James: James Schramko here from SuperFastBusiness. And I’m having a chat with John Lint from 10XPRO.
Hey, John.
John: Hey, James. Hey, everybody.
James: So John, I’ve been online since 2005 when I started trying to figure out how to build a website which I found very challenging. And then I was trying to work out what my business model would be and what I could sell.
It turned out, I went through an evolution of affiliate marketing which is where I was promoting software on behalf of another company and they’ll pay me a commission. But it was a one-time sale. Every time I made the sale, and that was it. And then I started helping a couple of local businesses with their websites and their online marketing. And that kind of got me excited about recurring income. And over time, I’ve pursued that model with more fervor.
Now, you’ve got a different background to me. It would be interesting to find out your evolution to get to where you’re at now.
John: Yeah, absolutely.
So I’ve been online for more than 10 years, as well. And I pretty much tried it all. And the area of focus was information publishing, creating courses, selling them online. I did do some affiliate marketing, as well. And just like you, found that we spend all that energy, all the effort to create those products or promote those products but then what happens, the next month we have to do it again, right? So growing and evolving the business.
Then we started to go into something that is a bit more leveraged where now we’re focusing on building a real business, you know? A business where whatever we do, we’re building assets that are going to help us grow our sales, grow our revenue on their own. That’s what an asset is, it’s working for us.
Now with 10XPRO.io, we’re helping so many people build their membership sites and helping them build that subscription-based business where their clients are paying them every single month for access to their content which is a model that we really, really, really like.
James: Yeah, I like it.
I’ve been doing the membership site now for over 10 years. And some of the reasons that I was drawn to it were, I didn’t want a spiky income. When I was an affiliate, I actually got to super affiliate status where I was spending up to three or $4,000 a day on ads to make sales. Some days I’d make $6,000 in sales. Some days I’d make $2,000 in sales. I might make 4000 profit or lose 2000. It was kinda like day trading. So it was a very spiky income.
And the very first Christmas after I quit my job, I remember one of the companies I was promoting, actually ran out of the capacity to serve the customers and they had all these refunds. And I spent money on the ads and made the sales, and they forfeited their commission. So my income was very spiky. I’d spend the money and get the check, spend the money, get the check. Then I spent the money and there was no check. And I was spending a lot of time and energy every day having to chase that new traffic. I was logging on at two o’clock every day, I pull out all my traffic campaigns. And I’d have to see where did I spend the money and how are the conversions. And oh, here we go, someone’s copied all my ads overnight. So I had this very spiky relationship with traffic and expenses. And it was a lot of energy.
And back then, I used to promote sort of an affiliate launch each month, all these big gurus were doing their launches. And I put a lot of energy into buying a domain and getting it ranked, and creating an offer. And taking energy from the market to get that launch and then I’d get my payment and then that was it. It was like this launch cycle was very consuming.
People who do the products, I mean, that’s far worse. They have to put all their eggs in that basket, they put months of dedication. Then they have to deal with 30% refunds because they’ve hyped everyone up. They have to pay out their affiliates, there’s 50% gone. They have to pay out their JV manager, there is another 10%. They have to pay their copywriter. And then they have to get all this support. By the end of the day, like on a one or $2-million launch, they might end up with $100,000 and three months of their lives down the drain. So that’s something I didn’t want.
John: Yeah and it’s very feast-and-famine-like where some months are great, others are not so great. And you’re hoping that your next campaign is going to work because you have the bills to pay and because you need to take care of your business.
And that’s one of the biggest problems that we see with entrepreneurs online where they try to build their business, but then they just get overwhelmed by everything that is required to build a membership site. Even though with 10XPRO.io, we try to make it really as easy as possible by giving you everything that you need. But when you’re starting out and you’re thinking, okay, well, a membership site is probably something I want to do. Then you get confused and overwhelmed by, okay, do I need to do this? I need to build my list, I need to do a sale, I need to accept payments online, I need to allow members to login and all that stuff. So it can be a bit overwhelming for people who don’t know what to do.
