I recently had the chance to chat with Andrew Dumont, director of BD at SEOmoz.

I’ve been following him from a distance after discovering his blog so it was awesome to get some facetime to rap BD, life, and other coolness.

In this interview we talk about:

• His introduction to working in tech at the ripe age of 18 years young and various startup experience since then (Tatango -> Seesmic -> SEOmoz)
• How to manage business development relationships when you’re company pivots…a lot
• What the heck business development at SEOmoz actually means
• How he evaluates channel partnerships and the expected conversion rate he anticipates for channel deals. A lot of startup founders need to understand this if they pursue this distribution strategy
• The greatest learning he’s had from bringing his side hustle Stride to market. Stride is simple sales CRM optimized for a small number of high value deals vs. a ginourmous funnel fest – perfect for BD people
• How he manages all of his projects/ambitions while still maintaining balance. I appreciated this insight mucho.

If you prefer audio so you can download this onto your phone and listen to this in transit like a productive little bee head, grab the interview on Soundcloud here…

Andrew is a great dude and definitely someone to watch (hopefully from NYC in the next couple of years). I highly reccomend you check out his blog AndrewDumont.me, Stride, and find him on twitter at @andrewdumont

Psst…if you enjoyed this interview, you can find all 7 other interviews I’ve done on this youtube playlist where I plan on posting all future interviews including one I’m really excited about in the next few weeks ; )

Show notes:

1. Avoiding Burnout article

2. Techcrunch Article about Seesmic

A lot of people in my Skillshare classes ask me whether you should send LinkedIn messages when reaching out to prospects?

Short answer: avoid this at all costs.

In this video below I discuss WHY reaching out someone on LinkedIn hurts your chances of getting a response and the framework I use to determine which method of communication is best for engaging prospects.

In general, I almost always approach people via email because that is where people I do business with interact with contacts they know and trust. That’s the bucket you want to be in – not the random people from Indonesia asking you to join their mastermind group of 28,678 “strategic consultants.”

Using one of the methodologies in this post on how to find email addresses, I’m able to figure out someone’s email 98% of the time.

Again, it’s not to say that I haven’t had any success with sending a LinkedIn message, I just think it’s a suboptimal channel.

If anyone has any other thoughts on the efficacy of LinkedIn messages, please feel free to share in the comments. Also curious to hear if people like video (more vids here)…I’ve been experimenting with delivering content in this form a bit more lately.

I recently talked lifehacks, BD, WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER LINKEDIN MESSAGE SOMEONE etc at the New York Lifehack Meetup. Thanks for having me Sam Hysell!

Below you’ll find some video fun where we talk about:

• How I got involved with SP
• How to take the 80/20 approach to hack networking (shhhh…don’t tell anyone)
• Ways to “create value” for people when trying to network with the big boys
• The art of “creating serendipity” and how I got Keith Ferrazzi, author of my favorite book Never Eat Alone to buy me dinner
• How to give people a personal update on your life without it being a “ME, ME, ME” fest
• What the law of reciprocity is and how to leverage the heck out of it to convince someone to meet you for coffee
• The value of building a portfolio of assets
• How you can use yearly goals to structure each day (warning, To-Do lists are flawed!)
• Some baby steps on sleep hacking

My virtual assistant Josiah (love you dawg) helped break it up into the questions that Sam asked which can be found  each video link so that you don’t have to pan through 1.5 hours of me blabbering.

Note* I originally had all the videos embedded on this page, but it lookkkeeedddd really tacky / toolish so you’re going to have to click through to the YouTube for most of them [insert online marketer cringing here].

Heres’ Johnny…

How’d you get involved in Single Platform? Why do you love business development?

Video: How I Got Involved with SP

You brought up an interesting point at the class I went last week of yours, where with networking you’ve taken a lifehack approach and applied the 80/20 principal to developing your network. Can you tell us a little bit about how you’ve gone about developing your network and meeting people like Charlie O’Donnell?

