“Launch” Book Interview with Jeff Walker and Mike Koenigs

Transcription

“Launch” Book Interview
with Jeff Walker and Mike Koenigs
How to Publish, Promote, Launch and
Presell a Book to Grow Your Audience,
Reach, List, Income and Legacy
Jeff Walker and Mike Koenigs Watch the Interview here Forward and “Framing” This Interview
I’ve known Jeff Walker for nearly a decade and he’s one of the nicest and most solid people I
know. He’s a great husband and dad and has been a huge supporter of my wife, Vivian’s Just
Like My Child Foundation - which makes him both a philanthropist and humanitarian. He just
released his new book, “Launch” and I had the good fortune of interviewing him during his
busy promotion week.
I searched for a photo of Jeff and me and this is the best I could come up with - an old
picture from the day that Pam Hendrickson and I introduced Jeff, Frank Kern, Mike Filsaime to
Tony Robbins, which later led to all of us helping Tony out on a launch and then producing
“The New Money Masters” that all of us were featured in (Thanks, Tony :)
Jeff Walker Interview www.JeffWalkerLaunchBook.com ©MikeKoenigs.com, Inc.
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Jeff is credited with creating what is known as the online marketing “Launch” model that has
produced over $500,000,000 worth of sales. I’ve personally done 11 consecutive multimillion
dollar launches myself that totalling nearly $50,000,000 in sales so I’ve learned the power of
this incredible process and am extremely grateful for the knowledge and tools.
This interview is available on YouTube, as an MP3 and also in this PDF - so feel free to read,
listen and watch it and enjoy the wisdom and knowledge Jeff shares in this piece.
And if you want to get “deeper” into the launch process and learn more, I highly recommend
you grab a copy of Jeff’s book - right now, he’s giving away the book for free when you
cover the shipping and handling charge.
When you do this, I’ll send you a copy of my first book, “Author Expert Marketing Machines”
as a gift and a way to support Jeff during this book launch process. Details are at the end of
this document.
Enjoy the interview - and please share your comments and feedback on the Facebook page!
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Mike Koenigs:
This is Jeff Walker who has recently published his brand new book; it’s
called “Launch” and you can learn more at www.JeffWalkerLaunchBook.com. Jeff thanks for
being here. How is everything in Colorado?
Jeff Walker:
It is beautiful here. It’s summer time. So yeah, it’s great.
Mike Koenigs:
Awesome. Well, I know you’ve got a limited amount of time, as do I.
So why don’t you tell everyone a little about yourself? You are legendary in the online
marketing world but in the rest of the world, I want you to just describe a little bit of your
background, where you came from and what brought you to this point. Then we’re going to
start talking about the book and what you’re doing to market and promote it and also how
you’re really going after the big coveted New York Times position by promoting this the
traditional way. This is going to be a great educational opportunity and a way to learn more
about what you’re doing and why you did it as well.
Jeff Walker:
I started my first online business in 1996. At that time, I was a
stay-at-home dad with a couple of little babies. My wife is out supporting the family and I
really needed a change in my life. Really my wife needed me. I’ve got a big long story about
that but one day, my wife came home and she said like, “Jeff” she is in tears, “I need you to
just try to support the family even if you make $10,000 a year. It’d help me out so much.
I'm getting up in the dark, driving to work, and coming home in the dark. I barely get to see
my kids,” and so on. I knew I had to try to do something and unfortunately, I’ve committed
career suicide a number of years before and I was literally just taking care of the kids.
Now, I had an interest in the stock market. I was studying the stock market, so I decided I
would try this online thing in 1996 and started an email newsletter about the stock market.
The newsletter grew from 19 subscribers for the initial newsletter, which was basically
everyone I knew who had an email address, and it grew from there. Eventually, I started
trying to sell products of my own and I stumbled onto this way of launching new products.
And the way I stumbled onto this was I was scared to ask for the order because I didn’t
believe that something would actually buy anything from me. So, I went through this
elaborate romance process or romance cycle before I asked for the order. Lo and behold, a
few people started to buy from me and I’ve gotten better and better and better at launching
products. In 1999, my wife was able to retire and come home to be with the kids. In 2000,
we were living in a Denver area at that time; and in 2000, we were able to move out to our
dream hometown in Durango, Colorado which is way out in the mountains, about 300 miles
from Denver.
I began getting better and better at launching products and in 2000, it was when I said,
“We’re going to buy our new home in Durango.” I did a launch that did six figures $106,000
in seven days. At that time, I had no partners and no paid media. There really wasn’t much
paid media back then. I didn’t have any employees at that point and that was actually going
to help us buy our new home in Durango. I kept on getting better and better and better; and
in 2005, my old business imploded to partnership problems and it was time to move on to a
different business. At that point, I started teaching product launches because I’ve had
great success with launching new products and I’ve also taught a few people how to do it.
Then I had great success. John Reese had done a million dollar launch after I showed him
some of my techniques.
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Long story short, in 2005 when my stock market-based business imploded, I started teaching
product launches. I came up with a product called the Product Launch Formula and since
then I’ve continued updating and refining it. I’ve done, I don’t know, 12 or 13, maybe 14
consecutive million dollar launches. But more importantly, my students and clients have done
over $500 million in product launches. And so it’s been an amazing run. I’ve been able to
help a lot of people making a huge impact on people. Those people are out in the world
making an even bigger impact, so I just have this incredible life where I live out in the
mountains. Those two little babies of mine that I was raising back then in 1996 are all grown
up now.
