People are responsive to anything that will offer comfort in their life. People work hard to make ends meet, and they justifiably feel they deserve a little relaxation and luxury occasionally.

It may be self-indulgent, but people really do deserve relief, such as comfort and leisure. It may be a little more play, a hobby, some travel, or other leisurely things they have given some thought.

People do not pity themselves, but they sometimes wonder how people who are not as capable or industrious, somehow seem to have more comforts, more conveniences, and more freedom from many of the worries they have. So why shouldn’t they get a little comfort and leisure time occasionally? (Can you provide a solution to this problem?)

When you are hit by inspirational ideas, write them down. Usually, they will hit at the strangest moments. They sometimes hit when you’re doing something completely unrelated.

Sometimes, our best ideas will come to us while we’re having troubles with our business. We might have low sales. We might have a great-selling product suddenly bottom out, or any number of problems. Then, suddenly, we’ll be hit by an idea, we’ll go with it, and we’re alright . . . But usually the idea deals with a different product than we were having trouble with.

They say that "necessity is the mother of invention." Sometimes, when your "back’s against the wall" and you have problems you have to solve somehow, you will be presented with an opportunity that will offer a solution to the problem.

Inspiration comes fast, and you have to seize the moments when they come. Take advantage of it. Get it down on paper while you’re excited and while it’s still fresh in your mind. Why not wait? Because it won’t last very long. It will go away. It’s better to have them written down; otherwise, you won’t remember everything.

Falling in love with your ideas is dangerous. You should never accept an idea totally without testing it. You should test your idea to see how well it does against other ideas.

The ideas that pull the most should then be kept, utilized, and tested to find out how you can make them pull even more money. Testing is how to know whether your product or service will sell or not.

It’s all based on how well each idea performs. Remember, through your sales results the market will show you what works best and what doesn’t. A business should try different headlines, packages, prices, and back-end offers, constantly probing and looking for the most effective pull-in power. They should review the performance of each and analyze the data.

Many people are under the false impression that business is a gamble, and finding what will make the most money is a matter of luck. This is completely false.

In business, testing will take the gamble out. By testing different things against each other, you learn what will work. Then you roll out with what works and make more money. Completely take the gamble out of doing business by doing one simple thing! TEST!

Watch the sales results carefully. Try different things. Keep testing all the time to find out what will bring in the most people. You’ll find out what makes you successful eventually.

In many cases, before we can get someone to purchase something, we have to convince them that they need to purchase it. We have to show them that there’s a real need for that product and they should buy it - that it fulfills some of their desires. In some cases, that can be difficult.

Instead of just trying to sell people on a product that they don’t realize they need, you need to educate your prospects first. W-A-R-N-I-N-G! You must do this before anyone will buy your product! Before you try to sell them on something, educate them as to WHY they need it.

In some cases, this can be the most powerful marketing technique you can have in your repertoire. And on the Internet, you have the real opportunity to do this in ways that you can’t do in print media or sales letters.

Now you have the opportunity not to give them a report, but an actual manual or guide or one-on-one instruction that lets them know, “Here’s a great opportunity. Here’s what you need to know about that opportunity. Now, here’s the offer that we’re giving you.” That’s a real power point in any marketing package!

One terrific thing eBay has to offer those who use it is a free webpage to tell people about yourself, your website, and list all your current auction items!

When someone clicks on one of your eBay items, it takes them to that page, which eBay has put there for all the buyers and sellers to look at. In fact, it can even have a picture of you . . . when you click on the button labeled ME by a person’s name, it will go to a page that can have a picture of them, a description of what kind of business they have, and a link to their regular website should they have one.

And, the best part is, eBay has automatically compiled links to all of the items you have on auction currently . . . and you don’t have to do a bit of work to do it! That’s right - eBay does it itself! It’s not low maintenance, it’s NO maintenance!

The most powerful word you will ever use in your sales copy will be the word FREE! Use this word over and over again and you could soon be rich! How is it possible to give something away for FREE and still make money? You have to be careful what you give away! In other words, if your profit margin on your product is $25 each, don’t give away a free bonus that costs you $30 each! You would lose $5.00 on each sale!

Instead, your goal is to find a product that has the highest retail value but actually costs you the least amount of money!

