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You know those headlines that scream out you can earn XXX amount of dollars by simply “pushing a few buttons” or “sending a few emails” or some such? Well, this case study is actually about someone doing almost no work and yet banking close to $5,000 a month.

In fact, she might be up to that amount now. The $4,400 was how much she earned when we spoke, and she mentioned that her income is increasing every single month. Yet she does almost no work whatsoever.

And by the way, OPA stands for Other People’s Artwork.

Here’s how it works:

I’ll call her Sally because, well, when I talk to her she giggles a lot and sounds kind of silly. Sort of like a high school girl, and yet she’s in her mid-twenties.

Sally has several different identities on Etsy and Ebay. Each identity sells a certain type of artwork. One sells paintings of animals, one sells landscapes, one sells abstract art, one sells hearts (I’m not kidding!) and so forth.

She has a real life assistant (we’ll call him Gorgeous George because as Sally tells it, in addition to working for her George also does some modeling and fitness instruction.) George makes all the listings for the artwork, gets the prints made from the originals, fulfills the orders and handles any customer service requests.

What does Sally do? She outsources work to several artists who do all of her paintings for her. Just like hiring a ghostwriter to write a book which you then sell, Sally is hiring “ghost painters”. She has them sign a non-disclosure agreement that gives her all rights to the paintings. And she never tells her artists what she does with the paintings, either.

If I were doing this business model, I might consider giving the artists a percentage of sales, but Sally likes to simply pay one fee up front to keep things simple.

Sally chooses the styles for the paintings by finding examples and showing them to her artists. She then asks them to replicate the style and not the actual painting. She sells the original paintings for a good price ($300 to $1,000) and sells limited edition prints for a lower price.

Her listings never claim that she or her persona is the artist. She’ll use generic language such as, “This painting was created May of 2021 using pastels on canvas.” She has her artists use several mediums, including acrylic, watercolor, pastels, ink, charcoal and so forth.

She also has a virtual assistant who has one job: Promoting the artwork through various social media channels. This is why her business is growing so fast, because word is getting out via social media. And she’s very good at picking her subjects, too, some of which are extremely timely and most of which prove popular.

As you can see she has expenses: Her real life assistant George, her virtual assistant, the artists and selling fees. But even after all this, she pulled in $4,400 in profit the month she revealed her system to me, and like it said, it’s increasing every month.

The real key here is to choose subjects that will sell. That’s why she likes animals, hearts and landscapes because they always do well. And her paintings aren’t super elaborate, either. An experienced painter can likely create one in a short afternoon.

One of her best-selling stores sells paintings that are somewhat cartoonish, including caricatures of real people as well as animals doing silly things. As mentioned earlier, one sells hearts. I suspect this artist probably does 4 or 5 paintings in a day because they are that simple. But they sell like hotcakes because people love hearts and bright colors.

This business is easy to replicate and if you use assistants, it takes very little time at all.

In the 1970’s there was a ridiculous and somewhat controversial show where performers of questionable talent did strange and bizarre things in the name of entertainment. When their acts became too much to bear, celebrity judges hit a giant gong, sending the performer packing.

This was a precursor to the competitive reality shows of today and at the time many people thought it was in terrible taste. That didn’t stop them from tuning in, though, and if you happened to be stoned when you were watching, well then I hear it was a laugh riot.

The perpetrator and host of this show was a guy named Chuck Barris. To give you a bit of history, Chuck created two smash hit TV shows in the 60’s; The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. But when Chuck debuted The Gong Show, critics called him, “The Baron of Bad Taste” and “The King of Schlock.”

In response, Barris wrote a book that attempted to set the record straight with some bald-faced lies. Barris claimed he was – now get this – a CIA assassin.

In his book, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” Barris asserts he worked for the CIA as a hired assassin throughout the 1960s and 70s. The CIA emphatically said this was not true, but what else would the CIA say?

The public always wondered…

Was Barris – the guy who acted like a silly clown on television – really a CIA assassin?

Maybe.

Nah… probably not.

But still… maybe…

Barris was quoted as saying, “Here I was, getting crucified by critics for entertaining people (The Gong Show) and getting medals for killing them. That just didn’t seem logical.”