Actually both of them, they are helping me in the business right now and it’s been a crazy
ride. So, just a couple of years ago, I decided it was time to write a book about this
because it’s something that has changed marketing, it’s changed online marketing and the
result. It’s just been an amazing ride. I’ve been able to help a lot of people.
Mike Koenigs:
I just saw your brother John this weekend. We were at a mastermind
together and I’ve got to hear the story. I think that’s the big drive, the big motivator, when
you meet the good guys in the business. That’s what they’re ultimately all about, it’s just
serving. And you’re one of those guys that just held true to what you do and how you do it.
The good news is there is a long trail of success behind you.
“Talking biz” over wine (not really ;) Jon Walker and me in Napa at a wine cave
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Let’s talk a little bit about the book itself. Why did you write it in the first place? What is
your objective and goal? Because here you are, you are basically selling a $2000 information
product that teaches people how to do product launches. In a way, a lot of authors would
dream to be in a position you have, which is they don’t have a product to sell and they might
have a bunch of books but they don’t have an audience, they don’t have a base, they don’t
have a platform. And here you are, you are able to go out with something you’re actually
giving away just for the price of shipping and handling. And we’ll get in to the strategy in a
moment, but let’s just talk first about why write a book when you’ve got it all already.
Jeff Walker:
That’s a great question. I started thinking about this book in 2009.
This is when I first started talking to my publisher and started actually writing it in 2001. I
went through a lot of pains, some missteps and started over again in 2012 and here we are
more than two years later and it’s finally done. There are really three main reasons. The big
one is that for years, Product Launch Formula is a $2000 training program and the people
that have gotten it have unbelievable ROI. Mike, look at the launches you’ve done and
what's the ROI for your product launch formulas in countable?
Mike Koenigs:
Yeah, it’s true. We’ve done, I know, somewhere in the $40 million
range, maybe even close to 50 already. It’s getting in that neighborhood. So, I'm a product
of this and I'm kind of a second-generation online marketer even though I was doing it a long
time ago, I wasn’t doing it specifically with information products.
Jeff Walker:
So you’re 10% of that 500 million. But people for years have been
saying, “Jeff, can't you just sit it down for the mass public and make it something that the
mass public can reach.” And so that was a big reason. Another big reason, frankly, and
maybe there is some ego involved here but it was a legacy. This Product Launch Formula,
my teachings, have changed market. I think and I know a lot of people will agree with me
that it’s one of the biggest innovations almost like the sales letter. It’s made a huge impact
and someone at some point is going to write it down and write the history of marketing and
someone is going to get credit for this. And since I invented it, I figured it would be me. I
figured the book would help me submit that in.
Mike Koenigs:
That’s a good idea. That’s a good plan. That’s awesome.
Jeff Walker:
Again, I try to stay humble and I don’t have the ego, but it’s like, “This
is a big deal and someone is going to get credit for it; it might as well be me.” And then the
third one is to generate leads because I know there’s going to be a lot of people to get that
book. If only to be real clear, the book isn’t something I slapped together, I slaved over this
for years and I slaved to make it have a ton of content, but also be a lot of fun to read. So
it’s packed with stories of my clients, I love to tell the stories of my clients, and some of my
stories. Those stories are in the context of the teaching, but I know a lot of people are
going to get that; it’s going to be really meaty, they’re going to do great, and do a launch,
just from the book. That’s fantastic. I love that. But I know a lot of people are going to
that book and say, “Okay, this guy really does have it going on. I want to see what else
he’s got.” And then they’re going to come to me and some small percentage of them is going
to end up getting Product Launch Formula. So I think it’s going to help me reach a wider
audience.
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Mike Koenigs:
There’s no doubt about that. And I think the big advantage, what I
want everyone to hear here is positioning yourself as the number one expert and authority of
something you can do, you can declare it and you do get to write history in this case, but
it’s real history. It’s not in the past, whoever wrote history got to invent it. This is real.
You do have just a long line in the audience of people who’ve implemented use. Again, I
think what I really appreciate about you, Jeff, is besides the walk and the talk, you’ve got
your brother working with you, his wife, your wife, and now you’ve got your kids. I wasn’t
aware that both of them were involved.
Jeff Walker:
Now, my son does my video and my photo, but my daughter is going to
school, she is studying fashion design, but she’s home for this summer and we are absolutely
slammed for customer service because we’re selling so many books. So we brought her into
customer service and her boyfriend is in customer service now too, so it’s just ridiculous.
Mike Koenigs:
We’ll see how it evolves. We’ll talk about this in about six months and
see what kind of wreckage is lying behind you.
Let’s get into the actual book launch itself, and one of the things that I have on the screen
here; and first of all, I want to invite you if you’re watching this right now, make sure you
bring up Jeff’s video. Head over to www.JeffWalkerLaunchBook.com and you can see this
page. But Jeff, what I want to talk to you a little bit about is what you’re doing with the
book offer itself and how this works because again, this is going to seem a little
counterintuitive to someone that you are actually giving the book away and the only catch
is, and there’s really no catch is you’re covering the shipping and handling cost and I know
this myself that it’s really not even going to really cover the shipping and handling because
by the time you work in the administrative, the expense and the cost of the book itself. I
mean you’re losing money on this.
