Portable Empire visits Armand Live

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Pat with the Twenty Million Dollar Man- Armand Morin

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Last weekend, I took my Portable Empire in for a tune-up at the “Armand Live” seminar in Arlington, Texas. “Armand Live” events have just one speaker- Armand.

Arlington, Texas… well, it’s not exactly a garden spot. Mostly concrete, chain stores, the same restaurants you’d find in any other concrete jungle. However, I wasn’t there for the scenery.

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If you’ve read my books and blogs, you know that I recommend that you follow just one guru for each Internet Marketing skill. Don’t try to follow two copywriting teachers at the same time, for example. You’ll just get conflicting information. It’s confusing.

Find one person who does what you want to learn to do, and model them.

Well, for raw making money, Armand is the guy to follow. He was the number 1 guy in Internet Marketing five years ago when I first started out, and he’s still the number 1 guy, in terms of dollars, strategy, and market share.

He reminds me of a genial, well-dressed shark, scanning his ocean for food.

I like the guy. He’s focused. He filters through different filters than I do. My goal was to get a closer look at his filters, and find out what he’s learned that I can use. Approach it with a “beginner’s mind.” Forget what I know, and learn what he knows. I can always apply my own filters later.

So, I loaded my backpack with t-shirts, jeans, Stephen Mitchell books, and computer… and my Bose speakers. I’ve discovered that I really like having my hotel room feel right, and a big part of that “feelin’ right” feeling is the music. My iPod hooked up to the speakers really helped the ambiance.

Tossed that backpack into the Volvo and drove North to Arlington, which is, I believe I mentioned before, a total and complete dump, to spend the weekend with Armand.

You may have noticed that I’m not a geek. My nerd index is negative seven.

One of the reasons I enjoy Armand’s company is that he is an Uber-Nerd. His nerd index is +23.173. He tests everything. From the fonts and font sizes of his sales pages to which kind of border around which colored opt-in box will increase conversion the most to how many graphics to have on an opt-in page and what the alt-text should be…

Personally, I couldn’t be bothered. I’m tickled chartreuse that Armand can be bothered because I (and you) can just piggy-back on his testing.

For example, there are a million ways to write a sales page. Here’s Armand’s way:

intro – start with shocking statement. tell your story

problem

agitate the problem

solution- intro to your product

bullet points

features and benefits

bonus

guarantee

order area

PS

Here’s Armand’s formula for an Opt-In page:

opt-in page components

Logo
Headline
Description
opt-in box
bribe

armand believes strongly in logos.

the opt-in page copy works like this:

headline
bribe
tell them what to do
tell them what will happen next
tell them what to do
don’t wait
tell them wait to do

(shut up)

I like it.

Simple and to the point.

Here’s an Armand quote for you-

“Don’t think in terms of products. Think in Terms of product lines.”

Here’s another:

“The objective in most marketing is for you to NOT think. If you think, you’ll screw up.”

Now, you know that my philosophy is that there is SO much more to running an online business than making money… having a large list and a voice online gives us the opportunity to influence people, and hopefully, change the world into a better and better place.

That’s the plan. My reading of the Tao te Ching leads me to believe that it’s an unrealistic goal, but what the hell- ya gotta do something with your time on this spinning globe.

The inverse of all that is that if you have a business, and that business doesn’t make money, then you are part of the problem. You are NOT part of the solution.

My business did just under half a million bucks last year, gross. Armand’s did just over twenty million. The conclusion I draw from this is that Armand knows at least forty times more about making money than I do. I’m pleased to learn.

I’m also delighted to implement what I learned.

The most important lesson for me was the AdWords course that Armand presented. He also recorded the lecture “live,” turned it into a product, wrote the sales page (with way too much help from the audience. Leave the guy alone. If you can make twenty million a year, you can spell words any way you want to.) He then recorded the sales page as a camtasia/powerpoint flash video. Live.

Armand has tested every aspect of adwords. He’s tested stuff that you don’t think can be tested.

He showed us some tricks for getting the best quality score- which gives the lowest cost-per-click.

As soon as I got home, I set up a meeting with my web guy and we started implementing what I learned. Today, I’m turning on my first adwords campaign.

(That’s right. I did almost half a million last year without any paid traffic. That’s why I think it’s possible to quickly double my income this year.)

I’ll report back, I promise. I’ll tell you what I learned as soon as I verify that it works. For my testing, I’m using the kind of budgets that a beginning marketer might use.

We’ll talk about google analytics, keyword tool, and spy-fu.

But, not now. I don’t want to teach something I haven’t mastered. Adwords is a little scary. If you screw it up, you can lose your ass. Fast.

I’ll get back to you.

In the meantime- Google has some cool videos on the subject. Here’s a good explanation of quality score and cost per click- enjoy!