What are some other ways you create value or sustain that creation of value aside from the content, maybe more on an individual level?

Video Fun: Ways to Create Value for Others

I remember in your class you mentioned an example when you went down to a conference and you staged a random shoulder bump with someone you wanted to meet and you already had a speech prepared for what you wanted to talk about. What are some of the key elements that make a strong first impression that’s going to make a sustainable lasting relationship? (Includes storytime: how I met Keith Ferrazzi)

Video: The Art of Creating Serendipity to Meet and Impress Awesome People

Yeah Keith!

How do you give a progress update to someone you want to maintain a relationship with, without it being “me, me, me?”

Video: How to Give A Progress Update Without Being Me Me Me

How do you go about creating the sense of serendipity when reaching out to somebody online? A.K.A How do you network with someone online to get a coffee meeting offline (hint: the law of reciprocity)

Now that we’re talking about creating this rapport before reaching out to somebody, what are the other reasons aside for creating that need for reciprocity that people won’t always respond to a cold email that I send out? (A hitch-hiker’s guide to writing BAD cold emails and what a bar interaction can tell us about writing emails)

Video: Never Write Cold Emails this Way

Are there any other things you’ve realized that are constant across people that have changed the game for how you deal with your business or personal life? (WARNING – Contains psychological hacks like how to bring up competitors without being a doosh)

Video: Psychology + Engineering Words and Copy

It seems like you have built up a nice portfolio of assets. The book you wrote and classes you have online. How have you gone about spending some of your time on tasks at hand and at the same time delegeting time to build up this portfolio of assets? This is all about blogging and audience building and why I spend a TON of time on it.

So do you wake up everyday with a list of tasks you want to do? Blog posts, send emails – are you regimented or how do you spend your days? This outlines how you can use yearly goal setting to devise a framework to structure each day.

Video: Using Yearly Goal Setting to Structure Each Day

I know you’ve been giving pretty awesome sleep hacking information, everybody wants more energy and get more stuff done without chugging more coffee, how have you gone about doing that and how can we do the same?

Video: A Primer on Sleep Hacking for Newbs (baby version)

If you enjoyed these, I reccomend following me on YouTube for more video fun. I’m going to be putting a lot of cray new stuff on there soon…it’s gonna be good.

Also be a sport and follow some other people who consistently put out excellent content: Noah Kagan, Ramit Sethi, Neville Medhora

Read this quote and tell me you’re not compelled to evaluate your life…

“Your willingness to look foolish is a small price to pay to get everything you ever wanted”

WHOWZERS…..The crazy thing is it’s true. 

In this post, I’m going to tell you how to overcome fear so you can get the things you want…

I strongly believe that the biggest thing that holds us back from getting everything we want is fear. Fear to look dumb. Fear to fail. Fear for retribution. Fear to even ask for what you want!!!

You know what’s weird? I bet 99% of the time your fears are completely irrational and self-fabricated. Most of us create justifications not to do things in order to protect ourselves from vulnerability…

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

•  You don’t talk to that beautiful girl or guy on the sidewalk..because you think you’ll look stupid.
• You don’t ask for that job you want…because you assume you won’t get it.
• You don’t reach out to someone you admire or look up to…because you think they probably won’t write back.
• You don’t start that project…because it will probably not work out anyways

What do all these scenarios have in common?

YOU DON’T GET WHAT YOU WANT.

The second commonality is that fear is what holds us back from action and ultimately knowing whether our inhibitions are actually true or some B.S. we tell ourselves to self-justify our failure to act.

So…how do we overcome fear to avoid this?

The most scalable way to conquer fear is to develop a tolerance for discomfort and rejection. The only way to acheive this is to intentionally displace yourself so that you encounter a ton of discomfort and rejection throughout all areas of your life…and come out alive.

Intentionally doing this exercise helps you realize that your fears are irrational and obliterates them. You’re left empowered to chase your desires with less hesitation (sometimes none at all!)

Ok Scott, so how the heck do I actually do this?

