Ian McConnell

.
Hi, my name is Ian McConnell. I’m a Husband, a Dad to 2 teenage boys, an ex-electrician and live in Bunbury, Western Australia.

I often get asked how I made $82,030.27 in less than 12 months by selling a simple “how to” guide on the internet.

It’s a downloadable guide on “how to start a model railway”, which only took about 2 weeks to write.

In this post I hope to answer that question, reveal some of my secrets and inspire you to go and do it for yourself.

The Short Story

When I look back at what I’ve achieved online, it was actually very simple! I found a market looking for answers and gave them what they wanted!

Here are the basic steps:

Step 1 – I researched and found a market where people were asking a lot of questions and I knew something about.

Step 2 – I bought all the downloadable products available (only 2 at the time) and a few physical books on the subject and read them.

Step 3 – I spent about 3 hours a day for 2 weeks writing a 100+ page ebook that answered all the questions people were asking and offered it for sale on Clickbank.

Step 4 – I used the ebook content to create a membership site and charged a monthly fee for access to the content.

It’s a simple strategy that anyone can apply, to any knowledge that they have. Stay with me and I’ll show you how…

There are people willing to pay you for the information you have…
…Especially if it solves a problem, or saves them time or money!

You see, I didn’t discover an untapped market. There were hundreds of books, thousands of websites and many magazines offering the same information.

I just offered another opportunity for the customer to buy something!

Think of the keen golfer, gardener, guitarist, fisherman, scrapbooker or horserider… Do you think they buy one book or magazine related to their passion? No, most of the time they are so passionate about their interest that they will buy many.

So, that’s what I did… I offered something else for the model railroader to buy!

And… don’t think that you have to be the absolute expert to sell your information. Believe me, I wasn’t the model railroading expert, but if I was asked a question and didn’t have the answer I would go and find it. People appreciate that.

If you are interested in creating your own membership site, contact me here.

Liked This? Get The Updates (Free)

The Full Story

In 2009 I wrote an ebook called “The Instant Profit Multiplier” which was based on my success as a business owner.

Over the previous 20 years I had had many service based businesses (electrical, data cabling, telephone systems) and a manufacturing business (automatic gates).

They ranged from having 40 employees to just 1 employee.

But, something I learned from those businesses is that, as the business owner, you have to become very good at marketing that business.

It is absolutely essential that you become a master of marketing!

So, I studied how to market my business really well.

I learned about direct mail, how to write better adverts, how to build strategic partnerships, how to encourage referrals and how to measure the return on investment of the marketing methods.

Very quickly I found what worked and did more of that. I dumped the marketing that didn’t work and learned never to follow the conventional industry type of marketing.

I’ll never forget the first direct mail letter I sent out to about 200 local businesses. It took me about 4 hours to write the letter. Including the postage, it cost about $300 to send out.

The very first phone call from the mailing resulted in a $13,000 order… woohoo!

But, that was nothing compared to marketing on the internet.

After asking a few questions I found out that most of my potential customers were searching online for reviews and comparisons before purchasing. So, by placing my offer online I was seen by these potential customers.

And, by building a website I could provide an online catalog with testimonials and provide as much or as little information as the customer wanted.

I could even take orders and payments online!

Then I discovered that if I offered a free report with advice or tips on buying the product, the customer would give me their name and email address to get access to the free report. I could then email market to them, and, if they didn’t want what I had to offer, I could offer them a competitors product and make a commission from the sale.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that marketing on the internet was so much easier and cheaper than using the yellow pages, newspapers and magazines.

But, I also discovered that I was making more money from selling information products than supplying the actual service or physical product.

I had also discovered that people would pay $7 to $27 for a downloadable guide on how to choose the best xyz for their business/ office/ home and I could sell these guides around the world 24/7.

I had gone from supplying and installing a product locally to selling a downloadable product (that had taken a few days to create) around the world while I slept.

I had become very knowledgeable at creating websites quickly using WordPress and seen the importance of providing great content on those websites.

My content was getting picked up by the search engines and delivering thousands of new visitors to my website.

I had learned to use keyword tools to optimize my site. This helped to create information that people were actually searching for.

Marketing on the internet had become very exciting and if I ever get to talk to you, you will hear the passion in my voice.

I love this game!

It wasn’t always easy though.  I did my time, like everyone seems to do, where I bought every product available on internet marketing and chased the next shiny dollar.

But, after 12 months of that, I realized I was getting nowhere. I had a huge amount of knowledge and wasn’t applying it. I knew of all these different strategies and tactics, and needed to pick one to implement.

That’s when Model Trains For Beginners was born.

I created the blog and initially sold a competitors information product for a 60% commission. It sold very well but the refund rate was very high, so I created my own ebook.

After selling hundreds of copies of the ebook I added a membership component.

The deal was that the customer would buy the ebook and get the first 30 days membership free. If they didn’t cancel they would be automatically billed $27 every month.

Over 1,200 members have been through the Insiders Cluband it has been a great source of recurring income. I can’t think of a better way to earn a living… It’s awesome!

Liked This? Get The Updates (Free)

What Are The Secrets?

I have hundreds of affiliates promoting my different products and the biggest mistake I see over and over again is a lack of focus.

Newbies will try and sell one product and if they don’t make any sales after a few days, or a week, they will move onto selling another product to a completely different market.

This is a huge mistake.

If you have done your research, which is basically identifying if there are other people making money in this market, then you should only focus on that market.

Clickbank Marketplace Statistics (click here to view update)

This takes great discipline because you will be constantly distracted with the next “guru” claiming he or she has the next best strategy to make money online.

You will always wonder if the niche you have chosen is the best one to make money in, or if one of the thousands of others would have been a better choice.

When I chose the model train market I struggled to make a profit in the first few months. I was making sales, but the advertising was costing me more than the profit from the sales. I often thought I should dump the niche and go into the play guitar market, or build a shed market, because that’s what where the money appeared to be.

Fortunately, I persevered! You see, by focusing on the one market I was able to find out exactly what the market wanted. I could tweak my website and get better conversions. I had metrics that I could manage and I wasn’t getting overwhelmed or confused.

I implemented article marketing and started getting more and more free traffic. I tweaked the sales process and now our affiliates are earning an average of $78.29 per sale!

And we”ll keep going to make the system better and better.

So, the secret is to focus…

One website, one product (affiliate product initially), one traffic source and one mentor. Ignore the distractions, ignore the emails promising you millions… Just focus!

I hope this has helped you and please comment or ask any questions you may have… I want to help you succeed.

Have Fun…

Ian McConnell

P.S. Seriously… Selling information on the internet is a great way to make some money and almost anyone can do this. Imagine having a business that you can operate from home (or anywhere) with a laptop and internet connection… And make as much or as little money as you want… Give it a go!

Liked This? Get The Updates (Free)