and life you love. And this is Q&A Tuesday except it's not a normal Q&A Tuesday because

I'm not answering the question today. Once again I have a special guest. He's been on

the show before and I'm so pleased to have him again. It's my friend New York Times Bestselling

author Ramit Sethi, who wrote I Will Teach You to be Rich. Ramit, thanks for coming back

on.

How's it going?

It's going awesome. And we're gonna have some fun today because one of the things I love

about you, you're a great entrepreneur, you're a great teacher, you sell information products

and training programs and you're quite successful at it. So congratulations. And I know your

products and your services... you actually don't have services. Your products help a

lot of people. I have a lot of folks in my audience who also would like to sell information

products and training and one of the most common questions I get asked is, "Why is my

product not selling? I've put so much work into it, so much heart and soul, no sales."

And I have a feeling that you may have an answer that can really help people out.

There's a lot of reasons and I studied them systematically over the last few years. I...

my first info product was a $4.95 ebook. Which I still...

Was it really?

Yeah, it was called Ramit's 2007 Guide to Kicking Ass. And I still laugh at how naive

my marketing was and my pricing and recently my... I sold a product for $12,000. So along

that entire gamut of understanding what works and what doesn't, I've been sort of watching

and learning and testing different approaches. One of the biggest things I find is we are

not specific enough with who it is we're going after and what our product does. So, for example,

I have a course that is called Earn 1K on the Side. And it's helped a lot of people

earn 1, 2, 5,000 dollars a month on the side while they keep their full time job. it took

us 6 months to get that name. Right? You'd think we were just sitting around drunk in

the back of a like... our office like, "Oh, Earn 1K on the Side." No. Think about it,

when you're talking about earning more money there's an infinite number of possibilities.

Make more money, there's those scammy get rich quick things, there's all... live a better

life through more income. Why did we call it Earn 1K on the Side? And then I'm gonna

tell everyone how to apply this to their own life. Earn 1K because many of my successful

readers end up earning tens of thousands of dollars. But if I say Earn 10K, what do you

think people think?

No way. Impossible. I can't do it, not gonna happen.

I'm not the kind of person that could earn 10K. But 1K, yes. And, by the way, 1K for

most of us, 1K a month is life changing.

Yes.

Then on the side what we discovered in our research was people believe if you talk about

earning more money, they have to quit their jobs and start the next Google. Wrong. You

can earn money on the side while you have a full time job. So this radically changed

our positioning and it enabled us to really do well with that course and help people earn

a lot of money. When I look at some of the products... and I've done a lot of research

on your students and your readers. And when I gave a talk last year at RHH, I studied

them very carefully. And I noticed that a lot of them use very similar phrases.

Yup.

And a lot of them... the courses and products and services are in the relationship or financial

area. So help you get your business up, help you find love, etcetera. And not many of them

were as specific as they could be.

Yes.

So I'll challenge your readers right now. If you are trying to help your clients with

their relationships, I would say who are you targeting? And when I asked this question

at the talk I gave, many people said, "Women." I was like, "That's not specific." So I said,

"How old are these women?" And they said, "25 to 54." Ok, there is virtually nothing

identical about a 25 year old woman to a 54 year old woman. Nothing. In fact, if you're

talking about love, a 24 year old woman thinks of love totally differently than even a 34

year old woman. And, by the way, what if the 34 year old woman went to an Ivy League college?

She thinks of love even differently. So getting really specific... to be able to say, for

example, I'm targeting let's say 24 to 29 year old young women who are interested in

X, Y, Z, and this is what they're doing. The second question to ask is, who am I not targeting?

And that brings us to a whole nother question of why we don't get specific.

Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute because every time in many of my programs when I talk

about being specific and drilling down, people freak out because, "I don't wanna leave anyone

behind and my information can help everybody." And I understand that the intention behind

that is very admirable because they believe in what they do and they really do wanna help

as many people as possible. But from a business and marketing perspective, it's shooting yourself

in the foot.

Yeah. In a world of infinite choices, when you see something that is not directly for

you, you close the window and move on. So if I'm let's say a young man and I'm looking

for some shirts and I go onto this website, Nordstrom.com or whatever, and I see this

shirt and there's a... so I click to zoom in and there's a guy modeling it. And it's

a guy that kinda looks like me, he's young, you know, he's wearing these kind of shoes.

I'm like, "Alright." Then I click to the next photo. The next photo there's like this 16

year old little punk with a skateboard and now I'm like, "Wait a minute." And then I

click to the next one and there's this grandpa who's on the beach with, like, you know, Dockers.

And socks.

And white socks. And I'm like... what do I do? Close the window.

Yes.

Because it's not for me. What this site has tried to do is appeal to everyone, but ironically

they've turned us all off. 16 year old punk doesn't want me and he definitely doesn't

want Gramps. And Grandpa doesn't even know how to use his computer, so he's not even

looking at this website. So we have a big problem here. We have a really big problem.