Here’s 10 practical things you can do  TODAY to work you’re discomfort muscle that will eventually help you overcome fear.

1. Consistently talk to strangers on the elevator for a week

2. Ask for more food as a quick serve restaurant (clip of how to do this I recorded today – go to 1:00)

3. Cold email someone you don’t know that you aspire to be like

4. Build a habit of saying “no” to things you don’t truly want instead of non-confrontational compliance. Examples: unnecessary coffee meetings or calls

5. Ask for a discount at a store or restaurant (another clip just recorded today on a way to do this – go to 0:20)

6. Ask someone senior in your company for lunch and their advice (clip explaining this)

7. Approach and talk to strangers you find attractive in public places…DURING THE DAY. (for super secret clips email me)

8. Aggressively jam out a.k.a dance/headbob on the subway by yourself while you listen to your tunes. I love this!

9. Stand in the open of a large public place for 10 minutes by yourself without using or looking at your phone, wallet, notes etc. Simply be…

10. Do 20 jumping jacks in public place where everyone can see you for shits and giggles

By consistently “doing the work” to intentionally stretch your comfort zone, you will gradually improve your tolerance for discomfort and rejection. You’ll become more fearless enabling you to aggressiely pursue the things you want instead of hoping you fall into them by virtue of circumstance or convenience. NEWSFLASH fellas – Mrs. Right isn’t going to ring your doorbell anytime soon.

Think of these as fear-ercises and focus on the process, not the outcome. 

When you frame action through the lens of an ultimate goal, you’ll detach yourself from immediate outcomes which fosters continuity. A.K.A. When I don’t care about the result and see everything as practice, I’m much more likely to do stuff that scares me.

If you’re into this stuff, as much as I am, I want to let you know about a sweet new meetup I’m starting with some buds called The New York Personal Development Meetup.

The goal of the meetup is  to develop a community of like-minded individuals to help encourage accountability and personal growth. Our first event will be on maximizing Health, Wealth, and Relationships and takes place on Thursday May 16th at The Alley in New York City.

You should definitely come…unless you have rippling abs, money is an afterthought, and you have countless members of the opposite sex vying for your attention.

For more details check out the link here and please share with friends who you think might be interested. It’s going to be saweet!

P.S. If you find yourself  thinking really hard about this and are serious about making a change in your life, you shouldn’t be embarrassed. Your friends who are too cool to work on themselves probably aren’t happy with their lives and never will be. Email me if you want to get serious (find email address here). I promise I won’t “probably not respond” ; )

I have a dedicated virtual assistant who helps me out for 10 hours a month through an awesome company called Zirtual. For the next 6 months I’m getting this service for free…

My virtual assistant’s name is Josiah and he’s an absolute stud. Today I want to tell you how I’ve leveraged existing assets to get this service for free for ATLEAST the next 6 months (retail value $1200 bones!). If you discount a crap ton of existing work on building a platform, this took me less than 2 hours accomplish. Time to explain…

Today, the only way you can get access to Zirtual’s network of U.S. based, dedicated virtual assistants is through a Zirtual referral from an existing customer. As a reward for a referral (literally sharing a hyperlink), customers receive a $100 credit for every new member they refer.

Because I absolutely love the service, I realized there might be an opportunity here to make (or save) some moula…upon realizing my unique leverage point, I did some research using the Google Keywords tool on search volume for Zirtual.

It turns out 1900 people a month searched explicitly for “Zirtual.” Obviously, Zirtual.com ranked #1 on google.

Using my available resources, I tried to identify what the second ranked search query mentioning Zirtual was. I stumbled upon the fact that “Zirtual Review” received about 90 exact queries monthly…aha! I then did an incognito google search and saw that the  top result for “Zirtual Review” was some random guys blog that I could probably conquer with intentional promotion.

Next Step

I wrote a blog post optimizing on the keyword “Zirtual Review” on my experience with Zirtual (which has been awesome). I knew that what most of the “outsourcing curious” wanted to know was what I actually had my virtual assistant do, so I literally listed everything I had him do that month. It was a big hit.

