How Fluent In 3 Months Makes Money
By Richard
Benny the Irish polyglot! Yeah, that’s pretty much the brand of this personality-driven website that teaches students how to learn any language in just 3 months. I freaking love this passive income example, because it shows you exactly how to create a kickass muse.
First, let’s look at the idea. Benny doesn’t teach languages. He teaches people language learning systems. So in that sense it’s kind of like all those courses out there on things like improving your memory, optimizing your thinking etc. What a smart angle.
I mean, think about it. There are already a ton of resources out there on different languages – it’s crowded. But what about rapid language learning as a whole? Not so much.
This is really Tim Ferriss for languages. Best of all, instead of only having a target audience of say people wanting to learn Spanish, Benny can capture the entire language learning world!! And his course is complimentary, not substitutive, to products like Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone etc. Great positioning. It shouldn’t surprise you that from this market position, Benny has about 500,000 monthly readers! Enough of that though, how does he make money?
Obviously this is an info product driven business. Benny has focused on creating one macdaddy course, as opposed to multiple ebooks etc. The course is mainly video driven, but comes with guides and resources too. If you check out Benny on video, you’ll see why people buy his product. They buy him! He really makes language hacking fun.
One of the biggest lessons you can take away from his sales page is video + proof. In his 10 minute video he explains the course in 8 different languages. I’m sold. It’s all over. I don’t even need to read the sales page. Think about how you can convince people to buy your product within minutes (hint: proof that you’ve achieved what you are about to teach, and in video format, wins!).
But Benny also earns money from affiliate products. Remember how I mentioned his teaching is complimentary to all those other language teaching products out there? Well, then you can probably also see the world of opportunities that opens up, eg affiliating $400+ online language courses offered by the likes of Rosetta Stone! And the less rewarding affiliate products like language books.
Plus Benny also affiliate markets online language learning services like italki – and as you know, when you affiliate something that is a recurring revenue stream, you too can often get a lifetime recurring affiliate payout (just like web hosting!). Benny takes affiliate marketing up another level by also promoting things semi-related to his niche. For example, he promotes travel insurance, which is somewhat – but not directly – related to language learning. This is a great example of thinking a tiny bit outside the box.
A few other notes: Benny has really created a movement in a sense, and he’s backed this up with free tools and a forum for readers. And oh yeah, one more thing. I noticed Benny, like many info dealers, uses Optimize Press for his sales funnel and membership course. I personally used this to create my careers advice info product and have to say it is brilliant at what it does. Basically it is a WordPress Theme built specifically to help people sell info products and deliver the info via a membership site. So all you need to replicate Benny’s setup is WordPress + Optimize Press + Wishlist Member (+ ejunkie and PayPal of course).
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