Seasoned entrepreneur and web marketer, Mike Koenigs provides strategic marketing consulting services for small business owners and CEOs that generate profits and convert web visitors into paying customers. He has served as a producer, marketer and consultant for Sony Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, 3M, General Mills, Dominos Pizza, Ralston, Mazda Motors and New York Times bestselling authors including Deepak Chopra, Debbie Ford and Tony Robbins.
He's created over 300 websites and more than 30 products. But Mike's best-known as the guy who created the Web 2.0 syndication service "Traffic Geyser," which distributes over a million videos per week and generates top ranking web traffic.
RIC THOMPSON: The big theme of this series, Internet Marketing VIPS, is what's working right now. You and I know that what was working five years ago may not work in the same form today. Things move pretty fast. Where do you think the biggest opportunities are to make money online today?
MIKE KOENIGS: Here's the thing: the illusion is that certain things quit working or work better than others. The reality is that the stuff that's always worked continues to work. Then there are the gimmicks. My good friend Brian Tracy oftentimes says, "A lot of people have crappy products, and they're looking for a gimmick to sell a crappy product." That's a direct quote. That's what you see all the time.
There are these little get-rich-quick schemes that show up on the Internet all the time. It's some trick to work around Google or work around this or that. Those are the kinds of things that get you in trouble. The fact of the matter is there are reasons why most of them quit working. It's because it involves some kind of illusion that there's a silver bullet or magic button you can press that will pour money out of a shoot right into your pocket.
The fact of the matter is that nothing like that works. When you meet people who follow every silver-bullet and magic-button scheme that comes along, they start out tired, cynical, and broke, and they end up in the same place. If they would have invested the same amount of time and resources and a fraction of the money they wasted doing it the right way, the way I'll describe over the next hour or so that we have together, they would have gotten to where they want to be.
They would be financially free, living an abundant lifestyle, and actually contributing to the wellbeing of people around them. I'll share a couple of my biggest and strongest tips and a couple of great stories of some people who have done it, are doing it, and have managed to do so with very few resources. This is never an issue of money. Everything I'm going to describe today can happen with little or no money.
It doesn't require equipment. In fact, all you need is a laptop, probably a mobile phone, Internet connection, and a $200 camera. It certainly isn't the gear. You don't need experience. This isn't about having a lot of marketing experience. It has to do with using a little bit of common sense and understanding some very basic principles that always work. They always have and always will continue to.
Maybe a place I can start that I love to begin with is this. I'm going to tell a story about my wife. My wife literally returned from Uganda yesterday. She has a nonprofit called the Just Like My Child Foundation. She does work in Uganda. She's busy. They've built three schools already in just three years. They'll have six done by the end of this year. It all began when she used to be a marketing consultant. We have a son.
Along the way, we tried to have two more kids, and we had a couple of miscarriages. She just woke up one day and said, "I need to go to Africa. I don't know why, but I need to go to Africa." I said, "Why Africa?" She said, "I'm not really sure. I just feel called to go there. Instead of having one more child, maybe I can be the mother of 50,000 instead." I don't argue with my wife when she has a hunch about something.
I let her pursue it however she wants. I said, "Fine. Go." The story is really about becoming an instant expert and authority. What wound up happening while she was there is that she started off in Senegal, and she ended up in Uganda, which is on the other side of Africa, in a hospital that's run by Catholic nuns. She met a woman named Sister Ernestine, and while she was there, she witnessed a woman who died while she was giving birth to a little baby named Baby Christina.
Of course, she was very emotional about this, but she vowed to try to help the nuns in any way she could. She said, "What can I do right now that will make the biggest difference to prevent this from happening? Is there some way I can prevent more women from dying in childbirth? What would make the biggest difference in saving some people's lives?" The nuns said, "Right now we need electricity more than anything."
They were delivering babies by kerosene lamps, and they couldn't even refrigerate their medicines because they had no refrigeration. At best, they had a propane refrigerator, which is a little spotty in terms of how it behaves. They were lucky if they got five hours of electricity a week. My wife shot some video while she was there, came back, and hired a video editor on Craigslist. She just had a cheap little camcorder with her, and she had no prior video experience at all. She had a little video edited together for her.