Why don’t you talk a little bit about what you are doing with it.
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Jeff Walker:
Yeah. Well first, I'm going to tell you a little anecdote because this is
an insight that you don’t get to reply the customer this way, but we had so many
complaining. They say, “Jeff, you said the book is free but it’s $6.95 shipping and handling,
so it’s not free.” It’s like I was trying to scam them but I wasn’t. You come to the site and it
says in my video and on the site it says, “You ship it. If you don’t want it, fine but don’t get
angry.” And it’s like my daughter was saying, “Someone puts an ad in Craigslist for a free
desk.” When you see the free desk, does that mean that you expect the owner to go over to
your house and give it to you? You’ve got to drive to their house. Does that mean they’re
going to pay for your gas to get to your house?
Mike Koenigs:
Yeah, the other way is you could say, “Look, you can come to the post
office and pick it up there.” But yeah exactly, I love that argument. I’ve never heard of
that one before. I love that.
Jeff Walker:
We’re spending money to get these books in people’s hands, but
basically we’re using it to create presales and that’s going to give us momentum once we
open. Once the book goes live on June 24th, this will give us massive momentum and allows
us to get the book in a lot of people’s hands and start that word of mouth. And frankly, as
people come through right now, it’s just in full disclosure for your people. What we’re going
to do is after you get the free book, free, we’re shipping and handling, it’s 6.95 in the U.S.
and Canada and 9.95 anywhere else in the world, but after they go through that process
then we’re going to make an offer. We’re going to make an offer for one of our training
products and then radically discounted price and so we’ll make back some of the money that
way. Frankly, it’s our goal to hit breakeven. We’re close but we’re not there.
Basically, what we’re doing is we’re losing some money upfront to generate huge buzz to
word of mouth to generate reviews on Amazon and it’s using my formula. Product Launch
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Formula is all about delivering big value upfront and then hoping to get a result later on. And
so I'm delivering huge value, I'm going negative but I know it’s going to come back to me in
the end.
Mike Koenigs: Absolutely. Based on what you’ve told me off camera, it sounds like things
are going very, very well right now for it as well.
Jeff Walker: Yeah, we’re just killing it. It’s blown away every expectation I’ve ever had. I
just ended up with the numbers and we have done more orders of each book, that’s an
order, $6.95. We’ve done more orders in the last six days than I have all of my products
combined since 1996. It’s just absolutely crazy. It’s just insane. We did in six days what I
was hoping to do my stretch goal for two weeks we just did in six days. It’s just gone off
the charts.
Mike Koenigs: It’s absolutely fantastic.
So, one of the things that you did Jeff is, and I was watching this as you were doing it and
of course I’ve known for years that you were planning on writing a book, but you seeded
your book. In order words, you’ve been putting content on your blog, on social, long in
advance. Can you talk a little bit about some of the specific strategies that you used and
what’s going on there. What was the objective, what do you see as being the results, and
what can a new author or an existing author learn from what you did there? Because
ultimately, part of this whole thing is you created enough awareness and I think as you’ve
thought for many years in anyone who’s been marketing online is to create some sort of a
buzz and anticipation and desire ahead of time. But can you get specific on what went on?
Jeff Walker: Yeah, absolutely. Actually in Product Launch Formula terminology, we call this
the pre-prelaunch and it is where you create this low-level buzz campaign. Notice what
you’re doing is you’re trying to enroll people, so I’ve got my list, which is a very sizeable list
and I’ve got a sizable social following. I basically am going out and I'm trying to enroll them.
So they feel like they’re an insider and that they know the behind the scenes that’s going on
and then when you do come out with your launch then it’s almost like since they’ve been
part of it all along, they’re all about telling people about it, so that’s part of it.
Another part is gathering data, figure out ahead of time what are the hot topics, what are
going to be the questions, what are people really interested in, what are the objections, and
those types of things. So what I did, I started probably a year or two ago just every now
and then in an email; an email can be a promotion for something or it can just be a content
email. I would just mention, “I'm writing my book. I work on a book.” So now the die-hard
Jeff Walker fans, and there are a few of them, they know that a book is coming and it’s like,
“Oh cool!” So they are a real insider.
And then I don’t know, it’s probably about three or four months ago when we were designing
the book cover. I ran a contest in 99designs, which a lot of people use 99designs. If you
don’t know it, it’s a great place to get graphics and create 99designs.com. A lot of people
compete to make this design, so I took the top four or five designs and I run a survey. So I
sent out a base on a link to everyone of my list and said, “Hey, I’ve got this book coming
out. I really need your help picking which cover I should use.” I ran the survey where they
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could just pick and say, “I like this survey. I like this cover. I like that cover.” And it was
great because I‘ve got thousands of people responding and telling me which cover was a
winner and which is a loser, which is fantastic because I really wanted that information. But
it also let them know again a book is coming and here is a way for you to be involved and
here is a way to give your feedback. It’s almost like an American Idol. You’re sitting there
and watching it and after a few weeks, you’ve got the one you’re rooting for, and this is the
same way people are rooting for different book covers. Again, they are excited and it’s a
way to create that buzz ahead of time.
