Now here’s a summary of Chapter 7 – “The Perfect Path To 7 Figures”.
In this Chapter of the book, Dean sets out the three phases of the plan that took him from being able to quit the lowly paid day job he hated to being a millionaire, running his own company, employing a growing number of devoted employees. I would have included more links to chapter 11 – “The Ultimate Funnel” in this chapter, as Dean does in the video at the bottom of his blog, but to make up for that I have added a few tidbits of my own that I think are important. I hope that Dean does not mind me adding a little to his thought process.
Phase 1: The Connector Phase
In this phase you only need to be able to introduce prospects that you have managed to get onto your email list to products that you know will help them in their quest to become successful in whatever venture they are working on. In other words, you “connect” potential customers to suppliers of products or services. To do this you only need to succeed at the first three of the Four Core Areas Of Focus as set out in Chapter 5 of the book and summarized by me in four earlier blog posts.
You should not have to worry about the fourth area, the Sales System, as this should be the concern of the product or service provider. Your duties end when the prospect visits the sales page using your affiliate link.
In the previous Chapter and blog post it was explained that making a profit being a simple Affiliate Marketer is not now as easy as it used to be. However, Dean’s solution to this problem will be addressed in later Chapters of the book, especially chapter 11, and Dean is still confident that between $3,000 and $10,000 profit per month could be earned by someone who has no ambition to go to phases 2 or 3.
Phase 2: The Creator Phase
In this phase, if you decide to enter it, You must use the knowledge and experience you gained during your journey through phase 1 to be able to create your own product or service that will be of use to your followers. At the very least, you must have built up a relationship with somebody who, in return for payment, will be able to create a product for you, to your specifications.
However, there are several other things that you have to be able to do before you can start selling your product to your audience, and possibly have affiliates sell for you before you can succeed at this phase. Take the following for example:
- Create your own ultimate funnel, which will need to contain at least two products of lesser value than your home-grown product or service. (See Chapter 11).
- Be able to process payments and the inevitable refunds.
- Be able to answer queries and complaints promptly.
- Possibly provide training material.
And, I expect that there are any other requirements that have not immediately come to mind.
There are many new skills that you have to learn before you can successfully operate a business in phase 2. However, these skills must be added to the skills you acquired in phase 1. So please never try to start your business in phase 2, always gain the experience of operating in phase 1 first. You must be able to commit 100% of your time when you are operating in phase 2, so you must have the successful experiences you enjoyed in phase 1 to fall back on in an emergency.
Dean suggests that in phase 1 your potential income is uncapped. However, I think that this is a little unrealistic and I would put the figure in the multiple Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars per year but nowhere near One Million. So if you want to earn the magical seven figures, you will need to move into phase 3, which we will discuss below.
Phase 3: The Commander Phase
In phase 3 you have to begin a proper full-time business. This will force you to get involved in many things, some of which may not be directly related to Affiliate Marketing. For example:
- Employing staff. This will mean that you will need to have a basic grasp of employment law,
- Learning to delegate to employees to do the day-to-day work.
- Possibly renting or buying office space.
- Dealing with accountants, lawyers, and bankers.
- Starting a limited company and learning the basics of company law.
The list could be continued for pages. But to sum up, phase 3 is correctly named. Similar to a commander in an army, the once private has climbed through the ranks and now, instead of fighting in the trenches, the successful entrepreneur is more involved in forward-thinking, strategic planning, and training his underlings as well as, in the case of the C.E.O. of an Affiliate Marketing company also training his customers, A.K.A., in Dean’s case, his partners.
For any commander of an Affiliate Marketing company, the potential income really is uncapped. As the header of all the pages of this blog states, “The Sky Is The Limit To Your Potential Income”. The A.I. generated photo near the top right of this blog post, which was generated by an app provided by Dean to his customers, A.K.A. his “partners” has an error in it. The signpost pointing along the path says that it’s the way to $1,000,000. It really should state “Uncapped Riches”.
Cheers
Phil