Due to the number of shares and keyword optimization, the post has received a good bit of traffic. In just 2 weeks, I was the top search result for “zirtual review.” Kobe!

I made sure to use Zirtual referral link throughout the post in order to capitalize on customer referral opportunities. To my delight, there’s been over 12 referrals through these links which equates to over $1200 smackeroos in credit. For the record, I also promoted these through a follow up email to a few Skillshare classes.

Once I realized the arbitrage opportunity, I decided to get fancy and do some google adwords. After all, if my blog post was converting and the bounty was $100 per conversion, I might as well throw some paid advertising at it. No one was bidding against “Zirtual” which meant there was a great opportunity to placate organic search with my referral engine…or so I thought.

I’m midway into a $100 adwords campaign and nothing has come of it. Of the 33 people who’ve I’ve driven to the article with adwards no one has clicked a hyperlink. Sigh.

Anyways, what can you take away from this post:

• If you put the time in, you can make or save thousands of dollars having an audience 
• If you’re blogging, you should spend time learning SEO and practice it!
• There’s plenty of opportunities to take advantage of high referral bounties if you have a destination site. Whatup PointsGuy!
• Only try paid advertising if you know what you’re doing or it makes sense given your margins/price point

Anywho, I hope you found this interesting. If you’re really good at SEO and reading this from NYC, I’ve been trying to step up make game. If you’re interested in potentially meeting up for a jam session hit me up in the comments…

Note* all Zirtual hyperlinks within this article are affiliate links. Yes, I do get a referral fee for this. But hey, it’d be way worse if I told you how sweet something was and then you couldn’t have it!

Also random thought: an opportunistic guy would probably also write a post optimized for “zirtual referral” ; )

Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing my buddy Max Altschuler, VP of business development at AttorneyFee and previously BD at Udemy. Max is a GTD type of dude.

In this interview we talk about:

• How he started a business making American $money$ abroad right out of school before joining education marketplace Udemy
• Insight into creating a process to build out the supply side marketplace for Udemy (hint – they leveraged outsourced labor!)
• Critical elements to successfully managing a pipeline and the “apology technique“
• Ways they compelled teachers to take action on their verbal commitments to teach courses
• Advice he’d give anyone whose looking to land a startup job
• His new gig at Attorney Fee and what he likes about the business (profitable and bootstrapped anyone?)

If you’re like me and prefer audio so you can listen to it on your phone we can do that here too…

Soundcloud link

If you know anyone interested in creative partnerships that appeals to the vibrant audience of lawyers that work with attorneyFee, definitely hit Max up.

I also highly recommend you check out his great blog MaxTalksHacks and follow him on twitter. Till next time.

A prominent nemisis of opportunity and value creation is being incompetent at following up with people. I want to share my system for remember to write followup emails.

But first…

I want to deflate the hesitancy around following up with people if they haven’t responded to you.

I don’t care whether we’re talking about doing a business development deal or asking someone cute to meet you for a bebida alcohólica, just because someone doesn’t get back to you doesn’t mean they’re not interested.

Maybe they were going to get back to you, but forgot to respond. Maybe your message got lost in their inbox. Maybe they’re dog got sick and they declared email bankruptcy. The bottom line is, you shouldn’t assume the reason why someone didn’t get back to you is because they’re not interested. This is why it’s imperative to always follow up! (More on how to write effective followup emails here)

Even when you’re cognizant of this, it can be challenging to remember to follow up with someone when they haven’t gotten back to you.

Instead of relying upon my cognizance after the fact, I pre-empt these situations with a system that ensures I follow up with someone if they don’t get back to me.

This system leverages Boomerang from Baydin and the “old compose” mode in Gmail (FollowUp.cc is also a great option, especially for non-gmail users!).

The video below is 1 of 42 lectures in a new online course I created called Master Gmail to Be 10X More Productive.