And then in the last few weeks, I started a blog, a video blog, and I started putting out
posts there talking about my writing process and what was going on in my writing and what
my challenges were and the title and why I call this and that; and again, just engaging
people, and this is really engaging your inner core, your inner drive and those are the people
that are going to go out and leave reviews for you or mention you in social and just be a real
fan. It’s just like if you have any kind of following, whether it’s in social, an email list or it
could just be your friends and family, you should absolutely do. The other thing it does is it
drives you forward and gets you excited.
Because we’ll tell you what, that last one percent, it’s tough to get the thing done. When
you’ve got these fans behind you and you’re putting out there, you’ve got some comment;
it’s just that much more energy driving you forward.
Mike Koenigs:
It was very, very well done. Like I said, I’ve been watching it and
watching the comments and knowing both the inside and the outside, it’s been great. One
more time, I just want you to check it out and see what Jeff is doing. Head on over to
jeffwalkerlauchbook.com and get yourself a copy too, if you haven’t already.
Let’s talk a little bit about why you didn’t self-publish the book on Amazon and use
CreateSpace because one of the things that you could have done is you could have done
everything that you are doing right now, you’d have absolute total control. You’d keep all
the money. You’d be able to create the buzz and not have to deal with any kind of red tape
or restrictions. And one thing I know about you Jeff is you’re very independent. You’re
fiercely independent in fact, but why work with the traditional publisher?
Jeff Walker: Yeah. Well, that’s a great question, and frankly there are a few different ways
to go and I thought about it a lot. But for me, I'm going to first look at my assets, what’s
my outcome, what outcome do I want, and what are my assets and what's the best way to
deploy those assets get the outcome.
For me, this book is not about making money. I think if you put it on the bestseller list and it
grows legs and it just keeps on selling and selling and I think it’s got a chance to do that, I
might make some money from the book in that case. But in reality, if you go back to what I
wanted out of the book, I wanted to reach a bigger audience, I wanted to create that
legacy, I wanted to drive leads and nowhere in there was I wanting to make money because
I’m in a fortunate position where I’ve got a very, very profitable business and we’re just
killing it in the business. So I can afford to not make money on this thing and just use it as a
lead gen and create that legacy and maybe drive it to the bestseller list. That’s another
goal, hit the bestseller list. It’s going to be tough to do that with just using CreateSpace.
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So I look at the assets I’ve got, which is I’ve got a great cash flow and I’ve got a list, I’ve
got great partners, I’ve got the social following. In fact my social following is nothing
special. But it’s really that email list to my partners and my positioning and a patent demand
for people that really want this thing and that’s like, “I can afford to give up the front end
that I would make with self-publishing because I know it’s all going to come back to me in
the backend.”
Mike Koenigs:
So the other thing that you are doing here is you’re capturing the book
sales yourself. So if someone goes through the process and they enter their contact
information, part of the promise that you have and maybe if we get into this, you’re saying,
“Look, you can have the book for free, pay for shipping and handling, and I'm going to give
you some great bonuses.” So first of all, maybe let’s talk about what are the great bonuses
that everyone gets when they get your book in the first place then we’ll talk about how
you’re capturing the sales.
Jeff Walker:
First, I’ll tell you what the bonuses are now but just between you and
me as far as watching, there’s going to be more bonuses to add down the road. But right
now, the promise is basically, you get a case study and the case study is someone who
basically went from nothing, started from scratch and really in the midst of tragedy started
from scratch and built a business. It’s amazing story, built a business of half a million dollars
in sales in a very short period of time. I think it’s probably total of -- I don’t know it might
have been 18 months, it might have been two years, but just literally started with the
context in her address list of 50 contacts and then did a launch even before she created a
product and put together a great product and helped a lot of people and then just kept on
rolling from there and did launch after launch.
So, you’ve got a written PDF case study and that’s Terri Marino, who just had an incredible
story. And then there are three in-depth training videos. The first one really goes into the
Sideways Sales Letter, which is the core strategy behind the Product Launch Formula. The
second one talks about seed launches or teaches you about seed launches. Seed launches,
those are the launches where you can start from scratch with no product in the list. They’re
great. And then the third video, it’s a video and a full PDF. I think it’s like 13 or 14 pages
long that watches the entire product launch blueprint. So you get all those videos and I
space them out. First, you’ll get the case study with Terri and then you’ll get those videos.
So you get all of that and the book for free for the $6.95.
Mike Koenigs:
It’s a great deal. So what someone does here is they come to this
page, they fill in their name, their email address, they enter their shipping information, and
the basic credit card; you’ve got a nice page here for anyone who is looking to model
something that’s successful, this is a great page to look at. The page here is something that
Brendon Burchard, I know was one of if not the first to use this model. We’ve done a
variation of it for years. We call it, “The instant publishing machine” where it’s buy the book,
click on the book, forward the receipt. But again, because you’re taking the order, but why
did you choose this particular design to capture the orders and what have the results been
so far in terms of the successes, anything that’s falling apart or really worked really well?
