We have a friend and business associate who started working with computers in the very early 80's. As a journalist at that time he was writing news stories about computers. When he first started in 1983, he connected a modem to his computer, dialed in, and got data delivered to my computer via that modem.

He immediately discovered the world of the BBS’s - the Bulletin Board Systems - which were independent systems operated out of homes, and often as a hobby that was rapidly growing into an industry…an industry that was making people money operating small busi-nesses, delivering information and news, and handling some product sales and information.

As soon as he discovered this whole network of BBS’s that were blanketing the country, he immediately saw that this was a marketing method for the future and immediately started making his own living syndicating news and information and selling it to these operators in a weekly news magazine. He provided them with unique content that would bring callers back and make people want to subscribe and attract more users.

He made it his specialty to market this program and instantly started helping other people market their software and programs on the BBS’s. This is the secret of how one man was making money online 10 years before the Internet!

For a time he even published a large trade journal for BBS operators as the BBS’s grew into an industry that was generating profits for people. Naturally, the Internet came along and literally swept the BBS industry clean.

At one time there were almost 100,000 bulletin boards operating across the country. It’s now diminished to probably less than 5,000. Most of those BBS’s, by the way, are operating as gateways to the Internet for their callers. The Internet has had a major impact on the industry.

Our friend promptly shifted his focus a bit and started helping his clients learn how to make money on the Internet. For example, many of the profitable techniques of the BBS’s turned out to also be very profitable when used over the Internet.

The Internet eliminates many of the boundaries that were weaknesses the BBS’s, so the Internet literally has all of the advantages of the BBS’s and none of the negative angles the BBS’s suffered from. There’s no long distance clock ticking, running up a meter when a customer calls in. It’s almost always a flat rate fee. You have instant e-mail to anyone in the world. The impact of the Internet on our society has not even begun to be felt!

A good example of this is a recent Shell Oil Company Poll of people and how they feel about the last year of the millennium and the beginning of the new one. The poll asked people what they felt was the one technological development that had the most impact in our last century.

Nearly twice as many people answered “the computer”- and thus the Internet - as those who listed the automobile!

If you think about the impact the automobile had on society, it’s easy to see where people are going with this. What we found interesting about this is that both of these inventions involve mobility. The automobile took people to products and services more frequently. It increased the economic well-being and the ability of the consumer to actually buy more and do more.

Just think of the opportunities that the automobile opened up! The Internet’s power lies in its ability to bring the world of opportunities, services, and goods to the home without any need to fire up the automobile and head out traveling - it’s all done in the comfort of home! The impact is tremendous!

And what better place to be marketing your products and services than on the Internet? According to the poll, the Internet even overshadowed television!

What does the Internet hold in store for the future? What are we going to see in the next two years on the Internet? It’s potential is so high, it’s totally unpredictable. That’s why it’s so important for you to be there with a website generating your own information, services, and sales, and products.

The numbers of people going online are exploding…and the amount of commerce that’s going to be happening is just unbelievable!

Our secret of building a specialized business on the Internet, for free, with just a little bit of your time is - news groups.

News groups are the public message boards that are on the Internet. The messages are left public for others to respond to - there is a lot of give and take - and the neat thing is, there are even archives of storage. We have actually received and read responses to messages we’ve left in news groups four years ago!

They are still up in archives where people, if they know how to find them, can go back and read past postings to learn more. It is almost a growing knowledge base. Everybody chips in and shares information and knowledge about a special interest.

To show you the power of the Internet for the specialty marketer, news groups cover virtually every imaginable interest possible. And in fact, if you start reading through any list of news groups that is available from your local Internet service provider, you will be astonished to learn of the existence of many special interests you never thought could exist.

Some of them you’ll probably want to avoid. But the point is, just almost everything you could possibly imagine is there, and it is very easy to inquire with your Internet service provider in your area, whoever you go through.

They could be already providing you with a list of these news groups. Maybe you’re already on some of them. Or, if not, it is very easy to inquire and get a list of what news groups they offer.

It operates just like email. The difference is that you read everybody else’s messages back and forth to one another because they are public. Then you can post your replies which are then read by everyone.

I would now like to cover how to create a steady stream of profits month in and month out by just pointing out mistakes that other web site owners make. If there is one thing that will kill a site fast, prevent sales, and destroy credibility, it’s a web site that is filled with spelling and grammatical errors.

Let me give you an example. Last week I was looking for some software. I was looking at a site that offered some software that was somewhat pricey. The web site said that there were two ways to order their software. In “There are two ways,” there was spelled t-h-e-i-r instead of t-h-e-r-e. Being a poor speller myself, I just figured it was a typo. I kept on going and ignored that. A little while later, though, the site said, “There were so many...” and it was spelled t-h-e-i-r again. There were a couple other typos on the page, and even though I am willing to give someone a wide leeway on spelling, it made me pause.

Did I buy the software? No. Why? I didn’t buy the software because the webmaster - a company representative - wasn’t a good speller. That destroyed that company’s credibility with me. The misspellings were seemingly stating that the company wasn’t paying attention to the details. If they didn’t care about the details, how much were they going to care about their customer service and their follow-up?

