If you have been into affiliate marketing for a short time I am sure that you already heard about the product called “The Truth About Six Pack Abs”. This product is one of the longest running products on Clickbank (launched back in April 2006) and without a doubt one of the most profitable products ever which will generates around $1,000,000 a month in 2011.

That is more than $11,000,000 in 2011 from an information product! Isn’t that CRAZY?!

When I got started back in the summer of 2010 “The Truth About Six Pack Abs” was the number one seller on Clickbank and as most newbie affiliates do I tried promoting it (with no success). It is currently ranking #5 on Clickbank according to gravity and if you ever wondered how much these top sellers on Clickbank make than you are in luck because Tim Ferriss published an interview he did with Mike Geary, the creator of “The Truth About Six Pack Abs” on his blog and Mike had a lot to share with the readers about his online business.

Tim Ferriss knows what questions to ask and when to ask them so the result is one of the best interviews you will find about the internet marketing business. One of the main reasons that I think this interview is so great and important for you all to read is because Mike Geary is not an internet marketing “guru”. He is (was) a hard working man that achieved his stellar results through hard work and he is not trying to sell you anything. When Mike started he was a complete newbie when it comes to internet marketing and he learned on the go.

What I Took From This Interview

The following points have been taken from a post written by Igal Pines and translated to English since Igal blogs in Hebrew and I also added a few points of my own.

Keep in mind that Mike Geary started just like many of us do, without any knowledge or experience in internet marketing, but still managed to get to where we all wish we can get and I have learned a lot from reading the interview and I wanted to share some of the key points I found hidden between the lines:

• The Truth About Six Pack Abs sold more than 500,000 copies over the years.
• The Truth About Six Pack Abs eBook is not the main thing in Mike’s business. It is what got his business started and still makes him tons of money but it seems that his main focus now is buying traffic. Mike buys insane amounts of traffic and that I think is his core business and what drives it to the numbers you see.
• It took Mike 2 years to earn what is considered to be an average salary in the US ($50,000).
• Do what you are passionate about. Mike was passionate about fitness and nutrition and that is what he did and focused on by creating a product that focuses on his passion. It makes the product much better and it also makes it easier to put in the extra effort because you are doing something you love.
• Here is a quote that I think is really important; “I haven’t strayed into other businesses or distracted myself from the product that I knew would be a best-seller”. Stay focused and don’t distract yourself. This is something that is really hard to do in the internet marketing business with all the distractions around but apparently it pays off.
• Some internet marketing courses actually work. Mike bought an information product from internet marketer Ryan Lee which changed his life (his words, not mine).
• If you truly want your internet marketing business to explode you will need to focus all your attention to it. For the first 2 years while Mike was doing this on the side he had a slow and steady grow. When he decided to quit his day job and focus all his efforts on his online business it simply exploded going from $50,000 a year to 7 figures in just one year.
• Even though Mike has all the free time and money in the world he still works 1-2 hours every day maintaining his business and he also puts out 10-12 hour workdays and enjoys every bit of it.
• When you are building a business around affiliates you MUST differentiate your business from the competition.  Mike did this by offering Clickbank’s maximum 75% commission rate to his affiliates which is now considered to be the standard for most vendors in Clickbank. Mike actually set the trend and that earned him huge amounts of money.
• It is worth it to pay more to affiliates and Mike’s case is all the proof you need. Here is a screenshot of the gravity graph showing you just how popular this product is among affiliates and customers:

• From the screenshot above I see 2 main points. The first is at the beginning when the product was launched on Clickbank and the gravity jumped to around 350 within a short few months (thanks to the 75% commissions) and the second is in middle of 2009 where that big spike starts. Problem is I didn’t see Mike mention what caused that big spike and that is something I would really love to know.
• Treat both your customers, affiliates and business partners like gold.
• Combine the power of both SEO and PPC.
• You will make mistakes but it is important to learn from them.
• When buying traffic, be prepared to lose money on the front-end and make your profit on the back-end.
• It seems you can run an 8 figure a year business with only a handful of employees. From what I understood, Mike has only 5 employees.
• When you are buying traffic, get at least 1,000 clicks in order to test it properly.
• Always be testing! Ad copy, ad placements, ad sources. Everything should be tested again and again. And again.
• Be willing to lose money in order to figure out what works. Expect to lose money when you are testing campaigns and by split testing and tweaking you will be able to recover your loses on the next campaigns.
• When marketing on Facebook, never pay the Facebook price per click. You can and should pay 1/3 of that price. The way to do it is to test dozens of images and title combinations so your CTR will be higher than average which will result in low CPC’s.
• The best traffic source is Google’s Content Network. Keep in mind that it will only work if you are trying to promote a product that is Google compliant (Google is not to fond of affiliates these days).
• You need to sell what people WANT but actually give them what they NEED. This is a great concept but I think it will only work in specific niches. I don’t see how this would work in the internet marketing niche.
• $47 is the price point that works best for him.
• Produce a great product and you will not need to worry about refund rates. I hope all those so called IM “gurus” will take this advice seriously:).
• Be as clear as possible on your sales page so that people will know exactly what they are getting and how they are going to get it.
• When you have an email list of 680,000 it is very easy to test your content:). But this can work with much smaller lists and it is a great concept. Open rates can teach you a lot about what topics (email subject line) people are interested in.
• The best content is typically about topics that surprise or shock people or clear up a confusing topic.
• Make it easy for people to share your content. Put sharing buttons at the top and at the bottom of your pages. Don’t use too many sharing networks, focus on Facebook, Twitter and Stumbleupon.

Building a Brand

Mike Geary and his product, “The Truth About Six Pack Abs”, are a brand. Just look at the search volume this keywords are getting:

I don’t think Mike planned on creating a brand but with a great product and tons of happy customers his eBook turned into a huge brand. Many say that branding is quite simple, just provide great value to the customer and he will do the branding for you. I tend to believe that.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed reading and learning from this amazing interview Tim Ferriss did with Mike Geary. I always wanted to know how much money those top Clickbank product outside the internet marketing niche are making and more important , how they got started and Tim and Mike provided me with all the answers I was looking for and more.

To your success (and mine ),

Tagged as: Internet Marketing Business, Mike Geary, Tim Ferriss, Truth About Six Pack Abs