About Internet Marketing

Now That You Are In Business

Make It Pay

There are many reasons why home based businesses are the fastest growing segment of the global economy. Flexibility is a key factor. Home based business owners enjoy a lot of freedom. They choose when and how to work, as well as being able to choose from a multitude of products that can be marketed.

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There are also many reasons why an overwhelming majority of them never attain the success they wanted.  Once again, versatility is a key factor. 

Many who gain the freedom to choose when and how to work fail to establish the work habits that will lead to success. 

It is axiomatic that you can work full time, or you can work part time.  But you will not find many who were able to become successful in their spare time.  Spare time has the mystical quality of disappearing.  Something always comes up to fill spare time. 

Then, there are so many good products available that the temptation to market as many as they can robs some hard working people of the focus needed to attain true success.

If you are serious about your success you can increase the probability by writing out your business plan.  You have probably heard that sales is a numbers game—and be assured that it is.  That doesn’t mean that success is a lottery.  There are a lot of things you can do to make the numbers work for you.  As you work through this guide you will see how you can adjust different numbers in your success formula to change the balance between what you are doing, and what you are getting.

The first item in writing your business plan, assuming that you already have a product to sell, is to find out how much product you need to sell to reach your income goals.  Finding this out is a process. 

Not everyone needs your product.  And of those who do need it, some simply will not buy it.  Some others will.  For a first step in writing your business plan rely on the information provided by the company providing your product.  The figures they give you are probably averages.  Averages are a good starting point but keep in mind that no one is average.  Nearly everyone will be performing above the average or below the average. 

The truth is that in most situations 80% will be performing below the average and 20% will be performing above the average.  What we want to do here is to help you raise your level, whether you are in the bottom 80% or in the top 20%.  There is always room for improvement.

If you are in the top 20% much of what you see here will be old hat.  But read on—you just might find that one kernel that will raise you to the top 10% or top 5%.

Starting with the averages you will have an idea of how many sales you need to make to reach your goals.  Next you need to know how many prospects you need make a sale.  Then you need to learn how many suspects you need to wade through to find a prospect.  You are going to learn the real truth about these numbers through experience.  It is rare when any two people will have exactly the same experience.

Just to make sure we are on the same page, let me clarify how I define suspects, prospects, and sales.  A suspect is anyone you have any reason to think might be able to use what you are offering.  A prospect is someone who definitely can use your product and has the ability to buy.  A sale is when you have been paid for your effort. 

Completing the paperwork, or enrollment process, is not always a sale.  Sometimes prospects change their minds, so I don’t count the sale until I have been paid.  After all, that is one of the main reasons I do what I do.

The process of moving someone from suspect, to prospect, to sale is a whole other topic.  And this process is the second step in your business plan. 

Making the best use of your time in discarding the suspects who cannot qualify as prospects, and moving the prospects through the process in a predictable period of time is the turning point in a successful journey. 

Discarding suspects is often the most difficult part of the process.  There can be the feeling that you are losing something when you discard them.  The process has two distinct terminals.  One is in—the other is out.  Whether you move someone in, or whether you move him or her out, the process has accomplished its purpose. 

Once you have learned how many prospects you need to get a sale, and how many suspects you need to wade through to find a prospect, you can plan how much time it will take to get your message out to that many suspects. 

Then assign yourself definite working hours to get the job done.  You can do that because you are the boss.  Establish a start time just like General Motors, IBM, and every other successful business does. 

Be strict.  Don’t condone absence or tardiness without good cause.  You may need to force yourself to stick to the schedule at first but it will get easier over time.  And it will be much easier when you see your profit growing.

Keep this thought foremost in your mind: “Success is not an event—it is a journey.”  

Sometimes the trip will be less enjoyable than it is at other times.  Perseverance through the bumpy parts of the trip is what puts a person in the upper 20%, or upper 10%, where the rewards are the most gratifying.  Everyone hits the bumps, so welcome them; they are the portals to smoother roads ahead.

