If you don’t know Ramit Sethi, let me tell you, he is a polarizing figure.
When I first started looking at what Ramit was doing, I thought:
“He is everywhere and his marketing is amazing.”…….
“But, I don’t want to work the amount of hours it takes to make millions of dollars right now.”
AND…..
“He doesn’t have kids yet, so why would I compare myself to him and what he is doing.”
However, even if I don’t want to earn millions right now, I know I can still use some of the methods he uses to get the sales I want.
So, I wanted to share some things we have learned by studying what he does with you and see if you too can use some of what has worked for him.
Ramit is not afraid to tell it like it is. He:
- does scathing live tear-downs he offers as part of his courses
- writes blogs posts attacking any institution he doesn’t approve of from unrewarding credit cards to flimsy online courses
- tells people not to buy his products if they’re not going to put in 100%
But a lot of people love him so, so much that they buy anything he puts out, no matter how many thousands of dollars it costs.
Having a clear sales funnel is one of the things Ramit teaches in his courses, so you bet he has a stellar one. Here’s how you can incorporate his multi-million-dollar sales funnel practices into your own business.
Step 1: Establish Clear Branding from the Get-Go
The cover of his book says it all:
He makes big promises and serves up advice with “No Guilt. No Excuses. No B.S.”
But in case that wasn’t clear, his about page drives the point home:
Some people see this and say, “Oh no, this guy is a creep. I had better run as fast as I can.”
But others say, “I love it! No excuses!! That’s exactly what I need. I want to do this, but I do not know how to cut through my own B.S. by myself.”
Step 2: Give Highly Valuable Material Away Online and to Your List
Ramit has built a multi-million-dollar empire all because he has mastered two key areas of online marketing:
- freemium models
- email Marketing
He regularly writes 2000-to-4000-word long blog posts. His emails—custom emails, not just copies of blog posts or snippets with links to blog posts—are sometimes just as long.
Many people say you’ll get “exclusive” content on their email lists, but Ramit takes that promise very, very seriously, and it shows people how seriously he takes providing them with valuable information.
When you sign up for his email list (more on that later), he gives you pages and pages of PDFs for free on whatever topic you need most, not on whatever is easiest for him to give away for free.
Then, once you start getting his emails, you get case studies and access to webinars that are not available to the general public. Lots of them.
Ramit’s philosophy is:
Provide immense value before you ask for a dollar.
He even goes so far to say that he gives 98% of his content away for free.
Step 3: Create Scarcity by Only Offering Popular Products Periodically
You cannot simply go on Ramit’s website and buy his courses.
In fact, you can’t even see when they’re offered or how much they cost.
The only way to get into his top courses is to get on his email list and wait for the announcement.
While this may seem like stupid strategy in a way (What about passive income? What about entry-level products to build trust?), Ramit has mastered the art of giving away so much high-value content that by the time he does offer his courses, he doesn’t have to sell them. Prospects are pre-sold.
And, more importantly, objections about price disappear because people naturally think, “If he’s giving this stuff away from free, how much value must there be in his paid products?!” (We talk more about how to use this to your advantage in our module on freemium content in our free course “10 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Get 10 New Clients“).
The best part about all this pre-selling is that when Ramit is ready to sell one of his courses, he doesn’t need to create artificial scarcity by sending all sorts of warning emails that the course is closing in one week, one day, four hours, etc.
Prospects wait for him to launch his courses and sign-on as soon as they’re open. Not at the last second after mulling over it.
Strategy 4: Offer Diversified Products to Keep Prospects Buying Even at the Top Level
Though it’s become a bit of a commonly accepted ideal among top internet marketers today that you should offer a discrete number of products that hit different price points and do them well, Ramit takes the complete opposite approach.
Look at how many items he offers on his products page:
It’s mind-boggling. You wouldn’t know where to start or what each product does. But then he does something interesting.
Except for the low-level products, some of which he simply gives away for free, you cannot simply buy anything. Every link takes you to a landing page where you get something for free (see Strategy 2) and Ramit gets your email address:
Then, you find out through his emails when new courses are available and how to buy the product you initially showed interest in.
But Ramit is a master of email marketing and segmentation, so if you’ve already purchased one of his top-level courses, you’re not going to keep getting sales emails about it the way you do on many online marketers’ lists.
He will reward your loyalty by giving you special access to new courses.
A key part of Ramit’s funnel is keeping customers close—he even promises to respond to each email and comment personally—and rewarding loyalty so that top buyers don’t get brand spending fatigue.
How Can You Create Your Own Multi-Million-Dollar Sales Funnel?
Ramit’s strengths—personalization, bluntness, focusing on brand loyalty—can work for any business, but they jive especially well with his personality.
And the truth is that businesses thrive best when your values are in-line with your business’ values. And both are incredibly clear to your customers.
How can you incorporate some of Ramit’s techniques into your own site? Are there ways you can bring your own personality into your sales funnel more?