By Jeff Mills 
Back in 1999 I started looking on the internet to be able to supplement my income.
I was a poor Youth Pastor $40,000 in debt from Seminary loans and also some major consumer debt on my credit cards.
I was the typical average American, leveraged to the hilt on credit with no place to go.
Well....
I did have one place to go, and that was the internet. I knew this
medium would allow me the ideas and the opportunities to have more time
freedom, financial freedom and time with my family.
Ministry can
chew up and spit out its pastors as damaged goods, and for all the love
of serving people and helping people find salvation in Jesus, it can be
a thankless job, for little pay. It's not that way for all Pastors, and
I did have many great people to serve alongside with when I was working
in the church, but let me give some people and pastors some advice....
Pastors don't take a vows of poverty. Priests do.
Look
at some of the richest people in the world, during the Biblical
times... King David, Solomon & Abraham. They served and had great
financial blessings.
You can change your situation and become
financially free too, no matter what your profession. Many of the
nations pastors make a great living from serving too, but far too many
struggle financially, like I did.
So, the first money making
opportunity I found, was the now famous "Send 5 Dollars" in the mail,
chain letter scam. And guess who fell for it? Me! I put my $5 in 5
envelopes and mailed them out, and I actually got 2 letters from other
people, 5 weeks later, one from some person in Europe... and never
anything more. It was my first international business opportunity! :).
Next, I became an affiliate. I learned I could sell someone else's product. But who would I get to buy this stuff?
I
spent tons of money throwing my ads out to places on the net where
people told me others would see my offer, but no one bought anything.
I
bought tools and ebooks and I went to conference calls, but still, I
was spending way more money than I was ever making. Thank God for tax
returns each year, where I would get some money back... but soon, I'd
blow that wad too.
I discovered this advertising and marketing
technique called a "safelist" and I joined and told everyone to join
and buy my product by sending out 1000's of emails to people who gave
me "permission" to mail offers to them.
But what I did not
realize was all the members of the safelist, were going to mail me an
offer to buy their product too. And my mailbox filled up with 10,000
emails a month of people trying to get me into their deal. Pretty soon,
everyone just sent offers, no one was reading anything.
Here is where I had my first epiphany and did something right...
CREATE AND CONTROL MARKETS
I
learned from Matt Bacak, who learned this from a billionaire mentor of
his, that if you want to get rich, then you have to CREATE and CONTROL
markets. You have to DOMINATE and be the top and be the best in your
niche, even better, create the niche!
So, I planned to create and
control the safelist market. I bought a safelist for myself and I told
everyone I could to come and post their ads to each other on my list.
And it worked.
1000's
of Network Marketers, stay home moms and dads, college students,
grandmas and grandpas were posting their ads to my list members. Then I
started charging them a fee.
And they paid it. Wow!
And
then I realized, "Hey, I am the owner of this list, these people just
email out to junk email accounts, and no one reads each other's offers.
But I have their REAL sign up email, and I'll make it a policy that I
can send out emails from ME toTHEIR contact, or main email, and they
must give me permission to mail to them, or they cannot join my list."
And that was the first really smart thing I did to make money on the internet.
I
would simply put together a rather short email, make some interesting
copy, that people enjoyed reading, and then hit the "SEND" button and
blast this ad to my member's contact emails, where I was sure people
would read them.
Guess what happened?
People read them, and
they took my advice because I was perceived as an "expert" simply
because I owned my own safelist. I started to actually make little
paychecks. We were on our way finally making money on the internet.
I
transitioned out of the safelist market, and decided, after attending a
live internet marketing conference, that I needed to build my own list
a new way, and build value to people who visit my sites by teaching
them things and in return, I'd ask them to join my list, where they
would get tips, tricks and special offers on the latest and greatest
programs on the net.
And that worked too.
Over the last 3 years, I built a very large list of people, one email, one permission based opt-in at a time.
And
I am now at a place where I can easily make $10,000 with just one
mailing to my list in one day. As a matter of fact, there is hardly a
week that goes by now, where I am not at least making $5000 on
autopilot because of the emails I am sending out back to my list and
people are responding.
I learned the power of SYSTEMIZING my business.
I learned that a marketing a business is like moving oil through the Alaska Pipeline.
