Robby Blanchard is the number one affiliate on ClickBank. We talked to him about what he loves about ClickBank and what makes him click.
“That’s really what it’s all about, and that’s what ClickBank has really allowed me to do through their platform and all the awesome products they have on the platform… is just being able to make more money than I ever dreamed of making and just have that freedom to do things on my own dime and watch, which is cool.” –
Robby Blanchard
Meet Robby Blanchard
We had the chance to talk with Robby Blanchard and delve deeper into what makes him click. Robby was the affiliate winner of our January Sales Contest and is regularly the top affiliate marketer on ClickBank.
Watch the full episode now:
Full Transcript
Robby: Hey, what’s going on guys? I’m Robby Blanchard, the number one affiliate on ClickBank, and this is what makes me click.
Shannon: Welcome to What Makes You Click. I’m Shannon Smith, and today, I’m joined by our January sales contest winner of the affiliate category, Robby Blanchard.
Robby: Hey.
Shannon: It’s so awesome to have you today. We had a-
Robby: Thank you so much for having me.
Shannon: A big welcome of huge applause this morning when you came into the office.
Robby: It was the weirdest but most awesome-st thing that’s ever happened to me. It was really cool.
Shannon: Tell us a little bit about the contest and how you managed to win this. Was this your plan all along? Since October when we announced it, you had your evil plans, or-
Robby: No, no, absolutely not. I’ve been running Facebook ads for affiliate offers for a long time, and the timing was right, so it got to be mid-January, and someone said to me, “Robby, you’re in third place in the contest.” I didn’t really know that it was going on, and I ended up just pushing really hard. Once I found out I was in third place, I’m like, “All right, I got to win this thing,” so I’m very competitive. And I did.
Shannon: That’s awesome. Tell us a little bit about what you were doing, like who were you promoting, what kind of traffic?
Robby: Well, for offers, I was promoting a good friend Todd Lamb, his Flat Belly Fix. Shout out to Todd Lamb, and then I was promoting this other offer called Power Efficiency, and then this other offer Lean Belly Breakthrough with Bruce Kahn. And that was all on Facebook, all Facebook ads for that, so no email, none of that. It was just straight up running Facebook ads for it.
Shannon: Wow, and were you profitable?
Robby: Yeah, I was very profitable, very profitable. I think we did one point seven seven million or something like that in January and February total, so-
Shannon: Wow, incredible.
Robby: It was crazy.
Shannon: That’s awesome. I want to go back a little bit further into your history, and I know that you own a gym, right?
Robby: I do, yeah.
Shannon: Tell us a little bit about your gym.
Robby: I own a gym. It’s a crossfit gym. It’s called Crossfit Reach. I’ve had it for, geez, since 2011, so I went to school for exercise science, was a personal trainer, went to a boot camp, and then I opened up my crossfit gym, so we’ve had it since then. It’s still my baby. I still love it. It’s still my first business, and it just keeps growing. The people are awesome there, and that’s kind of how it led me to get into online because I wanted to help more people out online, so that’s why I kind of got into ClickBank too.
Shannon: Awesome. What was the first step, or did you start as an affiliate, or did you start out as a vendor?
Robby: I started as a vendor. I wanted to help people out online, and I knew that I could only help a certain amount of people at the gym, right? We have 300 members. I could work my butt off. I could only help a little bit more than that, so online, you can help a lot more people, so I created my first product. It was called Dominate Your Double Unders. It was a program for crossfitters who need to learn how to double under, which is a jump rope movement, two swings per jump on a jump rope.
Robby: And I knew that a lot of my members at my gym struggled with it, and the reason why was they never practiced it, so I’m like, “Well, if I can put a 21-day program together for them … ” And I tested it out on some of my members, and they got results and were able to get their double unders, so then I just launched it online and on ClickBank, and that’s how I was able to kind of grow that.
Shannon: Sweet. What year was that that you created that?
Robby: It was about almost five years ago, so I don’t know what the math is on that. Maybe 2014. 15.
Shannon: And then when did you become the traffic guru that you are? How did that all happen?