But I think that’s something that is very important when it comes to that business model that we are talking about, which is building a membership site business. It’s all about leverage. We used to do a ton of consulting, as well. And we do have a lot of coaches and service providers using our system. And their biggest problem is that they’re always spending their time, right? They’re always trading their time for money, right? And they don’t have leverage in their life.
And you talk about this a ton with your book, Work Less Make More, which is all about that being able to live that lifestyle that you desire and deserve, being able to get the freedom that you want, being able to maybe work wherever you want, to write whenever you want. And you can only do that if you are building a business, a real business, that is working for you. Because what I see online is that there are a lot of people, they do things online, but doing things online doesn’t mean that you have an online business. It might mean that you have an online job, that you just created a job for yourself. But that does not mean you have a business.
And the biggest question is if I go away and I go with John and James to Maldives, and we’re going to surf for an entire month in a boat without internet, when I come back will my business have increased? Did you get new leads and sales while you were away doing nothing? If the answer is no, or you hesitated and say, I’m not sure. It’s mean that you don’t have a business, you have a job.
And that’s why we love so much being able to build a membership site business because it solves that. It gives you the leverage, it gives you that freedom, and it allows you to really build a real business that is working for you. So for me, that’s the biggest thing.
James: Yeah, it’s basically the difference between going from campaign to campaign. Just saying hey, I’m going to set up one major campaign here and that is my membership site. And once we get over that initial hurdle of building the machine which you’ve made very easy with 10XPRO.io.
It took me years to compile different components to have what I have. But once it’s done, that’s like building a building or building a ship. Once it’s done, you can then enjoy it, right? Because it’s done. Instead of going to get new customers every single month, like every day, where’s my next customer? Where’s my next customer? And chasing new business.
Now, it’s a much better game. It’s how do I look after the people who are already with me? I’ve already made the sale once but I’m going to get paid over and over as long as I continue to serve a need. You can actually get into the part with the membership sites that most people never get to which is focusing on retaining customers, making sure people get incredible results.
And you can actually have this leverage in the machine that you’ve built, the customer base who you’re keeping and slowly adding to, and over time it can snowball and be very rewarding. You’ll be able to travel anywhere in the world and meet up with someone who you’ve known for years as I do. I could go to any countries – Switzerland, London, Thailand, Philippines, and I’ll be able to find a customer who I’ve been looking after for years and have built a relationship. In fact, when I went for my surf today, John, there were two people in the surf who are members of my community. One of them’s a member of 10XPRO, as well. And, you know, it’s middle of the day, on a weekday and we’re in the surf. And we just smiled at each other with that look of acknowledgment. We have a great business.
And once you’ve overcome the concept of building that one site, and you use the right tech, you don’t have to worry about a big web team and updates, and hiring a chief technology officer to handle all that. Some people confuse what I do with IT. They say, oh, you’re in IT. I say, No, I’m not. You know what I do? I just coach businesses and I help them look after their business and make it go well.
And John, you’re in the business of creating membership experiences for your members that are seamless and easy. 10XPRO is awesome. You should check it out if you’re interested in having a membership.
John: Cool.
Yeah, that’s the reason why we, you know, a lot of people talk about having a membership site as the holy grail of online business models because it gives you everything that you really want. We all start because we want that freedom, we want to be able to be our own boss. I believe this is the business model to follow. That’s something you’ve been teaching for a long time in jamesschramko.com. That’s why all your members, they focus on that. And yeah, so to me, that’s the best thing that you can possibly do.
There are ton of strategies that we teach as part of 10XPRO on how to grow that, how to build your own membership site, how to build your audience and generate sales for your membership site. But like you said, once you build it, it’s done. It’s an asset that is now working for you.
James: And we’ve taken everything that’s working well for me and my membership as a blueprint and put the training inside the bundle with the 10XPRO. So really, if you follow the steps, you’re going to succeed.
John: Cool. Yeah.
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