Make Money Online

Alex Maroko Interview – Young Entrepreneur Making 6 Figures In His First Year Online

Posted on 26. Aug, 2009 by Michael in Make Money

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Hello Everyone,

Today I’m with Alex Maroko. I met him back in March at Yanik Silver’s Underground Online Seminar event and we have kept in regular contact since. He was one of the scholarship winners for the Young Entrepreneur program. Back then, he wasn’t doing too much online, but today he’s done two launches which has earned him 6 figures, not bad for 5 months and being 20 years old. This interview is for those who need a kick up the butt and shown just how easy it can be when you do it the right way.

To check out Alex’s websites, visit: Truth About Quickness and Basketball Fit.

Interview Transcript:

Where were you back in March? From what I understand, you weren’t making much online, and now you’re making big figures. I just want to take us back to what you were doing right then.

Alex: Well, like you said, I was doing little to nothing at the time back in March. It’s really surprising that I even got one of the scholarships to go to Yanik’s event. What I had up to that point was one e-book that I had set up. I had one of my good friends who knew more about technical Internet stuff than me set up a website for me, a WordPress site, and we created a simple sales page. We took payments through PayPal, and it was for basketball training, just an e-book for basketball training.

I think the first price I sold it for was like $14.95, because I didn’t think anyone could ever pay me for anything online. I think everyone devalues what they know when they start. That was basically how I started online.

I’m a trainer originally. I train athletes specifically, and I knew a couple other trainers, who were in different markets, who were already marketing online and making decent money online.

I thought: Hey, why don’t I give this a shot? Why don’t I give this a try? That was how I came to write the e-book originally. I wrote it I think back in November, and we threw it up on a website. We might have sold 10 copies or something in a matter of a few months.

That’s basically what I had done up to the point of Yanik’s Underground Seminar in March where I met you. That was basically what I had done up to that point. Nothing, basically.

Where was the break for you, from goingq from nothing, to your very first launch just months later doing $20, 000? What hit you

Alex: I can’t actually pinpoint it on a certain event or person I met at Yanik’s event, but it was the entire event really opened my eyes to what I could be doing online. It was the relationships I built from the people I met at that event. I’ve been to a few seminars since, and I’m sure you agree that you don’t see the type of turnout of Internet marketers that you get at Yanik’s event. It really is the cream of the crop who are there in the audience taking notes.

Those are the people at my first event that I was mixing and mingling with and learning from, and now these people I still talk to on a regular basis. It was really just seeing that all these guys are doing it. They’re not necessarily any smarter than me. They don’t have anything special that I don’t have. I can do this.

Once that little voice of doubt that had been in my head was erased, there really wasn’t anything holding me back. I learned some technical things at Yanik’s event, but it really was more about really opening my eyes to the possibilities. From there, you start researching. You start learning.

I really liked this launching products online initially. I basically had this great idea. I had the product already done. I know it’s a good product. I’ve gotten good feedback on it from all of the nine people who had purchased it so far.

So I’m like, I think I should “relaunch” this thing, and see what we can do. That’s basically how that went.

If you had to point out one person you met at the event and how they impacted on your business, who would you say it was?

Alex: It definitely wasn’t this guy Michael Dunlop. He actually… The first guy that comes to mind is a guy named Craig Ballantyne, who is a really, really phenomenal Internet marketer. He sells a lot of different fat-loss information. He has a product that’s called “Turbulence Training, ” if anyone wants to check him out.

I actually met him. I got to go to Yanik’s Maverick Mastermind luncheon, I think he called it. It was all his Mastermind members. They had a special luncheon at the seminar.

As one of the scholarship winners, they had me go up and explain where I was in my business and what I was looking to do. Then you have all of Yanik’s Mastermind members help you. You’re on the hot seat, and they’re breaking down your business for you right there.

He was in the audience at that time, and he came up and just started offering information and help. We ended up spending the whole weekend. We probably met three or four times over that weekend, probably two or three hours total, going over my business.

He was helping me with my long-term plans, and where I needed to go, and all these different things that he charges like $1,000 an hour for. It was really, really cool, and we’ve stayed in touch since then.

I joined his Mastermind group right now, so I’m in that. It’s been a great help, obviously. So Craig was the main guy who helped me.

