17 Profit Centers, Channels, Indicators and Maximizers for Guru Businesses – Part 2

Alright, let’s continue…

If you didn’t read part 1, go here and read it now.

10. Licensing

Here’s a good one… Have you ever thought about licensing your expertise or materials?

I have an associate that offers a really good personal productivity program.  The interesting thing is he doesn’t make millions selling the program himself.

He makes his millions from licensing the program to organizations like Weight Watchers.

Last time I talked to him, he was doing in the neighborhood of doing mid six-figures just from licensing his program.

Talk about a long-term, leveraged and even exit strategy!

So, this guy created a personal productivity program one time and seemingly NEVER has to work again because of the multiple licensing agreements he has in place with VERY big companies.

This may not be for everyone, but if you can detach your programs from you and license them out, this could be huge for you.  And you would be doing the VERY thing that the biggest media, publishing and sports organizations/companies in the world do to MASSIVELY maximize their profits.

Jerry Jones, the owner of the National Football League franchise Dallas Cowboys rakes in HUGE amounts of cash off of Cowboys licensed products.

What about J.K. Rowling, the writer of the Harry Potter books.  Where do you think she made all of her millions and millions from?  Writing books?  I don’t think so.  Harry Potter movies and merchandise my friend!

11. Translating

Similar to licensing, you could simply translate your materials into other languages.

Not much more to say about that as again it is very similar to licensing.

Talk about creating a global market for your expertise!

Tony Robbins… A lot of the big name gurus have all done this and added millions to their bottom line and expanded their brands globally.

12. Social Media

I won’t spend a lot of time on this here as it needs several blog posts, but plain and simple you need to get on the Social Media band wagon from a community and marketing perspective.

Social Media is arguably the LARGEST profit indicator (among other things) in existence.

You want your customers to ‘indicate’ to you what they want and what they’ll buy from you?  Start interacting with them on Social Media and I bet in less than a day, you can figure out your next product or service offering.

And with the proliferation and accessibility of both mobile and Social Media platforms converging at the same time.  There’s no better time than now to jump on.

At the time of this writing, I myself have finally jumped on the Social Media band wagon and it has been awesome!

Social Media and mobile are where consumers are going.  So, go with them or be left behind!

13. Email

Again, email and email marketing would require multiple posts, etc. but again in an effort to be as thorough as possible I HAVE to mention it here and give you some good nuggets.

I imagine you’re doing email and email marketing but are you doing it strategically.

Are you REALLY using email effectively as a profit center, channel and maximizer?

If you’re just sending emails 3, 5 or 7 times a week to just ‘stay in touch’ or ‘nurture’ your list OR if you’re pounding them with offers every day, then I’m sorry you’re NOT and frankly you’re blowing a major opportunity not to mention destroying an asset you’ve worked hard to build up.

Are you sending engagement based email campaigns?  Do you even know that they are? (HINT: If you don’t learn or get in touch with us here).

Are you segmenting your email database?

Are you doing the 2 things I just mentioned above in an automated fashion and then sending relevant campaigns based on engagement and segment?

Depending on who you talk to, email is still the BEST way to market to people in a VACUUM.

It would be VERY hard to convince me that you can beat email conversion rates by anything else.

There just isn’t really another place to engage someone like that in a vacuum, absent from the bazillion other distractions that get thrown at them in any other digital environment.

So, I URGE you to reconsider your email marketing strategy ASAP before you burn your list out or they forget who you are.

And oh man, let me tell you… Combine a good email marketing strategy with a good Social Media strategy and a good paid media strategy and the sky’s the limit.

14. Customer Support

Most established gurus I talk to view customer support as a burden and something they HAVE to do.

Even worse, they consider it an expense.

If that’s you, do yourself a favor and change your thinking.

Make your customer support team and your inside sales team best friends and not only will customer support become a profit center, but it’ll arguably become your biggest profit maximizer and indicator.

Talk about an inbound inquiry from a customer that is hot that you didn’t even work for!!

Now, don’t make your stuff break so they have to call you or anything like that 😉

But seriously, I can’t tell you how many times in my own business I’ve seen unhappy customer that spent a few hundred dollars become happy customers that spend thousands.  And all they did was call in because they lost their member’s area login!!

Remember the whole conversation we had previously about your inside sales people having questions and inquiries at the ready to use to strike up conversations with your sales leads?

Well, here’s another great place for that!

Follow me here…

A customer calls in asking for a refund… Customer support rep portrays that he/she has no issue giving a refund but asks a logical question like, “may I ask what had you decide to ask for a refund.”

Now, do you know what one of the most common answers to that question from customers is?

Wait for it…

“It’s just not for me” OR “Its not the right program for me” OR “Its not what I thought it was”.