One person we know has been giving away a free product that has a value of over $100.00, but only costs him less than 25 cents! What is it? He actually got in touch with a few magazines that his customers would be interested in subscribing to. He told those magazine editors that he would like to give away free sample issues or subscriptions to his customers. In short, he now sends out to his customers, as a free bonus, certificates for free issues or sample subscriptions to a few different magazines. His cost is in the paper that he prints those certificates on! His printer charges him about 5 cents per page, so a couple of pages with the certificates costs him less than 25 cents easily!

This is just to show you how easy it can be to come up with a free bonus that doesn’t cost you much, but has a high value to the customer! Whatever you do, you should try to come up with something that you can give away to your customers for free!

The amazing thing is that customers really know in their mind that there is no such thing as free! But, when they hear the word “free,” it triggers an emotional sense that makes them feel that they are getting a good deal on what-ever they are buying! This is why, when you really want to catch a reader’s attention, you should use the word “free” in your sales copy!

You will need the best of the best to make it work and grow. Incredibly, some marketers overlook the most obvious prospects who already have a deep understanding of the overall operation - their employees. Many of them already have experience in some of the areas you want to cover in a teaching, knowledge-sharing seminar.

Here is a good example. Our company has developed a certain skill in the way that we develop, create, and promote informational products. Many of the companies that also sell to our market - and even many companies that don’t - could potentially benefit greatly from some of the shortcut techniques, strategies, concepts, and ideas that we have learned over our years in business.

It would be very simple for us to put together a one, two, or three day seminar showing these people how they can develop, package, and sell information easier than they have ever done it before.

We could teach the seminar ourselves - or we could hire people to do it for us, be it one of our own employees who understands and knows the concepts, or someone we brought in and trained in the concepts. Our employees could actually run our seminars, teach our materials, and all we would have to do is sit back and count the money as it came in.

Here’s one of the best ideas we’ve heard for getting rich with free Internet advertising.

We have a friend in the business who has found a way to get other people to do his work for him! He will offer incentives to visitors that go to his web site to send their friends, relatives, neighbors, and anybody else they know to his web site.

Very rarely will these people do that without some incentive. You’ve got to give them something. Either a discount on your products or services, a bonus discount above and beyond what you normally use for promotions. After all, they sent someone to you.

You could use free bonuses available only to people that refer people to your site and send them to you. You could use certificates or coupons from other sites - that would be another great incentive to offer.

This is excellent for joint ventures where you are working with another site. For example, if you’ve got another site that you’re trading links with, why not give them a coupon for a discount on their product if they go to that site, too?

There are all kinds of possibilities for working out joint ventures to get you bonuses, certificates, or discount coupons if you can give those incentives to people who send visitors to your web site. You could give away free access to a special section on your web site ONLY for those who have referred people to your web site. If you publish a newsletter (especially if it’s e-mail because it doesn’t cost you anything to send it to the people), give them a free subscription to your newsletter if they refer people to your site.

A really good idea we recommend is giving them many subscriptions - For example, three months rather than a year. That way they have to keep sending someone to you, or give them a month if it’s a weekly or three issues if it’s a monthly. That way they want to keep sending people to you. If you give them a year, they’ll send one person to you and tend to think, “Well, I did my job,” read your newsletter for a year, and you won’t hear from anybody again.

Promotional items you’ve come up with such as bumper stickers, coffee mugs, etc. are also great choices for bonuses. Put your URL, web address, or e-mail address on desk calendars, calculators, and what have you. If you look in the catalogs that have these specialty items, there are things that are really nice, too, like clocks, you can go up into a little higher-end items and give it as a free bonus to people who send someone to your web site. Low and behold, it’s got your web site address on it, so they’re constantly reminded to come back and visit your web site!

People who see it in their home are also shown your web site address or e-mail address and are prompted to maybe go check you out. Not to mention, the people you gave that incentive item to will want to send them over, because now they might get another free gift.

Don’t ask people who visit your web site for the e-mail addresses of their friends, because the only way to use that e-mail address would be to send them a message inviting them to visit your web site. That would be considered “spam” or “unwanted commercial e-mail.” That’s a no-no on the Internet. What you’re doing here is you’re saying, I always recommend that you collect the mailing address and all the information you can from visitors to your web site so that you can build a mailing list. In that address, where you’re collecting that information, you want to point out to people “send other people to my web site.” Be sure and tell them to fill out this form.

