An Interview With Aaron Danker
Interviews are a great way to produce a blog post without having to actually write anything, the sun has made me lazy, and as such instead of a normal blog post I’ve sent off some questions to another local marketer; Aaron Danker.
I promote a lot of Aaron’s products, and I hope you will find the following interview at least a little bit useful.
Q. Before I start asking the proper questions, could you give the readers a brief overview of who you are and what you do?
Sure, my name is Aaron Danker. I’m 27 and I’m just a simple humble guy with an ambition. I left school with GCSEs and A-levels, even a BA in Computer Games Design, but never managed to get my feet firmly on the ground and settled with a job.
I’ve always believed that there is more to this world than just going to school, getting an education, getting a job, working nearly every do of your life, getting married, having kids and growing old, worried and in debt. For me, that’s not living – that’s just existing.
For me, being able to do what you want, where you want and with whom you want is the definition of wealth. You can have a great income, but if you’re tied down to a boss telling you what to do or where to go, then you’re restrained. You can have all the freedom in the world, but if you have no money, how you going to go anywhere or get what you want?
The internet definitely opens up the gates for this so since it’s here why not use it?
Q: How did you first get started in Internet Marketing?
I didn’t even know the term existed until I actually started getting involved in it! Before this whole ‘internet marketing’ business came about, I was trying to make money on eBay selling unwanted items. This was way back in early 2007. When I started looking around I couldn’t help but notice the amount of ‘eBooks’ that were listed for $0.99. What attracted me to them at the time is how people managed to make money selling these downloadable items for $0.99.
One of the first products I even bought online was ‘How To Set Up Digital Delivery’. This was selling for $0.99 on eBay and came with its own reseller’s kit – it was immense 🙂
I thought that if I could somehow automate the way a product was delivered to a customer after they made a payment for one of these eBooks, then I could essentially automate the way I make money.
So what did I do?… I took the same product and listed on eBay. I managed to sell it for $0.40. In fact I made a loss when you take into consideration eBay fees, but I was happy because it was the first sale I ever made! From then on I was hooked!
Q. I first came across you when you were just starting out, I think one of the first products you asked me to promote was about Tattoos? Did you find it hard to get people to promote your products when you were first starting out?
Yes that’s right. One of the early products I asked you to promote was a ready-made tattoo niche package for internet marketers. I was doing well selling tattoo designs on eBay back when digital delivery was still around so I thought this would be an excellent offer to put together to help other marketers cash in on this niche.
Getting people to promote my product wasn’t my main concern at the time. My intention was to create a quality offer and set up a website with the hope of continuously selling it. I had no affiliate program in place, I had no idea on how to promote my product, nor was I building a list. I was lucky enough to pick up any sales back then so I knew I had to start changing my tactics.
Q. Everytime I promote one of your products I always get positive comments about your sales page graphics, do you design all the sales pages and graphics yourself?
Yes I do all the graphics myself. I have hired others to do the work for me, but I’ve been disappointed to say the least with the quality of work. So for now I’d rather do the graphics myself and do the job properly!
Q. If yes, have you ever considered doing a bit of graphic design freelance work on the side?
I consider myself to be more of a marketer than a designer. I have done mini-site graphics privately for others in the past. However as a marketer, it’s not the most productive thing for me to do. It takes a full day to produce a complete mini-site graphics set, yet that time can be used to create a new promotion with PLR products.
I could get $300-$500 for doing private work for someone else. I work once, I get paid once. However I could generate $1000-$2000+ for doing a promotion, and more importantly an on-going income by promoting it again and again with my auto-responder. Which would you rather have?
This is why I’ve had to turn down a lot of graphic requests in the past. As I say, I consider myself to be more of a marketer than a designer and would rather cater to the needs of 1000 people than 1 person.
However despite this my partner and I still provide personal graphic services for others at XtremeWebTemplates.com
Q. Over the past 18 months or so, the vast majority of your products are priced under $20, with a lot priced at $10. Why do you charge so little for them?
There’s a couple of reasons why I create low-priced products that over-deliver on content.
Firstly, if you’re going to spent $10 on anything online, you can’t expect a lot. So when I over-deliver on content it goes against their expectations which means high conversions and lower refunds.
Secondly, it’s a chance to expose my second offer. After the $10 purchase, I like to provide an even better deal. This could be more of what was just bought, or could just another great offer. I could price this from $10 to $97 or more depending on the offer, but this is more that would not have been made otherwise. If had a $97 price tag from the beginning, this would have put off a lot of people from the site. I want to include as many as possible.