So far 130+ people have taken it and the average review rating is 4.93 / 5 stars, but hey, whose counting….anyway, here’s the video:

The key to making this system work is making sure to remember to click “view message” in the light box after you send it. I’ve gradually built a habit of doing and its served me incredibly well. For work related emails, I also use a spreadsheet to track deal interactions which serves as a great “back-up” in the event I fail to abide by the sacred tenets of the boomerang follow-up covenant.

One thing I always try to do is answer commonly asked questions in blog post form. Curious about how I handle a situation you think we might share? Let me know what you’re struggling with in the comments and maybe I’ll write a post about it.

There’s a right and a wrong way to cold email a company when you’re unsure who the decision maker is. How you approach this can literally be the difference between getting a deal vs. an onry reply to refrain from contacting the company again…

People ask me this question all the time:

If I don’t know who the decision maker is, is it cool to cold email multiple people who might be the decision maker at the same time?

This is a suboptimal approach.

The first thing that’s important to understand is that people within the same company talk. When you carpet bomb multiple people with a sales email you’re doing a few things:

• signaling that you’re not sure who the correct person to talk to is which comes off like you haven’t done your homework
• clogging multiple people’s inbox
• acting like you’re really important

I liken this to walking into a room with a stamp on your head that says :

“hey I haven’t taken the time and care to figure out exactly who I need to talk to, but can I sell you something? Oh and by the way, I hope you know me taking your time and resources is really urgent which is why I blasted everyone in your department”

This is the last way I want to start an interaction off with an organization I’m trying to do business with.

The Right Way to Cold Email A Large Company

Instead of trying to cold email multiple people, you should give your best effort to identify who the appropriate contact is and only email that person (more on finding a decision maker here). If they don’t respond to you after multiple attempts, move to the next best option and try to connect with that person. Repeat this process at a non-abrasive cadence until you get to a resolution (a meeting or no thanks).

Why?

• It’s more personal
• You come off informed if you target the right person instead of like a belligerent sales jockey

There’s no question you may have a chance of identifying a decision maker sooner by emailing multiple people. But I also think you’re more likely to start an interaction off on the wrong foot. This may kill your chances before you’ve even stepped in the batter’s box.

If a potential deal is important to you, it’s better to take a more respectful approach that positions you as someone worth doing business with.

Unless your market is 10′s of thousands of customers and it’s a total land grab, prospecting is not about speed. It’s about effectiveness and landing the top partners/clients which will generate inbound opportunities and hopefully cannibalize cold outreach. You accomplish this with diligence and poise, not belligerence.

If you’re more interested in biz dev, you might enjoy more of my writing on startup business development here.

A month ago, I wrote a Zirtual review outlining everything my virtual assistant  Josiah helped me out with.

I wanted to do it again so the outsourcing curious can see the type of tasks a Zirtual assistant can do for you:

• Coordinate a call (2)
• Download all files from a membership site I belong to and put them in a dropbox folder so I can put them on my phone
• Add members to my google group HackingNYC (2)
• Make restaurant reservations (3)
• Add something to my calendar (1)
• Found out when I get my Zirtual credits applied and let me know the policy on them
• Bottle service inquiry for my friend that’s getting deployed to Afghanistan who visited NYC. Love you Yorck!
• Go through all my Skillshare classes and export all the emails of past students into CSVs so I can email these people about new online classes
• Call the Chinese Consulate and find out the best way to get my paperwork taken care  before my trip
• Call Wells Fargo and confirm the reimbursement policy on my use of non-bank ATMs
• Find 10 most popular Google+ Communities on Online Marketing, Internet Marketing, and Blogging
• Call Horizon Blue Cross and see if they cover me for insurance abroad (More China trip nonsense)
• Upload 4 videos I put into a dropbox folder onto Youtube
• Figure out the easiest way for me to order checks for a new bank account I opened
• Remove the duplicates in a spreadsheet I was working on
• I lost my fur hood to my Helley Hansen coat on a ski trip. Do research to see if you can find another hood online.
• Copy a framework I liked in a slideshare and put it into an excel spreadsheet so I can apply it

I think I used 9 out of the 10 hours of my Zirtual plan this month. I absolutely love it because it creates more bandwidth for me to focus on important stuff. It’s also helping me to increase my comfort level delegating things. Flex that labor arbitrage muscle!

