Over the last year or so, I’ve been finding subscribing to, and refining a list of marketing podcasts that I listen to on a regular basis.  These podcasts make my short drive time both productive and quite enjoyable.  I also listen to podcasts (though not always marketing podcasts) while doing work around the house and taking walks.   Because I listen to music almost all day, having something else to put on in the car or while I’m not engaged in conversations or around other people, is a treat. Plus, it’s a great way to stay informed and add to my personal knowledge base.

Now that the list is fairly mature, I thought I’d start making some recommendations, starting with one of my top favorites.  The “Internet Business Mastery” podcasts is consistently the first show I listen to when there is a new episode available.  Sterling and Jay deliver so much valuable information in their show, it is not only a great source of information, but an excelent model in terms of how to build a great ‘front-end’ for your sales funnel.

About the Show

Learn how to create an internet based business, unleash a flood of traffic and trigger explosive profits in the new social media age. Internet Business Mastery teaches you how to use Web 2.0 strategies combined with classic internet marketing principles to build passive income streams and brand yourself as an expert (or even an online celebrity). Whether you’re starting a new business or looking to augment your current one, you’ll discover techniques that will boost earnings, increase lead generation and extend your personal/business brand. You’ll learn tools and techniques such as search engine optimization, social media marketing, social network marketing, email list building, blogging, podcasting, online viral video and much more. We’re dedicated to teaching you not only the skills but also the mind set necessary to succeed as an internet entrepreneur. We want to help you to use your ideas and expertise to make money and open up to opportunities so that you can have the freedom and income to pursue the lifestyle you want. We’ve been the #1 internet business podcast since 2005. Join our community that contains thousands of listeners dedicated to becoming an internet business master.

I took the above directly from the ‘information’ link in iTunes.  Like I said, you will not only learn a lot from listening to the content of this podcast, but you’ll also learn a lot by modeling the effectiveness and thoroughness of their marketing approach.  A lot of podcasts leave details like this out, and miss promotional opportunities in the process — but not Sterling and Jay.

About the Internet Business Mastery Sales Funnel

I always look at products from three angles: 1) will it benefit me, 2) will it benefit my subscribers and 3) what can I learn from the sales process. In this case, I hit a power trifecta — this podcast has something to offer for all three angles.

Sterling and Jay have developed a powerful sales funnel by focusing first on their podcast first, then a free offer for their free recording called “3 Pillars of Designing Your Ultimate Internet Lifestyle“  They have two very solid lead generation offers (LGO’s) that are compelling to their target market and deliver tons of valuable content.

Subscribe to their podcast, and you’ll see how they effectively balance delivering great content and promoting both their free offers and their ongoing membership site.

While reading “The High Cost of Information” from Charlie Gilkey, I was struck by this paragraph:

Here’s the bottom line: if you can’t ask yourself the basic questions that you’re hoping the information will answer, you probably shouldn’t be collecting information – you should be asking yourself what questions you need answered. If those questions are worth the high cost of information, then you’re golden; otherwise, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

Charlie’s post is about the fact that more information, while being something that we all instinctively pursue, isn’t always helpful — in fact, the pursuit of more information can (and does) keep you from reaching your goals. Spending time gathering information that you don’t really need is costly in terms of delayed goals and missed opportunities.

The bottom line is simple, know what the questions are before you go looking for answers.

This idea is one of the core reasons I created VisiOlo — with the tracking tools available to me, I could get a *lot* of information, but not precisely and immediately the information that would answer my most important questions.

So what are the questions you want your sales statistics to answer for you?

For every sales system, and any given time-frame, I want to know:

1. How many people saw my offer?
2. How may of those people accepted my offer (converted)?
3. How many people joined my lists?
4. How many people bought products?
5. How much did I sell?
6. Which traffic sources brought in the most sales or subscribers?
7. Which traffic sources are not performing?
8. Compared to ‘before’ is my sales system performing better or worse ‘now?’
9. How effective is each step in my sales process when it comes to getting prospects to take the next step?
10. Where I am testing one page against another (split testing or multivariate testing), which page is performing better?

Of course, if I’m looking to get people to stay on a website longer, or I want to optimize the content, or I want information related to SEO, I would ask different questions, but when it comes to tracking the results of my sales system, these are the 10 questions I ask — information not related to these questions isn’t helpful and can be distracting.

Not being able to answer these questions quickly and easily is costly.

Conversion Tweak Video by Ryan Deiss

This is a great video and a simple item to split test. Of course, your results may vary, but that’s why you use VisiOlo to track your testing results, right?