Robby: I don’t even know if I still am, but I don’t know. I didn’t see myself that way, but so I started promoting my own product, Double Unders, on Facebook, got some sales on that, started to do other products of my own. I created new products, and then I started promoting other people’s products on ClickBank, on Facebook, so Unlock Your Hip Flexors was the next one that I promoted, and then Fat Diminisher and a couple other ones, and it just started to work.
Robby: I just get traffic. I don’t know. For whatever reason, I just understand it, and I just realized that I’m a much better affiliate guy than a vendor as far as create a VSL and stuff like that. I don’t know how to do that. I’m not that good at it, but other people are really good at it, and if I can just get people to that page, people will buy, so that’s kind of why I focused on the affiliate side.
Robby: And then I got really good at it, and then kind of organically, people were like, ‘Robby, what the hell are you doing? Can you run my stuff?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I guess,” like, “Sure.” Then I did that, and so that’s kind of how the agency started, and now with the affiliate contest.
Shannon: That’s awesome.
Robby: It’s cool.
Shannon: Very cool. Do you have a back office at your gym where you have-
Robby: I do.
Shannon: Is it really? Is your office really at your gym?
Robby: Yeah, it is. It’s right next to it. I have my gym, so my gym is 10,000 square feet, and then I used to just do my stuff in the office in the gym, but it’s all glass, so it was just like a fish bowl, so I couldn’t get anything done, so I ended up just creating an office suite-
Shannon: Did you just keep wanting to correct people that were out there?
Robby: Yeah, yeah.
Shannon: Like, “No, no, no. [inaudible 00:04:49] do that.”
Robby: “No, you can’t do that. What are you doing?” As I’m checking my ClickBank, but then I started my own office suite because I tried working from home for a little bit, but I just can’t do it because I’m like, “Oh, my bed’s right there. I could take a nap,” so I didn’t do that.
Shannon: Big napper, huh?
Robby: I used to be a big napper. Every day until probably about a year ago, I would nap every day.
Shannon: Really?
Robby: Yeah, from probably-
Shannon: Is that the secret to your success-
Robby: Yeah, just take naps.
Shannon: This is the secret sauce right here.
Robby: From one to 3:30, I would typically nap every day.
Shannon: One to 3:30.
Robby: I used to do that.
Shannon: Dang, that’s a good nap.
Robby: And that’s the thing that’s always funny is people say, “Oh, you got to hustle and grind,” and sure, you got to work hard, but shit, I took a nap every day, and I made it here.
Shannon: It’s very European of you.
Robby: That’s what I was going for.
Shannon: I see.
Robby: But now I don’t take any naps. Now I’m a grown up, and I’ve grown up since then, but that’s what I used to do is take a nap every day.
Shannon: Well, there you go.
Robby: That’s a fun fact.
Shannon: There you go. I want to know a little bit about the challenges that you faced. I mean, you make it sound so easy, but I’m sure that people-
Robby: No.
Shannon: Watching know that it’s not, “Oh, I just started doing ads, and then I started making lots of money, and that’s it,” but can you tell us a little bit about the challenges that have helped you to grow and progress?
Robby: Biggest challenge, I kind of mentioned this earlier in another session, but the mindset was the biggest challenge for me. Growing up, both of my parents were just teachers, and we kind of-
Shannon: What do you mean just teachers?
Robby: Oh boy. Oh geez.
Shannon: Hey, a little respect for the profession.
Robby: Oh my God. No, they were just teachers, but that’s not a bad thing. Why-
Shannon: Does your mom know that you say things like that?
Robby: Well, now. But no, I mean, hey-
Shannon: You better apologize to your mother.
Robby: I’m sorry, mom. But no, they were both teachers, and not just teachers but teachers, and we had humble beginnings growing up and nothing crazy, and so now it was just crazy for me to get to the point where I was spending thousands of dollars a day on Facebook, and even in January when I won the contest, I spent as much as 40,000 in a day, so that was a huge mindset thing.