In programming, detail is so very important! Would their code be sloppy? Like they would in any other sales situation, these doubts made me pause. When I pause, like any buyer that pauses, very frequently you lose the sale. That’s exactly what happened here! I decided I would wait. In the end, though, I found the type of software I wanted somewhere else.

It may not be true that spelling and grammar are the most important things in the world, but when you are basing your whole impression of a company on what you see on the screen of the web site, it becomes very important. You can solve this problem for a lot of companies by offering a proofreading service for web masters. Everyone has a spell checker - we spell check everything that we put up. A spell checker won’t point out the difference between t-h-e-i-r and t-h-e-r-e, or d-e-a-r or d-e-e-r, though. The word is spelled correctly. It doesn’t check for the improper use of the word, it checks for the spelling of the word.

Really obvious grammatical errors are very common on web sites. Believe me, from my own writing experience, if you’ve made a mistake on that screen or that page, you’ll tend to miss it over and over again when you go back and look at it. You’ll be too busy looking for content, not grammatical errors. You’ll see it correctly, because subconsciously you’re looking for the content and not for the errors.

You could do a great service for other web sites! You, your wife, or a high school or college student in your family could be really good at grammar. You don’t have to be the world’s greatest speller (a good spell checker will do), but you should be a good proofreader. A proofreader is someone who picks up on mistakes and grammatical goofs really easily.

You can put together a service very easily with a very low start-up, offering the proofreading service right over the web. You could call your company something along the lines of “yourslipisshowing.com” or “theproofisintherreading.com” or “proofit.com.” You get the idea. Something like that - a little catchy name. Then you put up a very simple web site. Make certain that you spell everything correctly! Then you can start soliciting other web sites to do their proofreading and catch mistakes for them.

It is a very easy business to start. I would begin by running ads in other e-zines, which are easy to find. Simply look for e-zines or an e-zine that is targeted to web masters or marketing, because these are people who are marketing over the Internet or have web sites. You can use e-mail to solicit customers, and you can post on newsgroups that web masters and web marketers frequent.

The best way to price your service would probably be by the page. You could charge a certain amount per page for proofreading and checking a web site. While you are at it, you might also check to see that all their links are working. Anything that you can add in value to the site that says, “I caught a mistake,” “I caught something you overlooked,” “Here’s a bad link,” “Here’s a misspelled word,” “Here’s a grammatical error,” etc.

It can be very simple. They could send you their credit card number and the address that they want to use. You go to that site, print out the page, mark the corrections, and then fax your corrections to them. On the other hand, if they’ll send you the file, you can correct it right on the file and e-mail it back to them. You then charge their credit card, and it’s all done!

You don’t have to stop at web pages. You can proofread e-zines as well! Most people who produce e-zines are not experienced writers. We’re all very afraid of making mistakes on our e-zines, and we’re all very afraid that we will show our ignorance about common grammatical usage. There is a very highly motivated target to sell this kind of service to.

Most writers are very insecure about their grammar. They didn’t like grammar in school any more than the rest of us! They are anxious, and they may very well be willing to buy peace of mind and confidence by paying you $20.00 or $25.00 for every page that you’ll check. If you have a knack for this kind of thing, it is a very easy way to make a good income.

The e-zines are also a great market for you to advertise in. You can do trades to get started. You make an offer to an e-zine publisher to proof his e-zine for him in return for an ad. That’s a great deal for both of you, because he gets a little more confidence and can be certain that it goes out without an embarrassment to him. At the same time, he gives you an ad which doesn’t cost you anything - It’s a win-win situation, and it’s a good way to leverage a low amount of money to get started.

A proofreading service is a very easy business to start. With a small investment, and you are providing a very valuable service on the web.

Someone in our office just recently sold an automobile on eBay in less than a week’s time. So, why couldn’t you maybe read through the classified ads of newspapers looking for cars that are hard to sell - maybe foreign cars and high priced cars - contact that person and let them know that you can assist them in selling their car over the Internet? This is one product you can make thousands of dollars on - and you don’t even have to pay for it . . .

Why not, you ask? You could ask them if they would be willing to pay you a fee, assuming that you sell the car for them. Tell them, in some cases, you can even get the car sold in less than a week.

Another idea is that you can go to the website of Federal Government’s patent office, www.uspto.gov, and look up products that have had patents filed.

Why would you do this? Simple . . . a lot of inventors are very good at inventing things, but they’re not very good at marketing or promoting their products!

When you’re doing research on the Federal Government’s patent Web Site, you can find interesting products that are very unique and different, but you’ll also typically find that the inventor is really not doing anything to market that product. You can contact the inventor and work out a deal to sell their product via the auctions on the Web Site! By doing this you can get rich with high-ticket items that you don’t pay for!

One of the biggest issues people tend to be insecure with is their own social standing. Everyone wants to be special; everyone wants to be someone important in this world in one way or another.

