On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Robert Coorey, a number one bestselling author, reality TV pilot host, and successful marketer. Robert was recently listed as one of Australia’s Top 50 Entrepreneurs by Startup Australia. In the past 18 months, he has built a super responsive global online community of serious business owners, and almost broke the world record for the most people on a webinar. If you want to know more about reality TV, strategies for live events and webinars, this is a jam-packed episode!
Main Questions Asked:
- How is your reality show different from Bar Rescue or The Profit?
- How did you make the Hollywood connection for the reality TV show?
- What is your book Feed A Starving Crowd about?
- What was your intent in sending ‘lumpy mail’ to a Hollywood producer?
- How many people did you send the package to and what was the response?
- Talk about getting named as one for the Top 50 Entrepreneurs by Startup Australia.
- What are strategies for getting people to register for live events?
- What do you think of pre-recorded webinars that keep running prior to live events?
Key Lessons Learned:
- Robert’s reality show Business Rescue turns around a failing business in 30 days with little or no cash.
- People forget you can start a business with little-to-no money.
- Robert used a ‘lumpy mail’ package to present his book Feed A Starving Crowd to all the influential people he knew.
- Feed a Starving Crowd is about 227 marketing strategies that cost little-to-no money to execute. 174 strategies in the book need no money to implement.
- Robert used direct response marketing and sent his lumpy mail to 100 people, and most replied positively.
- There is a correlation between a post an influential person or celebrity creates on social media and website traffic and sales.
- When you want to connect with someone highly influential, make sure you do so without expecting something in return, and always provide value.
Live Events
- Small connections lead to big connections when it comes to business relationships.
- Live events are important; however, keep in mind that it is extremely difficult to get people to attend.
- The conversion rates of live events are significant with regards to getting people into higher priced programs.
- Before starting a live event you need to lock down the pain points of the customer, and focus on those in your copy.
- If you are not promising a solution to someone’s pain point, then they are not likely to join your event.
Strategies for Live Events
- A strategy for getting people into seats at live events is to hold a free event beforehand, and do the actual pitch at the event. This removes the barrier for entry. You can get a lot of people in the room at a lower cost.
- The main complaint with free events is that the ‘show up’ rate is low, e.g. 25-50%.
- Despite low ‘show up’ rates, it is important to remember that you will have captured details such as email and phone numbers.
- No one is going to fly to a free event so it’s a great idea to have free webinars leading up to a paid event. Robert suggests doing a national tour of live meet-ups in major cities.
- Feeder events are free online events where the live event is pitched.
- Robert suggests 2 or 3 live feeder events with a repetitive message.
- For people to pay for a live event you have to have a lot of value to offer, so it is best to ‘warm them up’, to start with using free opt-ins prior to asking to buy.
- Professionals don’t give away too much content in the free event.
- Amateurs give away too much content and use the free event as a training event.
- When amateurs ask people to buy, they lose out as attendees feel as though they have already received enough content.
- The standard webinar template is intro, building the pain points, 3-4 solid pieces of content, and, finally, move into the pitch.
- You should only take advice from people making a lot more money that you.
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The music in today’s episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic
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