On the form there needs to be a place to say who referred you. You can either give them a code number, a special keyword, or anything that they can enter there to tell you who sent them. Once they’ve filled out that name and address form, you’ve got a way to send them their free goodies for sending that person your way. Well, low and behold, you’re also doubling or tripling the size of your mailing address list that you are building on your web site from people who are sending referrals to your web site. That’s right - this technique is how to automatically get 3 times more people to visit your web site on a regular basis!

The idea is, again, to just get creative. You have to make sure that the promotional item that you’re offering is something that’s desirable. You’ve got to make it desirable if it’s a freebie that you’re giving out that doesn’t cost you much. For example, don’t ever give away a free newsletter that you give away free anyway. You want to have a value on every issue and tell them what a subscription costs. Therefore, three months of this free is worth so much money, and “I’m giving it to you free for sending someone to my web site.”

T-shirts work really well. For some odd reason, people on the Internet tend to love t-shirts. They seem to be a really popular item. Of course, the t-shirt (if you’re giving one away) should be one that’s imprinted with your web site address on it and the company name.

You come up with the incentives and set it up in such a way that literally everybody visiting your site turns into three or four people visiting your site. They’re doing the work for you by sending more people. Therefore, every one of these other things you do to bring one person to your site just becomes that many more people!

Here’s a quick secret to completely eliminate failure. We’ve talked about failure here and people are really afraid of failure, so here’s a way to eliminate failure and never fail again.

First of all, don’t call it failure. It’s all results. There are people out there that believe that even when you fail, you learn something. We believe ourselves. It’s all results. You have to gauge it in terms of result. O.K., so I got poor results from that – it wasn’t a failure, I learned something – now let’s try to get better results from the next thing that I do.

We hope when people get out there and are trying these ideas that they don’t look at it as failure, but as a learning experience, and ask, “What did I learn from it?” and then try to get some better results next time.

If you study the lives of all successful people, you will find that it happens all the time, They did suffer from a great number of what some people call failures – although to them it was just stepping stones that got them where they wanted to end up – and they are constantly learning, and growing, and gaining that experience and that knowledge.

We would just like to encourage everyone to be willing to go through some of that and not take it so hard when things don’t always work out. Try some different things, and when you find what works, then you put all of your energy and time and effort into those things that work for you the very best. You roll them out and, because the Internet has millions of people out there, you can potentially make millions of dollars even if only 1 out of 10 of your ideas really takes off very successfully.

If you write your appeal according to what people want to gain, be, do, and save, you will then make them want to buy.

All of the “what people want” items listed are powerful guidelines that offer two underlying motivations - self-interest and fear. “How will it help me get something I want?” This is the secret to making people “want” your product or service!!

You have to know why people buy what they buy. Everybody buys certain things for certain reasons.

Look at cars, for example. If everyone bought a car simply because they needed a car for transportation purposes, they would all have Yugos or Saabs. Nobody needs

Cadillacs. No one needs a Mercedes Benz. They buy these cars for other reasons. They want people to look at them. They want people to notice them. They want to feel special!

Why do people buy huge diamond rings? Why do people buy hundred-room mansions? There is always a reason these people buy these things. A good sales person is someone who decides to master their work. Once it becomes your life’s work, you study people and find out why people buy what they buy.

Then, you take that knowledge and find a way to use it to compel these people to buy from you. In your advertising, you focus on the wants and needs of these people. You tell them in an exciting way that you have what they’re looking for. You know what they’re attracted to - and you use it to hook them, reel them in, and make your profits!

1. Purchased Lists are sold by brokers who have built the lists according to people’s buying habits. If you choose to go with a list broker, make sure to work with a reputable one.
   
   
2. Compiled Lists can be made by you or someone else using names from directories, records, newspapers, or other sources, and can be useful in sales to dealers.
   
   
3. Built Lists are made by you, using the names of people who responded to your advertising. These are useful for follow-up or repeat offers. You also may exchange lists with non-competitors.

In a small display ad you might just be trying to gain initial sales by offering something for a low amount of money or just trying to get them to send away for your catalog, more information on what you are offering, or your sales material. You don’t have much time or space to get your point across.