At the time, I was super-busy. I couldn't do it for her, so she just got someone off Craigslist. She made this video and put it on Google Videos and shortly after on YouTube. She did something really interesting. She named the video "The Secret to Really Helping Africa Like Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Bono from U2." At the time, those three were huge in the news.
They were doing a whole bunch of stuff in Africa. It just took a little while, but the videos started showing up in Google, in the main search engine listings when you'd search for Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Bono, or Africa. In fact, her videos, when you'd search for Africa and Angelina Jolie or variations on those, would show up before theirs would. She started getting calls from the media.
They wanted her to be an expert and authority on the topics of Africa, AIDS, poverty, education, malaria, microfinance, microcredit, and all these things she was just learning about herself. She ended up getting these interviews, and she told the story about what she'd witnessed there and what she'd decided to do. Her goal was to raise $30,000 to buy a generator. She ended up not only getting the media attention, but this started to snowball.
She got a call from a group of African businessmen in Detroit. They asked her to be an expert. Here you have a Jewish girl from New York City being asked to be an expert on the topic of AIDS and Africa for a bunch of Africans. It seemed kind of ironic. She got paid to go there and speak, and within 30 days, she had raised $30,000, enough to buy the generator and deliver it back to these Catholic nuns. Two years later, Baby Christina is alive and well. It's actually been over three years now.
She's sending many children to school. There are hundreds enrolled in the school she's been building. There's a full hospital with operating room, ambulances, and 50,000 malaria nets. Last year, she raised over $600,000. The point of this is that you have to start out with passion and a vision, and you have to stand ready to serve, support people, and help people with whatever it is.
I don't care if you're an author, expert, speaker, coach, or businessperson. You have to start out and say, "How can I serve?" When you deliver a message with passion and a little bit of enthusiasm, people will be drawn to you. This is all about basically starting what's known as a platform. It's a combination of what you know and who knows you. You can literally get it started and, in under 30 days, achieve massive results.
Maybe your goal isn't to become a humanitarian like Vivian. Maybe it's to make a gazillion dollars. I don't care what it is, but it all starts with standing in service first, recording your message, and sharing it. You name it the same things that people are searching for online. In her case, she named it and leveraged someone else's name. I'll get into some other examples of this later on, but that's probably a really good example, and I use it not to say that it's all about Vivian.
In fact, I start out and say if you start in service and with giving, that's the best place to begin. People will be drawn to someone who has a strong sense of mission. It's very powerful.
RIC THOMPSON: That's just incredible. I have to ask this. From a tactical standpoint, why video? What was it that made this just explode and made everything happen in her goals and objectives?
MIKE KOENIGS: It really came down to this. It's not about having fancy equipment. She just had a couple hundred dollar camcorder with her. These days, you can get one that's really cheap. I'll actually tell you a story of what equipment to buy in a moment. It really came down to putting the video on as many video-sharing services as possible and naming that video the same things that people search for.
I'm going to go through an exercise in a little while that's extremely powerful. I call it "How to Become an Instant Expert and Authority By Answering a Few Questions." In fact, you can do it by answering as few as 20 questions. It becomes the starting point for how you can write an ebook, create a product, or even write a book and become that instant expert and authority.
I'm going to teach this process in just a couple of minutes. It will only take a couple of minutes to do, and I promise the lights will go on. It really just begins with short little videos named the same things that people are searching for. We'll talk about what to name them also.
RIC THOMPSON: Awesome.
MIKE KOENIGS: Are you ready for another massive tip, or do you have another quick question?
RIC THOMPSON: Let's jump into it.
MIKE KOENIGS: Okay. I have another tip, and I call it Leverage equals You plus Brand. One thing I'd encourage every listener to do right now is make sure you're taking notes. I'm a firm believer that if you're feeling overwhelm, one of the greatest ways to acknowledge and use that is recognize that overwhelm is your friend. It means you're learning something and the gray matter between your ears is actually going through a changing process, a transformation.
I also believe you can program your subconscious and conscious minds by using your hands to write. It's not by typing, but by actually using your hands. There's something magical that occurs. Tip Two is Leverage equals You plus Brand. Here's what it is, and everyone can check this out. Go to Google, for example, and type in, 'Kodak Zi8 camera review'. I'll actually do it on my end right now to make sure it's still popping up like it has been for months.
