The Confidence Factor

When a group of business people are asked certain questions, I'm always surprised at the range of responses we get.

One time Mark Joyner asked a group of people attending his seminar to stand up if they had read the best seller "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill.

It was no surprise that almost everyone in the room stood up. After all, this is practically THE BOOK for any person in business to read. It is about as close to the Bible of business as the the real Bible is to Religion.

He then asked if anyone could come to the front of the room and recite the Self-Confidence Formula found in Chapter 3 of Napoleon's Book.

Everyone sat down! How could this be?

Napoleon Hill's book is essentially an instruction manual for getting wealthy. In those pages he gives explicit instructions on how to use the same techniques used by over 500 prominent, wealthy people to become successful. He studied these individuals over a period 25 years. The Self-Confidence Formula was one of the 13 steps toward wealth and success he describes in his book.

What's even more interesting, Mr. Hill's instructions clearly stated that the 5 components of the formula should be recited, memorized and "signed off" on each day. How is it possible that not one person in a group of over a 100 business men and women could recall this critical formula?

Oh but my business or job is different...

Just as we often think our personal problems are different than the ones others are facing (and they usually aren't) we tend to believe that our businesses are somehow different. We tend to believe that our success depends on some mysterious factor that no one else can discover but us.

DON'T BELIEVE IT FOR A SECOND!

I've made that mistake myself and have paid for it in lost time and money. When you put your business ideas together, follow the course of the masters. You'll thank yourself later.

List Building - 3 Breakthrough Steps To A Responsive Subscriber List

I've always been impressed with those people who could build a list of 5,000 subscribers then give up their day job. All because their list was so responsive to any offer they made them.

Then I figured out their secret and boiled it down into 3 easy to follow breakthrough steps.

Step 1: Make sure you're using a professionally hosted autoresponder service like GetResponse.com.

This is where you have to spend some money because your entire business will depend on the reliability of your email system.

What you want to avoid are the free autoresponder services, because as you become more successful at list building the more there is at risk.

Your professionally hosted autoresponder will do 3 things, it'll be easier for your subscribers to manage their subscription with you. More of your emails will get through to them. And you'll be able to track your results more effectively.

Step 2: As soon as a subscriber joins your list ask them a question in their first email. The question would be something like... "what's your single biggest problem about (enter your subject here)".

Then you use the feedback you get from your subscribers to decide what content and offers you should be sending to them.

Step 3: Write a full months worth of follow-up email messages to add to your autoresponder that's a 50/50 mix of content and offers.

In step 2 we asked your new subscriber a question, now we take their questions and answer them to replace and build on your first months worth of follow-up messages.

Your answers to their questions gives you your content. And you'll also know exactly what products to recommend and offers to make that help them solve their problems.

As you create more content just add it to your autoresponder. Eventually you'll have an autoresponder with at least a years worth of content, recommendations and offers.

When you follow these steps you'll soon find that people will be more likely to listen to you and take your advice.

Will you be able to give up your day job too? That's down to how well you can put these steps into action and how good you are at building your list.

Now you know how to make your list more responsive all that's left is to get more subscribers to join your list by focusing on your list building.

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The Quickest Way To Make Cash on the Internet

I mentioned in my previous post that a large number of people are asking, "What is the quickest I can make money on the Internet?" The recent economic events have a lot of people either re-treading for a new job or looking for a second income. It's not a surprise that using the Internet as a cash machine often comes to mind. I'm a veteran of using the Internet as a source of quick cash myself. I have a great deal of experience in researching the best programs to accomplish that goal.

If you spend any amount of time reading about making money on the Internet you probably already have some idea of the large amount of information that you will have to go over to decide a course of action. I can save you a lot of time by telling you that the vast majority of "get rich quick" schemes are complete hype and hogwash. The hard truth is that most Internet businesses are not overnight successes. They all take hard work, the right information, some technical know how and start-up capital.

However, when I think back on my experiences, there are a few things that you can do to make some cash where you don't have to make an astronomical commitment of time or money. One of these is the often touted but usually poorly explained online auction. There are numerous online auction sites but few get enough traffic to bother listing on unless they specialize in listing something unique that you have and want to sell. For the rest of us who want to sell more ordinary items, there are only two or three online auction sites I would even consider.

My number one criteria is that you need to be able to make a sale and have access to the proceeds, i.e. the cash, as soon as possible. Many online auction houses have ways of delaying your payment. For quick cash it's best to work only with those auctions that allow you to collect payment directly from your customer. This approach may increase the chance of non-payment but is worth the risk if you want to get some cash right away.

The auction must also have a way to interface to a low cost payment service like PayPal. The quicker you get your money the better. Therefore I recommend only accepting online payments that you can verify before shipping the auction purchase. I have found that customers often use snail mail payments to delay payment until payday etc. It may be OK for an established business to extend this type of credit to their customers but I don't recommended it for sellers short on cash. Waiting up to 30 days while the "checks in the mail" can be an excruciating experience if you really need the money.

Having the ability to accept credit cards is a must. This doesn't mean you have to spend large monthly fees for a merchant account to get started. A low cost third party payment system can accept payments online for a minimal percentage of the price you get for the item sold. However, the payment service needs to be trustworthy and reliable. If your customers are not comfortable with the payment process they will simply buy from someone else. While it's not a perfect solution, I still have not found a better or more reliable service than PayPal. It is owned by eBay and has established its reputation well both among sellers and buyers.

At the top of my list for auction sites is eBay. You may have heard that eBay has made some changes in its auction format recently. Regardless of how eBay tweaks it's rules, it has to remain the first choice as long as it continues to hold top traffic ranking among online auction sites. Like it or not, the three most important ingredients for making an online sale are traffic, traffic, and more traffic. As a newbe you can screw up a lot of stuff, but if you get enough people to look at your offer somebody will buy it. As a second choice, I recommend Overstock Auctions. They are a strong eBay competitor but don't expect to sell anywhere near the volume you can on eBay. Other possibilities are Amazon auctions, uBid and Bidz.com. These sites have rules that I don't find particularly appealing toward generating quick cash so check their terms carefully before using them.

Remember auctions charge a fee to list an item and/or take a percentage of the final sale prices. Analyze these costs carefully. Many sellers fail to accurately predict selling costs.

You can sell almost anything in an online auction. Niche markets are most lucrative. Avoid the mass marketed collectibles and home decor that's imported from the Pacific rim countries. The competition makes the profit margin too low for the inexperienced seller. You can buy items locally during store sales or from yard sales and flea markets. However, it's easiest to purchase the items new from legitimate wholesalers online. Don't pay large fees for wholesale rights. There are many wholesalers that give discounts based on volume alone without membership fees. If you have limited cash to buy stock you can consider wholesalers that will drop ship items for you. Be sure to check and test their drop shipping process. Finding you have sold items you can't deliver in a timely manner is very unpleasant and can ruin your reputation as an auction seller.

Online auctions can be fun and lucrative. You don't need a website or a large initial investment and the customers are friendly. It's a great way to practice your skill at writing online ad copy or checkout some of your marketing ideas. Most of all, if you pick the right site, you don't have to worry about generating traffic to see your offer and make a sale. Traffic generation is the most difficult and expensive part of marketing online. With the traffic that frequents online auctions, half the battle is won before you even start.

Derek Gehl over at the Internet Marketing Center is in the process of rolling out a brand new course for you to discover the best tricks for selling on the "new" eBay. I've convinced Derek let my customers have a "sneak preview" of his top secret information. You can see free videos exposing the latest eBay secrets by clicking here. So if you're thinking of trying to make some quick cash in online auctions be sure to check this out.