Issue #2421
- WEALTHY: 3 questions that can get you "in" with other info-publishers (Bob Bly)
- HEALTHY: A simple way to start changing your health for the better (Yarixa Ferrao)
- WISE: Yanik Silver on joint ventures
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- How the Internet is affecting the way you think (Suzanne Richardson)
- A month before your vacation… (David Cross)
It’s Good to Know… about minimum credit card transactions - Add "colloquial" to your vocabulary
Could You Make a Few Thousand Dollars Online in Just a Few Days?
By complete accident, one person discovered an Internet “golden door” that helped her make thousands online for just an hour or two of work. The money showed up in her account a few days later.
Here’s the thing though. This isn’t some one-off fluke. It’s entirely repeatable. Sometimes more, sometimes less money comes in. But one thing’s for sure… there’s no limit on how often you can copy this simple process.
In fact, I guarantee this new program does exactly what it promises. You can try it entirely risk-free. Just click here to get all the details and get started today!
"Getting involved in a ‘win-win’ joint venture is the perfect way to add more to your bottom line."
Yanik Silver
Playing the Slots
By Bob Bly
If you are building an Internet marketing business, you will soon start to get requests from people asking you to promote something of theirs by sending an e-mail to your list.
Or perhaps you are on the other end of that transaction, asking successful Internet marketers to promote your book or event. And when they say no or ignore you, as most probably do, you become dismayed or even angry.
In this article, I want to increase your chances of convincing other online marketers to promote you or joint venture with you.
To begin with, you have to understand slots – and their monetary value.
A "slot" in Internet marketing is one of the finite number of opportunities during the year when the Internet marketer can send an e-mail to his list. I say "limited," because you can’t send too many e-mails to your subscribers. If you do, you’ll annoy them. They’ll unsubscribe, and your valuable e-list will get smaller.
For those of us who publish our free e-zines monthly, twice a week is about the maximum e-mail frequency our subscribers tolerate from us. With two slots a week, that means we have approximately 100 slots a year.
Let’s say I gross $400,000 a year in my online marketing business. That means each slot is worth $4,000 in revenue.
If I take up one of those slots by sending an e-mail promoting something of yours for which I make no money (e.g., a free teleseminar), it costs me $4,000 in lost revenue. Even if you offer me an affiliate commission to sell one of your products to my list, I have to ask myself whether it’s going to make the $4,000 I need.
Often, the products people ask me to promote are priced too low… and the commission is too small… for me to give up a slot. And when I turn them down, they are disappointed or even offended.
TC sent me a review copy of his new book with a letter asking me to promote it to my list. It’s a paperback book with a $19.95 cover price… and TC was offering me a 20 percent commission.
That means my commission on each book sold would be about four bucks. So I’d have to sell 1,000 of them for it to be worth taking up a slot. And the chances of me selling 1,000 copies of someone else’s book are slim to nonexistent.
Okay. Let’s say you want to convince me… or another Internet marketer who has a list you want to reach… to promote something of yours to his subscribers. Here are the questions I would ask you… and the responses that would get me to consider your deal.
1. Who are you and how do I know you? If you subscribe to my online newsletter… or read my books… or we met at a seminar… or have a mutual acquaintance… say so. This is important, as I generally promote products only from people I know or have some connection with.
2. How would your product benefit my subscribers – i.e., how would they profit from its content? Answering this requires you to have a familiarity with my list, which you can easily get by subscribing to my free e-zine.
3. What is your product price and the affiliate commission? If the price is too low – less than $20 – my commission will be too low to make any money from it. I give a 50 percent affiliate commission on all my products – and I look for a 50 percent affiliate commission on products others ask me to promote.
The rule of thumb for pricing products sold via direct response – online and offline – is that the sales price should be at least 8 times the cost of goods. This formula allows you to give up 50 percent of the purchase price to an affiliate… and still collect 4 times your cost of goods on each unit sold. On extremely high-priced products… $1,000 or more… an affiliate commission of 25 percent is acceptable to most potential joint-venture partners, because it gives them $250 for each $1,000 unit sold.
One more thing: Before I would agree to a joint-venture deal with you, even if your responses to the above three questions are satisfactory, I will ask for a review copy of your product.
This is mandatory. When I promote your product to my subscribers, I am recommending it to them. And I can’t recommend something I haven’t seen.
As an entrepreneur looking for joint-venture partners online, you need to understand that, for most Internet marketers, their e-mail offers to their list are the primary way they make money and put food on the table. And the number of opportunities they have to make money by sending those e-mail offers is limited.
For an Internet marketer with 100 slots a year, each slot represents 1 percent of his gross annual income. Unless that online marketer is your best buddy, why would he give up 1 percent of his total income for the year to promote your book, event, or news… just because you think his subscribers should know about it?
Internet marketing is a serious game… and to get the players to joint venture with you, you have to propose a deal that’s profitable and beneficial to you both.
[Ed. Note: Now's your chance to discover the true secrets behind ETR's $300 million success story. Our team of business-building experts has broken down the whole process into bite-sized chunks - so you can implement them TODAY and start seeing results pretty much immediately. Find out about your shortcut to business success here.
Bob Bly is a copywriting master and the author of over 70 books. If you want expert insights into the world of direct marketing, sign up for his free monthly newsletter, Direct Response Letter. Do so today and get over $100 in free bonuses.]
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You Can Keep Your Current Job While You Quickly Transition Into Your New Business
How in the world do these money-making programs expect you to work tons of hours building up a new business while holding down your current job? Many just aren’t practical. But I’ve found a new program that is loaded with methods to get you into a new business while you are working at another job.