I'm going to type in , 'Kodak Zi8 camera review'. Look at that. My video is still number one on Google, which is great. What I do is I have a little show that I produce called Mike's Gadget Giveaway. I review gadgets and products. In this case, I reviewed a camera that I recommend, which is the Kodak Zi8. The number one question I get all the time is, "Mike, what kind of equipment should I buy?
"What kind of camera should I buy that won't break the bank, is easy to use, creates nice quality videos that I could either use for making marketing videos online or even creating a little product, and that's portable?" and so on. I'd say, "Easy. For under $200, this little camera is great." Instead of answering that question over and over again, I decided to make a little video.
I've reviewed lots of other products as well, like microphones and all sorts of little gadgets. What happens is I put out this video and distribute it. I'll talk about the 'make it go' button in a little while that you can use to distribute your video to hundreds of places with the click of a button to get massive attention. What happens is I talk about this camera and what I love about it so much.
As of right now, this particular video has been seen well over 40,000 times, which is pretty impressive. In fact, I'm looking at it right now. As of this moment, it's 48,490 times, and in the past it's had a five-star review or rating. When people go see that video, I tell them to go visit my website, which is www.MikesGadgetGiveaway.com. People who are interested in videos are also probably interested in maybe making money with videos.
I end up introducing them to some of my products later on. Ultimately, it means I'm making money. More importantly, my name is associated with Kodak. In fact, I even said 'Kodak Zi8 review with Chroma Key test', which is a word that people search for, and "U2 concert footage." All at once, my name is associated with U2, also. There's full integrity and no problems there, but what I'm telling you to do is video product reviews or book reports.
Anyone can be a critic, and now you get your name associated with their brand. As an example, this particular item has already leveraged me. I'm right now in touch with and negotiating with Kodak and the chief marketing officer for Kodak who wants not only to work with me, but we're talking about maybe promoting some of my products as well to their customer database.
Becoming a critic and being able to review products can lend you some massive recognition. Again, if you're an absolute nobody, you can become somebody in as little as 30 days by just associating yourself with the right kinds of brands. This is how everyone who's famous has always climbed up. They need a platform. They need something, whether it's a distribution point, getting published, being in a movie, being on TV, getting in newspapers or magazines, or being associated with someone famous like Tony Robbins, Paula Abdul, or Brian Tracy.
That's the way I've done it, but it all starts with being in service, answering questions, and providing some kind of benefit that increases and improves someone's quality of life. That's another really powerful strategy.
RIC THOMPSON: You wanted to give out some great tips on naming those videos and all the processes behind that. Why don't you get the ball rolling and go right to that.
MIKE KOENIGS: I'll give you another great tip. This is another super powerful one. I call it 'Standing on the Shoulders of Giants', and I also call it 'How to Get Rich and Famous Helping the Rich and Famous Become Even More Rich and Famous Than They Already Are'. I've already talked about how I've worked with Tony, Paula, and Bill Glazer; you mentioned that. He ended up selling over 52,000 copies of his book.
I'm at a point in my life where I actually get approached by celebrities instead of the other way around. They're saying, "Mike, I've heard about what you've done with so-and-so. Would you help me, too?" I actually get to turn them away. I'll say, "I'm too busy with my own businesses." The opportunity cost to work with a celebrity now is much greater.
In other words, I'll make a lot more money building and working on my own businesses than working on them. In the rare situations that I do even have time or the deal is right enough, I charge $60,000 a day minimum to work with me, and I expect to own part of someone's business along with that. I don't sell my time. I can't afford to. I'll give you an example of what I did. I can do a Tony Robbins example or a Harvey Mackay example. Which one would you prefer?
RIC THOMPSON: I think I'd rather go with the Tony Robbins one.
MIKE KOENIGS: Here's what happened. It wasn't too long ago. It was back in about 1996 or so. I was fat and broke. In fact, right before I sold my business, I was $250,000 in debt. I was literally using my gas cards to buy cheese and crackers and gas-station food from the local Super America in St. Paul, Minnesota, on 7th Street, if anyone knows where that is. I had recently been divorced.