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Jeff Walker:
It’s going really well. First of all, we knocked Brendon off because
Brendon is a good friend. I know their page really converts. I’ve contacted Brendon and
say, “Hey, do you mind if we knock off your design?” He’s like, “I really don’t mind but I want
you to do that.” So we basically use very similar design to what Brendon used. We actually
built it from scratch based on his but silly me, I actually didn’t know you had that built in and
I would just use yours if I knew any better. We have been testing like crazy both that page
and the next page and the upsell page. We’ve been tweaked quite a bit. Little tiny things
are going to make a difference. In fact, like the design you have in front of you, we’re
testing the blue -- because bullet points are in blue, we’re testing those against those bullet
points in black. Right now the bullet points are black, it’s too early to tell but it looks like the
black might win. Also, there is like testimonial/blurbs right under the video.
Again, that’s straight up from Brendon but now we’d put a little header above it that says
like, “This is what people are saying and we bolded those and that test is also looking pretty
good, but we’re constantly testing and tweaking.” This page right now, it varies on traffic
but we’re converting about 40% of the people are putting in their name and email address,
40% to 43%. So to me that’s like shockingly amazingly good.
Mike Koenigs: That is awesome and then from there, how many people are completing the
sale out of the 40% or 50% that go to the next stage?
Jeff Walker:
So the standard I'm going to give you is how many people hit the first
page actually get the book?
Mike Koenigs:
Yeah.
Jeff Walker:
So this was out of a hundred that hit that first page, let’s say 40 of
them give a name and email address and 26 of them are actually getting the book.
Mike Koenigs:
Completing? Wow!
Jeff Walker:
Yeah. So it’d be 26 divided by 40. I’ve got an old school calculator
here, yeah, 65% of people hitting that page are actually completing the order format.
Mike Koenigs:
That’s fantastic. So the big lesson this goes to first of all, head on
over to www.JeffWalkerLaunchBook.com and try this up but also see what he is doing
because the secret and the reason why Jeff is so successful and other people like him, and
I’ll say that we’ve been doing the same thing is we are at any given time, Jeff already said he
is doing several tests. One of them is, he’s up here, he’s got different color text, blue to
black. Just something that’s subtle can make a difference or what other people see and
bolding this can make a difference between 2%. Well, so often so many businesses or most
business, if they were running at a 10% to 20% margin, they’re incredibly successful. But it’s
when you’ve got a 2% stock and another 2% stock and another 2%, it can make the
difference between breaking even and making a fortune especially with the volume that Jeff
is seeing right now. So, it’s another reason to just look at this and pay very close attention
or even go in there and sign up for it and do it again maybe in a few extra days. That’s what
I would do as well, why not buy another book and send it to a friend of yours.
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Jeff Walker:
There’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes always. It’s my job to
make it look clean and smooth on the outside, but it’s always cast behind the scenes..
It’s like Dan Sullivan. He’s my coach. He says, “Never compare your backstage to someone
else’s front stage.” You’re at a play and the curtain comes up and it looks amazing but 30
seconds before that curtain goes up, it’s chaos. Don’t go through your best. He’s, “Oh, look
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at Josh Page. He looked so awesome and mine looks like just garbage. Well mine looked like
garbage five minutes before it went live.”
Mike Koenigs:
Wow!
Jeff Walker:
So, don’t beat yourself up. It’s a common theme I repeat often. One
of the things, frankly, we’re struggling with is the testing. We’re using a bunch of dynamic
code and I’ve always use Visual Website Optimizer for several years and we’ve had a hard
time getting that to play nice with some of the code we’re using on some of our pages. So
frankly, the biggest thing we’ve struggled with is being able to iterate our tasks as quick as I
want to.
Mike Koenigs:
Yes. That again is where the gold is and I have had that happen before
too where I’ve worked with, say, a new programmer, a new member of the team and I
assume everyone understands and knows and I expect them to say, “Hey!” If they don’t
understand something, they’d say something to me and I’ll tell them a bunch of stuff. I’ll
come back and I’ll go, “Hey, how’s that thing going?” They’ll go, “Oh, we never installed
testing code or any tracking code.” It’s like, “We’ve just sent a thousand leads to this page.
How could you tell me something like that? Everything we’ve done, I don’t care about the
money; I care about knowing what works and what’s doesn’t work.”
Being able to run three or four or five split tests simultaneously is so important. Again, my
objective is not to overwhelm our viewers but the point I’m trying to get at is when you
study someone like Jeff and they see what’s going on, the real gold comes from the wisdom
that gets accumulated in the history, so he can prevent you from making massive mistakes
that could be not only costly but literally sink you and it’s why Jeff just mentioned. His
coach is Dan Sullivan who’s an unbelievable guy. I know most of us have learned about him
through our friend, Joe Polish. But we all need coaches and we very rarely can see the truth
through our own filters.
We need other people to give us some sort of feedback, which really leads me to the next
big question here Jeff is, it sounds like things are going so well. There’s a very high
probability that not only is this going to be a bestseller, it could very well become a New York
Times bestseller once you’ve figured out the testing and you’ve got this working. So, if I
were going to ask you right now, if you’re going to give someone advice on how to become a
bestselling author and who wants to model your success, what should they do that you wish
you either didn’t do or you wish you had done at this point? Because again at this point, all
you can do is just adjust on the fly because you’ve got your momentum, things are
happening, and they’re happening quickly. You’ve just got to keep on moving. It’s not like
you can go back in time two months and go, “Oh, God!”
So, what advice would you have that’s a should or shouldn’t do?