If you want to improve your performance in that process I suggest you place close attention to the information provided by your company.  Listen carefully to what the successful people who have gone before you have to say.  My strongest suggestion is, “don’t try to re-invent the wheel.”  

After you get some experience you may be able to make the wheel roll more smoothly, but by all means use the wheel you are given.  It is highly likely that you will be advised to make use of the Internet, that wonderful World Wide Web that can instantly connect us to suspects and prospects continents away.

Use The ‘Net—Don’t Get Stuck In The Web

There is no doubt that the Internet is a powerful channel for marketing your business.  Whether you have products or services to sell, and whether you work at home or in a business location, the Internet can put your name and your product in front of more potential customers faster than any other medium, and at a much lower cost.

That’s the upside.  The downside is that getting your business out there is filled with challenges.  You can have your own website—there are plenty of companies who will sell you one.  Some will even give you one for free, but they will put their own advertisements on your site.  They will all provide a handy tool kit so you can set up your own site so nicely that you will be totally impressed.  Awestruck even.  Then the challenge is to find a way to get the customers to your site.

Do you have any idea how many web pages there are on the Internet?  I don’t.  I do know that there are so many that the odds against someone finding my site by chance are huge.  The odds of a real potential customer happening across my site are astronomical.

But fear not.  Surf the web for a while and you will see banner after banner advertising services that will put your site into the top ten on all the major search engines.  I might be a little bit obtuse on the subject, but it seems to me that they could only have 10 clients if they are going to keep them in the top ten.  What they really say is that they will get your site into the top ten for your specific key words, or something like that.  So then all you have to do is let all the potential customers know what your key words are so they can put them in their search.  Otherwise you are back in the WWW lottery again.

But then while you are doing that, you might as well just give them the link to your site.

I would rather spend my time promoting my business instead of becoming some kind of techno-nerd learning how to keep my website properly positioned in the market.

Just giving potential customers the link to your website, or letting them know about your product and how they can make contact with you is the simplest way of using the Internet as a marketing tool.  And e-mail is the easiest way of passing the link out.

Using e-mail to promote your business raises it’s own set of challenges and perils.  SPAM is that unsolicited batch of messages that show up in my inbox every morning. And afternoon.  And evening. 

For me it is merely a harmless occurrence.  I glance at most of them briefly and delete them.  On those that offend me I click on the Remove link.  It never works because most of those have a forced return address anyway. 

And occasionally I come across one that interests me.  What I am saying is that junk mail, whether it is in my e-mail inbox, or in the postal box downstairs, is not a big problem to me.

There are Internet users, however, who have a fiercely protective and proprietary attitude about the Internet.  They tend to think that the entire World Wide Web is supposed to operate by their personal standards. 

Some of them will upbraid you severely if you type an e-mail in capital letters.  Because that is considered SHOUTING, and it is RUDE!!!!  (They also usually like to use a lot of exclamation points.) 

And may the Heavens save you if you should chance to send them an e-mail they were not expecting.  Regardless of how you might have obtained their e-mail address, and obviously it came from somewhere because it is difficult to make up active e-mail addresses, they will report you to SPAM-COP, SPAM POLICE, SPAM FBI, your Internet Service Provider, their Internet Service Provider, the Federal Communications Commission, the Better Business Bureau, and AAA.  How dare you send mail to their consecrated computer?

I don’t know where they find the time and energy to go to such great lengths to preserve the sanctity of their little corner of cyberspace.  I am usually occupied by thoughts more productive than tracking down and punishing interlopers.

If you send the same e-mail to more than 20 recipients at the same time it can be considered SPAM.  Obviously it is not SPAM if you know all the people and they don’t mind getting e-mail from you.  And it is not SPAM if the person has asked for information about the type of service or product that you are offering.

So, it would seem like your options are to type in and mail your message to less than 20 people at a time or you can just go ahead and send them all and take the risk of getting an ABUSE complaint.  The risk there could include the loss of service by your Internet Service Provider.  That doesn’t sound like a good option.