If you can get your point across, though, in a clear and compelling enough way with the correct media, you are almost guaranteed to make a financial “killing!”

The display ad should follow the rules for eye-catching circulars mentioned earlier. You must create interest and desire for the product with specific, clear, yet exciting copy and headlines. Do these five things and you are almost guaranteed to make a financial “killing!” This will be your only opportunity to reach the customer, so you must include specific details of:

1. How and why this is an excellent product.
2. How the customer will benefit.
3. Any guarantee the product can offer.
4. A conclusion that appeals to direct action by the customer.
   
5. An easy and convenient ordering method.

nclude illustrations in display ads that grab the customer’s attention. If he/she can associate a picture with some benefit for him/herself, you will get action!

I would like to spend just a few minutes covering how to make certain your e-mail delivers the message you intend for your customer to receive. Now, it may sound obvious, but there is a simple, basic, easy-to-overlook e-mail strategy that could be injuring your customer service and destroying customer confidence - that’s by using e-mail that you have no intention of accomplishing anything.

You don’t want to destroy that confidence, and you don’t want to build roadblocks between you and your customers. With many web sites - particularly small web sites - that’s exactly what their e-mail strategy is doing.

Before I explain that, let me ask you to take a little trip with me to the local hardware store in your mind. You walk in the store and it’s clean, it’s attractive, and you see a lot of the things that you’re interested in. You need a particular electrical part, though.

The clerk comes up and says, “Can I help you?” They’re eager to be of service and they appear to want your business. You say,

“Yes, I need...” You show them what you need, and they say, “Fine. Let me go back in the stock room and see if we have that.”

They walk away, and you wait, and you wait, and then you begin to get irritated, and you pace, drumming on the counter. Four minutes pass, and five minutes pass, and a few more minutes pass, and you’re really irritated, so you walk out of the store. You don’t have your product and the store doesn’t have a customer anymore because you are mad at the way you were treated.

More importantly, you don’t keep quiet about it. You tell at least three or four other people how you were treated, and you recommend that they not do business with that store.

That’s a very undesirable situation for a merchant! Many web sites are doing the same thing with their e-mail policy, though. They don’t respond to e-mail promptly.

You might be doing the same thing and not realizing it. You have a free offer, you offer a free report, you advertise, you spend money to get them to your web site, you give them a gift, you get them on a list, you send them offers, and then they say, “Hey, I want something from you. I may have a question I need answered.” Then what happens? They don’t get a response.

E-mail has a lot going for it - many good things. The reason marketers like us like it is because it’s fast, it’s cheaper than regular mail, it’s virtually free, and it is really easy to use. It’s the best marketing tool around for the dollars we invest. That’s why we love it! But, you know what? We forget that e-mail has the same factors coming back to us from the customers. The customers like e-mail because they don’t have to write a complete letter. They don’t have to go get a stamp. They don’t have to make a trip to the post office. It’s just as fast and easy for them! That’s why they use it!

Here’s some sobering news. The more you use e-mail to talk to your customers, they more they are going to use e-mail to talk back to you. As merchants and web site owners we tend to overlook that fact. We’re prepared to send them e-mail in great quantities, but we’re not prepared to reply to their e-mail in the same efficiency.

Some time ago a company did a little survey to see how people responded to e-mail. They sent out a great number of e-mails to merchants at their sites, asking a very simple question like, “Do you ship by UPS?” Or, “Will you ship by Federal Express?” Or, “Do you have a guarantee?” These were questions sent to each merchant that was very simple to answer. You wouldn’t have to research, you wouldn’t have to search, you would just automatically have an answer.

Guess what? In 24 hours’ time only 30% of the people they sent e-mail to even responded!

24 hours mail time is nothing, But 24 hours waiting for e-mail is an eternity, because people know how fast and easy it is to reply. There is no delay in the e-mail. They know when you receive it, and they know that you haven’t replied. In 48 hours - two days later - only 60% of the people who received e-mail replied. Of the remaining 40%, most never replied to the e-mail at all.

Do you think customers are going to be impressed with your service if this is the way you respond to your e-mail? I don’t think so. It is exactly like walking into the back room and never coming back. You’ve left your customer waiting.
How do you handle your e-mail? It is a tough problem because you can generate a lot of it, but it is part of the whole business process. It’s part of conducting business on the net today. I can make a couple of suggestions from my experience.