This is something you can capitalize on in your marketing - and use to your advantage to bring you more sales and more money!

One of the biggest ways clever marketers capitalize on this is through use of the word “Insiders.” You’ve seen it used - Insider strategies, insider secrets, insider information, etc. Using the word “Insider” is an “insider” secret that increases response! It’s power lies in the fact that it’s the one thing you can say to make people know they are getting private, exclusive benefits!

Using “Insider” in your sales copy gives prospects the impression that the benefits presented by your product are typically reserved for “special” people and not just the general populace.

You’re giving an impression that it’s used by the elite, by the skilled, by people who are SPECIAL - and that by purchasing the product, they too will join the ranks of the “insiders!”

Use of the word “insider” can also create a reverse psychology in prospects - a belief that, by not having these special “insider” secrets, they are estranged from success and from the “elite.” They don’t want to be left out, so they want your product!

No matter which of these two responses it causes in your prospects, the adjective “insider” still leads both to the same conclusion - that they should purchase your product!

Here are 12 proven ways to get rich in direct response marketing!

1. You must know who you are trying to reach with your unique selling proposition. Use the highest-quality names available.
2. Target marketing means getting your offer to the right people. Remember, it is not the quantity of names you send out, it is the quality that is important.
3. Choose the right market for your selling message. Make certain your service or product meets the interest and expectations of your target group. Do not try to sell lawn mowers to an apartment dweller in Manhattan, for example.
4. Make certain your proposition is targeting the right people. Make certain your offer is compatible with the list you are using. Mailings aimed at a targeted audience have the best chance for success.
5. Make your mailing package hard to refuse. What you offer must fit the interests of the receiver. Fill your offer with self-interest benefits. Be clear and direct in your copy. Do not ramble on with trivial information. Let the receiver know what your unique selling proposition is, and how it will benefit him/her. Using these techniques will make your mailing package nearly impossible to refuse!

6. Make your offer sincere and believable. It may take hard-hitting copy and a unique selling proposition to get a reader’s attention. But your overall sales pitch must be sincere and believable. Many people are skeptical when they receive a direct mailing, especially if they have never done business with you before. Sincere and believable copy will eliminate doubts and mistrust. It will motivate a reader into placing an order.
7. Make sure your graphics fit your copy. The right illustrations can enhance a mailing piece, but too many graphics will simply cause a distraction. If you get too “graphic crazy,” the graphics may be looked at with great interest, but your unique selling proposition may not be read. Composition, copy, and illustrations must be integrated and blend well together.
8. Coordinate your time. Often, people work against the clock instead of with it. Allow enough time to do your job well. Plan ahead. If you want to start a mailing campaign on July 1, do not start stuffing envelopes the day after. Coordinate your time, and plan ahead.

9. Check every detail before you begin. To get the most from your mailing program, you must check every detail for any flaws. Have you checked your printing to make certain the quality is sharp throughout? Is the order form complicated, too small, to hard to read? Does your form have the right return address, zip code, telephone number, price, etc.? Those small details are crucial.
10. Is your fulfillment department organized and ready to go? Getting orders is exciting! But there is someone on the other end who is excited also - the person anxiously waiting for the order. Providing good service means being prepared and organized to get an order out now! If you cannot turnaround an order within 24 hours, you should ask yourself, why? If you do not, your customers will.
11. Always include “back-end” offers. The most successful direct-response marketers know they must depend on back-end offers to make maximum profits. If the normal postage costs remain the same, whether you stuff in one page or five pages, it only makes sense to go the limit with additional offers. If the buyers are pleased with the original offer they purchased, you should assume that they will be willing to purchase something else that appeals to them. Get your money’s worth in your mailings. With it will come extra profits.

Here are five ways to get ten times more money from your customer base!

• Establish a long-term relationship with your customers. Once you start accumulating your own customer list, do not “allow any dust to settle.”
• Customers represent your greatest potential source of repeat business. Your own list can out-pull new, untried lists by a three-to-one margin and more.
• Continually develop new offers, even if you have to deal through other supply sources.
• Send new mailings to your customers at least every three to four months.
• Let them know that you value them as customers, and as a convenience to them, you will make them aware of new products and services continually.

13. Is your marketing strategy set up for maximum results? This is how to develop your marketing strategy for maximum results! Do these seven things and you can make mega-profits!

• Are you in close contact with your mailing broker?
• Do you work closely with your printer and suppliers?
• Are you selling, renting, or trading your name list to obtain full financial benefits?
• Is your fulfillment department operating smoothly?
• Are you looking for new ideas you can incorporate into your mailings?
• Is every aspect of your marketing strategy working smoothly? If not, fix it!
• Keep moving forward.

One of the things we see most often on the Internet is a lack of good headlines on websites. In fact, there are many sites with absolutely no headline whatsoever. What they’ll have in place of the headline is a big logo, a company logo, or a company name, or some kind of graphic that really has nothing to do with what they’re offering.

