Ryan Lee went from a "broke gym teacher" in New York to a millionaire by turning his passion for fitness into recurring revenue. It started with a simple paid-membership site officially launched in 2001 while he was still working fulltime as a teacher. From there, it exploded into a full-fledged online empire with over 50 different recurring revenue products.
Today, Ryan is dedicated to helping others develop a steady passive income through recurring revenue. Using his action-oriented, step-by-step blueprints, he teaches the seven easiest ways to create recurring income and other secrets from his books and videos, The Millionaire Workout and 'ePublishing in a Box'.
Using these methods, Ryan has helped over 50,000 fitness professionals dramatically increase their income, and he is recognized today as the world's leading entrepreneurial fitness expert. Ryan has recently been featured in major media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Entrepreneur, PayPal Radio, and was on the cover of Millionaire Blueprints magazine.
RIC THOMPSON: Let me ask you this, Ryan. The whole background here, did that factor into your decision to go into recurring revenue versus one-time type stuff?
RYAN LEE: Yes, it did. Here's the thing. With recurring revenue-we call it in the industry 'continuity income'-that's how you build a real business. Here's how most people think about it. They have an idea. Maybe someone listening right now has an idea. They're good with training dogs, they're good at losing weight and working out, they have a system on how to get their kids to sleep through the night, or whatever it is.
They think, "I want to create a product." Most people say, "Here's how you create a product. You make a DVD or an ebook, you get interviewed, or you make some kind of one-time product and you sell it for $20 or $25." That's great. You could definitely make nice money doing that, absolutely. You could sell a lot of copies. However, with that model, you're only as good as your last sale.
Let's say you have a really good month. You sell a $20 book, and you sell 100 copies. You start marketing. You start to get the hang of it. You sell 100 copies at $20. This month you just made $2,000, which is great. For most people, Ric, that's life-changing money. That's mortgage money. That's college money. That's a lot of money for people. I never want to get to the point when I say, "Two thousand dollars is nothing. Who cares? I don't even feel that." For most people, that's life-changing money.
I'm not trying to snicker and say, "Two thousand dollars is crap." Two thousand dollars is fine. However, you can take that idea, program, or system that you have and turn it into a membership site, a CD-of-the-month, a newsletter-of-the-month, or a DVD-of-the-month, all of these are different programs that I teach. Let's say it's the same thing for $20 a month, but now in Month One, you get the same 100 people in.
You made $2,000 this month. Let's say next month you get another 100 people in. Let's even assume after Month One 10% of the people drop out. You're down from Month One. You have 90 people. In Month Two you will add another 100 people. Now you have 190 people in Month Two times $20. Now in Month Two, you're at $3,800, as opposed to if you just sold the product and went out and you're still hustling, you're not going to have that money from before, if that makes sense.
Instead of $2,000 a month, you've just doubled your income. Next month it will keep increasing and increasing. There's going to be leveling off point. Eventually, not everyone in the world is going to buy it, but you could make a really nice income. Think of it like this, Ric. Whatever topic you want to talk about in the universe, can you find 1,000 people who are interested enough to pay you $20 a month for an ongoing education in it?
If the answer is yes, think about it like this. Twenty dollars a month times 1,000 people is $20,000 a month. You know that 99.9% of the population doesn't even make close to that. Twenty thousand a month is $250,000 a year. A majority of people would be very happy with that. Obviously, you can go up from there. I have clients making seven figures, and now approaching eight figures, with the kind of strategies I teach.
I don't want to say that it's so easy. It definitely takes some work. If you're looking for the magic bullet where I say, "Do this, and tomorrow you're going to start making $50,000 a month," I'm the wrong guy. I'm not selling that lie. It takes some work and it takes some effort, but it's absolutely attainable. I believe that 100%.
RIC THOMPSON: I think the point is that with the Internet changing every few months, much less every few years, this is still something that works very well in today's economy with the conditions in the Internet today. This is something that's working right now for you to produce a great deal of revenue.
RYAN LEE: Yes.
RIC THOMPSON: I think that's important. How long have you been doing continuity programs?