The point of this is, you have to be able to say who you're targeting as well as who

you're not targeting. And while on the first hand it does seem like why would I want to

shut people off?

Right.

You have to understand that you're not trying to appeal to everyone, you're trying to appeal

to the right people. And when you do that, when you can get deeply into their mind and

understand what it is they want, you can tailor your product and service exactly for them.

You can use the language that they use. Again, a 24 year old young woman looking for love,

her language around relationships totally different than a 45 year old looking for love.

Totally different. We all know that. So put yourself in the mind of your client. If they're

24 and they're looking for X, what language are they gonna use? What are they gonna look

for? How much are they gonna be willing to pay? And if you're looking at helping 44 year

old clients, they have a totally different mindset. They're probably willing to spend

a lot more.

Yup.

Alright? They probably have a very different phrases and words that they use. And when

you can reach directly into what they want, in fact will you find that not only will your

clients become happier, your business will dramatically grow because price will become

a mere triviality. You're actually solving their problems by getting specific.

Love it. Ramit, this is genius. So let me give you a typical example of something that

I often hear in the words of some of my clients and some of my readers. And I know they need

to drill down and be more specific, so I'd love to hear how you'd handle this. So many

people want to build their business around empowering women and empowering women to,

you know, find their life purpose and live it out and have the life of their dreams.

What would you say to someone who wants to do that, because it feels very general. How

would you get them more specific?

Hold on.

I love that we kind of fried your brain for a second because...

I'm speechless for the first time in 30 years.

Yeah.

So they wanna empower women to live the life of their dreams.

Yes.

Ok, so let me tell you, and I just heard this for the first time just now, let me tell you

5 ways that I believe these clients might be empowered to live a better life. They might

buy a nicer shirt. They might get a better haircut. They might get a better car. They

might make more money. They might find the life partner that they deserve. Ok, so are

you selling cars or are you selling relationships or what... what is is that you're selling?

Right.

Empowering is a good word, but it's so general that without some kind of additional positioning,

it is meaningless.

Yeah.

And what happens is a lot of us will look at really large companies and say, "Well wait

a minute. Coca-Cola, they sell happiness." Well Coca-Cola's been around for over 100

years and they have a multi billion dollar market cap. So they can do that because people

know what Coca-Cola represents. When you're starting off, nobody knows who you are. So

if a client or a potential client, a prospect, goes to your site, put yourself in their mind.

What are their hopes, fears, and dreams? And when you say empowering women, let's get really

specific. Are you talking about helping them with their relationships? Or with their job

and their career? Or their finances? If so, I would suggest starting off with one of those,

nailing it. Because one of the best things you could do when you're getting specific

is to show 3 or 4 testimonials of before and after. You know who does this really well

is P90X. You know the workout regiment?

Absolutely.

Love their site because it is so simple, it's not particularly beautiful. But if you go

there, you see ultimate specificity. You see the skinny guy who got big, you see the fat

guy who got toned, you see the post-pregnancy woman who got back to her pre-pregnancy weight.

You see every single specific niche and you're like, "That's me." And you click it and you

read it and you say, "That's me again." Buy. So what could you do on your site and in your

positioning to make somebody come and say, "That's me. She described my problem, she

described a potential solution, and best of all she showed me an example of 2 or 3 other

people who went through this process and came out on the other end. And they're exactly

where I wanna be in my life."

So I love what you just said. So why don't you come up with our MarieTV challenge for

today. And it sounds like it's a little bit of a before and after.

Let's do a classic before and after. I'll challenge each of your readers to take their

current positioning whether or not they have a business, even if they just have an idea

for a business. What is it right now? What's your before? So I wanna help empower women

to live their authentic lives and authentic best selves and... whatever that phrase may

be. Now let's take it to the after. Let's get really, really specific. We did instead

of make more money, we did Earn 1K on the Side. Instead of helping you find, you know,

true love, maybe it is Helping You Find Your Perfect Relationship for the Ambitious Career

Woman. Ok? Niche it down, get ultra specific. And I think... it's hard. It's not easy. But

when you do that, you're gonna see the power of how specific you can get and now you know

exactly who you're targeting.

Love it. Ramit just laid down an amazing challenge. And remember, the best action happens after

the episode at MarieForleo.com, so make sure you go take our before and after challenge,

leave a comment below, and we will see you there.

Like this video? Then subscribe and share it with your friends. And if you want even

more insights from me, resources all kinds of great things to create a business and life

you love, get your butt over to MarieForleo.com and make sure to sign up for email updates.

Ramit, thank you so much for being here. It was awesome.

Thanks for having me.

Now you need to stay on your game and keep going for your dreams. The world needs that

special thing that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and we'll catch you next

time

on MarieTV.