This is why I consider it a worthy investment.

If It Turns out You Want to Take Advantage of Zirtual…

Right now Zirtual is only accepting applications that have been referred to by existing members. If you want to try it, you can become eligible by entering through this affiliate link. Otherwise you will need to find someone else who can refer you or remain in Zirtual pergatory.

Yes, I do get a referral fee for this. But hey, it’d be way worse if I told you how sweet something was and then you couldn’t have it ; )

I wanted to talk about my playbook for marketing a Udemy course by sharing the exact steps I took to market my Sleep Hacking course.

But first the results

I released it just under three weeks ago:

• 182 Students
• Total sales – $1,118.00
• My share - $763.10
• 10 reviews – All 5 Stars

Pretty meh for 15 hours of work if you ask me. But hey, the income is passive  and it’s only been up for 3 weeks. Right now I’m generating $50.80 an hour for that work, but as I continue to get sales that number will increase. More amazing perspective about why you should be developing Passive Income here.

Okay, here’s exactly what I did to market it…

Step 1 – Install Google Analytics Code on Class Page

I wanted to see exactly where traffic was coming from in order to understand what channels worked for future courses (got 3 more courses in the hopper).

One thing that frustrated me is that I couldn’t properly set up goal tracking. This is terrible for understanding conversion and optimization. As a result I have to use a mezcla of pages/visit, avg visit duration, and coupon codes to hazily determine conversions. Sigh.

Things of note:

• $20 worth of StumbleUpon traffic didn’t do anything for me.
• A slideshare that gets 1k views a week has driven 18 views
• Organic traffic ain’t so shabby

Thankfully the good folks at Udemy just released a new Google Analytics URL structure that makes goal tracking really easy to set up. They even wrote an article on it here!

Step  2 – Email Inner Circle and Get At Least 5 Reviews

I have a group of people I consider my “inner circle.” These are people who I’ve built strong relationships with that understand the digital space and my objectives. They are willing to promote my stuff and I’m willing to promote there’s. Every successful online content creator has a similar inner circle. You need to lean on others before you have a massive audience.

The goal here was to seed the course with positive reviews and students before anyone else saw it in order to optimize conversions once I drove traffic to the page. I wanted everyone unfamiliar with me to think this was the best course on sleep optimization ever (because it is, obvi). Social proof is certainly one way to accomplish that.

I emailed each person in my inner circle individually with a free code to the class asking them to check it out and if they felt comfortable, leave a positive review. For the most part, everyone that I emailed came through. Thanks team! I owe you all sparkling waters.

Step 3 – Email My Lifehacks Community and Give the Course Away For Free

The 2nd group of people I emailed was the community of lifehackers I maintain at HackingNYC. The group is about 300 people now. I wanted to give the course away to everyone in the group for free for multiple reasons:

• I appreciate them and want to hook up my peeps
• I realize that in the long run I’m way better off from a conversion standpoint having a ton of social proof via reviews and students than making an extra few bucks at the start
• The fact that I’m giving this subset of people away something that took me 15 hours to create hopefully inspires other people to join the group. YES, I will be giving away other courses for free to this group so sign up now.

Again, the goal here was to generate as much social proof as possible from people that already know me to “juice the courses stats” before I drove any traffic.

Result: 57 students. Kobe!

Step 4 – Give it Away to Original SleepHacking Class

I originally created this content for a Skillshare online course. Because the feedback is so vibrant in that enviroment, it’s a perfect place to throw a course up, get feedback, and then optimize it for a more passive channel like Udemy. The increased engagement also makes it an excellent place to mine for testimonials which can be used on your sales page.