Just a couple other names who I met and really helped me out. There’s a guy named Greg Poulos who was there. He is an Internet marketer in the stock trading market. He does a lot of things with launches and relaunches.

That’s where I got the whole launch idea from. I still stay in touch with him. It turned out we live about 20 minutes away, so that was pretty cool.

Yanik, also I got to talk to him for a little bit. He’s just a brilliant, really awesome guy. None of it obviously would have been possible without him, so if he ever hears this, thanks, Yanik. It was huge for me.

If you had to give any advice to anyone who is right now in your situation – they’ve already got product, it’s only sold a few copies, and they’ve realized they can actually sell a lot more – what would you say to them? How should they go about doing exactly what you’ve done?

Alex: Sure. It’s a tough question. When I say it now, I’m going to say that it’s really not that hard to sell a product online. People listening go, “That’s B.S. Obviously, it is hard. Not everybody is doing it. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.” But there are really only a few things that you really have to take care of. You’ve just got to have patience with it, and once you do those things, it’s going to work out for you.

You set up your product. You set up your offer, your sales copy, your funnel with your upsells and whatever. Once you have all that set up, at that point, you really need targeted traffic. You need people to come to your site, and if you get enough people, you’re going to sell more products.

That’s a big problem. Michael, obviously you help everyone who follows you on IncomeDiary and Retire At 21 with traffic generation and things like that. You do SEO. You write your articles. You make your videos. You work with links, and back-links and things like that.

If you want to try it, you can try Google AdWords. That’s a simple thing to do to start driving traffic immediately.

A big thing that I really worked on is my affiliates. What I mean by that is I’m finding people who are already established in my market or in peripheral markets who can push my products to their already-established list of their subscribers and really recruit them to help sell my products.

That’s a really easy way to start getting lots of targeted traffic to your website. Those are people that you can eventually sell to.

You can do the SEO. You can do the paid traffic. You can do all those things, but I really like the idea of working with affiliates. If you set up a product at ClickBank, it’s really easy to give them a big commission. I usually give 50 percent of every sale to my affiliates.

I do a lot of work with recruiting my affiliates. I give them PDF reports, not to get to their list. Those are reports I write just for them so they can understand how this is going to work, how this is going to convert, how easy I’m going to make this for them.

Really take care of your affiliates. Go out and find as many as you can. Have an open mind about it. Someone like Gary Vee, who sells wine products, obviously he sells things like cheese products to go with his wine, things like that. You can find people in other markets that are related, and you can use those people’s affiliates to sell your products.

I really liked the idea initially of working with affiliates, and really taking care of them and showing them how easy it is to sell; and they’ll sell for you forever. They throw a few emails in their autoresponder. If you do a mini-launch with their people, a promotion – there are lots of things you can do to start moving product.

What’s really cool about ClickBank is if you do something like a launch or a big promotion with a few different affiliates, and you sell a lot of products in a short period of time, your product is going to jump up the rankings on the pages on ClickBank.

Once you’re on that first page on ClickBank, all those affiliates in that huge affiliate network are going to find you, and then you have all of these brand-new affiliates who are going to start pushing your product.

So there are a lot of benefits where I think working with affiliates and selling a lot of product in a very short…

I know a lot of people will say that it’s not a long-term solution because you need new customers, so I like the idea of using the affiliates initially to bring in all this traffic and customers while at the same time you’re working on your SEO stuff, your PPC stuff. That’s more the long term.

So up-front you work with the affiliates, and then you’re building that stuff right now to work for you in the long term.

You do sell many things online, but what do you do that takes your business further? Do you Twitter? Do you blog? What brings you out in front of everyone and makes you stand out?

Alex: Sure. It’s really… makes me stand out. I don’t really stand out. Just joking. I blog. That’s something I’ve gotten into in the last couple months, and through there, I just give a lot of free information and try and help the people on my list. A good tip I picked up is every time you can move any of your subscribers, even it’s just an inch or a foot, closer to the goal, to the spot that they want to get to, any time you can move them a little bit closer, they’re going to trust you more. They’re going to like you more, and they’re going to buy more from you.