Now, what do you think MOST customer support departments would do at this point.  “Okay, sorry to hear that let me process your refund for you.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Don’t do that… Ask them another LOGICAL questions, “Well, I’m sorry to hear that [such and such] wasn’t right for you.  What are you looking for?”

I know, profound, right?

Just freakin’ ask man!  You never know until you ask.  Sure, maybe 60, 70, 80 or maybe even 90 percent of the time you will just end up giving a refund, but that 10, 20, 30 or 40 percent of the time you can get them to tell you what they want, send them to your inside sales team and ‘resell’ them that.  That’s where the magic happens!

Or maybe you don’t sell them ‘that’ just yet, but over a period of time by just asking, “what do you want or what are you looking for” you find out what your customers REALLY want and you launch ‘what they really want’ 30, 60 or 90 days later to your whole customer base a do a million-dollar launch.

That’s huge, man!

15. Data/Analytics

Yet, again, here’s another one I could do a whole dissertation on.

Especially, because I have a lot of experience with data and analytics going all the way back to my corporate days.

So, I’ll get right to the point.

Let’s start with analytical data.  If you’re not tracking what you’re doing from a sales and marketing perspective, you should probably start throwing dollar bills out your car window when you drive down the interstate.

Seriously, action without insight into what’s REALLY going on behind the curtain by tracking the effectiveness from an analytics/metrics point of view is pretty frivolous action.

(aka the shotgun approach OR throwing mud on the wall and seeing what sticks)

Speaking of SaaS’ data from services like Google Analytics, Facebook’s Analytics, HotJar, Visual Website Optimizer and the like are invaluable when it comes to finding profit maximizers and indicators.

In my opinion, it’s the only way to REALLY know how to optimize and grow your business.

And its not that hard once you get the hang of it and even the basic data in the services and platforms that are out there today give you a WORLD of information to help drive informed decision making in your business.

Better yet, task analytics to someone on your team.  There’s bound to be someone on your team that digs numbers!

Let’s talk about other forms of data that are important…

How about ‘spy’ data?

I highly recommend using services like AdBeat, WhatRunsWhere, Follow.net, etc. to legally spy on what your competitors are doing.

AdBeat for example has MASSIVE amounts of data on what ads your competitors are running, how much they are spending on different ad platforms, etc.

So, why reinvent the wheel when writing your own ads or copy… Look and see what’s working for your competitors and tweak it for your products and services. (Don’t plagiarize please!   Cheaters never win!)

How about MORE data on your customers and prospects?

Did you know there are companies that will append data to your existing customer or prospect database and create customer avatars/profiles for you down to very specific psychographic behaviors?

Let’s say you sell business coaching… These companies can tell you who in your database has bought business coaching in the last 6 months, 24 months, etc.  While at the same time they can tell you their Net Worth, if they’re self-employed and what their house is worth.

Pretty cool, huh?

You can import this data into your CRMS (Customer Relationship Management System), like Infusionsoft, Ontraport, Salesforce, etc. and use it to create better copy, offers and content.

Speaking of content… Since these data warehouses can tell you much detail about the likes and interests of your customers and prospects, don’t you think you’ll be able to write better, more relevant and engaging copy?

Absolutely!

And that can really get you an ROI because more engaged customers are more likely to buy again and again from you.

So, while data can seem cumbersome or even boring to be frank, its critical to the optimization and growth of your business.

16. Continuity/Subscription Programs

You want to work smarter and not harder?  You’ve probably heard that before and its kind of cheesy but its VERY applicable in this section.

What of the greatest benefits of a continuity or subscription program in your business is the fact that you make a sale one time and it pays you in multiple over time.

There are different types of continuity and subscription programs and I’m sure given you’re an established guru you’ve possibly even had them or entertained them before.

The toughest thing about continuity or subscription programs in a guru/expert business is keeping up and putting out new stuff every month.

You really need at least a small team of content creators and I also recommend ‘crowd sourcing’ your material from other gurus OR your customers.

But its so worth it… I’ve seen people rake in profits from simple quote of the day continuity programs that they charge a few bucks a month for all the way up to mastermind or VIP group continuity programs that are in the thousands a month.

As I’ve mentioned before, your SaaS and/or App can generate a monthly subscription income for you as well.  And those usually have better stick rates (stick rate is the percentage of people that stay on month after month versus dropping out).

Successful continuity and subscription programs can also increase the value of your business.  Again, because of that provable, sustainable monthly cash flow.

Let’s talk about lowering your stress.  Yeah, you have to maintain the monthly content, tools, interactions, etc. with your continuity base but isn’t awesome knowing that going into each month you have some level of guaranteed income coming in?  Starting over again month after month is a rough life.  Just ask any typical sales person.  Its grinding.  And its not different in a guru business.  I’m sure you’ve experienced some burn out from this already.