Another thing that we notice is that many websites only list features. They don’t list any benefits whatsoever. It’s just features of their product or service, no benefits. “What’s that product going to do for me? What’s in it for me?” That’s really all prospects and customers care about. “What is it going to do for me? How am I going to benefit from this?” People need benefits to justify the purchase.

Headlines and benefits are examples of compelling copy. They attract people to the advertisement, and they motivate them to buy what you have to offer.

It is copy like this that is most important in marketing of any sort, and the Internet is BY NO MEANS an exception! It is this copy that brought many, many marketers billions of dollars over years and years! Compelling copy is the billion dollar, time tested money secret that makes you giant Internet profits!

We don’t mean to offend anyone, but a lot of the websites that are out there are put together by high tech “geeks” or “propeller heads” who don’t really understand how to write good sizzling sales copy. They not only don’t know how to write good advertising sales copy, they don’t even know how to design a website for maximum selling power. Nine out of ten know how to design a website that will dazzle the eyes of another web designer. They get wrapped up in this all the time. Again, it’s human nature we think. They look up to other web designers, they don’t look up to selling anything.

They put together websites that the whole impact is visual, the whole impact is what you see. It slows down the delivery of the site. People pass by and go on. They just don’t understand that everything on that website page has to be designed and laid out with the total question in mind is “Will this sell more products?” “Will this make a person buy the product?” A good basis in copyrighting will make you stand out miles ahead of anybody else on the web. Learn to write good copy . . . and use it!

Catalog companies will push your product like crazy because it makes them money. Let’s not forget that this is the main point: When you’re trying to work with a catalog house, that catalog house becomes your customer. You have to show them how you can make them money, because that’s what they are really interested in. That’s what win-win situations are all about.

Many times businesspeople think that business is only a win-lose situation. These people have the wrong idea about capitalism. They think it’s centered around greed and marketers are people who sit around and think up ways to bilk people out of their money.

That’s not true. There is deviousness in good marketing, but it shouldn’t be used for ripping people off. Instead, it’s used to find out what people want. Then the business can develop a way to give the people what they want. Consequently the marketer and his business can make money.

Catalog companies need to turn a profit in order to make money and survive. The people who find products for the catalog companies have the job of making the money for the company. If they can’t do it, then they lose their job.

Therefore, you have to show them that you can give them what they really want. You have to show them how your product can make them money. Give them the reasons they should include your offer in their catalog. Catalog companies are always in search of hot, new products that will make them money, and that’s an important reason why catalog houses will PUSH YOURS LIKE CRAZY!!

The easiest way to explain it is to give you an example. Take an example like Hotmail. This is a company that offers free e-mail. You get on there and you sign up. It’s free of charge, and you have an e-mail address.

The way they make money is through selling advertising on that site. Then people who use the e-mail addresses are forced, in some cases, to view that advertising. It’s peppered all over the place. The way they use viral marketing is, every time you send out an e-mail message using that address, at the very bottom there is a marketing message that says “Sign Up For Your Own Free E-Mail Address At Hotmail.com.”

So, if you’re sending out five or ten e-mail messages a day, you are helping them market their web site. And as more people sign up, that message goes out to more people. Soon, even though hotmail.com is doing very little marketing, their own customers are spreading the message for them and pulling in more people.

Viral marketing is very powerful, and it is at literally no cost. You are letting your customers do it for you. Now, if you tie that in with e-books, it can be a very powerful way to sell information on the Internet. We’ll give you a concrete example of how this has been done very, very effectively.

Let’s say, for example, that you create an e-book on whatever topic. Instead of selling that e-book, why not give it away free of charge?

Let’s say it’s a $20, $30, $40 e-book. Why not give it away free of charge? This is a powerful way to get people excited about your information, but, of course, you’re not making any money giving the information away.

How do you make money? You sell a bigger package!

All you have to do is ask yourself, “Where would you go to find a Burger King?” Usually if you look around while you’re standing at a Burger King, guess what’s you’ll most likely find across the street? A McDonalds!

This is a company that was very smart. They built their success upon their competitor.

You should position yourself differently from your competitor, and have a unique selling position. Come up with why you are different from your competitor. Positioning yourself near your competitors, or working with your competitors to bring you people who are not happy with what they have to offer, you are actually going to find customers through a competitor that you never would have found before. This is how the Burger King/ McDonald’s Competition Method Could Help You Find Your Fortune!

The U.S. government has a staff of highly qualified business experts that will help you for FREE! Trained Department of Commerce business analysts will assist you in making a market analysis for foreign market research. They will help you determine the foreign countries with the most potential for your products, advise you on that country’s import tariffs, import and export controls, and offer you detailed descriptions of market conditions.

They also will furnish up-to-date economic conditions and arrange meetings with the Bureau of Foreign Commerce Country Specialists in Washington, if requested.

The International Commerce report prints listings of specific foreign business people who have visited U.S. embassies and consultants to ask about buying U.S. products. Consequently, trade lists, compiled by U.S. Foreign Service Officers, list all reliable companies that want to import U.S. goods. These lists are available from any Department of Commerce field office.