Jeff Walker:
I’m going to answer this from my perspective here given the essence I
have and that last one percent of the book really took a long time. I thought the book was
done. This is not something I slapped together. This is my lifework. I slaved over this thing.
So, I’ve written it and then I ran it by my editor -- first of all, I wrote it and I did three
drafts and then I sent it to my editor.
Page 13 of 21
Mike Koenigs:
Wow!
Jeff Walker:
And then she came back with her changes and said, “Jeff, you had too
many clichés. You’ve abused too many ellipses,” and a few other things. I’m like, “Okay,” so
I fixed that. I went back to her. She came back with more changes. I went back to her.
She came back with more changes. We had three rounds with the editor after three drafts.
I’m like, “Okay, we’re pretty much dialed in. I think we’re done.” So then I started having it
proofread. I actually had three people on my team, they are really good at proofreading.
The first person went through and found all kinds of mistakes, but I figured that would
happen. And then the second person went through, after the first person had found a bunch
of mistakes, the first person missed. I was like, “Okay, that’s interesting.” Then third person
went through it. It’s a 200-page book, so it’s a big deal to go through it. The third person
found more mistakes that the first two missed. So I was like, “Oh, my! We’re still finding
mistakes. We’ve got to still keep on going.”
So we ran it through two more proof readings until it finally felt clean. The whole process,
that took 10 days and I didn’t have to be super involved, but I had to be somewhat involved
because not all of them were just like I forgot to dot a ‘t’ or something. It was like, “Well,
you said this here and you said this earlier and those two don’t --”
Mike Koenigs:
It sounds like you’ve got congruence issues.
Jeff Walker:
Exactly. I am obsessed with over incongruence or how you capitalize
some term. Do you capitalize pre-launched all the way through? He’s like, “Yeah.” So we
went through that. And then we sent it off to the publisher so then the publisher lays the
book out and all of a sudden, I realize I have to proof that because I come back and photos
where I want them to be that just went through three rounds of proofing.
Mike Koenigs:
Wow!
Jeff Walker:
And then it’s like, “Okay. Well, let’s see. We need back cover copy.
You need the blurbs.” I was going out getting blurbs. There were just captions for the
photos. It’s like, “Ugh! All these little things added up for probably about two, three, or four
weeks of my time. Those are the two or three or four weeks where I meant to build all my
marketing. So all of a sudden, that got delayed. Now I’m asking my team to just go crazy
and they are amazing and they are just working. It’s insane. They’re truly awesome.
I’d see and get them to go to bed. But the last couple of weeks ended up crunched and
then that just made the whole marketing a lot working for us. And then what we did was,
before we asked partners to mail, we tested, tested, and tested. So we spent about a week
testing our marketing, but it would have been better if we had two weeks to test our
marketing. I would have felt much better about the process.
So, long story short. That last one percent took me a lot and I hate to say that to aspiring
or would-be authors because I don’t -- if someone breaks their legs, you want to tell them,
“Oh, man. I broke my leg two years ago and I ski better than I’d ever skied in my life.”
Page 14 of 21
That’s what you want to tell them. You don’t want to say, “That eight weeks in a cast is
utter hell and then it got even worse. I just took the cast off and hurt. That was the most
painful.” You don’t want to tell people that, but here I am telling authors that the last one
percent, it’s a battle. It just is a battle.
Mike Koenigs:
software?
We have the ‘should’ and the ‘shouldn’t’.
Jeff Walker:
Yeah.
Are there any tools,
Mike Koenigs:
Any other things that really either would have or did improve what you
did that would make the writing process easier, the management process or any of this stuff?
Jeff Walker:
Well one thing I did was I went through this whole first iteration, tore
that up and started from scratch, but then once I’ve got really serious, I found out from my
writing dates, and this isn’t rocket science and other people do this. I’ve got it from other
people, and you’ve read about all these successful writers and they do something similar. I
would have days -- well I call them “focus days.” That’s a term from Dan Sullivan or “writing
days” and I would plan for the day. I go to bed and the next morning is going to be a writing
day. The next day is going to be a focus day. I would get up and when my feet hit the
ground, I get out of bed. Within 10 minutes maximum, I would be sitting at my computer.
The one thing I do is brush my teeth and floss my teeth. I would be at the computer. I
have a big glass of water and I would write for 15. I put my fingers on the keyboard and my
fingers didn’t come off the keyboard, 15 minutes straight writing. I don’t check email. I
don’t do any of that first. The first thing I do is I sit and I put my fingers on the keyboard
and I start writing for 15 minutes, take 10 minutes off, do some push-ups, do some yoga, go
get a cup of tea, come back, 15 minutes straight on. And then that day, if I do it at that
day, it goes at the win call because two focused hours of writing with zero distraction, you
win. You absolutely win. I could basically knock out -- I don’t write terribly fast. I do about
a thousand words, a thousand and twelve hundred words in that 15-minute stretch, so I’d
get 2000-25000 words done.
I think this book is 70,000 words. It doesn’t take that many of those days to really nail at
least the first script. And then the other thing I would do to juice that is I would put on
headphones. So usually, this is early in the morning. I’d be the first one up, no one else in
the house. It’s dead quiet. But I would put on headphones and then I have this app that I
use. I use it for meditation, but it also works really great for these focus hours. It’s called
Relax Melodies and that’s available for iOS, for Android, for your computer, Relax Melodies.