That’s really my focus with all the blogging I do – I am on Twitter – with the tweeting I do, any articles I write or any videos I make. All I’m focusing on is moving any of my subscribers closer to the spot that they want to get to. That’s my goal.

You can talk about positioning, and branding and things like that, but if they feel like you’re helping them specifically, I think that’s going to make a big difference for you long term in terms of them buying stuff from you or really following you closely.

One of your products is called  “The Truth About Quickness” ~ Do you think it’s important to niche yourself further down, because “Quickness” is only a small bit about running and being an athlete? Do you think people with small niches should go into business with making a product?

Alex: Yes, absolutely. Niche marketing is a huge piece in terms of marketing. It’s a very general piece that I think a lot of people mistake themselves in it to start. I would say that niche marketing, finding your niche, finding your people, is one of the most important things you can do if you’re going to be selling info products online.

You talk about something like quickness, which for an athlete is just one component of training as an athlete, yet obviously you can tell what I did that there is a market for it.

If you’re in some type of small niche, that’s what your expertise is in, and you don’t think anyone’s out there to buy it. I think it’s evidenced by “The Truth About Quickness” you definitely can make it.

There are lots of people I know who are in really, really tiny niches who do incredible things. It just comes down to the marketing. Yes, I definitely think people who are in tiny niches can do really well online.

Michael: Just to add to that, I think it is important to niche yourself a lot. For example, if you want to do a product about being an Internet entrepreneur and how to make money online, loads of people are interested, but the likelihood of you knowing everything… There’s a saying, jack of all trades, master of none. Although that’s great for being an Internet entrepreneur, when you want to learn from someone, you want to learn from the best at something very small.

For example, if you’re the best at quickness, I should go to you instead of getting a product about fitness, and only having a little bit about fitness where it’s not so detailed, and obviously the guy doesn’t know so much about.

So when it’s with niches, I think it’s really important to be the best at that so you can provide the most value. I think that’s great that you’ve niched yourself down, and I think everyone listening to this should focus on niching themselves as far down as possible, just being the master at one thing and then sharing that.

Alex: To add to that, the person out there who is searching for this information, you’re speaking directly to them. If there is someone who is online and searching “how to get quicker” and they find some do-all, giant fitness product, they might not be interested. But if they find a specific product that’s just about quickness, you’re talking to them, and they’re a lot easier to convert.

Great advice. You went from doing a $20,000 launch to your next launch being at $75,000. What took you from 20 to 75? What was the key element?

Alex: I charged a lot more for my product.

Michael: Do you think pricing is important, then? Having a bigger price?

Alex: Yes. That wasn’t the biggest difference. Obviously, price elasticity is a giant thing. It’s really something you can’t be set on, that this is the price and this is what I’m going to charge for it. You’ve got to test different prices and find out what the market is willing to pay for it because a lot of people are leaving a lot of money on the table when they just get stuck on a price, or they don’t think people will pay that much for it.

There’s definitely something to be said for perceived value of a product in that if you have product A and product B, and they’re the exact same thing, but product A costs $20 and product B costs $100, I would be willing to bet that more people would be more interested in product B simply because it costs more, and therefore it has to be better. So that’s something to keep in mind.

This was a bigger product. I did add a lot more value to it than the first product I did so I could charge more for it. I just learned. You learn a lot from the first launch things that I did wrong that I wanted to do better this time around, which I think I did.

Obviously there are still a lot of mistakes I made. This is my first time announcing this, but we started collecting opt-ins for the pre-launch at midnight. I think it was on a Tuesday, Tuesday at midnight or something like that. The AWeber code for the opt-in didn’t even work for the first half-hour.

We had something like 400 or 500 people come to the site in the first half-hour as some affiliates sent out emails, and we couldn’t even collect their emails. There were a lot of mistakes that we made this time around, and we obviously still did well.

So you’re never great at what you’re doing. You’re always learning. Everything is just a learning process that you can build on. There are a couple of things I learned the first time around that I was able to implement this time around that I fixed, and I think it made a really big difference.

One thing we did this time that we didn’t do last time was we did a blog, not add a blog contest, but we did a contest during the pre-launch where I offered a free product of “The Truth About Quickness” to everyone on the pre-launch list based on the best response I got for why they wanted it, why they deserved it, what they were going to do with it once they got it, as an athlete.