Trade contact surveys are the fastest and most reliable way to find sales representatives and distributors for any foreign country. World trade directories are a valuable means of determining the operations, products handled, size, and reputation of any company.

One of the greatest things about the Internet is all of these tips, tricks, and techniques that we’re sharing are so low-cost or even no cost that when you fail you lose very little – or even no money whatsoever. That’s the best way to fail!

That’s why they talk in Direct Response Marketing about the importance of testing things, because you only test things in small increments. If the test goes bad and you fail, you only lose whatever it cost you to put the test in motion.

If one idea out of 10 works - and you’re testing those 10 ideas on a slow scale, investing just little bits of money to test all 10 of those ideas - you can make millions and millions of dollars if just one idea works out of the 10.

There are lots of different ways to do this, and all we can tell you is how we did it. It worked for us, so we think it can work great for you.

First of all, we took a stripped down online distributorship and gave it away free. Now, what we mean by stripped down is we had a product that was selling for $497 and that’s the version that we sold regardless on our web site. Whatever you are selling, you have a fixed price you’re selling that for.

We offered a free online distributorship or affiliate program and we paid people a small percentage of that. We only paid $75 per sale. We do have some costs involved in setting up the affiliate program, setting up the online distributorship, and getting it to recognize them as an affiliate, so we I charged a small processing fee of $20. You can charge whatever you want - $5, $10, $20.

You have to be careful when saying it is free. You don’t want to charge too high of a processing fee, but you can charge a processing fee to cover your fees of the cost of getting it on the Internet and getting it set up.

Then once they’re signed up, the way you really make your money is by offering them a chance to upgrade to a more expensive option that then pays them more money for each sale.

We jumped them up from $75 all the way up to 50% commission, which was $248.75. So, we actually offered them the option of upgrading. They pay me more money - in my case it was $198 I charged them to upgrade. Then they made $250 per sale.

So what you can do then, by offering the free version, you bring a large number of web sites in who want to get this affiliate program on their web site. They pay you the processing fee, then you allow them to upgrade to the more expensive option that pays them more money per sale that is made.

You may be wondering why anybody would pay for an affiliate program when there are a lot of affiliate programs out there that are free, quite frankly. The reason that people will be willing to pay for an affiliate program like this is because you pay them more money. With most traditional affiliate programs you are going to make around 3% or 5%. It is a very small amount per sale. They can be great that way, but we recommend that, if you have the option of doing it, if you have a product that you can control, and you have a high profit margin on, go ahead and give away a large percentage of the profit and people will be happy to pay for that because they realize that they can make a lot more money per sale that they make.

So, first of all, have the cheap version that you give away free or, if you don’t even want to say free, you can charge a small fee. Then when you send them the information about the affiliate program and tell them they’re signed up, automatically give them an option of upgrading to the more expensive version where they make more money per sale.

Now, how do you find the people who are going to be willing to pay for the right to put the banner out on their site? We believe it is quite simple when you can use the same method for getting people to do that using joint ventures. And the method that we used, and one that we think can work successfully for you, is package inserts.

Another joint venture. Now all you have to do is find a company or multiple companies with a customer base they are mailing to, e-mailing to, or communicating to in some fashion, where they have customers that are geared toward the same market you are. That would be an interest in your same type of product or having an affiliate program for that type of product that you have. Then you offer to give them a percentage of the money you make on the front end, or the free version. So, for example, if you’re charging a $20 processing fee for your free affiliate program, you can offer to split that with them so they get $10 per sale.

That’s going to be automatic money for them. They can simply either insert a flyer or report in their package that they send out or if it’s direct mail, or if they’re sending the product over the Internet, you can just talk about it if it’s e-mail. You can write it up in the email and do it that way.

Remember, the only real reason you’re giving away the free version, or the cheap version, is to get people to upgrade to the higher priced version. So you’re okay giving away a portion of the profit to whoever you work that joint venture with.

If you give away 50% of that $20 fee remember that is the free version or the low priced version. Your ultimate goal is to get people to upgrade and a large percentage of the people will upgrade when they see that they’ll be able to make a lot more money on each product that they sell for you through their web site.

That’s how to get thousands of other people to actually pay you to advertise your web site on their web site. It can be a great way to make money.

1. How is the seller living? Do his/her claims of success appear compatible with his/her standard of living?
2. If the seller will not allow you to audit his/her books before making a purchase, you should think about doing business elsewhere.
3. You should ask what a seller has to hide if he/she will not let your accountant or lawyer review the company books or financial statement.
4. Make certain the office equipment (typewriters, copy machine, computers, office furniture inventory, etc.) is paid for. You do not want to buy a business and have part of it repossessed.
5. If the business owner claims to have been operating for years but has no tax returns to show you, you will have nothing to go by except the seller’s word. That may not be enough.
6. Sometimes you will find a business that has brought in more money than shows on the books. This is done by “skimming” a percentage of sales off the top. Keep in mind that if the seller will defraud the government, he/she may feel quite comfortable in defrauding you as a buyer. Don’t get cheated when you buy your first business. There are many people who will mislead.