There are other options.  You can accumulate “opt-in” e-mail addresses.  “Opt-in” means they have asked for information about the type of product or service that you are offering. 

You can send out postcards or letters.  You can distribute flyers.  You can run advertisements in newspapers and magazines or on the radio or TV.  Your imagination is the only limiting factor in collecting addresses. 

Once they have responded to your ad and have given you their e-mail address they are “opt-in.”  Generating opt-in leads can be expensive, it can be time consuming, and it can be frustrating.  Sometimes I run ads that I think are going to produce monumental results—and I get zilch.  Sometimes, usually at the positively worst time, my imagination goes on strike, and I just can’t think of anything that would attract anyone.

That’s why there are list brokers, like me, who share the results with others for a fee.  That makes it financially feasible to spend the time and money finding different ways, and places to advertise.

Automate Automate Automate

When you have accumulated a significant number of opt-in e-mail addresses you are again faced with the issue of making the best use of your time in moving them through the process. 

Typing individual names and addresses into your e-mail address book is time consuming.  And your address book will soon become cluttered with the names of suspects that the process moved to the exit door instead of to the entrance.  Copying and pasting your message into e-mails is also time consuming—and boring.

Autoresponders are a good alternative to using your own e-mail program to get your message out.  An autoresponder is software with the basic purpose of responding automatically to an inquiry. 

For instance, if you send out postcards with your autoresponder’s address, and someone sends an e-mail to it, the autoresponder would automatically, and immediately, respond with your message or a series of messages.  Usually it would also store the name and address.  You have saved time because you did not have to type in the address, and you do not have to delete worthless addresses.

Some autoresponders will allow you to import address listings and have your message automatically sent to them.  If you import addresses you must be able to justify their opt-in status.  When you purchase e-mail lists from a list broker you should ask whether they can affirm the opt-in status.

There are too many autoresponder programs available for us to make a recommendation.  We suggest that you simply put the word autoresponder into a web search and then explore some of the products.  Some of the features you will want are:

• The ability to send a series of messages to new entries.

• The ability to import prospect lists into the program.

• Automatic deactivation or deletion of bad email addresses.

• The ability to download the active leads in a usable file format.

• Being able to use HTML formatting in your messages.

• An automatic unsubscribe process for people who want to opt-out.

Spreading The News

Now about the message itself.  How you say it is much more important than what you have to say.  It may sound shallow, presumptuous, and even devious to say that form and style are more important than content.  It sounds like saying that image is more important than substance. 

But think about this for just a moment.  The most valuable written information in the world is worthless if no one reads it.  Deep, huh?  You know; if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it still make a sound? 

If your message is not read by anyone, is it still a message?

As a starting point, read some of the messages that appear in your inbox.  After reading for a while you will see that there is a sameness to most of them.  Some of the words may be a little different but there is a similarity of thought running through them.  Print out some of them and identify the common threads.  Then vow to be different.  Otherwise you will look and sound just like all the messages you do not usually read. 

If you want your message to be read make it different enough to be interesting.

Get emotional!  Go for the gut!  Don’t be afraid of scaring someone.  Don’t worry about making someone angry.  If you scare them, or make them angry, you got their attention.  Fear and anger are usually related.  At least in this sense they are. 

You obviously are not posing any threat of immediate physical harm to anyone so they are not afraid of dying or being hurt.  The fear you stimulate is the fear of losing something, or the fear of not getting something they want.  Or it is the fear of the unknown. 

If you stimulate anger it is probably because at sometime in the past they have experienced the loss of something, or they did not get something they expected and deeply desired.  Maybe they dared to challenge the unknown and got an undesirable result.

Your objective in writing your message is to arouse someone to action.  Identify the emotion you want to arouse then go for it, and go for it strongly.  Then give them a solution. 

Elevate a fear, then give them something to make it go away.  Raise their anger, and then give them something to calm it.  Remember that you are not causing their fear or anger—you are simply bringing it back to their attention, and then you are offering them a way to resolve it once and for all.  When you do that you establish a common ground with them.  They feel that you understand their own feelings, and they are receptive to hearing your solution.