RYAN LEE: My first site was a membership site. I made it a paid site in 2001. It's been nine years now. I still have paid members from that site who are still on almost 10 years later. It works. The darn thing works if you get the right product and you're providing a lot of value. If you think you're just going to do some kind of cheap thing where you interview one person but it's a crappy interview, you put up one new interview every two months, and you're going to charge people $50 a month, it's not going to happen.
You might get people the first time, but they're not going to stay on. A lot of marketers who try to teach these strategies just talk about getting new clients. That's the biggest question everyone asks. "How do you get more traffic? How do you get more members, more members, more members?" However, they don't think about what they do once they are there. Keeping them is the key.
If they don't stay, it's not really a continuity program. If you get 1,000 people today and they all cancel after Month One, you don't have a continuity program. You're selling one product. Step One is to obviously create a product that's good and will provide value. Then you get the traffic, and then you retain them. Even a lot of software companies now are going to that model.
Instead of selling the product outright for $200, they'll lease it to you for $20 a month. It helps with cash flow. There's nothing better than going to sleep knowing that next month, no matter what, you still have 1,000 people who you're billing $20 a month. That's a pretty darn good feeling.
RIC THOMPSON: Let's walk through this. In Step One, you have to pick the great product. Are there certain markets that are better than other markets? Are there certain products that are better than other products? Where do we start? Are there any kinds of guidelines? I want to kick off a continuity program, Ryan. I don't have one. Are there certain areas I should be looking into?
RYAN LEE: Absolutely. First of all, figure out who you're selling to. Before you even think of the topic, think of that person and get really crystal clear on it. Are you selling to hobbyists who are golf fanatics? Are you selling to occupations? I love selling to occupations because I think it's really easy to target an occupation. For example, target accountants, real estate agents, or whatever the occupation.
It's always easier to contact them. Obviously, you can still do things for moms, dads, teenagers, golfers, and recreational tennis players. You can still do those, but I think it tends to be easier when you go for an occupation. With that being said, you have your target market, and then you figure out what their big hot button is. What do they like to do? What are their big wants? That kind of research is easy.
I like to really research a market with a couple of resources. First, I go to eBay and look at all the categories. Try to think of something that you're passionate about. What is it that you love to do? Look at eBay and see how they categorize things, because eBay, and even Amazon, spend a lot of money creating categories and figuring out what categories people will click onto and buy from.
Go to eBay and look through the category listings. You really drill down and see what category it is, what products are on the market, what they're selling for and how many bids there are. Then you go to Google and type in whatever your keyword is. Ric, name any niche market or topic. Give me anything.
RIC THOMPSON: 'Internet marketers' comes to mind. Let's do 'nurses'.
RYAN LEE: Okay. Then I go to Google, and I'll type in 'nurse + forum' or 'nurse + group', and see what comes up. There could be discussion forums. I guarantee they will be discussion forums. I go into the forums and start looking at what the nurses talk about. What are the biggest challenges that they're facing? That's the key. That's how you make a lot of money.
You find out what people really want, and that's what you give to them. Notice that I said their 'wants', not their 'needs'. People spend a lot more money for what they want, not what they need. Everyone wants a Porsche; no one needs a Porsche. You need a car. You don't need a Porsche. You don't need a $5 million mansion. That's what you do. You figure out who you're selling to.
You figure out what you're going to sell and what the big product is. Then you figure out the delivery system, because people are going to want it delivered in different ways. There are tons of models. One model is a membership site with lots of content where you're uploading articles, videos and audio files of the big discussion forums. That's a big membership forum.
You can create an association, such as an Association of Work-At-Home Nurses or whatever. That can be delivered as a membership site. You can do a CD-of-the-month where every month you interview someone, someone interviews you, you interview experts, or you just talk about the latest strategies on whatever topic it is. You could do a DVD-of-the-month. You can create a software program.
I've created about seven software programs. I don't know a line of code. I hire people to do that for me. That's easy. You can find people for a couple hundred bucks to create a software program for you that you could charge monthly access to. Or you could print newsletters. There are so many different models. Try to do some research and figure out what their needs are and what their wants are. Figure out the right model, and then you go out and market it. That's it. Then you work your butt off to keep them.
RIC THOMPSON: Wait a minute. Back up a step to be really clear. There was nothing in what you just said, Ryan, that said I have to be an expert on nurses or that I have to be a nurse myself.