7. Remember, if you purchase a business and the seller owes back state sales taxes, you could be held liable.
8. Never let a seller rush you into a purchase, even if it means little or nothing down, unless you can verify all available records.
9. If there is a large inventory, either do the inventory yourself, or have an inventory firm do it for you. Never agree to the owner’s inventory of stock.
10. Never assume the lease on a business is assumable. Check it out. Many are not.
11. While a business loan may be assumable, interest rates may increase. It is important to keep interest rates as low as possible.
12. Banks may hesitate to provide financing if the seller is not willing to carry any part of the financing. Banks will wonder why the seller wants all cash. Are the financial records accurate? Does the seller have some con-cerns that are not so apparent to everyone else?
13. Make certain that “net profit” on a seller’s books is really net profit. Sometimes, a seller will not draw any salary for him/herself, or pay any wages. Consequently, what shows on the books as a net profit, is not a net profit at all. In other words, the only real net profit that will be made is if he/she sells the business to you at retail.

One of the guys who really started it all was the guy with the Site that had a joke every day. You would send him a dollar and I guess thousands and thousands of people sent him dollars in the mail.

He would send you a joke every day, and a lot of people had this at their office: sales people, accountants, anybody. When they opened their e-mail they’d get a good laugh at least from one.

And in there, he would sell advertising. He didn’t even have any products. No shipping. No inventory. He just sold advertisements that would go in with the joke.

People would see the joke and they had the option to either just erase it, delete it, or a percentage of them would see what you were saying (a link) and they’d click on it. And they can track those click-throughs. So when they had proof of the click-throughs of thousands of people (the impressions on the ad) then of course more and more people wanted to buy an ad and his joke everyday.

This e-mail, as long as it contains something of value besides a sales pitch, is welcome in their mailbox.

Laughing all the way to the bank! How one man turned a simple joke into millions of dollars on the Internet! It’s absolutely true. What a great idea! That’s the magical power of the Internet and, again, the computers are involved so they can keep track for you.

When you buy ads in magazines you’ve got to take some salesman’s word and maybe if you’re lucky, the magazine’s audited by an outside girl to tell you exactly how many copies they’ve delivered.

But they can never tell you how many people will actually see your ad and respond to it. On the Internet, this type of advertising is quite often tracked by computers and can literally tell you: we delivered 33,000 impressions to your ad today. There are actually people out there now charging by the impression!

We have a friend whose next door neighbor who told him his whole business is collecting old, antique fishing paraphernalia (lures, old rod and reels, and antique stuff related to fishing). He has his own website and he sells to collectors all around the country both with his Website and also with a little homemade catalog he did.

But he said he’s making a great living and all he does is deal in antique and old fishing paraphernalia My friend was just astounded! And I think he doesn’t want to go the general publications - he wants to be very specific when he promotes his site!

This is the power of a “niche.” Many people that are looking for a product or service to sell on the web or on the Internet, are not thinking small enough. Sometimes the secret to making a lot of money is to actually think as small as you possibly can. The fishing lure man is in a very specialized niche area.

You wouldn’t think a person could make money in that area . . . until just now . . . It just goes to show you.

And there are specific publications that he could get free write-ups in, where a percentage of their readers would be interested in that type of thing. Too many times when people think about getting rich with different products and services, they think in terms of “mass markets” instead of thinking in “niches.”

Part of the importance is trying to match your particular product or service with a very specific market for it. In today’s world, specialization seems to be the byword. It used to be you just looked for the lowest common denominator and tried to please everyone and do mass marketing of a generalized product. The big, big companies are hard to compete with (Wal-Mart and Microsoft).

Who’s going to compete with the guy who’s working out of his house selling very specialized things like these antique fishing lures? If you have a little niche, you can learn that whole niche, you can become known as “the guy or the woman who’s a specialist in that area”.

You really get to know the magazines, the mailing lists, you get a website that’s very special. You have a niche. And yes, niche marketing is a big thing these days. Instead of mass producing, mass marketing some generalized item, you can sell something that’s very, very specialized. It’s thinking small - it’s so small, it’s just a little slice of the whole market - but it’s enough to support you in style for the rest of your life! It’s a great concept to do “niche marketing!”

You don’t compete with the big guys because they’re not going to be proficient in the little niche market. Focus on the niche markets . . . use this simple technique to turn a tiny niche market into huge amounts of cash!

When we send out an e-mail newsletter (the e-zine) we like to create some goodwill immediately because we know that there are a few e-zines out there, a few of these newsletters, and we want to get them to sign up with ours.

Happy customers = huge profits for you! Treat your visitors better than 80% to 90% of all other websites on the Internet and make enormous cash profits!

So, first of all when they sign up with us and get our newsletter, we give them a free ad on our website. So that gives them an opportunity immediately not only to get our newsletter free, but also get something of value free. And of course that could be a report or something else.

Here’s a very simple marketing plan. It’s proven to work. And now, this new Electronic Marketing Strategy of using traditional Direct Response Marketing to drive people to the Website makes that simple plan much, much more powerful!