In 2002 George Clooney created a feature film loosely based on and totally spoofing the book, in which Chuck Barris kills 33 people as a CIA operative.

Back to the two hit shows Barris created in the 60’s:

The Dating Game was simply 3 people competing to get a date with a 4th person by answering his or her questions. That was the entire premise and the show lasted for 15 years.

Then there was the Newlywed Game which was, as Barris described it, “4 couples, 8 questions and a washer-dryer.”

How long did it take Barris to come up with these ‘products’? I suspect the ideas came spontaneously in the shower or while he was falling asleep. Sure, he could have made them more complicated, but why?

Time and again I see marketers overcomplicating their products. “I want to create a product on driving traffic through Facebook Groups” becomes, “I’m creating a 22 volume set of traffic driving techniques for every major social media site as well as 13 other methods and each volume will have 2 hours of video and a 100 page book and…”

STOP!

All you need is 4 couples, 8 questions and a washer-dryer.

Keep it simple.

Simple is easy to create and it’s fast to market. You can find out quickly if your idea is a hit or not. And people are more likely to consume your product, thereby getting value for their money and coming back for MORE of your products.

Keep it simple.

One more thing…

Do your prospects find you boring? Do YOU find you boring?

Then start a rumor.

Maybe don’t start one that says you’re a CIA assassin (unless you really want to). But start a rumor that is fun, interesting and maybe just a tiny bit shocking.

Have a few people spread it on social media. Then deny the heck out of it.

This is the sort of thing that can go viral quite easily. You might even get some free publicity, too.

And who knows… one day George Clooney might make a movie about you, too.

Boys and girls, there was a time when calculators weren’t apps on smartphones – they were actually stand-alone hand-held electronic gizmos that did nothing but calculate numbers. (I’m dating myself…) Some of these calculators were even what you might call “desk sized” because they were so big you had to set them on something to use them.

One day a salesman found himself stuck with a gross of these large desk calculators. Nobody wanted to buy them, so here’s what he did…

He told his customers they were giant “ice scrapers” they could use to scrape ice off of windshields. The customers would object and say, “No, they’re calculators,” and he would reply, “Oh ya, I suppose you could use these as calculators, too, but they’re really great at removing ice!”

People would laugh and then buy one, and within days the calculators sold out.

Do you have a product that’s not selling?

Maybe you can find new positioning for your product, or a new and imaginative way to describe it.

For example, do you have a course on how to drive traffic via social media? Reposition it for one particular niche – dating, health, mmo, chiropractors – you get the idea. Do you sell a course on how to make art? Reposition it as art therapy so that it’s now about the process and not the outcome.

Almost any product can be targeted to a new audience or even rebranded as something entirely different.

Maybe we’re overthinking this whole video thing. It can take days to make a high-quality video, but even then there is no guarantee anyone will watch it. Or you can do what this guy did: Take one photograph, add music and a title and post it.

No script. No voice over. No nothing but a photo and generic elevator music. It’s called, “Gentle Understanding Cat” and as of this writing it has 86,000 views and 303 comments.

Even the creator is surprised, as he writes, “Damn this blew up. Please check out my other content with actual effort put into it.”

I did check them out, and his other videos have just 5 to 46 views each.

Then there’s YouTuber Charlotte Dobre. All she does is play social media posts of Bridezillas, Karen’s and other annoying people. As the clips play, you get to watch her reactions. Whoop-de-doo. It sounds stupid, right?

Nothing against Charlotte, but her videos contain essentially no original content other than her smirky remarks (which generally aren’t witty or funny). Even she appears surprised that so many people are watching her.

Charlotte has 570K subscribers, and here are a few of her viewership numbers:

•    The Fake People of Instagram, Part 2 – 1.1M views
•    Entitled People that are on Another Level – 881K views
•    Entitled People that are on Another Level, Part 3 – 839K views
•    Entitled Brides Getting Called Out on Social Media – 626K views
Essentially, she is earning a full-time income as a YouTube partner through advertising simply by reading OTHER PEOPLE’S social media posts and adding her own reactions to it.

