Business name: Surefire Marketing, Inc.
Business type: Information Products Online
Location: Potomac, Maryland, USA
The Beginning
When Yanik Silver was only two, he and his family moved to the United States from Russia. With only $256 and little knowledge of the English language, Silver’s father worked hard to build a multimillion-dollar business.
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His work ethic and independent spirit were not lost on his son. While growing up, Silver worked for his dad’s medical sales business, and, in turn, he developed his own entrepreneurial spirit.
Silver eventually launched his own business—a different take on Internet sales utilizing the most important commodity of all: information. Silver has since built a multimillion-dollar Internet business himself, marketing everything from e-books to how-to packages and self-improvement courses.
Today, Silver’s Internet business allows he and his wife and young children to enjoy life at an unhurried and pleasant pace. But regardless of his success, Silver has never forgotten the basic values he learned as he followed in his father’s footsteps.
His business isn’t just about himself. “I’m a firm believer in helping others,” he says. “I want to always give people something that has a value ten to a hundred times what they pay me.”
The Product
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When did you discover your answer?
I woke at 3:00 in the morning, and the idea for instant sales letters just came to me. I could create a package that consisted of sales letters—fill-in-the-blank sales letter tools—for any kind of business. I jumped out of bed, registered the domain (www.instantsalesletters.com), and got to work.
What was your experience with this first Internet business?
After the first month, sales were very solid at $1,800. That wasn’t too bad. Then it went up to about $3,600. Then it progressed to about $7,200 by the third month. By the fourth month, I was doing about $9,000 off this little $29 e-product.
The Website
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How do you create a successful website?
There are two components that must be in place. The first is to sell the product, and the second is to capture information, like an e-mail address, from the people who don’t buy.
How do you write copy that sells successfully?
Present your entire sales message to somebody once you’ve got their attention with the headline. Then counter every objection. Explain your product in detail, provide testimonials, and give them a reason why they should make a purchase.
How do you get people to leave their contact information?
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I give them an incentive (usually a free report or information) to leave their name and e-mail address. Then I use this information to build a mailing list.
The Information
What is another means of generating content?
A great area I love is public domain.
What is public domain?
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Public domain means it’s fallen out of copyright. It literally means belonging to the public. Anything published in the United States before 1923 is public domain now, and anything published and copyrighted in the United States from 1923 to 1963—and not renewed in its twenty-eighth year—is public domain.
How can you use public domain works on your website?
You can do just about anything you want with public domain, which means you can even sell it! You can break it into pieces to use as a giveaway incentive for people’s e-mails. You can have someone scan a public domain book and put it into an e-book to sell.
How can you apply your own copyright to a public domain work?
It’s called a derivative work. And you can do this lots of different ways. You can add your own illustrations, comments, or thoughts to the public domain work. You can record it on audio CD. You can write your own foreword to it, and leave the rest alone. You cannot claim copyright on the material you left alone, but it becomes more unique. You can take pieces of it out, and retitle it. You can create a compilation where you own the order or selection. Finally, you can create video based on the content, and more.
How do you know if something is public domain?
You’ve got to do some searching. I have a course outlining how to do it at www.publicdomainriches.com. One place you can search is www.alibris.com. There’s also a place called www.gutenberg.org with free public domain e-books. The Public Domain by Stephen Fishman is a good resource available on www.amazon.com.
The Marketing
Once you have a website, how do you get more people to visit?
Ways I’ve found that are really good and sustainable are pay-per-click, e-zine ads, articles, and affiliated programs. Pay-per-click is the easiest and quickest way to generate web traffic. These are sites such as Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing.
You mentioned ads in e-zines. How would you go about advertising there?
E-zines are e-mail newsletters. To find an e-zine on your topic, go to a search engine and type in your subject, plus “newsletter e-zine.”
You mentioned that writing articles is another good method of advertising.
One of the very best! Write an article on the subject of whatever you’re selling, and submit it to an article directory. The biggest one is www.ezinearticles.com. When they’re looking for content for their e-zine, the publishers will look at that site. At the end of your article, add a resource box. Articles keep bringing traffic to your website forever. The more articles you get out there, the better.
The Affiliate Program
What about your affiliate program?
This is how you can get hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of people promoting your website for you, and you only pay them when they make a sale.
How did you get started with affiliate programs?
I searched the Internet for keywords and found the top people in the search engines. I went to www.betterwhois.com, and it gives you the identity of the person behind the website. I got their e-mail address, went to each site, wrote them a personal note, talked about their site and what I liked about it, and told them about my product—how well it had sold so far and what kind of affiliate commission I was offering. I offered 45 percent affiliate commission. This means that if they make a sale, no matter what the product sells for, they get 45 percent.
The Advice
What are the different ways people can sell information on the Internet?
You can package information as e-books, membership sites, templates or tools, courses, or anything. Just be creative.
As Silver’s business continues to grow, he keeps one of his basic motivations in mind—helping others. “I have great success stories,” he says. “One is a guy who wanted to move back to his hometown, a tiny town in Mississippi. He hated the big city, and his Internet business let him move.”
Helping others and having plenty of time to spend with his family are wonderful results of years of dedication and independent thinking. These are traits that Silver picked up from his hard-working father. Silver’s father took a step of courage and moved to America, where he built his own multimillion-dollar business. Today, Silver is taking that same spirit and sharing it with people across the United States and around the world.
The Plan to Follow
Step 1
Develop an information product, or use public domain.
Note: Silver says financial, self-improvement, and how-to are the most popular types of information sold on the Internet.
Step 2
Develop a website to sell your products online, and capture contact information from visitors to build a database.
Note: Silver suggests that you keep your site simple. Add an attention-grabbing headline, present your entire sales message in detail, and provide testimonials. Add an incentive (a free report or information.)
Step 3
Market your site with pay-per-click advertising, e-zine ads, and articles.
Note: Silver suggests you write a couple of 500- to 700-word pieces about your product and submit them to article directories. He says this is one of the very best ways to market your product.
Step 4
Set up affiliate programs.
Note: Silver suggests that you search keywords online to find the top twenty companies, and look them up on www.betterwhois.com to find the identity of the people behind the websites. Contact them with your proposal for an affiliate program.
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