RYAN LEE: Not at all. There's something that I call the 'producer model'. Think about Hollywood. Who are some of your favorite actors?
RIC THOMPSON: Let's do the obvious. Let's do Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
RYAN LEE: Okay, you're a big Brangelina fan. I'm not going to hold it against you. That's okay.
RIC THOMPSON: They were the first ones to come to mind.
RYAN LEE: Ric, that's fine. That is absolutely fine. Think about it like this. They're in movies. They get paid $5 million, $10 million or $20 million. Who's paying their salary? It's the producer. Who's making all the money? It's the producer. The producer is not in front of the camera. He's not directing. He's basically producing the entire program. He's producing the movie. The producer is the one who makes the big money.
You could become a producer. When you learn the systems that I teach, you take this information and say, "I know what kind of format we can use, and I'm going to be the producer. I'm just going to interview people. I'm going to find another expert and build a site for them, or market for them." You could do really well using the producer model, but you absolutely don't have to have experience in it at all.
What you do need-especially if you're going to be interviewing people-is a true passion or desire for it. If you're not a nurse or you don't know a thing about nursing, that's okay, but you should at least be interested in it. If you hate cats with a passion, if you can't stand cats, you shouldn't be doing a program about how to take care of your cat. You want to be promoting and marketing this program, but you certainly don't have to be the expert.
RIC THOMPSON: For those folks who are super-savvy and are looking at this, I think they will immediately pick up on what you're calling the producer model. That's what I'm doing right here with this series.
RYAN LEE: Exactly. You are the producer right now. You're not coming up with any content. You're passionate about it, and you're interviewing people like me. We're doing the heavy lifting. You're producing it. It's just a great model. I love the producer model. You can create products really easily. You can make a lot of money, and you can leverage other people's lists.
It's a great way. When I teach these strategies to people, everyone will right away become defensive and make excuses: "I don't know any websites," "I don't know any tech stuff; I'm not a techie." I say, "You don't have to. You can outsource that stuff." They say, "I don't have any skills or hobbies or passions." You could do the producer model and find someone with that stuff.
People always make excuses. There are no excuses. My most successful students-and I've taught thousands of people-but the ones who always rise to the top have one common trait. They all have it. It's the burning desire to succeed. That's it. They're just relentless. They want it, they can taste it, and they'll do whatever it takes to get this done and to make it successful.
That's it. It's not that they have the best technical skills, the best math skills, or the best sales copywriting. It's none of that. It's purely that if you're driven, you will succeed. I'm sure you agree, Ric. I'm sure you've seen the same thing.
RIC THOMPSON: I can actually take you one step further. My background actually is technical. I've done all sorts of stuff in the tech world, and I made a lot of money doing technical types of stuff. When I stopped doing it and I started focusing on the marketing and hiring other people to do all the techie stuff, I made 10 times more money.
RYAN LEE: You actually make more by working less. Think about it. If you're good at tech stuff, you still shouldn't do it. If you're spending three weeks doing the tech stuff and the programming, that's three weeks you're not marketing. It's all about marketing. You can create the best software or information product in the world, but if no one sees it or hears about it, it doesn't matter. It's like if a tree falls in the woods and no one's there, does it make a sound? Who knows? No one knows that it fell. You want to be out there shouting, "Watch the tree fall!" You have to spend the time marketing stuff.
RIC THOMPSON: You're absolutely right. There's nobody else. Like you were saying, you have to go look at forums and see what the issues are. What are the topics? What are people looking into? That's the type of stuff that nobody else can do for you. On some level, you have to get in there and do that kind of stuff. There are all sorts of people who can do webpages, write copy for you, or whatever once you've created the model.
Your money is coming from what you're doing. That's Step One. That's finding the market. Actually, are there any other tips about the market and, maybe, market sizes or any things to stay away from in Step One?
RYAN LEE: You're going to do some research, and it depends what kind of market you're going for. If you're going for an occupation, there are some resources. There's the site with the government. I don't remember the URL off the top of my head, but it's the Occupational Handbook. You can look on there and see how many people are in the market. What I would do, too, is go to Google and type in 'Google keyword tools'.