When it comes to your own videos, you might take stock of what you’re trying to achieve with your videos and whether or not you’re on the best path to do that. If you’re making outstanding content that no one is watching, it might be time to recalibrate your video making methods.

If nothing else, here is a trick that works wonders for providing great ‘how-to’ content to viewers and still making the video entertaining and share-worthy on social media:

Use a polar-opposite partner.

For example, if you have strong views on a topic, your partner will play the part of the ‘dummy’ on the other side of the argument. The two of you bickering back and forth with you generally coming out on top while teaching something works wonders.

Your partner could also play the ignorant student who needs the super simple explanation to things. This makes the viewers feel smart and it’s an excellent way to come in under their resistance radar and bring them over to your way of thinking.

Don’t be afraid to be goofy, make mistakes and so forth. Today I discovered an animated series called “Suction Cup Man”.

The creator now sells a plushie Suction Cup Man doll at the end of video 4. To advertise it he uses video clips where the doll isn’t functioning as he wants it to, and it just adds to the appeal because it’s REAL.

You don’t need complicated videos. Simple is usually better. Entertaining is best. Combine the two – make it simple and entertaining, and you’ve got something.

That video you’re about to make outlining the 10 best things to know about your topic? Make it into 10 separate videos and find a way to be entertaining in each one.

The video you’re about to make to recruit affiliates to your launch? Please don’t read a script and try to look all stuffy and business-like. Be yourself. Speak from the heart about why your product rocks and how much you’re going to do for your affiliates. Be real. Make mistakes. Be goofy or silly. Leave your ego at the door, strive for the opposite of perfection and imagine you’re talking to friends… because you are.

Maybe the best analogy for creating videos is the old KISS method: Keep it Simple, Silly.

I couldn’t find the download anywhere. I checked my email, I clicked all the links and went to all the pages, I set up my new, free ‘membership’ and still the download wasn’t there. But they kept telling me to be sure to download it as soon as I watched the video. So I watched the video, but the download still did not appear.

Do you know what DID appear?

An email.

“We noticed you still have not downloaded the XYZ Document. If you need help, just click this button and someone will call you to assist.”

Ah-Ha!

Sneaky clever, don’t you think?

Here’s what they’re doing:

They’ve created an outstanding video that teaches a marketing technique. To get you to watch the video, they promise you a free download of one of their internal documents that’s made them millions.

But you can’t get to the document until you watch the video (it’s a long one) all the way to the end. You watch the video and… WHOOPSIE! Haha!

No download.

Next comes the super nice, super helpful sounding email. This is where they get you on the PHONE and sell you on their expensive program.

It’s a bit diabolical, but still I have to acknowledge their creativity.

What do most people like least about buying tangible goods online? I think it’s the shipping costs. Sure, you’re ready to pony up that $20 for the item you’re dying to have, but do you really want to pay the $7.99 shipping fee? Maybe not.

Then there’s another factor we might want to look at – remorse. Not the remorse that comes from buying something and then regretting it, but the remorse that comes from NOT adding something to your order.

Sure, you got the Super Duper Widget and the Super SUPER Duper Widget Accessory, but darn it, why didn’t you get the Super Duper Case to go with it? Blast it all, now you feel like you blew it. Except…

Except there is a company out there called Zulily that has an innovative solution for both of these obstacles. When you place an order with Zulily, you can order again anytime in the next 2-3 days and pay NO additional shipping costs.

This means you can go back and get the items you wish you’d purchased in the first place, and it won’t cost you a dime in additional shipping.

Zulily also offers to split your payment in half. You pay half now plus shipping and the other half in a month. They have your credit card on file, so the risk to them is extremely low. And I’ll bet the increase in business is substantial.

Is there a way you can apply these super consumer friendly practices to your business, and increase your bottom line in the process?

While appearing on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, super star country singer Trace Atkins tells about the time in his life before he became famous. Trace played in clubs throughout the Southwest for 5 years, moved to Nashville and played in bars for another 3 years before getting his first recording contract.

Trace says, “I always had very happy club owners because I would challenge people to drink as much as I did from the stage. So I sold a lot of liquor, which is really the business that you’re in when you’re playing in beer joints. You’re not in the music business, you’re in the liquor business.”

