Ryan Deiss is holding his fourth annual Traffic and Conversion Summit in San Francisco, California on January 18th-20th, 2013. During this three-day live event, Ryan and his staff at Digital Marketer will pull back the curtain on their business and reveal what is working “NOW” in digital marketing. The focus of this event will be on the two most important parts of online marketing — “Traffic & Conversions.” It’s high-level training that will attract well over 1,000 professional marketers and entrepreneurs from several countries across the globe.
Click here to access the homepage for the 2013 Traffic & Conversion Summit.
If you are seriously thinking about attending the 2013 Traffic and Conversion Summit, I want to encourage you to listen to an interview that Ryan Deiss did with Dean Jackson and Joe Polish from I Love Marketing. This interview is more than a year old, but it will give you great insight into the brilliant business mind of Ryan Deiss and it will give you an excellent sample of the high-level content that Ryan will be delivering at the 2013 Traffic and Conversion Summit.
Here is the link to the Ryan Deiss interview at I Love Marketing.
If you are short on time and are not able to listen to this hour long interview, I have posted a thorough review of the interview below. This is one of the best “internet marketing” interviews I have heard in a very long time and I highly recommend you read the notes I posted below. I also want to encourage you to listen to the complete interview that I linked above. There is nothing for sale here or in the interview. Just great content that can help make you a more successful online marketer.
Ryan Deiss is an incredibly successful marketer and entrepreneur, and after listening to this interview it is easy to understand why he has had such great success at such a young age (he is in his early 30’s). This is an educational and revealing interview that is absolutely loaded with great content. If you are a serious marketer and online business builder, listen to this interview. You’ll be a smarter and more educated marketer the moment you listen to it.
Here is a summary of what you will find in this hour-long Q&A Session the I Love Marketing guys did with Ryan Deiss. Please note that each bullet point has a timestamp next to it in case you want to go directly to that part of the interview.
- 2:50 minute: Ryan is the Managing Partner of Idea Incubator, a 10 year old company that employees 45+ people and is based in Austin, Texas. Idea Incubator is essentially a holding company. Ryan runs several businesses under the Idea Incubator umbrella.
- 5:45 minute: Ryan prefers the publishing side of the business where he is not the “front person.” If he could start over again, he would most likely use a pen name for all his projects and remain completely anonymous. This is something that all new marketers need to really think about before they start an online business. If you are a shy and reserved individual, being the face of your business and being a public figure may not be a good idea. Ryan classifies himself as a “situational extrovert.” He has the ability to be an extrovert, but he prefers to remain anonymous. He stated that he would much rather be rich than famous. (I’m with him on that one.)
- 7:35 minute: According to Ryan Deiss, his strength is that he is able to identify holes in markets and figure out where needs aren’t being met. His biggest strength is his ability to piece everything together — to take an idea and then bring it to market as a product or service. This is a powerful skill to have — to be able to take an idea and then create a business from it. Most people have ideas, but they don’t do anything with them. Ryan is able to bring assets and resources together to complete projects. He states that he is good at taking a business from scratch to $1M to $2M per year. But then he loses interests in the business and gets bored with it. This is when he will bring someone in to run the business. This is critical. Ryan knows his strengths and his weaknesses. He is an idea guy — a strategy guy. But actually “running” a business for the long-haul is not his strength.
- 11:30 minute: “Ryan’s #1 Business Goal and Where He Invests 80% of His Time” — What Ryan reveals in this segment is absolute GOLD!! At this point in the interview Ryan states:
“My number one over-arching business goal and it’s the thing that I spend 80% of my time focused on is this. Okay, we have identified an opportunity. That’s pretty easy and that’s fast. The next question you have to figure out is: How can I have the highest 30 day average customer value in this particular market? If I can go into a market and solve the mystery of how can I have the highest 30 day average customer value over anybody else in my marketplace, then I win. Now, I don’t need to be the best search engine optimization guy. I don’t need to be the best pay per click guy. I don’t need to be the best media buyer. I can go out and find people to do all those things because I have equipped them with the one thing they need most, which is a high converting offer.”
- 12:40 minute: Architecting that first “30 day process” is what Ryan Deiss sees as his primary role. He believes that if he can architect that first 30 days and have the highest customer value over everyone else in the market, he is in a position where it is almost impossible not to win. This thinking is right in line with what Dan Kennedy has been saying for years: “He (or she) who is able to spend the most money to acquire a customer wins.” And that illustrates the power of Ryan’s strategy of having the highest 30 day average customer value. If he has the highest 30 day average customer value, he is then able spend more money to acquire that customer than anyone else in the marketplace. This is powerful stuff!
- 14:10 minute: Ryan does not like to take investor money because he does not like to be beholden to anyone else.
- 15:20 minute: Ryan Deiss discusses success and having balance in his life.
- 21:10 minute: Ryan has no one reporting to him directly. He has people in place to run his businesses whether he is there or not. This allows Ryan to focus on the activities that he enjoys and that he is good at. He is the founder of his companies, but he is not the CEO. He does not run his businesses and he prefers it this way.