We’re mailing simple, dirt-cheap, tiny postcards to our customers, whereas, we used to mail great big sales letters to our customers. On each postcard, we just try to get them to come to our Website.

That’s the only purpose of these dirt-cheap little postcards - just to try to excite people enough to turn on their computer, go to AOL or whoever their Internet provider is and dial up our Website. Then those customers are instructed to either scroll through our Website and read all of our sales copy or they can download all of our sales material as well as an order form and they can then send their money directly to us.

For the cost of the dirt-cheap, tiny, little postcard - we’re able now to do the full selling job that used to cost us many, many tens of thousands of dollars every single month. This is how to use tiny little unusual (dirt cheap) postcards to drive hordes of cash-paying customers to your website!

That’s our best strategy and it’s working like a charm right now. There’s only so much advertising copy you can put on a little postcard. But once you drive people to your Website, then you can have hundreds of pages of sales material, if you wanted to.

Instead of cluttering up e-mail with your electronic e-mail newsletter, you could just put up the link. You talk about it and then it’s so easy for them to click instead of having to read through all this blah, blah, blah. This is how to deliver a free sample of your electronic newsletter - without lifting a single finger!

We know people who subscribe to these weekly “e-zine’s” as they’re called and then they start to just delete them without reading them. If you just put a link at the end, keep it short.

If you put newsletters up every month on your site, keep them all content until you get to the end and then have a link. And also the page where you go to click on the newsletter, you can have an ad there, or perhaps two.

Whenever possible, rent a list made up of just buyers’ names. The more recently the customers have purchased (30 to 90 days for example), the better. The more recent the names, the more chance that the person is still involved with the market.

If it is not possible to get an exclusive list of buyer names, you may have to rent a less expensive mixed list consisting of both those who have purchased, and those who have only made inquiries.

Today with Desktop Publishing, I can sit down and design and do the typesetting and do everything I need for all my sales letters. But we’ve chosen to stick with professional typesetters and design people and layout people.

Why, you ask? We could do all of our own advertising if we wanted to spend all of that time and learn the programs. For the reader who really wants to make the most money, though, we really believe your time is way too valuable to learn all of the technical stuff. That’s why we have webmasters and such!

If your time is spent working on the marketing part and somebody else is doing all that technical stuff for you, it’s going to really free you up. The danger is if you spend too much time doing the technical stuff.

Just like if we spent too much time typesetting all of our ads for our Mail Order business, we wouldn’t be nearly as productive as we are now. Because we have somebody else designing all of our ads, all we have to do is just worry about writing them and helping by making suggestions to them. This allows us to get a lot more done and make a lot more money.

And, since they’re professional designers, they’re going to know what layout will be best for your webpage. Let the techs do it for you . . . that’s how to make your website sizzle!

The secret that some companies use to make millions of dollars is to actually lose money first! Intelligently losing money can make you a lot of money later! Let me explain...

Almost all of the really successful marketing companies realize that their initial offer aimed at attracting new customers is an investment. They have figured out what they will spend, on average, per customer they get on the front-end. They understand that enough customers will order on the back-end to make up for what was spent on the front-end to get all those customers.

This is why it is important for you to have a back-end offer you can make to your customers. A lot of times there is not enough profit from just one initial front-end product to get rich! You must always look for back-end related products to sell your customers!

It is a tough thing to do, though. We are so conditioned into thinking that losing money is bad that we try not to lose any money. That is why you must look at it as investing in a customer that will make you more money in the future than they cost you to get!

In this article, I’m going to cover seven steps to advertising your web site on thousands of other web sites, free! Before I get started, I should also add that these are seven very easy steps, and they include getting all the help you need.

Banner exchanges are one of the most popular ways to get one of the most popular forms of Internet advertising free of charge.

How do banner exchanges work, you ask? You create a banner ad that advertises your web site. You then send the banner ad to the exchange. They give you a little snippet of code that displays their banner ad which you put on your web site.

Typically, In exchange for every two visitors to your web site who sees one of their banners, they’ll send your banner out to other members to display on their site. You build traffic on your site, you get free valuable banner advertising on other sites just by building traffic to your site! This can be worth many thousands of dollars!

Now, here are the seven steps to doing this:

1. First of all, you want to go to www.linkexchange.com. This is Microsoft’s site, and it’s the top banner exchange on the Internet.
2. When you are on that site, click on “Help,” then click on the Banner Network “Help.” There will be a banner network help section after you go to “Help,” then there’s a place to click for “Making Your Banner.” Three clicks and you’re there! Under “Making Your Banner” they have common questions, a tutorial, banner gener-ators that will actually create your banner for you, free banner makers (people that will create a banner for free for you), animated banner questions, and places where you can have an animated banner created for you. Now creating the banner is not a problem, because there’s a tutorial there that tells you how to do it.
3. Create your banner!
4. Sign up as a member of link exchange.
5. Submit the banner.
6. Place the code they will send you on your site to display their banner.
7. Repeat. I just gave you seven steps, and “Lucky 7" is a good number! Now I have another dozen banner exchanges you can go to, because now once you’ve created your banner, it is very easy.