Basically, it generates white noise, the sound of waterfalls and stuff. You can add in
whatever white noise you want and then you can add in binaural beats. So I’ll add in
binaural beats that will really focus me, focus my brain and it’s got a timer. So I put those
headphones on, set that timer for 15 minutes. You don’t have to worry about looking at the
clock or anything. I am just full out writing for 15 minutes and that when it fades away, the
sound fades away at 15 minutes, I am done and taking my 10-minute break. I timed that
break. I’m back at it. That was really, really huge.
Page 15 of 21
The other tool I use is scrivener. A lot of writers use scrivener.
Mike Koenigs:
Yeah, it’s a great tool.
Jeff Walker:
It is a great tool. In the end, my editor didn’t use it so I had to take
stuff out of there and put it in Word and ended up using Word once I’ve got to the editing
process. That’s a little bit of a pain, but I used scrivener for the writing. That was really
solid.
Mike Koenigs:
It’s really, really good.
So, here’s what I’m going to do. I am going to ask you one more question in a second, but I
just want to restate what’s going on which is, first of all, make sure you take advantage of
Jeff’s goodies here and head over to www.JeffWalkerLaunchBook.com and I want to not only
stress that you’re not only going to get a great book, but you’re also going to get these
training videos that Jeff promised and the PDF and the guide that outlines the Product
Launch Formula, but I’m going to throw in a couple of cool bonuses as well, which is when
you invest in Jeff’s book and you forward your receipt, send it to support@trafficgeyser.com
and I’m actually going to mail you a copy of my first book. It’s called Author Expert
Marketing Machines and it’s filled with all sorts of strategies.
If you’re compelled right now on this thought of writing your own book and becoming an
author, I will actually mail you and I will actually cover the shipping and handling price just
because I believe in what Jeff is doing so much and he has been a very good friend. Both
him and his brother, John, I love their wives as well and I just think he’s made a huge
contribution to the marketing world and it’s my way of saying, “Look, not only are you
getting a great deal. I’m going to give you something else.”
The other thing that I’m going to do is for people who are not already customers. I am going
to give you a trial of Instant Customer and Traffic Geyser and, currently, as of the time I’m
making this, Traffic Geyser isn’t available right now except as a large package. You’ll be able
to try out both of those products, which can help you either sell and promote your own
products, distribute your own content, capture leads. We’ve got lead capture pages built in,
the beautiful builder that hosts all your content. It will also allow you to do some of the
stuff that you see on Jeff’s page here to be able to sell your own products and services and
integrate with your own system.
Jeff, is there anything else that you want to add to anyone who’s watching this video right
now that you think is important or valuable or any other giant lessons or suggestions,
recommendations you might have?
Jeff Walker:
Yeah. I think the number one thing is, first of all, I had the most
humble beginnings you could imagine. When I started, my business, I was Mr. Mom. I was at
a homemade desk. It’s a piece of plywood held up by some one-inch pipe. It was in a
baby’s changing room and you can do this. You can get out there and you can get after it
and you can do this. If you did behind the scenes of almost every leader in this market, you
have a crazy story like that where they just started from scratch. You can absolutely do it.
My life changed. I got this email advertising this product. It’s a basic information product.
Page 16 of 21
It taught about how to get in the information marketing business and this was in the mid-‘90s
when I got this. I didn’t even really have the Internet. It was about how to sell on AOL.
Can you remember those?
Mike Koenigs:
Yup.
Jeff Walker:
I sat there and I looked at it. I’m like, “This seems like a scam, but I
could just look and see people are making money from publishing. They wouldn’t keep on
doing it if they weren’t making money.” I printed that. It was an email sales letter. I
printed it out and I read that every night for a week. I read that letter and I’m like, “Man, I
have never sold anything in my life but this just makes sense. I know books get sold. I
know information products, DVDs and CDs, and online courses, they get sold and why can’t I
do it?”
After a week of reading that letter, I finally sent away a check for $99.50 and waited They
sent me a floppy disk. When I spent that $99.50, it was $95 plus $4.50 in shipping and
handling or something like that. When I spent that money, at that time, our disposable
income for our family was at $400 per year. After we paid for the house and the groceries
and the diapers, there was $400 we have left. I know because I had a budget that we lived
by and we needed to have that budget and I spent one quarter of that. Since then, I’ve
sold tens of millions of dollars of products and my clients had sold 500 million dollars of
products and I’ve changed the world. It didn’t happen overnight. It was a series of baby
steps that continues until the thing got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. That’s your mission.
That’s your job. It’s to get out there and get educated.
Obviously, I’d love if you’ve got my book. Mike’s throwing out these amazing bonuses. I’d
love that but either way, there’s so much great information out there and you could do this.
You can do it. I did it and lots and lots of other people did it. You can do it.
Mike Koenigs:
This is great. Well, first of all, thank you Jeff. Great content! It was
great information. I’m really glad we took the time to do this and you took the time because
I know you’ve got a billion things going on and you’re traveling tomorrow.
Head on over to www.JeffWalkerLaunchBook.com, get the book, get the bonuses and I’ll
send you my book and also give you some software bonuses to try out that really
complement everything that Jeff’s doing.