Q. How many products on average would you say you create each year?
Every year I find myself making more and more products. I’m currently running 3 memberships which provide ready-made products for others. With these memberships alone, I have to create a total of 5 per month (60 per year). On top of that I create about 5 new offers every month for promoting and maybe 1 ClickBank product if I can fit it in. So you’re looking at roughly 120 products per year. This may sound a lot, but a lot of them stem from PLR works and are built for members.
Q. How long does it take for you to create a product from start to finish, do you create all of the material yourself or do you outsource some of the tasks?
When I first started out, I use to spend about 1-2 weeks writing ‘how-to’ guides from scratch! I’d spend another week or so on the website itself and write up a sales page and create some graphics for it. All in all, you’re looking at nearly 1 month before I could actually get my product up for selling. This was early 2008 when I was still a newbie and struggled to write sales copy, struggled with Photoshop and just slow at putting up a website. This is a fine example of how NOT to do things 🙂
Fast forward now and you will NEVER find me creating a product from scratch. I always work with something that’s at least got the product half-made and the sales page content written up. Everything else can be moulded to how I see fit. I invest heavily in PLR products, and out-source a lot of written work. The only thing I concentrate on now is graphics and because I’ve had a lot of practice with Photoshop and enjoy doing it. I also have my own scripts, PSD templates, and ready-structured mini-sites, and useful find and replace program, so I can churn out a new looking product within 24 hours.
If I want to create affiliate resources, I’d spend another day putting that together. Then on the third day I’d prepare my promotional emails, launch them and also add them into my auto-responder. These days I have to be quick when creating products especially with the number of membership sites I’m running!
Q. A lot of the $10 products I’ve promoted for you come with 100% commissions, how do you manage to make this profitable for you, is it all about building a list or do you have a number of back end systems in place?
This is true. Again it’s a case of attracting affiliates and customers to promote something that they just bought. I love automation – so if all it takes is one day to create a $10 offer and give 100% commission in exchange for a continuous sign-up of buyers then I’m happy.
Anyone can just put together a quick site and give 50-75% commission but what makes your affiliate program different from any other? If you put yourself in the minds of your affiliates, and give them everything including instant pay, along with materials such as articles, banners, blog reviews etc., then they’ll jump on it straight away!
My intention is not to make money on these offers – even though I do with an initial launch and auto-responder sequence – but to gather as many buyers as possible so that when I have another offer ready I can repeat the process and even up-sell my high-ticket items.
Q. I know firsthand how popular your $10 products are, but have you ever tried selling any higher value products, and if so how did they go down with your subscribers?
Yes I do sell higher priced products which range from $47 to $197 and a couple at $497 but these are offered to qualified people that already have a firm grasp of what they’re doing online.
Like many marketers who are involved in list-building I have a lot of freebie seekers who will sign up for your free gift, but then do nothing else once subscribed. These are not the people you want on your list because it’s only running up a larger bill on your Aweber account.
This is why I create a lot of low-priced offers (even $1 offers) and offer 100% instant pay commission on them. They are essentially list builders for buyers only. If someone has bought a product from me in the past even for $1, I know that they’re willing to spend and do business with me in the future in order to develop themselves. These are the sort of people I want to cater to and where I spend more of my time on.
With high-end offers you have to be in front of the right kind of people. For example, if I created a fantastic looking ClickBank site with resell rights that sold training videos on how to fix your xBox, only the seasoned marketers would see the value in it and buy. However, if I presented that same offer to complete beginners who didn’t know what an index.html was or how to upload with FTP, I’d be getting a lot of support emails and refunds! It’s all about targeting your offers to the right kind of people.
Q. If I made you look back over the years and asked you to pick the best product you’ve ever created, what would it be, and why?
Honestly, I’ve had a lot of success with almost all the products I’ve launched. They continue to sell even to this day despite the fact that I haven’t updated them for years.
I think it’s important to note that it’s not about the product itself, but what niche or sub-niche you’re in and what you can do for that market. For me, I seem to fall into the RR/MRR/PLR niche – and what I’m able to provide is solid graphics and good looking websites.
But if I had to start again and didn’t have a single website to my name, the first thing I would build is my main membership site – Platinum Resell Rights.