Craig Ferguson jumped in with his own analogy, explaining that his late night tv show wasn’t about television; it was about selling erectile dysfunction pills to lonely people. Okay, maybe Craig was joking (and maybe he wasn’t) but the point is this: You’re not always in the business you think you’re in.

Trace knew that if he wanted to stay booked in the local pubs, he needed to make the bar owners happy. And what did the bar owners really want? It wasn’t to pack their venues with people who liked to listen to country music – it was to sell drinks. It wouldn’t matter how many people showed up for the music if no one was drinking and Trace knew that. That’s why he made it his business to sell alcohol, making the bar owners happy and ensuring he continued to work.

Trace’s number one customers weren’t the fans, they were the bar owners. And later, his number one customer would be the record label. Whatever you sell, it might not be what you think it is and your customer might not be who you think it is, either.

If you’re in the business of helping small businesses with their marketing, who is your customer? The business owner, of course. And yet there is often someone who it is even MORE important to impress than the business owner, and that’s the gatekeeper. It might be an assistant, a secretary, a spouse or the manager. This is the person who is the KEY to getting to the guy or gal who makes the money decisions. If you don’t make it a priority to sell the gatekeeper first, they are going to sabotage you and you’ll never get the client.

Let’s say you’re in the weight loss industry. Are you really selling yet another method to lose weight? Or are you selling people on the hope they can feel sexy again, fit into their clothes again, live longer, overcome their crippling health challenges and so forth? If you’re a minister or a teacher, your clients aren’t your congregation or students – it’s the board that determines if you get to stay or go.

Let’s face it: If it weren’t for all the issues that being overweight brings with it – if people were just as healthy and sexy and confident with that extra weight – then you would be out of a job. You’re not selling a skinnier body, you’re selling a better quality of life, and that’s a huge distinction.

The romance niche isn’t about finding someone to move in, pay half the mortgage and make you less lonely – any decent roommate can do that. It’s about sharing life experiences with the one person who truly knows you, being yourself in front of this person and being able to completely open up and let someone else know the real you, expanding your world to encompass another and so forth.

You might think you’re a musician, a marketer, a product creator and so forth, and maybe you are. But you’re also a version of Trace’s alcohol salesperson, or whatever it takes to connect with your customer and make the sales.

I’m gonna wring this guy’s neck and I don’t even know who the heck he is. Gimme a second to decompress…

Deep breaths…

Okay, here’s what happened.

I get an email with a topic that sounded good. Real good. “Go check out the product,” it says. So, I click it. I’m trying to read the sales page. I mean I’m REALLY TRYING TO READ THE SALES PAGE but he, whoever this guy is…

… WON’T LET ME READ THE SALES PAGE!

I am his prime prospect.

I want the benefit he so eloquently offered in the email.

He’s worked hard to get me on his list, get me to open that email, get me to click the link…

… but the result is I wanna strangle him.

Why?

Because every two seconds there is another pop-up that says:

JOE BLOW JUST BOUGHT THIS PRODUCT!
SUSIE Q JUST BOUGHT THIS PRODUCT!
JEDI MASTER JUST BOUGHT THIS PRODUCT!
FREDDIE KRUGER JUST BOUGHT THIS PRODUCT!

Sigh.

I closed the page and came here to write you this note.

While it’s terrific to show your prospects that your product is flying off the shelf, I’m not so sure that continuously interrupting them while they read your sales page is the way to do it.

Plus, between you and me, I’m not sure I even believe he’s making all those sales.

It comes out to about 1 sale every 2 or 3 seconds, and that just doesn’t seem likely, does it?

But here’s where I advise you to not take my advice…

(Wait… let me think about that a moment…)

Those super annoying pop-ups that tell you everyone and their brother are buying the product… (I hate to even admit this)

… actually increase sales.

Yup.

I am the exception here and NOT the rule.

People are naturally influenced by what other people do. It’s the herd instinct, and it’s hardwired into us for reasons of survival.

People see that others are buying the product and so they buy the product, too. I’ve seen data on sales launches where there is a big surge at the opening bell of people buying. This is typical behavior in a successful launch. Most people buy the first day or the last day, and in between sales sharply taper off.