- 22:00 minute: Ryan goes into detail on what he has learned the past 10 years in regard to building multiple businesses and what he would do differently if he had to start over again from ground zero. This discussion goes on for several minutes. Ryan talks about mistakes he made and what he did right.
- 23:10 minute: Ryan makes a excellent point about which positions in a new company you should fill first: “You start by looking at the things that you are especially terrible at and what you enjoy the least, and what is costing your company the most money by having you doing them — and you fill those positions first.”
- 23:30 minute: Ryan discusses his decision to hire Mary Ellen Tribby to be CEO of Idea Incubator and how Mary Ellen has helped accelerate the growth of his business. He states that hiring someone like Mary Ellen to run his business is a decision he should have made a long time ago. She restructured Ryan’s business and she made it a more efficient operation — and this included replacing some people who had worked for Ryan for several years. There is some excellent content in the 23 to 30 minute mark of this interview on the subject of hiring and firing employees. If you run a business with employees or if you plan to hire people in the future, I highly recommend that you listen to this part of the interview.
- 30:07 minute: Ryan makes this terrific point on why you must not tolerate a non-performing employee: “Sometimes if you are making good money, it’s easier to just keep that person (i.e a non-performing employee) on the dole than it is to deal with it. But what you have to keep in mind is that you will absolutely ruin a good employee if you allow them to watch you tolerate a bad employee.” Ryan goes on to say that if you are having a difficult time making the call on whether or not to fire a bad employee, you are not a CEO. You have to bring someone in at the top who is skilled at making these tough decisions.
- 34:15 minute: Ryan, Joe and Dean dive deep into a discussion on “Marketing.” Ryan Deiss then makes this statement about the role of marketing: “The job of marketing is to make selling superfluous.”
- 37:15 minute: Ryan Deiss talks about the importance of “Sequence and Proportion” in marketing.
- 40:10 minute: Ryan believes that the other important element of marketing is “Market Maturation.” Ryan defines market maturation as: “Where is the market right now in the context of what you are trying to sell them.” Understanding market maturation along with sequence and proportion, according to Ryan Deiss, is what allows you to put together an effective marketing message. Ryan believes that if you did nothing but study market maturation cycles, you would instantly become a better marketer. During this part of the interview Ryan, Dean and Joe talk about the marketing maturation cycle of the fitness market. This discussion will give you a very good understanding how to identify the market maturation cycle for just about any product.
- 47:15 minute: Ryan Deiss talks about the importance of having the right “hook” in your marketing. Ryan states: “If you swing and miss on the hook and as a result no one gets into your funnel, you are done.” During this segment of the interview Ryan gives an example of how his company missed on a hook with one of their currency trading offers. It’s an excellent example of how market maturation and the timing of an offer is so important.
- 50:40 minute: While most companies have been struggling the past few years during these recent tough economic times, Ryan Deiss’s company has continued to gross more each year than the year before. Ryan believes that part of the reason his company has continued to grow is because their marketing message has changed as the economy has changed. People’s behavior changes when the economy is down and your marketing message has to take this into consideration. Ryan believes that many businesses either leave the market or scale back during difficult times. This allows you to capture even more market share. So while other businesses are contracting, Ryan’s businesses are expanding.
- 52:20 minute: The guys discuss the future of online marketing and marketing in general. Ryan recommends that you follow Ed Dale because Ed has his finger on the pulse on what is coming down the road six months from now in the online marketing world. Ryan is keeping a close eye on mobile marketing. He believes that mobile, mobile purchasing and mobile commerce is going to have a big impact on the future and it will have an impact on the types of products he sells, especially information products
- 55:10 minute: Joe Polish asks Ryan what advice he would give to new people who are just getting started in online marketing. This last part of the interview is excellent. Ryan offers some terrific advice that some people may not want to hear, but they may need to hear. To summarize, Ryan states that there is significantly more competition today than when he got started. Because of this you really have to do your homework upfront before you launch your new venture. Ryan then offers this advice:
There are three things that I look at when I’m looking to run with a new idea. First, is there an actual want, need or void in the marketplace. You cannot come to the market with a ‘me-to’ product. Secondly, and be honest with yourself, does your product have a reason to exist (in the market)? And if it doesn’t keep working at it. If this is the case, the answer is probably to shrink your idea just a little bit and serve a smaller segment of your market better than to try to make your product bigger and bigger. Lastly, is your product being offered through traditional distribution channels? You want a want, need or void that is not currently being met in traditional distribution channels. And you want to make sure there is not a dominant brand in the marketplace.
While the notes I posted is a thorough summary of this excellent interview, I highly recommend that you listen to the entire interview. Ryan is wicked smart and he has a ton of insight to offer people who want to create their own online business. And if you are considering attending the next Traffic and Conversion Summit, this interview will give you a very good idea of the high-level content that Ryan Deiss will be delivering at this event.
I recently wrote a post on this blog where I discussed several reasons why more than 1,000 professional online marketers will be attending Ryan Deiss’s Traffic & Conversion Summit. I also recommend that you to read that post. This post details why this high-level event literally draws some of the biggest names and most successful internet marketers in the business.
I hope to see you in San Francisco at Traffic & Conversions.
All the best,
Jon Poland
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