Again, it’s my way of saying thank you for
supporting Jeff and putting my foot forward because I am really one of the success stories
who’s used the Product Launch Formula in my own businesses now for nearly a decade and
we’ve touched over 30,000 customers of our own, including probably you if you’re watching
this. I’m feeding my family and also supporting my wife’s non-profit, her charity, as a result
of being able to have this platform.
So, I just think it’s that important and like Jeff said, which I absolutely agree, anyone can do
this if you just have the great willpower and have the guts to go out and the desire to
change the world. So Jeff, thank you for the time and go ahead and head on over to
www.JeffWalkerLaunchBook.com. Get the bonus, get the book and I will see you in one of
our upcoming videos very, very soon.
Page 17 of 21
Page 18 of 21
What Next? Get Jeff’s LAUNCH Book and I’ll
GIVE you a copy of my #1 Bestselling Book
FREE (I’ll even pay for shipping and handling!)
Step 1: Go to www.JeffWalkerLaunchBook.com
Step 2: Order Jeff’s Book (it’s free, just pay for shipping and handling)
Step 3: Forward your receipt to Support@TrafficGeyser.com and I’ll MAIL you a copy of my
#1 Bestselling Book, “Author Expert Marketing Machines” FREE (this is for the first 100
only, US only,for everyone else, I’ll send a digital PDF copy).
It’s my way of supporting Jeff and you - especially if you’re thinking about building your
visibility, list, platform and value by writing a book.
Here’s a snapshot of some of our recent “graduates” who have written, published and
become top 10 bestselling authors in 30-100 days who are receiving awards with their
books at one of our live events!
Page 19 of 21
About Mike Koenigs
I grew up lower middleclass in Eagle Lake, Minnesota, a small town in Southwest Minnesota, population 763. I’m the oldest of four kids, my dad is a barber and I taught myself how to program the Apple ][+ when I was 14. I’ve been writing code and consulting since I was 16. I love smart, interesting, complex people with big ideas who want to change the world. If that sounds like you, we’ll resonate. In June 2012, I was diagnosed with stage 3A cancer and went through major surgery, chemotherapy and 33 radiation treatments. I’m very, very grateful to be alive and started feeling “normal” recently after receiving a “clear” from my incredible doctors. I have an 11 year old son, Zak, and an incredible wife, Vivian Glyck, who does philanthropic work in Uganda and Senegal through the “Just Like My Child” foundation, a nonprofit 501c3 organization that provides education, microfinance, microcredit, entrepreneurship, girls education and legal rights in Uganda and Senegal. My companies have raised over $2mm to support the foundation and a community of over 600,000 people. I’m a serial entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Instant Customer and Traffic Geyser. I grow businesses by simplifying and automating marketing. If you ask me “what do you do”, I’d tell you: “If you have a message to share, want to get noticed, seen, found and displayed on any screen and in the pockets, computers, cars and televisions of your prospects and customers, automate your marketing, create products that sell like crazy, add an additional stream of income and make money with your ideas, I can help you in your journey with my products and trainings.” My unique skillset? I’m really good at three things, horrible at about three thousand, but here’s the good stuff: 1. Bridging Technology & Marketing: Inventing products that solve complex business problems that sell 2. 100 Days from Idea to Launch: Rapidly building and implementing ideas into products, producing a launch and generating a $1mm or more in sales in under 100 days from concept to sale 3. $1mm+ per Day Direct to Camera Sales: Think interactive, online infomercial. I have a unique skillset of being able to present direct to camera and sell just about any product or service in an entertaining, educational format that produce over $100 per viewer 4. Resultsbased Teaching: Simplifying the Complex I bridge the gap between tech, Jeff Walker Interview www.JeffWalkerLaunchBook.com ©MikeKoenigs.com, Inc.
Page 20 of 21
marketing and implementation. I’m categorically diagnosed as ADHD, “learning disabled”, unable to sit still or I fall asleep. As a kinesthetic learner, I’ve had to teach myself how to think, learn and store information in odd ways, so I’m pretty intuitive and able to teach other using a variety of modalities to rapidly implement and get results. Here’s the bragging part: I’ve produced eleven consecutive multimillion dollar launches in a row, the largest grossing $9.1mm in a single week, presented in a $3.1mm in a single “direct to camera” livecast and over the past 5 months, generated $212.28$367.88 per viewer in direct to camera video livecasts. Every iteration of the product cycle (invention, creation, offer, launch) occurred in 100 days or less for all eleven launches. I’ve written five #1 bestselling books, produced a feature film distributed by Warner Brothers and a documentary, “Life With Tesla” about going allsolar and gasolinefree with an electric car. I’ve been driving a Tesla for four years. To me, entrepreneurship is all about freedom and independence, especially from big oil and big government. My vision and goal is to create 1,000,000 entrepreneurs in my lifetime. If you have a similar vision or goal or want to get your message out to the planet, change lives with passion and purpose, give me your card. If you private message me your address on my Facebook page, I’ll send you a copy of my newest bestselling book, “You Everywhere Now” free. PS I’m terrible at logistics, “datetarded” (I can’t remember dates to save my life) and hate the smell and taste of canned tuna, hardboiled eggs and brussels sprouts. You can visit me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and my personal web site. Jeff Walker Interview www.JeffWalkerLaunchBook.com ©MikeKoenigs.com, Inc.
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“Launch” Book Interview with Jeff Walker and Mike Koenigs

Transcription

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