I Lost My Shirt In Home Based Businesses - Please Help Me!

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

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