Do not try to sell your product in your initial message.  You undoubtedly have many sales materials to do that for you after you get their attention.  What you should try to do is move them to an action that will put them in touch with the rest of your information. 

Get them to go to your website.  Prompt them to request your written materials.  Urge them to call your 800 number so you can schedule a personal conversation.  The more you tell them in the initial message, the less reason they have to ask for more.  If your message spurs them into your sales process it has accomplished its purpose.

• Examples of titles, or subject lines, that may encourage someone to read on are:

• Why aren’t you getting what you want?

• Why you aren’t getting what you want!

• Will you ever have the kind of money you want?

• How secure is your retirement?

• Are you getting your message out to enough people?

• Is debt destroying your family?

Keep your message general and use known facts.  Don’t give them room to argue with your information.  Avoid things like:

• This is the best offer you will ever see!

• There is no way you can fail.

• This will satisfy all your dreams.

• If you can’t do this you can’t do anything.

• Success guaranteed.

• Do it now before it is too late.

You do not know all the people who will see your message, so you cannot know what their experiences have been.  You can’t know what their experiences will be. 

You can’t know if this is the best, or the biggest, or the most all-encompassing, or foolproof offer they will ever see.  You aren’t going to stop offering your product, so they know its never going to be too late.  If you give them any arguable points you lose credibility. 

You may be able to win the debate if you get the opportunity to present your side, but if you lose credibility in your opening message you will never get that opportunity.

Find known facts that will lend themselves to your message.  Did you know that four out of five new businesses will fail?  It’s a known fact.  It follows the 80% - 20% rule we talked about earlier. 

Did you know that only 3% of all the people in the United States will be financially secure at age 65?  It’s a known fact. 

Scour the Internet, scour the almanacs, scour whatever sources you can think of the find information about financial conditions, about health statistics, about nutrition, about beauty, about anything that will relate to your product and then incorporate it in your message. 

Did you know that more people are overweight than are underweight?

Whatever problem you identify will stimulate the desire to be on the good side of the equation, and it will arouse the fear of being on the bad side of the equation.  Then hint about how your product can satisfy the desire, or how it can eliminate the fear.  Do not give in to the temptation to explain how it does that.  Save that for the follow-up.

Going For The Gold

It would be nice if all we had to do was send people to a website and then wait for them to buy our products.  I see ads, and I know you must see them too, that promise that kind of response. 

“This is an unbelievable opportunity.  All you have to do is sign up.  Send your money in, and then get out of the way so that the hordes of customers don’t trample you.  In 3 days you will receive $50,000 and in 10 days you will receive $1,000 000.”  

I am convinced that the reason those offers are unbelievable is that they are—well, not to be believed.  I have known people who tried them and they were like sheep being led to slaughter. 

Worthwhile compensation is the result of worthwhile effort.  Modern technology is wonderful, and I am not devaluing its power.  Computers and the Internet are remarkably efficient marketing tools. 

What I am saying is that sooner or later you will probably have to have real life, person to person, voice conversations with your prospects, and definitely with your customers.  This is a part of the process that moves people from suspect to prospect to sale.

The fortune is in the follow up.

  That statement is used so often it sounds trite.  That is unfortunate because it is a powerfully truthful statement. 

Follow up is the phase in the process that will either move you into the top earner class or keep you out of it.  The key is not how well you follow up.  The key is how often you follow up. Look at these categories and honestly place yourself in one.  I make follow up calls:

• None of the time

• Some of the time

• Most of the time

• Nearly all of the time

• All of the time

Be honest, and don’t be embarrassed.  Most of us begin in the "none", or "some" categories.  Making a sincere self-evaluation is the beginning of improvement. 

Give yourself some time to move through the categories.  It is difficult to get into the ”All of the time” club.  That is an elite membership and only the most dedicated will get there.  But it is a non-discriminating club and you can join if you really want to.  The top earners are members.