We ended up getting over 1,200 responses in terms of emails back after I put out that call. So not only was I able to give away a free product during the pre-launch, but that social proof from being able to get 1,200 emails about this is huge.

People who are on the fence are now like, wow, there are 1,200 other people who are that interested in this? Maybe this is something I should consider. I probably should be doing this. It’s just that groupthink theory where if everyone’s doing it, then it must be right.

That was a mistake I made also right there, which I don’t know if anyone caught that. It was just in emails that I did the contest. I had people emailing me back telling me why they wanted it.

What I should have done was put it on a blog and had 1,200 comments on it. That would have been even better, obviously. Next launch I do, obviously I’m going to have that ready.

But you’re always learning. That’s the key, and to make sure that you notice your mistakes, and you figure out how you can improve them and then just implement it at that point.

Michael: All right. Wicked. We were talking about pricing. I think it’s important to quickly note that a lot of people who do start products… Like you said yourself, you charged like $14 or something when you first were creating a product. There’s a big difference to doing offline and online, but there are a lot of people who do their paperback books, and they can’t sell for too much. But when you’re online, you have more of a chance to market yourself. If you’re changing lives, which a lot of us are doing because you’re giving the information that can drastically change what they’re doing.

You can’t really even put a price on that, so you can charge a lot more. It may sound not right, but for you to have to share that information, it should be worth something. So I think you should definitely explore the pricing. That’s good.

We have been mentioning events and seminars. Do you think it’s important to get to these things? Because you’re in a mass mind group. You went to Yaniks, you went to Ryan’s, and you’ve gone to a few others I believe. Do you think it’s important that people go to these events?

Alex: I think it is uniquely important. I think it’s almost a must for anyone who really wants to succeed in this business. And it’s not for what you — at the seminars. The two biggest things I’ve learned at seminars, and it’s been the same in all of them, is it’s about the people you meet and network with while you’ve there. And it’s also the feeling that you have after you leave. You’re never as motivated as you are when you leave a seminar, it’s incredibly how the week after every seminar I’ve even been to I get so much work done in the week it is literally remarkable. I’ll have all these great ideas coming in my head at that time.

So just for that feeling I get after a seminar, I think it’s amazingly important. And then obviously, as I said before, it’s the people you meet at these seminars a network with. All the joint venture opportunities, all the learning opportunities, so many different things that happen at seminars that you can’t do from your home.

So I hugely, hugely recommend to anybody listening that you pay whatever thee fee is to go to any of these seminars and you just do it. Because it’s going to be worth at least 10 times back whatever you pay to go.

Michael: I can remember when we got back from Yanik’s, it was in the – because it was the first time I had a real good opportunity to hang out with like minded and the same sort of age as me. Because usually every one is 12,10 years at least older than me. So I hadn’t really had that opportunity, and this time they had 10 young entrepreneurs there. And most of them were around 18 to 20 years old. So that was cool. But when we got back from – actually at the event, I can remember we were in the lobby. There were only like five, six of us and we were constantly throwing ideas at each other an networking and just trying to help each other out. But when I got back, we all exchange Skype, and at least five or six of constantly in a conference call while we’re working. And I remember up to being three or four AM in the morning. I was trying to work on American time, because you’re all American. And we we’re – I’ve never been so motivate, I’ve never done so much work. That was exactly…

Because of Yanik’s event I actually started an income because I had the idea for it, but I had to have something to push me to actually do it, something to motivate me. And that’s the thing, we all have these ideas but we never always have the confidence or really have that push to do it. And that’s what the seminars do. And you meet people who will push you to do it as well. That’s exactly how I felt about it. It was brilliant. Not just for me Alex of course.

So I’ve got a few quick fire questions to end of the interview. If you had to choose one thing that you like most about the Internet, what would it be?

Alex: The massive amount of people that I can reach and help. As apposed to just working in my local market. The Internet market in humongous and I can help out so many more athletes this way, than if I just stuck to the local gym or something like that.

What do you like least about the Internet?

Alex: Way too much free times on my hands right now, I don’t know what to do with myself.

This brings me to the Internet lifestyle. What is your definition of the Internet lifestyle? How do you live it?