- www.bannerexchange.com, and www.banner-traders.com have a four to three ratio. Every four banners you show, they’ll show yours three times.

- www.tipexchange.net has a five to four ratio, which means that if you show it five times on your site, you get four shows on their site.
- www.123banners.com
- www.adxchange.com
- www.bannerclicks.com
- www.clicktaxi.com
- www.exchange-it.com
- www.clicklink.net
- www.123.com
- www.bxmegalist.com
- www.net-on.net
This is so powerful! Follow these seven steps! Go to these dozen link exchange sites!

There are many, many other link exchanges out there. These are just my pick of the dozen most popular and powerful ones.

Another powerful factor when it comes to placing these banner ads on your site, is that although you may worry about them being cluttered up, it makes your site look commercially viable. You will have advertisers all over your site! This could, literally, attract other paying advertisers because advertisers want to be where advertisers are!

One of the things I like the most about the link exchange opportunity is the win-win aspect of it. You’re helping them, but they’re also helping you. Isn’t that really the nature of the Internet?

Plus, all these web sites are connected together. That’s why it’s called the web! Web site links are one of the principle ways people go to other web sites That’s where even the name, “World Wide Web” came from!

Just so no one makes any mistake, these are all totally free services. I always look at it with a jaundiced eye. If it claims to be totally free, I always want to know how they are making their money.

What’s the answer to that question? If it is a four to three ratio - four displays you’re showing when they give you three - one of those displays will be from a paying member somewhere. That leaves them one they can sell people who don’t want to participate in the exchange.

They’re making their money, too, because you’re displaying those paying members’ ads - but you’re getting the same value for free!

One thing many people considering using banner ads tend to wonder is if banner ads placed on a site be used like links for a search engine, and consider those as links to other sites.

Sure they do! Anything can be a link - even a photo - if you click on it and it takes you to another site. You can make anything on a site a link to another site! A banner ad is merely a graphic that displays some text or something that entices people to click on it, but is actually a link to another site. Therefore, banners on your site then can help you in the ratings on the search engines.

The more links to your site, the more popular the search engines consider your site and, therefore, its status elevated in the search engines. This way you’re not only advertising, you’re also increasing the position on your search engine. There is a multitude of benefits involved here, and that’s why this is such an important tip.

The other thing I want to advise you to do is carefully read the instructions and the “rules” for each of these banner exchanges. Some of them don’t allow you to place their exchange banner on anything but your home page. Others encourage you to place it on every page on your site so that you get more displays. If you can, put it everywhere!

According to a magazine I read recently, starting a banner exchange on your own site is a very shrewd opportunity. It is very shrewd and very popular because, if nothing else, that extra banner display you would normally sell can instead be sold for profit. You could also have that display advertise your web site, another web site you have, or any other web business!

There have been many web businesses. It is a little more complex because it requires the acquisition of some software and setting up your web site for an exchange. There are some people now that are actually offering services free of charge that display other ads where they’ll set it up for you and you just provide the link.

Now I just want to add that animated banners are definitely worth the extra effort to create. I understand there is some research that says that an animated banner will have up to seven times the click-through ratio as a non-animated banner. If that’s the case, it is certainly worth your effort to animate!

There’s all sorts of help for creating them - they’re not that difficult! An animated banner can be as simple as words that display and change so you can get a whole sentence into that small space. It’s something that catches the eye!

Another neat trick that I see used often is making a banner ad look somewhat like a bar with a “click here” icon, or asking a question with multiple choice answers so that people actually are somewhat tricked into clicking on it to answer, but instead it takes you to another site.

You want to use this technique with caution, because you don’t want to irritate your market. You want to attract it! Sometimes, if you do it right, it can really catch the eye and actually increase the number of clicks you get.

Do everything possible to get your prospects to take immediate action. Try to get them to respond NOW! This is the secret you can use to make a financial killing on all your ads. Here are seven ideas you can use to do this:

1. Introductory Offer: Let your prospects know that you are making a limited introductory offer that will not be repeated (ever, in the near future, until, etc.)
2. Limited Time Offer: Set a specific date (ten days, two weeks, etc) after which time your specific offer will end.
3. Limited Supply: Be honest with your prospects. If your special offer is the result of a limited supply, say so.
4. Bonus Offer for Fast Reply: Offer a bonus for those who reply by a specified date.
5. Price Increase Notice: Let your prospects know that they will benefit and save money by ordering now (if in fact you are contemplating a price increase).
6. Command Copy: Through subtle commands, such as “Order Now”, “Don’t Delay”, “Don’t Wait”, etc. you can tell your prospects exactly what to do.
7. Involvement Devices: Get your prospects involved by directing them to “check boxes”, “affix a self-adhesive stamp in the YES box”, etc.

Get your prospect involved immediately in the ordering process. The more involvement, the better response. But don’t misrepresent the truth. If a price increase isn’t anticipated, don’t say it is.