Although I had a wobbly start, it’s definitely the bread winner out of all the sites I’ve created. I think the main reason is because it’s an on-going service that I’m able to provide without sacrificing time doing individual private work.
Q. If you could go back, would you have chosen another sub-niche or market?
I think I’ve ended in this market now because I try to fill a demand. When I first started I would have no idea what market to enter, whether it’ll be profitable, how to create a mini-site and so on. Where I’ve ended up is after months and months of refining.
Q. What are your plans for the future are you going to keep working with the system that has served you well so far or are you looking to expand into different areas?
I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing until I’ve got enough time and money to invest seriously PPC. For me, this is the pinnacle of making money online.
You simply buy traffic and convert it into sales by sending them to the right offer. The difference is profit (or loss) but it’s the simplicity and lack of interactivity that appeals to me 🙂
There’s no need to put up a website, build a list (unless you want to), create a sales page, build links, write articles, deal with emails etc. etc.
Of course this business model does come at a price – RISK. I’ve done a bit of PPC but never really gone full swing into it which is why I plan on using my current business to fund this new venture.
Q. Looking back, what would you say the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your online business?
Mistake is such a harsh word. I don’t think I’ve made any epic mistakes that could cost me – maybe because I haven’t taken enough risk?… depends which way you look at it. I have however had minor set-backs and disappointments where a promotion didn’t do as well, or if I didn’t make as many sales as I hoped.
The point is to be receptive to what you do online and understand why. Was it the offer? Was it priced too high? Was the quality of the offer bad? Was it too complicated? Was it aimed at the wrong people?
The biggest mistake anyone can make is giving up and going back to work in the offline world. I don’t plan on going back – and why would you want to? Getting up in the morning, going to work, getting paid minimum wage, and just scraping by? No thanks. I’d rather get paid for using my brain and being creative and get paid handsomely for it!
The internet really does open up the doors for a lot of potential but it’s only there for people that want to take it.
Q. What would you say is the number one most important skill a marketer can have?
The skills you need will vary on what you do online. For me being able to create unique looking mini-sites is what allows me to separate myself from the rest. However as a general overview, the most important skill that any marketer can do with is the ability to generate targeted traffic. With this skill alone you can be a product creator, an affiliate or an Adsense publisher, it doesn’t matter. If you can generate traffic to a site, you can make money online.
The next most important skill is the ability to sell. If you’re a product creator this is quite obvious because you need to write great sales copy or a convincing video presentation to get people to take action. Even if you’re an affiliate, you will still need to create landing pages that get people to click where you want them to. Or even if you’re a product owner and need to convince affiliates to promote your product you still need to write great sales copy.
For me these are the most important skills that everyone needs if they want to make money online!
Q. Have you got any words of wisdom for people wanting to start their own business online or who are desperate to start making money online now?
Yes! Firstly stick to what you DO know and use that as a point of leverage. Find what you’re good at. If you’re good at writing – get involved in writing articles for others as a freelancer or even think about starting your own article membership where you provide PLR articles on a consistent basis! If you’re good at programming- get involved in forums and find out what people need and create a program for it or provide a service for them. If you enjoy teaching (no matter the subject), think about creating a video training course and setting up a sales page to sell your expertise. If you can play an instrument, create training videos and put them on YouTube and recommend training products as an affiliate! I don’t care what you say, we all have something that we’re good at… and if you honestly think you’re good at nothing, dedicate time to become good at it!
Secondly, learn all the basic skills that you need to know in order to get yourself set up online! Do you need to learn to upload?… then learn it! Do you need to learn to create a sales page?… then learn it!… Do you need to learn how create an eBook?… then learn it! There’s no excuse for NOT knowing how to do something especially when a simply Google search will provide you with all the answers.
Thirdly, be real! Get it out of your head that just because it’s ‘online’ that it’s suppose to be easier to make money. This is utter non-sense. In fact, when I tell others that I make money online they immediate think ‘scam’ or that I don’t do any real work. This the mentally of poor minded people – I’ve even had to re-phrase my titled to ‘website designer’. Not everyone can dedicate themselves or have the discipline to make a living online – they are better off working a normal job.
Fouthly, stop messing around! If you really want to make this work for you – get rid of that TV, unplug that phone, turn off your mobile, and dedicate a room just for yourself where you can shut the door and concentrate. Distractions (including people) will stop you from progressing and it’ll just take you longer before you get anything real done.