First of all, check your e-mail on a regular schedule. I check mine every morning, mid-afternoon, and before I leave in the evening. At least once a day is absolutely mandatory.

If you have a large volume of e-mail, I suggest you post a policy on your site right where you have a place to respond by e-mail. Many companies are starting to do that now. It generally says something like, “We receive a great deal of e-mail and we try to take every message as quickly as possible. But, please allow us up to 48 hours to reply. We will try to reply faster.” A simple statement like that can make a big difference.

Reply when you get the e-mail. Let the customers know you received it with a short note. All you have to do is say, “Received your e-mail message. I am taking care of the situation. I will get back to you as soon as I can.” That’s all you need to say.

The fourth thing is, if the answer’s going to take a long time, keep the customer in the loop. Tell them you are working on it. At some point in the process, tell them where you stand on it.

Here’s one more suggestion I’ve learned the hard way. Don’t reply to e-mail instantly. I know it sounds like a great idea. It sounds like just what I am suggesting. Replying instantly is too fast, though. If someone sent you an e-mail and you reply instantly, they will send you another e-mail because, now that they have you, they have another question. If you reply immediately back to that you have started a dialog. In the next few minutes - in fact, within the next half an hour - there is liable to be four or five e-mails back and forth. You may as well have been on the phone carrying on a conversation. Respond promptly but not instantly. You will find it cuts down on these kinds of e-mails.

Just remember that, while you are using e-mail to learn what you can about the customer and tell them what you want to sell them, they’re trying to get in touch with you and ask you questions. In the process, they are discovering how you treat your customers. If you’re using e-mail to deliver your sales message, make sure that you are prepared to respond as the first step in good customer service.

I want to cover how to double or triple your sales by giving your customers products they can give away free. The beauty of this is you can do it all by e-mail and drastically reduce your costs. In fact, it is virtually free to try!

My technique is to create an e-mail that is essentially designed to look and feel like a free gift certificate, but is still an e-mail. You can do this either with straight text using x’s around the little border, and in the center type the text. Be a little creative and make it eye-catching. This is actually a coupon. Even though it says certificate, and you’re going to call it a certificate, it is really a coupon. It is designed to read just like a certificate. Technically, it is a buy one get one free offer. This has been very powerful for me and several of our clients that have tried this.

When your customers buy one of a popular product (one item) using this e-mail to place the order, there is a place on the e-mail where all they have to do is give the address and e-mail contact information of a friend or associate, and you will send that friend or associate another identical item free of charge.

This works magnificently if the products you are selling are informational products which naturally carry a higher perceived value and a higher suggested retail price, and yet they actually cost very little to produce. You can actually use them successfully with electronically created and delivered products, so that you could actually be delivering information that is of value, but costs you nothing to deliver to the customer.

You are now getting your customer to give you a friend or associate they care enough about that they want to receive a free product. You are showing the customer’s friends and associates your products and introducing them to your company and all of your services, offerings and creating the potential for setting yourself up with an entirely new customer. It is going to build your e-mail list, contact list, and new customer list, and it is going to make your existing customer feel really good about you while it creates a demand in that existing customer to place an order - which is, of course, what we all want to get our customers to do more often. By doing so you can easily double or triple your overall sales, just because of the increasing sales to the customer and the sales you will make down the road to the new customers you’ll be finding.

Many people have found Internet auctions to be a great way to turn their spare time into thousands of dollars a month!

We recently came across the incredible story of a postman in Council Grove, Kansas. In his spare time, he was bringing in over a thousand dollars every month, simply through selling items through Internet auctions!

And the best part is, that guy is not the exception, he’s the rule! If you really want to apply yourself in this direction, you could make far more money than he brings in!

For example, a couple we know of in Wyoming has been bringing in $600,000 . . . all through placing items for auction over the internet!

People who are discovering the tremendous potential of Internet auctions don’t have to handle it like a full-time job in order to bring in the big money. In fact, many people are pulling in mega-bucks by simply doing it on a part-time basis. It could easily go from being a part-time hobby to part-time wealth!