You
have an entry point where the lead first discovers you (your ad, or
your website) and then from there takes action to become either
interested or not in your product.
Your goal is to move the lead
to from becoming a suspect, to becoming a serious prospect. From
prospect, you want to convert the lead into a customer. Once you have a
happy customer, you want that person to become your evangelist,
promoting you and your product for you as an affiliate.
Here is the pipeline in action moving the lead from the start to the finish.
Suspect --> Prospect --> Customer --> Evangelist (affiliate)
You must systematize your business to move people through the information pipeline.
How?
I came up with a fun acronym to help you see the pipeline.
I call it TGIF (no.... it's not Thank God it's Friday)
T + G + I = F
T - is Take Action
G - is Generate Leads
I - is Incessant follow up
F - is Fortune
Let's break down the formula for each section.
Taking action
This
is where most businesses fail. 95% of all small or home based
businesses fail after 12-18 months. And it is my opinion it is because
there is a lack of action or activity that ceases the flow of sales,
and the money simply runs out. Some people do take action, but they are
putting their focus on old, outdated traditional types of media or
advertising and blow their money, so it's important to TAKE THE RIGHT
ACTION, using the right tools and resources. Having a mentor share
these important and working resources is one of the keys to success.
Generating leads is the key.
A
website online needs traffic to create leads. A great looking site,
with no visitors is just a great looking site, not making you money.
So, you need to become a lead generator. This, in my opinion is one of
the easiest things you can do. Generating traffic to websites, and
sending quality and qualified visitors takes time to learn, but when
done right, will lead your potential clients to buy from you, right on
your website, without them ever talking to you!
Incessant Follow up is vital.
My
philosophy is to build an email database by creating lead capture
pages, websites, and blogs to do one ting only - capture leads. Once
you have the lead, you need an email autoresponder to follow up with
those leads. I send email to my leads who opt-in for 7 days straight,
then I begin to back off a little and space it out every couple days,
week, then months. BUT.. I never stop emailing people on my list.
I will email these leads until they buy, die or unsubscribe off my list.
This is the secret to success with follow up.
Most
people send back ONE email follow up, and are not personal, and then
end all communication hoping for a one time hit sale. Almost all your
sales will come from the follow up sequence where a few buy with the
first offer, but I see many more buying after touch 4-9. That means it
takes 4-9 follow up messages to build trust, value in your offer and
help your leads see value in parting with their hard earned money to
buy your product, solution or coaching program.
Don't End with ONE Product
Another
big secret with incessant follow up is that once you have a person as a
customer, teach them to consume you product or service so they
immediately feel the value of owning it and then want to tell others
about it as an affiliate.
I have 54 follow emails that go to my customers who join my Coastal Vacations Club business to teach and train them on how to market the membership to other home business opportunity seekers.
Then
I also follow up with periodic backend offer, tools and resources to
help them grow their business. Many of them join me in other ventures
like our Mortgage Elimination Program as well, that allows them to pay
off their home mortgage in 7-12 years, not 30, saving up to 70% on
interest payments.
When you follow the TGIF Formula, the last
letter is "F" for Fortune. You'll simply create a pipeline of profits
from automated sales and can build little follow up systems for an
unlimited amounts of niches and products.
Here is one more secret.
Don't try to figure out how to do this alone, learn from a mentor, like Jeff Mills
and also hire someone who can build websites, who knows how to write
HTML code and how to integrate autoresponders, and who has some basic
understanding of website copy, autoresponder copy, and such, so that
your words are selling prospect on your pages to take actions, and in
your emails HOW to become customers, by taking action immediately. Use
words like, "buy now", "download today", "order today", "get started
immediately" - create urgency and people will follow your orders and do
what you tell them to do... eventually... or they'll bail off your list
and someone will soon replace them, who really wants and needs what you
have to sell.
By using a TGIF system, you don't
have to go out there and spend a ton of money buying leads and talking
to leads. You make the leads or let the leads come to you, talk to you
when THEY are ready and collect the money, all the way to the bank.
Jeff
Mills is a former Youth Pastor of 9 years, who is now a full time
internet information entrepreneur, book author, speaker, sales coach,
and also an avid traveler. Discover free marketing tips and get
Napoleon Hills' Classic, Think and Grow Rich free at Jeff's popular
online marketing blog, http://www.jeffmills.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Mills
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