An added benefit is that when you increase the frequency of your follow up calls you will also increase your skill.  Don’t worry about making mistakes.  Go ahead and make them. 

This is one place where doing something wrong is 100% better than doing nothing at all.  They say that experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.  When you get experience you do it better the next time. 

Is there a chance that you will lose some prospects by making mistakes?  You bet there is.  But don’t let that scare you out of trying.  You won’t get the sale if you don’t ask for it.  The worst thing that could happen is that you get some experience, and that’s a good thing.

I say, “don’t be afraid,” but I know that the telephone can be a fearsome instrument.  A study disclosed that 95% of the most successful salespeople admitted that they experienced fear when making these kinds of calls. 

The same study showed that the other 5% were liars. 

Don’t be afraid to feel afraid.  There is only one known cure for that fear.  That is to pick up the telephone.  Every time you pick up the phone the fear diminishes.  It may diminish one degree at a time, but it definitely diminishes.  Failing to pick up the phone causes the fear to grow.

The first thing you want to do in your follow up is find out whether or not the person qualifies for your time.  Time is your most valuable asset and the frequency of your successes is directly related to how wisely you use it. 

Another truth is that your prospect will not care how much you know until they know how much you care.  If they do not think that you have their best interests in mind, they are not going to have much interest in hearing what you have to say.

This seems to present the dilemma of finding out if they are good for you at the same instant that you are convincing them that you are good for them. 

Some thought about time is a good starting point.  Yours is valuable, and so is theirs.  Just because someone told you that evening is the best time to call does not mean that the particular evening you call is going to be the ideal time for him or her. 

Tell them who you are, why you called, and ask them if they have time to talk.  If they do, they have taken the first step toward qualifying for your time.

Use a planned interview that will reveal why they responded to your message.  Learn what they do for a living.  Let them tell you what they hope your product or service will do for them. 

Let them tell you their income goals, and more importantly, what effect the added income will have on their lifestyle. It is clearly more powerful when they tell you what they want, and what it will do for them than when you try to convince them about what they should want and what you think it will do for them. 

The word interview is defined as a meeting where information is exchanged.  Frame your interview questions in a way that lets the prospect know that you are interested in them as a person, while at the same time producing the information you need.

In this phase of the process you are deciding whether or not this prospect will qualify for more of your time. 

Let me repeat that…YOU ARE DECIDING whether or not this prospect will qualify for more of your time. 

It is a common and crippling misconception that in this phase the prospect is deciding whether or not he or she is interested in what you are selling. 

It is OK for the prospect to think that he or she is making the decision, but it is mandatory that YOU know that YOU are making the decision.  That will make it easier for you to discard those who do not fit the profile you want.

Picture it as a dinner party.  If you invite people who are like you, who share similar tastes and interests you will probably have an enjoyable meal with stimulating conversation and a pleasant exchange of views and ideas. 

Or, you can drag people in off the street, about whom you know very little.  Some may come kicking and screaming if you drag hard enough.  They will complain about the food.  They will criticize your furnishings.  They will disagree with most of what you have to say.  Then they will steal your silverware.

The most important benefit of knowing that you are making the decision is that it will diminish your fear more quickly than anything else can. 

The primary fear in making follow up calls is that the prospect will reject you.  Actually, they don’t know enough about you to reject you personally, but when they reject your offer it FEELS like they are rejecting you personally. 

When you are making the decision they no longer have the power of rejection.  You have it.  It can be a powerful tool if you use it sensibly.

When a prospect seems to be fighting you for control of the conversation, and you back off—in effect you seem to be taking the offer off the table—the prospect will often capitulate and become more cooperative.  If not, you have lost nothing.  The interview has served its purpose.

The fortune is in the follow up.  And the fortune can be yours if you remember the number one rule of follow up: 

Just Do it!

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Performance Technology
Santa Monica, CA
310 394 7858
info@prosperityhome.com