Mark Harbert

If you've ever stared at the camera thinking "what do I even talk about?" this is for you. I put together 101 Video Topics That Sell. They're the topics I rotate through to bring in leads and sales, sorted into the 4 stages that turn a stranger into a paying customer. Most people only ever make videos for the first stage. That's why their content gets likes and no sales. Grab the full list here, it's free: markharbert.com/101 Pick one topic. Hit record today.

People visit websites and then they're gone. If you're not building an email list, you have no way to follow up with them. The fortune is in the follow-up.

Ask most people if they want to be in a get rich quick scheme. They'll say, "No, of course not." "I just want to make money fast." You see what I'm getting at? I've been online since 2008. I've seen hundreds, if not thousands of people come and go. Huge goals. Super excited. And the vast majority fall off. I think the number one reason is a lack of vision. They can't see beyond their current circumstances. I say that humbly, because there was a time I couldn't either. I was in debt. Bills were coming in. But when you're thinking "I need relief now," you're thinking short term. And if you keep searching for that easy button, it will do nothing but frustrate you. Try to look six months, a year down the road. See where you can be. Stop letting your current situation bog you down.

I don't share my results a lot. I'm not one of those guys that likes to be flashy. But I want to point this out to you. I ran a flash sale for one of my courses over a weekend. All my promo was to a segment of my email list. That was it. I didn't post it on social. There were no other links anywhere. It wasn't listed on my blog. It wasn't in the membership area. Strictly my email list. The email notifications for every sale came in. 50 plus of them. When you do your email right and set it up the right way, you're gonna get the results. That's why I'm so passionate about it. I own my email list. It can't be taken away from me. When you have something to promote, people will buy.

I was sitting in a Denny's with my wife and my little daughter, trying to figure out how to get our waitress's phone number so I could prospect her. When I first got started, I was in a network marketing company doing all the offline stuff. At the gas station, the guy on the other side of the pump? I'm trying to drum up conversation and get his contact info. Then that Saturday lunch hit me. I'm like, this is ridiculous. I can't even enjoy myself with my family, because that's all I'm thinking about. That's when it hit me. I need to start figuring out a better way to do this. Now, the relational part of marketing online should never be lost. Have you ever caught yourself sizing up the waitress?

If I go a whole week without sending an email, I almost start breaking out in hives. Not engaging your list is the worst thing you could possibly do.

I saw this meme. Somebody's out in the woods picking up a mushroom. ChatGPT says, "Oh yeah, that's a great mushroom to eat. It has nutritional value." They eat it. It's poison. Then ChatGPT says, "Oh yeah, my bad. That's actually a poisonous mushroom." It was poking fun at the fact that AI will agree with you all the time. AI just mirrors back the clarity that you give it. It'll pretty much always say, "Yeah, you're going down a great road here." But what if I'm not? You need AI to actually challenge you, challenge your assumptions, and give you evidence-based answers. Most AI tools have a setting for special instructions. Tell it you do not want it to agree with you all the time. AI is not correct all the time. Stop assuming it is.

Does dog food packaging convince my dog to want that food? Of course not. The packaging is for the person with the credit card. The person who loves their dog. I have two Yorkies. They're part of our family. We'll do anything for them. Most marketers are marketing to the dog. The only person who matters is the one with the problem that you can solve. This is why people are struggling with AI right now. AI is a mirror. It reflects the clarity you bring to it. When I create an email or a post with AI, my instructions are explicit: hit the human emotions. Hit the buying triggers. The desire they have to fix their problem. Then I go through five or six renditions before I get what I want. Because I know what moves people. Vague problem equals polished garbage. Sharp problem equals sharp everything.

I had a client several years ago. I was working with her one on one. She was already prospecting and doing things on Facebook. But she wanted to learn how to do webinars, so she could do more presentation style stuff. So she started putting all her effort into creating this webinar presentation. Then she came back. "Oh my gosh, my income's going down." I'm like, why is that? "Well, I've been so focused on doing this webinar, I haven't been doing my prospecting on social media." I said, "Well, that's your problem. I didn't tell you to stop doing that. I wanted you to do this in addition to that." Don't lose focus on the basics of connecting with people. That is very important.