Take action every day and have a plan on what you need to do. Use Google calendar to start planning what you should be doing every day. Do you need to put up your first squeeze page? Do you need to watch training videos? Do you need to buy hosting or a domain or an server scripts? Do you need to promote your site? Do you need to write an auto-responder series? Do you need to create a free report? Do you need to create an offer? Do you need to create graphics for your site? There’s never a day that goes by where I don’t have anything to do. Even if you take baby steps you’re eventually going to accomplish something much bigger!
Fifthly, become emotionally retarded! That’s right – it’s probably the only thing you should regress. If something didn’t go to plan don’t quit. If you didn’t earn as much as you wanted to with a promotion, don’t get emotionally involved. If you get a refund on something you worked hard on, don’t take it personally. If other’s tell you that you’re wasting your time online, smile and continue with your business. There’s only one person to rely on in this world and that’s YOU! So get to work and start making money!
About
Aaron continues to create products for other marketers. His reputation for quality graphics and resell rights products is what makes his membership Platinum Resell Rights a consistent source of income for other marketers. You can pick up a free 2 hour training video on how to set up your own website at PlatinumResellRights.com
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Wow! uh….WOW! This left me speechless, Dan.
So much down to earth great info here, I had to read it twice! Hell, I am gonna print it out! Wow!
I have a few of Aaron’s products and he does over deliver! In fact I was shocked at the price vs. the value! I thought, OK, this is like 7 bucks, how good can it be? Then when I got the videos and saw what was in the site, I was like Holey Moley!! Pure content, major info, very impressed!!
Y’all did a really great interview here, kind of a slap in the face for folks who need to get off their tush and get to workin!!!
Very refreshing to learn how things started and what they have become. And Aaron’s graphics are the BOMB!!
Thanks for sharing this with us 🙂
Lisa~
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for the feedback, glad you liked it!
Great interview, Dan. I visited his page and can see what he meant. I was most interested in the $10 and $20 sales price for his products. I’ve always believed that you can make more money stacking $5 bills in a corner than doing the same with $100 bills.
In fact that belief is the foundation of several online businesses my business partner and I are working on right now, including a couple of membership projects.
Keep up the good work…Pat
By the way, that gravatar you place on my posts IS what I look like, particularly when I first get up and haven’t had any coffee yet. I will find another one and add it sometime.
Pat
haha, you should write to the gravatar people and tell them you didn’t get them permission to use your pic, sue them for millions 😀
Hi Dan, yes, interviews are a great way to bring fresh info to your readers, and a great idea for a post! I had decided some time ago that lower prices and more volume was a good way to go so this really does reinforce that notion. Thanks for sharing.
Enjoy the journey.
Mandy
I like the interview concept for a blog post – especially when the interviewee is as open with their answers as Aaron was.
I knew this would be a good interview when he said:
“I’ve always believed that there is more to this world than just going to school, getting an education, getting a job, working nearly every do of your life, getting married, having kids and growing old, worried and in debt. For me, that’s not living – that’s just existing.”
I’ve always felt the same way.
There are quite a few little nuggets of wisdom sprinkled throughout his answers…but I specifically like his advice for those who are just starting out – or anyone who just needs a kick in the rear to stay focused.
Quincy
Nice to read your interview with Aaron.
He always puts out quality products and having been a sometimes customer of his since the beginning (his and mine)I have learned to appreciate his honesty.
I even bought into the tattoo site but never got anywhere with it which probably says more about my lack of knowledge than his 🙂
Nice, straightforward interview Dan – right questions, right responses!
Dave
Thanks for the interview Dan.
Lots of value, especially in the mindset ‘department’.
Aaron paints a very good picture of what it takes to be an entrepreneur. I think that’s where most people fail. They simply can’t handle the solitude.
Cheers,
JanPaul
Thanks for the feedback, I’m not in to the whole “mindset” stuff, but glad it gave value to those that are.
Great interview, thanks Dan.
Aaron seems that he knows what he is doing and he is doing very well.
Also proves that resell rights products are stil a great source of income
Dan,
I really enjoyed your interview with Aaron Danker! I’ve been on his mailing list for years and I’ve always been impressed with his products and his courteous support and it was great to get to know him better by his answers to your well put questions
Fran
Hi Dan,
I have been following Aaron for a while now and he keeps giving. All his information is top notch. His products are really good and over delivers.
Regards,
Ian