The biggest success stories out there are people who have focused on a niche market, offering items for auction that directly appeal to a certain factor of the population that is greatly attracted to that specific type of prospect. Picking the right niche market - like, for instance, offering an antique Etch-A-Sketch to collectors of antique toys - will bring you LOTS more money than if you were to offer it to a general audience. The old toy will be worth more to that market - it’ll be something special to them - and they’ll be willing to pay much more for it than anyone else!

Right now, there are thousands of people all over the country - all over the WORLD - who are making excellent money on these Internet Auctions, and are doing it all on a part-time basis. And the same could be true for YOU!

Many successful mail-order marketers develop winning products based on ideas other companies and businesses are using that are successful. That is how millionaires develop winning products that sell like crazy! They watch, study, and improve upon the advertisements that continue to appear regularly, weekly, and/or monthly, in various publications.

Good mail-order marketers are always on the lookout for things that are working for other people why things are working for other people. They break down the successful ads and look for the common denominators.

They look for the specific parts of the ads that draw in the orders. Then, they find a way to incorporate those ideas into their own ads and improve upon them so they make even more money.

It is vital to have a market to sell to, though. A market is the group of people who spend the most money on a specific type of product or service that fills a need or a want. People who make up a market have a specific interest, want, desire, or need that they follow when they buy a product.

Direct-Response and Mail-Order businesses that are successful are companies that develop products and services that are designed for a very specific market. When they advertise these products and services, they advertise them in the publications that cater to that market.

Let’s say a mail-order company is offering a kit for those who want to start their own business. Their advertisements will appear in publications that are published specifically for the business market, and probably in publications that deal with the small business and entrepreneur areas. Those people are the best prospects for the offer, so the ads are run in those publications.

Once you know what market you are going to sell to, you can find the publications that cater to your market. Then, look through the ads. Look through subsequent publications and notice which ads keep running without cancellation. These ads are successful. Why else would they keep running week after week or month after month?
Then, you can break down that ad. What product is this company selling? Can you develop something similar?... Something better?... Something that offers the prospect more for their money?... Something unique?

This is the "real" secret that the multi-millionaires use to pick products that are almost guaranteed to be money-making winners. They find what’s doing great . . . and they use the information they get from it to develop something either related to or better than that other successful product!

Since this is of interest to you, this first step is very, very easy. Ask and write down ten to twenty questions that you want answered about this subject that you feel are very important to know. Make it in questionnaire format. Do this on your computer, if you can.

Free for use computers are available at your local library or such. Whatever you do, use a computer and type them down. Then create a message that would include those ten to twenty questions. In the message tell people that you are writing a book and you need their help.

Also, after the ten to twenty questions, tell people to answer as many, or all of them, that they can. Also, have them include a couple of sentences telling their name, what they do, possibly their e-mail address, and web site if they have one. Tell them you’ll be happy to publicize what they do and who they are as a result of their help in putting together this information product. Then you go and find a news group that supports the subject matter you’ve chosen. This is real easy to do.

Chances are many people who have Internet service already will find that news groups are a part of their Internet service. It’s kind of like e-mail. It comes to you. You can set up different subjects you’re interested in and you want to participate in a news group about this or that subject matter. Those messages start coming to your computer from everybody including their responses to you and that sort of thing. This is the best way to do it if you can.

Contact your Internet service provider to find out the best way to do that. It’s really very easy.

How To Quickly Build A List Of People Who Are Eager To Buy Your Products!

For every Internet auction that a bidder wins, there are other bidders - sometimes many more - that didn’t win. They did bid, though, and they were competing for what you had to offer - and that makes them excellent, proven prospects for your products in the future!

Every Internet auction site we’ve come across has a list of all the e-mail addresses of those who bid on each auction. You can go through the list of who bid on the product you put up for auction, capture those e-mail addresses, and make offers for products related to the one you had up for bid!

The Internet auction site records all of the names and e-mail addresses themselves - you can let the auction sites do all the work for you!

These people already bid on something you offered once, so it’s quite clear that they like that type of product, and are willing to buy it. Therefore, they are great prospective customers!

Send them e-mails - thank them for taking part in your auction. Tell them you’re sorry they didn’t have the winning bid, but you do have some very similar (or identical, if you had more but you just put one up for auction) products that they could purchase directly from you!

By doing this, you are able to collect leads. You can build a list of people that will very likely buy something from you in the future. Using this technique, you can quickly build a list of people who are eager to buy your products!

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