Type in your keywords and the market. If there aren't at least 150,000 to 200,000 searches per month on your topic, it's too small. Let's say you want to sell something to science teachers. I would type in 'science teachers', 'science teacher programs' or whatever, and look at all the different searches for science teachers. If there aren't at least 200,000, it's probably too small for this. You can still do a site with 50 or 100 members.
If that's your goal, that's fine. If you want to build it up, you need at least that many. Another thing you want to do when you go to Google to type in your keywords is to look to see if there are paid ads. Are people paying for this? Is there money to be made in this market? Some really basic guidelines are if there's a magazine in your niche market. If you want to do something about dogs, is there a magazine for dogs? Absolutely.
There are about 30 dog magazines. That's the type of stuff you want to look at to see what's out there in the marketplace. Spend an hour or two doing that, looking at eBay, Google, and Google keyword search, and seeing if there are magazines on the market. After that, make a decision and go for it. I think where a lot of people falter is they'll spend six months doing this. They'll say, "Ryan, I got my MBA. I'm going to write up an entire business plan, and I'm going to do this and categorize."
I can't tell you how many business plans I've seen where the guys make no money. Who cares? I've generated a lot of money online, and I've run a lot of businesses, but I've never done a business plan, nor will I ever do one. It's just a waste of time. With the Internet, you could start up some of these websites for $50. Do you really need a 50-page business plan to start up a $50 website? Get out there and take a chance.
There's going to come a time where you just have to click the button and press go. You just have to do it, and you have to stop procrastinating and waiting for everything to be perfect. "I'm not going to do it this year because my son is having his bar mitzvah." Come on! One of my friends' brother was building a site, and I kid you not, Ric-I wish I kidding-he came to my first boot camp event in 2005, and he'd already been building his site for a year.
It's now 2010, five years later, and his site is still in beta. It's been about six years, and he hasn't made a dime. Of course, he has his MBA from an Ivy League school, and it's all technical. I told him four years ago, "Just launch it. Get it out there now, and get feedback. Then make changes. Just get it out there." That stuff just kills me. Just get it out there. I'm going to make everyone feel better right now. Your product is never going to be perfect, never.
If you wrote a book, there's always going to be a spelling error you don't catch. I don't care if you have Ernest Hemingway editing your thing. There's going to be a spelling error. There's going to be something you're going to want to change in three to six months. There's going to be something you're going to wish you didn't say. It doesn't matter. Just get it out there. Make sure it's good. Make sure you're selling high quality. Just get it out there. It's never going to be perfect, ever.
RIC THOMPSON: That's fantastic advice. For everybody hearing that, I can't echo that enough. It's absolutely more important to just get going. Actually, that's one of the great pieces of advice I've heard, Ryan; and I kick myself because I can't remember who told it to me or where I heard it.
RYAN LEE: If it was really good, it was probably me.
RIC THOMPSON: It could have been. Basically, it was in a seminar. The guy was up on stage, and he said, "For everybody who is sitting there worrying about these mistakes and worrying about, maybe, losing a little bit of money here and there as you make these mistakes, the only piece of advice I can give you is don't worry about it. It's going to happen. It happens to all of us."
RYAN LEE: You're going to make mistakes. There are going to be setbacks. Do you know what? That's what you learn from. Is everything I do a big hit? Absolutely not. If I have a setback, I can tell you that I learn from it, and I'm not going to make that mistake again. If anything, it makes you stronger. It's like thinking, "Note to self: never send an email with that subject again."
RIC THOMPSON: Let's get into Step Two here. Let's say we have our niche, and we have our occupation or category. We have some issues, and we've decided what kind of model we're going to do. What are we going to provide every month? We've gotten a pretty good, solid idea of that. We start putting all that together, and now we're ready to go push the button and get it out to the world. Before I worry about how long I get to keep the customers, keep them happy, and keep them educated, what's the best way to go get those people?
Want even more tips and tricks? This article was just a small portion of an hour-long interview. And this interview was just ONE of 24 top interviews conducted by Ric Thompson for Internet Marketing TNT. If you'd like to get your hands on ALL 24 interviews, simply click here and check out Internet Marketing - Very Important Profit Systems.
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