Alex: Yeah. It’s unbelievable. Like I told you, I just bought a brand new convertible. I’m only 20 years old, but I’m driving around in that. I went to a dealership. Like I told you I couldn’t even get credit to get a loan or anything. I literally had to find a car that I could just pay cash for. So I literally wrote a check and bought a car. I couldn’t have done that no other way without the Internet. So it’s like I wake up, I sleep in, I write some emails, I might blogs, or make a video, or write an article. But there’s not much I can do right now. I’m just trying to – I’m just enjoying it. I see a lot of movies. I hang out with my friends. I have freedom. I can do what I want. The Internet’s provided that for me.

Michael: Incredible. And only after six or seven months, even if that.

Alex: It’s about five months at this point.

Michael: So you’ve gone from five months making like 100 bucks from any book, to doing like 75 grand in like a week. That’s incredible. And what was the face of the guy that…

Alex: Basically zero to six figures in about four months. Incredibly cool.

Michael: And if you had to – and what was the guys face at the dealership like when some 20-year-old kid walks in and say “Ah I’ll just take this convertible please?”

Alex: I think he was just excited to get all that money up front.

Michael: I’m sure he doesn’t get that very often. All right, cool.

What’ the best advice you’ve ever been given?

Alex: I’m going to say two things here. The first thing that everybody just needs to pay attention to is if you have an idea, if you have something you think you could be doing, that you just need to forget everything else and take action with it. You need to take massive action with whatever you’re doing. Don’t let the naysayers or whatever you’re hearing hold you back. That’s been the biggest thing for me. It’s not that I’m uniquely creative or intelligent or anything like that. It’s just been the massive speed of implementation that I’ve been able to do. So that’s the first thing, just take massive action with whatever you’re doing. Don’t let doubts or anything hold you back. You got to try and capture that post seminar feeling all the time. It will make a huge difference for you.

Alex: The second thing, which I’m kind of learning right now is that once you have your subscribes, once you have your followers, and the people who are buying from you, customers and things like that. Don’t just create products that you think they’ll want. I know a lot of people who create products because they think want it or… What you need to be doing, is you need to be always, always, away surveying your list. Find out what it is that they’re having problems with. And then your create the solution for them. And that’s where you product comes in.

I’m doing a lot of that rights now. It’s really surveying them and finding out what they want, so I know where to go next. I don’t care what it is that I want. I care what they want. And that’ what I’m going to be providing for them.

Michael: That’s a really great way to look at everything. You did just mention the fact that so many people are negative. Especial when you’re young and you say “This year I’m going to go off a build myself and Internet business that makes six figures.” So many people especially when you’re young, when you say that people just like laugh at you and just say “No you’re not going to do it,” and put you down and make fun of you.

What you say to other people in your position, when you were starting to get over that? Because it can affect a lot of people. When some one says “No, you wont do this, ” it does take you back, and it does affect you. So what would you say to people?

Alex: The biggest thing is that you’ve got to obviously ignore them and focus on what you’re doing. And you can’t really let things like that get in your way. And obviously that’s easier said than done. A cool thing I like to do whenever I feel like “How can I do this? I’m to young. I don’t know enough, ” all those types of things. I literally – this kind of a plug for you, but it’s true. Just go on Income Diary, go on Retire at 21 and just read one of those interview and tell me by the time that you’re done reading that interview your not… Make an effort to do what you need to do. It makes a huge difference.

I really like to read interviews whenever I feel like that. So I definitely recommend other people to go on either of Michael’s sites and read any of those awesome, awesome interviews with those awesome entrepreneurs that he’s done, and tell me if you still fell like you can’t do it after.

Alex: The big guy who’ve I’ve learned more about marketing from than any one else is easily Frank Kern. I think all the information he put out is just awesome. I love the way he runs his business, and how he set it up so he doesn’t work very often, and when he does he’s providing awesome value for his costumers. And he does it in a really cool way that people like. And it’s not coming off as marketing, it’s coming off as you’re their friend and you’re like “Hey, let me help you out. This is pretty cool”

So I really, really like Frank Kern. I studied everything that he puts out. And I’m kind of trying to model myself after him, no question about it.

To check out Alex’s websites, visit: Truth About Quickness and Basketball Fit.

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