Continuity/Subscription programs are also GREAT profit indicators as again you are staying in front of your customers on a regular basis through this income stream.  No doubt they are going to indicate to you other products, programs and services they are interested in through the monthly interaction and engagement.

So, I encourage you to figure out some sort of continuity or subscription program.  Even if its just a $9 a month tool or app.

It can really go along way to creating a sustainable profit center, channel, indicator and maximizer for a very long time.

17. Strategic Alliances, Joint Ventures and Affiliates

Alright, last but not least Strategic Partnerships, Joint Ventures and Affiliates.

I saved this one for last because as an established guru, I would find it hard to believe if you didn’t already have affiliates and an affiliate program.  I would also find it hard to believe that you haven’t done a Joint Venture cross-promotion.

But again, in an effort to be thorough and as all-inclusive as I can I have to bring it up.

I will focus more on strategic alliances since those are more uncommon but let’s touch on JVs and affiliates first.

Joint Venture promotions and affiliates can be VERY valuable to your business.  They can also bring you some of the most qualified traffic that exists.

If you’re joint venturing with the write people, they will literally hand you buyers on a silver platter… Why?  Because if you’re doing Joint Ventures with like-minded lists as yours then it’s a no-brainer that a good portion of them will buy from you.

The ‘guru consumer’ for years has been shown to buy into more than one guru on any given topic.  I’m just as guilty as anyone.  When it comes to ‘marketing gurus’, I follow and buy training from a handful of them.  Not just one.  A handful.

Your current customers and future customers will do the same.

If you sell a program on how to get six pack abs.  There is probably another fitness guru out there that sells something similar and their customers would buy your product too.  And vice versa your customers would buy theirs.

As far as affiliates, well, technically a Joint Venture partner is an ‘affiliate’.  Having an affiliate force is a whole other ball game that frankly I have not ventured down.

What I do know is at the time of this writing the best way to build an affiliate network is to go to an affiliate conference and get ‘in’ with some affiliate network executives.  Build a relationship with them, start off paying out ridiculous commissions and you could probably build an affiliate force through an affiliate network VERY quickly.

One thing I will recommend if you do Joint Ventures or build a a network of affiliates, make sure you have a B.A.B.E. (Big Ass Back-End) Have high-ticket products, programs and services and an inside sales team that can take the plethora of buyers you will garner from JVs and affiliates so that they can be up sold and cross sold to maximize profits.  Remember, when you do a JV promo or affiliates promote your products and services you have to pay them a commission.  And I’ve seen gurus lose the farm because they paid out WAY too much in front-end commissions to JV partners and affiliates and did not have a BABE to recoup those commissions with.

Alright, so let’s talk about Strategic Alliances.

In my book a Strategic Alliance in the guru world is one of a couple of things.

First, a strategic alliance can be a perpetual JV promo.  You connect with a guru in your niche and you cross promote each other’s products and services in multiple channels indefinitely.

Second, a strategic alliance could be when two gurus in the same niche get together to launch a new product or service.  This is a great scenario because you both bring your current audience and customers to the table along with each other’s expertise to create an HUGE alliance that can do wonders.  I’ve seen this work REALLY well many times.

Third, a strategic alliance could be you going out to another person, that maybe is an author, subject matter expert, authority or whatever in the same niche as you but has not established themselves as a guru.  You have established yourself as a guru so you can use your experience as an established guru to partner with the other person and build a new brand, products, etc.  This can also be very profitable because maybe your customer base has been asking you for something that you’re not a subject matter expert in.  Simply create an alliance or partnership with someone that has that expertise and boom, now you have a whole new profit maximizer for your business.

Conclusion

Alright, well that was a lot!

Heck, there are probably more profit centers, channels, indicators and maximizers I am not thinking of at the moment.

So, if you can think of any more, let me know in the comments below.

Also, a word of advice… unless you have a really big team, don’t take on all of these at once.  Chose 1 or 2 and really build them out and capitalize on them before you take on anymore.

Otherwise, you will probably lose focus on what DOES make you money now and then you’ll go backwards rather than forwards.  And not only will you not capitalize on these but you’ll lose what you do have that’s winning and ‘paying the bills’ right now.

All of these aren’t going away anytime soon.  Do a real soul search, be brutally honest and pick 1 or 2 that you can build out and capitalize on quickly.  In fact, I would recommend taking my list of 17 and prioritizing them based on your current business model, resources, cash flow, etc. and then use that as a guide to being creating these profit centers, channels, indicators and maximizers for your business.

Happy Profiting!

Thanks for reading!

@jeffvacek