Note* the pictures – more teachers should humanize their page by leveraging custom html.

These recommendations were all mined from my Skillshare class via the on-site endorsements. I also did some personal outreach after someone left me a positive review to see if they’d be willing to provide a more extensive testimonial. From there, I used rapportive to isolate the students that consented profile pictures from twitter ; )

One thing that’s lame-o is that Skillshare doesn’t provide instructors email lists for the students who take their online courses like they do for offline ones. Despite their efforts to foil my future propaganda, I was able to get everyone’s email address who took the course via paypal and stripe recepits. Nice try!

I had my virtual assistant compile the email addresses and then I emailed them with a free code to the “new and enhanced” version. My only ask was that they leave a positive review if they thought it was good. No one left a review, but my students count jumped which is still a win.

Result: 20 Students

Step 5 – Give it Away for Free on Reddit

I read a post the Udemy blog how one teacher gave his course away for free on Reddit and got 500 signups from it.

I’ve learned that the key to gaming marketplaces is reaching the minimum threshold of virality (or internal promotion); if you can juice your course to the extent where it’s featured on site or in email communication, you’re golden. Typically popularity within a short time window is the only way to make this happen. Thus, giving it away to a bunch of redditers so I could get featured in Udemy emails and on-site seemed like a good idea.

I posted the following thread in the “Productivity” subreddit.

Result: 21 Students

Woohoo. Not quite 500 hundo, but I’ll take it. In retrospect, I should have asked for some reddit upvotes from friends. I didn’t because I always feel slimy doing this even though I know they don’t care. Whatevs.

Step 6 – Email Lead Gen List

In anticipation of releasing this class, I used Odesk to have a developer create a landing page so I could start collecting leads before the class was live.

One thing I learned while I was running marketing at SP was that it’s never too early to start building an email list – even if you’re not ready to market to them. So that’s what I did.

Below is the page I created. I linked to in a few tweets and places on my blog before I launched the class to build a list.

I got 16 leads to this page before launching the class. I emailed these people offering a time-sensitive 50% off discount on the course and got 4 people to sign up. First dollars – cha ching!

Step 7 – Put An Icon on My Blog Directing to the Course

Before the class was published, I was driving people to the lead-gen page by placing an icon I had a designer create on the sidebar of my blog.

I changed the link to point directly to the course. According to Google Analytics, it looks like 123 people were referred to the course via my blog. I’m sure a cohort of these leads came from this image. Next time I’ll use Bit.ly tracking to measure more precisely.

Step 8 – HelloBar

I changed the messaging in the HelloBar on the top of my blog to direct to the course page.

According to the HelloBar analytics, 48 people clicked through to the course within the 2 weeks following the release.

I’ve since changed this back to directing people to my BDNewsletter.

*The greatest traffic driver to my site is organic search and the most visited content is on business development. Given the intent, I hypothesize that I’ll convert more people to my newsletter than to my sleep class. If I consider the value of a subscriber equal to someone who pays for my course (which I do post-initial launch), I’ll abstract more value per visit by having the HelloBar drive people to my newsletter.

Step 9 – Blast Out to Social Channels

No crazy explanation here.

One cool thing was the reaction I got from Facebook friends. I shy away from promoting most of my stuff on my personal facebook which is why I created a page for my blog (like it and I’ll give you a bearhug!).

So this whole new “Scott is creating content and selling stuff online” is unfamiliar to a lot of my social circle. Anyways, a bunch of people from my past came out of the woodwork and thought it was cool that I was creating online courses. I also think I freaked a girl out I used to date because of the subject matter. A little bird told me she thought it was odd I was into ”sleep hacking?” Heh.

Step 10 – Give it Away to Google+ Communities

Due to the increasing importance of Google+ for SEO, I’ve been investing more time on interacting on there (I be  dwelling here). I had  my assistant Josiah find a bunch of communities on productivity, lifehacks, and sleep.

I then gave away the course to everyone in relevant communities.