Robby: And also just I tell people I sometimes suffer from imposter syndrome where it’s like, “Man, am I good enough to do this? Can I really do this? What will people think?” You have all that self-doubt as an entrepreneur, so those have been some of my biggest challenges, but then obviously with Facebook, there’s always compliance stuff, getting your account shut down, and then not being able to run this, and so that’s the other stuff, but really, once you get past the mindset of “Yes, I’m going to do this. I’m going to be successful. I’m going to make it happen,” then nothing gets in your way once you dial in there.
Shannon: Are there any practices that you do on a daily basis to help you with that?
Robby: No, not really. No. I’m just stubborn-
Shannon: Other than napping.
Robby: Yeah, yeah, so I’ve just always kind of seen myself as kind of the underdog. Any time someone says I can’t do something, I just go out and do it. Ever since I’ve grown up, like for example I was a pretty skinny kid growing up, but I remember getting pushed into lockers, and that was always kind of a thing for me, and then what happened was I ended up getting into fitness and then I guess worked out because I was determined.
Robby: Same thing with I remember in high school, I tried out for the cross country team, which my dad coached, and I remember he didn’t mention my name in the newspaper, and that motivated me when I was a freshman. And by the end of the year, I was number one runner on the team, so just stuff like that. I mean, I’m just hungry. I think that, what is it, the Rock, he always says the wolf is always scratching on the door. There’s always going to be someone working harder than you, so you need to work hard too, so that’s kind of my mentality is just get after it and do it. Don’t make excuses. Just make it happen.
Shannon: Awesome. You mentioned that you got Facebook accounts shut down. How many have you gotten shut down?
Robby: I can’t count that high. Millions.
Shannon: I mean, what’s your mindset when that happens? [crosstalk 00:08:46].
Robby: I mean, you just got to get over it. Initially, that’s just part of the game, and I’ve learned not just as an affiliate but running as just a legitimate agency, even as an agency, we have clients where have really squeaky clean offers, compliant as far as Facebook’s concerned, and they still get shut down. For me, it’s like, you know what? It’s just an ad account. It’s not worth anything unless you’re using it, so you can’t go to the bank and deposit ad accounts, right?
Robby: You can deposit money, right? As long as you’re able to just get over that and just be like, “Hey, you know what? One account got shut down? Well, great. I’m going to open up five more.” That’s just how my mentality is, but I think it shouldn’t be a hurdle. There’s always ways around it.
Shannon: How do you choose who you work with or who you promote?
Robby: Whatever converts the best. Whatever makes me the most-
Shannon: Do you just test it?
Robby: A little bit of testing, yeah, but also, I mean, ClickBank makes it so easy. You just go to the marketplace, and you just search for top offers, and top 10 offers, top 20 offers are going to convert because those vendors are really good at creating VSLs that maybe people want to buy, and so that’s kind of what I’ve done.
Robby: And so I don’t need to question what they’re doing. I just know that it works, and I just need to be the person that sends people to that page, so that’s my only job is to get eyeballs to their page, and if I can do that, then it’s going to be good. But so then also, just being able to, because I’m platinum and able to network with people more, I’m able to work out better deals and stuff like that, which is nice, so that’s the other side of things too, but I like to network. I’m a big believer your net worth is your network, so I think that’s important.
Shannon: I think that’s a great part of this industry is how people can help each other out. It’s pretty awesome.
Robby: For sure.
Shannon: What’s coming up next? I mean, you mentioned that you’re a better affiliate than a vendor, but I’ve heard that you maybe have some vendor stuff going on as well.
Robby: I do, yeah, yeah. The big thing I got going on now, which mark my word is going to be one of the biggest products around, is going to be Commission Hero. Basically what I’ve done is I’ve taken just my expertise as a Facebook marketer for my agency, so we manage a million dollars a month right now with our agency in terms of advertise expense, so we know Facebook in and out.
Robby: And so I’ve taken that plus my love of ClickBank, kind of combined the two, and now we’re going to have a course showing people how to make money online using Facebook ads for ClickBank and also some other platforms like Snapchat and email.
Shannon: Oh, sweet.
Robby: Really just showing people how to get their first sales, and we just launched it. It’s been doing great. We got like 120 people in the course already. It’s been three weeks, and a couple people in their first 36 hours got their first sales, so it’s working.