The bottom line is that my life wasn't in the best possible place. In fact, it was downright rotten. I noticed a friend of mine went through a massive transformation. He had been being basically an overweight alcoholic who had spent seven years in college and maybe gotten through two years' worth. In six months, he lost weight and looked angelic, and I'll get to the reason why in a moment.
He wrote a book, started his own business, and became a speaker, all within about six months. I was blown away. I said, "What happened to you?" He said, "You've heard of Tony Robbins before, haven't you?" I said, "Yes, I've seen him on TV." He said, "I went to one of his live events, and it changed my life. In fact, I went through all of his stuff." I remember saying to myself, "The next time I see that guy on TV, I'm going to buy his box of stuff."
Sure enough, I got a brand new credit card that I couldn't wait to rack up again, so I bought his box of stuff. I literally went home that night, and he was on TV. I was about to plop down with a bag of Doritos and a six-pack and make my pains go away. He was on, and I said, "Screw it." I dialed up the phone and ordered his $200 box of recordings. I paid to have them rushed, so two days later I opened it up.
I was listening to it, and his box of stuff came with a coupon for $500 off a Tony Robbins live event. I was sold. I picked up the phone and made my reservation, and two weeks later, I was in Hawaii jumping up and down at a Tony Robbins event. Nine months later, my life had turned around and changed completely. I was making money. I pulled my company out of debt.
We were being approached by a publicly traded billion-dollar-a-year advertising agency that wanted to buy us. I had met a beautiful woman. We didn't get married, but to this day, we're still great friends. Great things happened. It was just one thing after another after another. I got to finally walk away from 10 years of grueling work at my agency. Fast-forward even more years.
I can remember saying to myself when I watched Tony Robbins onstage, "Who do I need to become to be able to work with or serve Tony Robbins?" I was just blown away by him. As luck or fate would have it, it took 12 years, but I ended up having an opportunity to consult with him. I met him at his office, and he asked me if I'd work with him on his Internet video marketing.
I said, "Nothing would make me happier, Tony. In fact, I'll introduce you to the world's greatest Internet marketer." I ended up introducing him to Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, Mike Filsaime, Eben Pagan, and another guy named Brendon Burchard. I don't know if you know any of those names, but they're great marketers and men. Tony said, "How can I repay you?"
At the time, I said, "I don't know, Tony. I don't really want anything. It's all in service. You've done so much for us. I'd be happy doing this." He said, "I want you to think of something." I brainstormed and came up with some ideas, and one of them was a product called the Money Masters series. He ended up interviewing us, these Internet marketers, and creating a whole product around it that I served as a producer on and helped direct, as well.
We ended up shooting it in my studio. I'm selling this program and product, and I've had the opportunity to speak on Tony's stage with him. This whole story has to do with a very simple concept, which is that every single expert, author, movie star, or life-changer needs the exact same thing, and that's proof that their systems work. If you just buy someone's stuff, prove it works, and become their greatest success story, you not only get associated with their brand, but they're going to go out of their way to make you famous.
Along the way, it's going to help them become even more successful. In fact, I became an affiliate for Tony and made thousands and thousands of dollars promoting his product. I'm one of his success stories. I would say that we all consume stuff and buy products, and every one of those companies, or most of them these days, has an affiliate program. You can just make a review video and talk about the power, experience, and benefits of using that program.
Drive that traffic right to their sales pages and get paid to do it. I do it all the time. I make thousands of dollars a month from affiliate marketing doing it on the side. This is how it's done. You never know if some of those people who you're supporting will call you up one day and ask you to participate in their businesses, just like I have with Tony.
RIC THOMPSON: Listeners, I hope you were taking notes because it's multimillion-dollar advice that he just passed out to you. Really take that to heart because that's huge.
MIKE KOENIGS: Absolutely. It's really strong. Maybe I'll give you one more really powerful strategy, then we'll get into some of the how-to's. I call this my '10-Year, $10-Million Mistake'. It's really how I doubled my income by fixing a simple problem in less than 30 days. Do you want to hear this or should I skip it?
RIC THOMPSON: I know I'm all ears, so I'm going to assume everybody else is, too. If they're not, too bad. They can go get a drink of water in the next few minutes.
MIKE KOENIGS: They can just go away for a little while. Here's what it is.
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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