Special Update: I've just learned that Corey Rudl (the man who took a failing business and turned it into a $40 million internet success story) is giving away FREE ACCESS to his "Secrets To Their Success" Private Web Site so that you can quickly discover the exact secrets of "regular" people earning extraordinary and STAGGERING 6-7 figure incomes EVERY SINGLE YEAR online! Read and pay close attention to the...

"Case study of a booming online cash-machine that earned $400,000 last year -- with a single product!" 

By Corey Rudl

For over a year and a half, my marketing team and I have published a private web site -- "Secrets To Their Success" -- that every month profiles two successful entrepreneurs who are making $30,000 to $2,000,000 per year with their Internet home businesses.

Each interview tells a real-life story of hard work and dedication, but every once in a while a success story really strikes a chord... and I'm reminded of my own early start in the world of online marketing.

When I interviewed 19-year-old Jermaine Griggs -- a college student who earned $400,000 from his HearandPlay.com web site last year -- I knew I simply had to share at least some of his story with my "Marketing Tips" subscribers for a couple of reasons.

First, Jermaine's story is a lot like my own. He didn't start with any kind of special knowledge or a whole lot of money. In fact, he grew up in a rough neighborhood where his life could have easily gone wrong.

And second, Jermaine is successfully using a ton of the strategies I teach to my subscribers. So by sharing his interview with you, I'll be showing you a real-life example of the success it's possible to achieve with a few of the simple techniques I recommend.

As you read this very special interview, keep in mind that the success Jermaine has already achieved is just the beginnning... since he keeps testing and refining his marketing strategies every day!

So let's dive in and see exactly how Jermaine's doing it!

QUESTION: Jermaine, to start with, would you mind giving our readers some background on what your site is all about?

Jermaine:

HearandPlay.com specializes in teaching students how to play the piano by ear.

The site features over 60 free piano lessons and six newsletters ranging from beginner lessons to advanced music theory. So there is a wide variety of topics musicians can explore.


QUESTION:
Can you tell us about how you first got started on the Internet? What was your first web site, and how did you grow from there?

Jermaine:

I started on the Internet when I was about 15 years old. Basically, I had become an affiliate of over 1,000 online merchants and had my own virtual shopping mall. It took weeks to create -- but it only made money from ONE web site that was willing to pay me $.50 per click!

To my surprise, at the age of 15, I received my first check for $800 (all based on click-throughs from my site to theirs). This was a quarterly check, however, so I definitely couldn't get rich making $266.66 a month.

After that experience, I was thirsty for another venture. I had taught myself how to play the piano by ear at the age of nine and had been asked to teach several children in the community. I developed workbooks for all of my students, composed of several exercises and worksheets.

Then one day a parent said to me, “You should sell these workbooks to other piano students.” That thought had never really crossed my mind. So I took what I had and I made some flyers and posted them in laundromats, grocery stores, thrift shops, etc. No one called.

Then I thought: “What about creating a web site marketing these piano workbooks?” And to make a very long story short, that was how HearandPlay.com started.


QUESTION:
How did this site do when you first launched it?

Jermaine:

Well, I sold my first set of five music workbooks in November of 2000. Boy, was I overjoyed. Since then, I have combined the five-book series into a 300-page book (released in March 2002), which has been a great success with revenues of over $200,000 so far!

I've also created a software program aimed at helping students train their ears. Basically, while students are studying my 300-page course, this program will test them on the various sounds of different scales and chords. I offer this program as a bonus item to encourage customer orders.


QUESTION:
Can you give us some background on yourself? What was your experience before you first got started online?

Jermaine:

Fortunately, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I say fortunately because perhaps if I was, I wouldn't have had a reason to work so hard for my success. My mom raised my sister and me all by herself for most of our childhood. We grew up in the inner city and I could have easily hung out with the wrong crowd, but my mom raised us in the church.

When I was 15, I went to live with my grandmother because she needed someone around to help. That's when my first web site was conceived. My grandmother would beg me to go to bed at night, but I would hear this imaginary voice telling me to stay awake and work.

I was always studying how to make money, how to market, what customers wanted, what customers needed, what to do, and what not to do.

So I am proof that it is possible to start a company from your home with very little money and the right “know-how.” It all started from my small office in the corner of the living room of my grandma's one-bedroom apartment.


QUESTION:
And how big is your site today?

Jermaine:

Annual revenues last year were about $200,000. This year, we project sales to be in the $350,000 to $400,000 range, with 2004 forecast to hit $500,000.


QUESTION:
How long did it take for HearandPlay.com to start making a profit?

Jermaine:

I made just $60 my first month. It wasn't until March of 2002 that I started making over $5,000 a month. That soon doubled, then quadrupled.


QUESTION: How much time and money did it take for you to initially get the site up and running?

Jermaine:

I spent $70 because I wanted a real domain name. Besides that initial investment, I never really spent a dime to get started, just a lot of time.


QUESTION:
Did you design the site yourself?

Jermaine:

I've never outsourced any of my design, advertising, or other functions of my business. Everything that you see on the site, I had to learn how to do. That's why I stayed up so late at night, read so many books, and invested in products that would teach me how to do what I needed to do.


QUESTION:
How much traffic are you seeing to your site? And where is your traffic predominantly coming from?

Jermaine:

We get about 30,000 to 40,000 visitors a month, and roughly 15,000 of them are new to the site. From that, I pull in about 3,000 to 3,500 new subscribers to my general newsletter each month. We currently have a growing list of about 23,000 pianists who I've managed to build a lot of credibility with.

The bulk of our traffic comes from search engines and pay-per-click placements.


QUESTION:
What are you doing to collect the opt-in e-mail addresses of potential customers?