I got 2 signups out of it….sugar water! If there was a pile of dirt somewhere near by I’d definitely kick it.

Step 11 – Redirect My Slideshare Presentation to Course Page

A big part of marketing this course has been the viral slideshare I created on Sleep Hacking. Originally it pointed to the Skillshare class. I re-uploaded a new version that linked out to the Udemy course. Looks like it hooked 18 people in. Considering it gets 1000+ views a week, I’m clearly not optimizing the positioning of it within the slideshare. I think beefing it up with some customer testimonials sprinkled in will help improve traffic to Udemy. I hope to get to this sometime soon as the SEO is very good.

Looks like I’m batting just under 5 hundo on google first page results! Note* it’s important to use incognito mode so the results aren’t skewed.

Step 12 – Give it Away on Pinterest

About 2 months ago I paid a virtual assistant on Odesk to spend 5 hours a week building up my Pinterest following. This is why my Pinterest profile looks like an ironic, teenage girl’s page.

My goal was to test out its viability as a traffic driver. He got me a bunch of followers, but I’ve seen little traffic to my blog or this course due to the incongruence between my pinterest followers and content.

I gave away the course for free and literally saw no signups.

Unless I start selling interior design courses, I’m giving up on spending any time on or money on Pinterest.

Step 13 – Post A Promotional Video on A Blog Post

I uploaded 1 of the 7 modules onto Youtube and then posted the video in a blog post called “How What You Put into Your Body Effects Your Sleep.” I was hoping that this would be a carrot that would attract people to the course. I even made the video thumbnail the most provocative slide which says “I reccomend seeing a doctor to get this fixed.”

I didn’t see any traffic from YouTube and am not sure how many conversions this drove. It does appear that nearly 300 people have watched it which is pretty rad.

Udemy conveniently just did a blog post on how to market your course on YouTube after I released this course. Sick timing for my next class ; )

Step 14 – Write A Post on What I Learned About Slideshare Marketing

I wrote a post on What I Learned Creating A Viral Slideshare partly to market the class. Yes, I wanted to tell everyone cool stuff I learned, but don’t let me kid you, I wanted that post to generate loot.

Step 15 – Send An Email to Everyone Who I Mentioned in the Course

One thing that I’ve started to do is email everyone who I mention in content I’ve created. People love humble brags. If you tell someone you mentioned them in something, they’ll likely share it even when you don’t ask them to!

Here’s an email I sent Dave Asprey from the BulletProof Exec.

Dave didn’t share the presentation, but hopefully he enjoyed the kudos! I pinky promise this strategy usually works.

What I Didn’t Do

Okay so I just gave you my laundry list of everything I did to market the course. Here’s a few things I didn’t do that I plan on incorporating for my next course which is on How to Maximize Your Productivity on Gmail.

• I didn’t ask people to leave me a review throughout the course. In a podcast, one of the founders of Udemy mentioned that only 10% of people finish the class. Given the weight that reviews have on getting featured and conversion, I plan on asking people who take the course to leave reviews early and often.
• Give bloggers and other influential people with large email lists codes to give their readers the course for free. If you have an audience and want to hook up your people let’s chat.
• Paid marketing – aside from spending $20 on StumbleUpon which isn’t even worth writing about, I didn’t do any paid advertising. The reason is because this course isn’t exspensive enough where it warrants paid promotion. I also don’t have enough expertise to feel comfortable doing this.
• Do an interview testimonial with students who have had success due to the course and repurpose it as a blog post.
• A/B test course titles. I’d love if someone could give me some cost-effective ways to do this beyond simply asking people to fill out a survey. It’d be great to test in a more natural test setting.

So there you have it. This was all the stuff I did to market my Udemy course after I released it. If you have any ideas on things I could try next time, please share them in the comments and I’ll give you a digital bear hug!

Oh crap, I almost forgot.

Step 16 – Write a Post on My Playbook for Marketing A Udemy Course (See the course here!)

You had to know that was coming ; )