But when these annoying sales notifications are added on the second day, suddenly sales go up again. More people who visit the page are buying right then and there rather than putting the decision off.

You can get the software to do this at fomo.com or other software providers. Just sign up for an account, implement the code, set your parameters for how you want the software to appear and act, and if all goes as planned, sales will increase.

But please, please make the notifications unobtrusive. The idea is to gently let prospects know that other people are buying the product.

If the pop-up is continually stopping the person from reading the letter, you will lose sales to people who don’t have the patience to put up with the distraction. Like me.

They almost didn’t add the upsell because it was too expensive and most of their buyers wouldn’t be interested… Or so they thought.

The main product was a super cool software plugin, priced at $47 for use on one site and $67 for unlimited sites.

Most people bought the $67 version.

The upsell was developers’ rights to the plugin.

Most people won’t buy that, right?

The two partners argued about it for three days before finally adding the developer’s rights as the only upsell to the funnel.

The promotion ran for a week, had plenty of affiliates promoting and guess what?

You know it – they brought in an extra $13,396 just from the upsell.

Maybe it wasn’t a fortune, but it’s extra money they otherwise would not have made.

Plus, it didn’t cost them a dime to offer that upsell, either.

What are you not selling right now that you could be in your sales funnel?

Time and again I’ve seen new marketers complain that they’re not earning 5 figures a month. So, I ask them what they’re selling…

$7 reports…

$17 ebooks…

$27 video sets…

“Okay,” I say, “let’s do some math. Five figures a month is $10,000 or more. How many $7 products do you need to sell to make $10,000?”

“I don’t know,” they say.

The answer is 1,428.

What about $17 ebooks?

If you sell 588 of those a month, you’ll make five figures.

Yeah, but what about $27 video sets?

You only need 370 of those a month. That’s 12 or 13 sales every day.

If you convert a whopping 5% of your visitors, you’ll need 360 interested visitors a day to achieve that.

That’s going to cost money to drive that kind of traffic, which means you’ll need to sell a whole lot more products.

You see where this is going.

If the basic structure of your business prevents you from earning the income you want, then you’ve got to change your business.

It’s like buying a car that only goes 50, and then feeling disappointed and mad when it won’t go 100. It’s just not built for that kind of speed, and your business might not be built to earn 5 figures a month, either.

Low priced products are great for building a list of buyers and essential for self-liquidating paid advertising. You pay $100, you make $100 but you’ve got a list you’re building, or rather two lists because one is subscribers (which can be good) and the other one is buyers (which is where the real profit is made.)

But if you want to make five figures a month, you’ll need to either sell something more expensive like a $197 course or a $500 coaching program, or else promote affiliate products.

Let’s talk about that $197 price tag – to earn $10,000 a month, you need to sell just 50 of those a month. Or you can sell 20 of the $500 coaching.

The point is, if all you’re doing is selling nickel and dime stuff, then you can’t complain if you’re not making any REAL money.

It’s time to step up your game. Whatever is holding you back from selling more profitable products, knock it off.

Don’t tell me your list won’t buy expensive products because I know they will. They’re already buying more expensive products from other marketers, so why not from you, too? Build trust and rapport with them and some of them will buy anything you offer.

But the first step is getting your own mindset in shape and believing that you can sell big ticket items.

And if this is too much of a stretch for you right now (you’re not alone) then you can at least get on the right track by adding multiple products to your line. Add a continuity membership site, paid newsletter and/or paid podcast. Add products that sell for $47, $67, $97 and more. Find affiliate products you love and believe in that earn good money per sale. This way you can work your way up to the big-ticket items.

Heck, I know one marketer who won’t sell anything that costs less than $1,997. He doesn’t have a list of 500,000 because he doesn’t need one. He’s got a couple of lists of about 5,000 each and he is absolutely CRUSHING it because every single sale brings big money to his own pocket.

His mindset is that $17 products are a total waste of his time, and he’s right. To earn $1,997 he can make one sale or he can make 117 sales. He chooses to make one sale and even as I write this I realize that I, too, need to focus more on the higher priced products. I guess there is a lesson in here for all of us. 😉