Shannon: That’s some pretty incredible results.
Robby: It’s cool, which is important. I didn’t want to have a crappy course or anything like that. I want something that’s going to actually help people because I’m still a personal trainer at heart. That’s why I got into the business, to help people, and now I’m able to do it kind of in that financial realm.
Shannon: Awesome. If people want to take a look at the course, where can they go?
Robby: Just go to Commission Hero dot com and then forward slash CB training, and then they’ll be able to hop in and check it out, and I have a whole free training, a webinar that I do on just how I’ve done it and my story and all that good stuff.
Shannon: Sweet. Sweet. I mean, if you could go back in time and kind of do a little chat with yourself before you really got into internet marketing and give yourself a piece of advice, what would you tell the Robby Blanchard before he became a superhero?
Robby: Before I became a superhero? I would say don’t change anything. I think that I’m here because of the experiences I’ve had, and if I changed anything, I may or may not have gotten here. I think one thing I would say is just make sure you study your failures. I think that’s one of the big ones because looking back, I know that being younger, I’ll be 33 in May, but when I was younger in my 20s, any time I had a failure or something, it really kind of bogged me down, but now looking back, some of my failures were some of the best things that could have ever happened to me.
Robby: Because it made me course correct and put me on this path to where I am now, so I would say that would probably be the one piece of advice, but otherwise, I guess don’t be so thick-headed too sometimes because I was always stubborn. I would try to force something to work and really all I had to do was kind of course correct, and I would have been fine-
Shannon: Pivot a little bit.
Robby: You got to pivot. Don’t quit, but pivot.
Shannon: That’s a good quote. Don’t quit, but pivot. I like it.
Robby: Thank you. Trademarked it.
Shannon: Nice. Is there anything else, any advice that you could give to people out there? Because we have a lot of people who are new to ClickBank. They’re hungry for their first sale. They’re trying. They’re trying to learn. Are there any resources or ideas that you can give to them?
Robby: I mean, I would say that obviously, shameless plug again to Commission Hero, but I think that really, if you’re just starting in the affiliate game, and you’re just starting out, I would say you got to just find one offer that you want to promote that you believe in, and you really want to make it work, and just get after it.
Robby: There’s so many different offers on ClickBank, which is great, but if you’re new to it, then what’s going to happen is you’re going to jump from offer to offer. You kind of have that shiny object syndrome where you’re just going to try one thing. No, just go narrow and deep, and just be really good at one of those offers, and then promote it.
Robby: When I won the contest, Flat Belly Fix, it was really the main offer that I promoted to win the contest, so it just goes to show you don’t need to have 10 offers going at the same time to really just blow it out of the water, so I would say that. And I would also say make sure to look for help, and get a mentor or a coach because that’s what’s going to buy you speed, and for me, I still pay for master minds and coaches and everything. I spend a lot of money on it because it saves me time, energy, frustration.
Robby: I want someone that’s already been there and showing me how to get there without making the crazy mistakes that take that much longer, so I would say definitely get a mentor or a coach too.
Shannon: Totally. Cool. Well, we like to ask everybody who comes to our studio and participates in What Makes You Click, what does make you click?
Robby: What makes me click? I would say freedom. I think that’s what makes me click. Being able to do things on my own time, not have to wake up to an alarm clock, being able to take a nap-
Shannon: Take a nap.
Robby: During the day-
Shannon: Naps are important.
Robby: When I want, and then also just being able to spend more time with my friends and family. That’s really what it’s all about, and that’s what ClickBank has really allowed me to do through their platform and all the awesome products they have on the platform is just being able to make more money than I ever dreamed of making and just have that freedom to do things on my own dime and watch, which is cool.
Shannon: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here.
Robby: Thank you.
Shannon: And congratulations again-
Robby: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Shannon: On winning, and we’ll make sure to get another contest going for you [crosstalk 00:15:21]-
Robby: Let’s do it. Let’s win another one. Might as well.
Shannon: Awesome.
Robby: Awesome.
Shannon: Thanks so much.
Robby: Thanks, Shannon.
Shannon: If you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe. Thanks.
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