasn’t obvious who they were.

A sports bar should be a great place to promote beer… if it’s being promoted properly.

The ladies did give away some football tickets, but that was about it. I wonder if the people who won them will even remember what brand of beer the tickets came from.

Here’s what I would have done if I had been in charge- I would have had all sorts of stuff with the Miller Lite logo on it and given it away. Stuff like T-shirts, caps, bumper stickers, keychains, coasters, can holders, you name it, that people would have used or worn to spread the logo around.

I would have also given away beer samples, unless there was a good reason why not. And I would have coordinated with the bar to have specials on Miller Lite while the ladies were there. How obvious is that?

None of that is rocket surgery, although it is apparently beyond the grasp of big corporate marketing departments. But then these are the same people who spend millions on untargeted and untrackable advertising.

Other than the drawing for the tickets, there wasn’t much evidence that Miller Lite was even doing a promotion that night. It looked more like two women in football jerseys slowly wandering through the bar.

It’s sad to think that someone actually got paid to plan this pathetic attempt at promoting beer.