I once posted about getting leads on Facebook. Someone replied, "I don't want leads. I just want sales." Explain to me how you do that. You have to have leads in order to get sales.

Most people want it now. We live in a now society. And marketers exploit that like crazy. They know how to work shiny object syndrome, because people are always looking for a quick fix. I went through that phase. Shiny object, everything. Now I get hammered daily by people asking me to promote things. I can't say yes to all of it. Here's how I decide: • Take a fast look at it. • Ask if it's going to help you move forward, or take you off what you're already working on. • Make that decision quick. The quick fix won't get you where you want to go. Stick with it and keep working through it. That's how you get the success you're looking for.

I used to be an air conditioning technician. One of my accounts was an aquarium in San Diego. My job was to work on the chiller that kept all the water at a precise temperature. You had a range of a couple degrees. Go out of that range, and millions of dollars worth of exotic fish could be in danger of dying. So there was massive pressure on me to make sure I didn't get it wrong. Everything had to be perfect. And I carried that mentality into the entrepreneurial space for a long time. That's why I didn't get a lot of results. Because I thought everything had to be perfect, it kept me from taking action on the things I knew. Now I think differently. I jump out of the airplane and figure out how the parachute works on the way down. As an employee, if you get it wrong too much, you get fired. As an entrepreneur, you can make mistakes and recover. You're the boss. You can't fire yourself. Stop thinking everything needs to be perfect before you take action.

I was trying to remove the background from a couple of images. So I went out and bought this 300 dollar software so I could learn it. After about three hours of complete and utter frustration, I said to myself, what am I doing? Why am I trying to learn this graphic stuff? I should be focused on marketing. So I went over to Fiverr. Found a gig that said: I'll remove the background on up to seven photos for five bucks. The next day I got back seven photos with the backgrounds removed. For 5 dollars. And I wasted three hours of time and 300 bucks on a piece of software. I'm a big believer in outsourcing. You could spend 10 hours trying to figure it out, or just pay somebody a couple hundred bucks to get it done, and you can move on. What are you still trying to figure out yourself that you could pay somebody to do?

I was an English teacher once when I lived in South America. After one semester, I stopped. I realized I sucked at English. My grammar is not the best. So I make sure I use every tool at my disposal to get it right.

The way I sell is a little bit of Ray Higdon. A little bit of Russell Brunson. A little bit of Alex Hormozi. A little bit of Dan Kennedy. A little bit of Mike Filsaime. A little bit of Gary Halbert. Almost 20 years of learning from the masters has morphed into my own unique style. That's how it works. Even if your offer is similar to other offers on the market, your particular perspective brings a unique slant to it. That's what makes it powerful. Your product is not the first one they've ever purchased. They've tried things. Your unique angle answers, "Why is this different from what I've tried?" It makes them feel like they found the missing piece. Whose voices have shaped the way you teach?

After my wife and I got married, we wanted to have a child very soon. We tried for two years, and she could not get pregnant. Finally we said, "Okay God, whatever you want. We're just gonna love on each other and enjoy each other. We're not even gonna think about it anymore." Well, guess what happens. We go on a cruise. We have a good time. And she gets pregnant. Because we stopped thinking about it. Now we have a great daughter. My point is this. When you focus too much on the analytics, it'll drive you bonkers. I get tired of the algorithms. So when I take my focus off the algorithms and just focus on creating great content, I'm gonna reach people. I may not reach everybody. But I'm gonna reach people.

One of the greatest signs I've ever seen: "Your wife is hot. Time to get your AC fixed." Tell me that doesn't grab your attention. You're like, "What?" Then you go, "Oh, it's an air conditioning thing." Ogilvy said that on average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you've written your headline, you've spent 80 cents out of your dollar. That ought to tell you how important the hook is. I'm working with a client running Facebook ads. We're getting leads, but only about a 19% conversion rate on the capture page. So what are we doing? Improving the headline. Because it's 80 cents on that dollar. Getting attention is not a step in the work. It's most of the work.