You can put in as little as 2 to 3 hours a week in your new business, and still bring in nice profits fairly quickly – often in just a week or two. And once your business is bringing in enough income, you can quit your current job and focus full-time on your new business. You get to choose which business to get into (there are 20 to choose from), there’s no limit on what you can make, and it is easier than ever to get started.
There is, however, a limit on how many people I am sharing this with. You’ll learn why when checking out all the exciting details here.
How to Use E-Mail Vacation Messages
By David Cross
You’re probably familiar with the idea of using an automated e-mail response to inform people that you’re away on vacation.
The autoresponders used by both Alex Mandossian and MaryEllen Tribby (1) explain that all their incoming e-mails will be automatically deleted while they are gone, and (2) tell the sender to re-send the e-mail after a certain date. Others use autoresponders to direct people to alternate contacts. For instance, a CEO on vacation might direct all urgent e-mails to her vice president.
Automated messages like these can be very useful – to you and the people who email you.
But that’s not all you can do. If you have time – and know in advance that you’ll be out – there’s a quick extra step you can take…
For about a month before you go, append a short statement to your outgoing e-mail signature saying that you’ll be going away from [date] to [date]. If practical, add a request for people to contact you in advance of your vacation should they need anything from you.
I always do this before I leave for vacation or for a conference, and it’s been a big help.
[Ed. Note: It's surprising how some of the simplest actions - like adding a note about your upcoming vacation to outgoing e-mails - can have a big effect on your business. Get more advice from Senior Internet Consultant David Cross and the ETR team on which changes you need to implement to make your Internet business grow. Check out the details now.]
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Living Rich: Escaping the Internet
How many hours a day do you spend on the Internet? Me, I’m always connected – mainly because I work remotely. And, according to a Nielsen Online report, the average American was online 54 hours during the month of May.
It may come as no surprise that all this Internet interaction – combined with information overload and instant gratification – might not be so good for you. For one thing, it could be interfering with the way your mind works – and keeping you from enjoying some of life’s greatest pleasures.
Nicholas Carr addressed a new Internet "side effect" in July’s issue of The Atlantic. Here’s an excerpt from his article:
"I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle. … What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles."
I can empathize. It’s easy to shuttle between 12 different browser windows … easier still to scan a blog entry or an article for the "gist" before moving on … or to cope with information overload by dealing with it in tiny slices.
If that’s how you do most of your reading these days, it seems reasonable that your brain would "reset" itself to functioning that way. And that doesn’t bode well for your ability to process longer chunks of information – nor for your sanity.
Here’s a solution: Give yourself a daily "Living Rich" break from the Internet. Get lost in a novel. Close your eyes and listen to classic jazz. Enjoy a wine tasting with a few friends. Attend a concert in the park. Plan a trip to a new city or country.
If MaryEllen Tribby – CEO of a multimillion-dollar company – can leave her laptop at home for a week while she’s on vacation, you can shut down your computer for a few hours a day.
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Reforming Michael Masterson
Ben and Jerry’s ice cream late at night. That’s one of the bad habits Michael Masterson developed last winter. The result of this indulgence? He ended up 19 pounds over his ideal weight.
I discovered this little secret back in February. And let me tell you, it was a big relief. I’m a professional trainer, and I’d been working Michael pretty hard. Plus, Michael practices Brazilian Jiu Jitsu several times a week. Not to mention that he knows his stuff when it comes to fitness and nutrition. So when he stopped dropping body fat and started gaining weight, I was stumped.
Once he confessed the ice cream habit … and his tendency to enjoy a more-than-occasional dinner filled with high-glycemic, complex carbohydrates (like pasta, rice, or mashed potatoes), I knew he was ready to change. (You have to admit you have a problem before you can fix it, after all.) And I knew exactly what to do to help him quickly and efficiently burn off the extra pounds.
In six weeks, he lost 15 pounds and dropped from 23 percent body fat to 18.5 percent. That’s a loss of 13 pounds of pure fat!
Good for Michael! And it’s good for you, too. Because if you have a few extra pounds to lose, I’m going to be teaching you a few of the little tricks I taught Michael that you can use to get your health back on track.
Here’s the first trick: Recognize that your habits need to change.
It’s as simple as that. If you’re eating potato chips or cookies as a snack every day, recognize that you need to stop if you want to have the body you dream of. If you aren’t exercising enough, recognize that you need to make a change in your routine.
That’s it for today. But check back tomorrow, and I’ll teach you another little trick – an exercise routine to help you get back into shape.
[Ed. Note: If you're looking to see results like Michael's, Coach Yari can help. She's offering a special online training program for people who can't make it to her gym. Learn how to burn up to 37 pounds of fat in 6 weeks right here.
Of course, working out isn't the only key to getting fit. Get healthy recipe ideas, the latest news on natural supplements, and plenty of motivation right here.]
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It’s Good to Know: Minimum Credit Card Transactions
You’ve no doubt seen these signs at your local market, convenience store, and other businesses: "No credit card transactions under $10." Merchants post them to avoid paying the credit processing fees that eat into their profit margins on low-dollar-amount sales. But, guess what? The merchant agreements they have with Visa, MasterCard, and Discover do not allow this practice. Mention it next time you’re denied at the register.
(Source: The Consumerist)
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Clever Solutions to Life’s Problems in Under 3 Minutes
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Word to the Wise: Colloquial
"Colloquial" (kuh-LOH-kwee-ul) – from the Latin for "conversation" – refers to informal spoken language.
Example (as used by the 19th-century historian John Richard Green): "The abandonment of … poetic diction for the colloquial language of real life."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008
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excellent short articles, great vocab words and good information!
What’s that smell?