Jermaine:

I've included a pull-down menu on my homepage that lists all 60 of the free lessons (as though you could actually click on one and go to that lesson). But right next to the pull-down menu are fields that ask for your first name and e-mail address. This form adds subscribers to my general mailing list.

But that's just the beginning...

After they choose a lesson on the homepage, I take them to the second part of the sign-up process, where they can subscribe to one of my six specialized newsletters. (According to my stats, about 70% will do this.) This second page collects more detailed information.

After completing this form (which takes about a minute), they get access to the member's section. That's how I collect so many names. Out of 15,000 new visitors a month, you have to admit that 3,000 sign-ups is pretty good!


QUESTION:
No kidding! That's a 20% conversion rate! What strategies have you used to get your sign-up rate so high?

Jermaine:

In the beginning, I was averaging about 10 to 15 subscribers a day. I needed a way to increase this number, so I did some research on how other sites increase their newsletter lists quickly.

I soon found out that all the sites I believed were making real money at the time had one thing in common: They all had pop-ups. Not just basic pop-ups, but more sophisticated ones. Some popped under where you couldn't see them until you left the site. Some could pop up 10, 30, or 120 seconds after you left the site.

So I thought, why not put some pop-ups on my site? I figured it wouldn't annoy someone who actually wanted good information on playing the piano by ear. Why risk the chance of them not seeing my newsletter sign-up form when I can put it right in front of their face?

No matter what anyone says about pop-ups, they have increased my subscriber rate by 10 times! I now get about 100 new members every day!


QUESTION: How often do you make a point of following up with your leads and previous customers?

Jermaine:

Well, I actually have a number of systems in place. I mail out my regular newsletter once a month, but the specialized newsletters are all a bit different.

For the beginner's newsletter, for instance, I send new subscribers a welcome letter and inform them that I will be sending them a 10-day beginner's course by e-mail for free. If they don't want this free e-mail course, they are instructed to unsubscribe (but of course, no one does).

So I get an opportunity to send them 10 consecutive e-mails for 10 days. You know how many end up ordering my 300-page course? About 60%!

I have a 1% to 1.5% unsubscribe rate for my general newsletter, but the unsubscribe rates for my specialized letters are under 1%.

Beyond the monthly and specialized newsletters, each opt-in is automatically put in a rotation to receive a message every 60 days saying: “How is your piano playing coming along, Bob...?”

This works out well because customers feel that we really want to help them (which we do!). We even send out a message one year from the date they first joined, saying: “It's been a year since your first piano lessons with us, Marge...”

Not only does each message contain a plug for my course, but each one also helps establish credibility when they see how much they can learn.

Follow up is so important for me! I wouldn't be able to survive without it.


QUESTION:
So what would you say are the top marketing strategies that you use on a regular basis?

Jermaine:

  1. Search engine sponsorship -- I make sure to stay in the top three search results on Overture pertaining to “piano lessons,” “learn piano,” “learn piano by ear,” or any combination like that. I have about 250 to 300 search terms I use. I also use Google AdWords from time to time.

    My rule is that if a search engine doesn't produce $2 profit for every $1 spent, I won't do it. So if I invest $1, I would expect to make $3, of which $2 would be profit. The formula really works and ultimately search engine sponsorship becomes a numbers game.
  2. Affiliate program -- I have about 350+ affiliates. Some draw thousands of visitors a month, which turns into thousands of dollars in sales a year.
  3. Advertising on highly related sites -- I look for sites with massive amounts of my target audience. If you find a site that attracts exactly who you are looking for, you've probably got a goldmine waiting to be tapped.

    I've also noticed that banners at the top of a site's homepage get click-through rates as high as 4%. Bottom banners only get a 1% click-through rate.
  4. Partnerships and joint ventures -- I use LinkPartner Pro to find related web sites. I then contact those webmasters and ask them if they'd be interested in partnering for a certain period of time. From these e-mails, I've had instructors buy my course for their gospel piano workshops.

    In fact, from one e-mail and phone conversation, I closed a deal that makes HearandPlay.com the sole provider of material for a traveling gospel music workshop (which reaches 500 students a year and means 500 more courses sold that wouldn't have been sold otherwise). Joint ventures work!

NOTE FROM COREY:

You probably don't know this, but my original interview with Jermaine was over 20+ pages -- far too long to include here in full -- so I've just chosen some of the juicier tidbits to share with all of my subscribers.

The full interview included tons more tips and strategies that I just couldn't fit into this newsletter, including:

  1. The exact tools Jermaine's using to automate everything from order processing to toll-free calls
  2. The exact pop-up Jermaine uses to convert 20% of his vistors to subscribers
  3. The one strategy Jermaine uses to get 3,000 free ads for his web site every day!

Jermaine was really generous about sharing EXACTLY what he's doing to make his business work, so I would highly recommend taking the time to check out the full interview.

Just go to: www.SecretsToTheirSuccess.com

 

-- INTERVIEW CONTINUED --

QUESTION: You mention that you're tracking the visitor-to-sale conversion rate of your traffic, both from the pay-per-click search engines and your banner advertising... How do you do this, and how do you monitor your conversion rates?

Jermaine:

I just assign each banner or keyword campaign a unique ID in AssocTRAC, which lets me keep track of a person from their first visit to my site to any purchases they make. That way I know exactly where I'm getting my best customers, which is crucial to get the best return on pay-per-click campaigns.

For example, according to AssocTRAC, when someone clicks on my listing after searching for “piano lessons” in the pay-per-click search engines, one out of 33 will buy. So if the listing “piano lessons” costs me $.25 per click, it takes $.25 x 33 to get one sale. That is, it takes $8.25 to get one sale, which brings in an average of $75).

So in terms of numbers, $8.25 yields $75 (but that's just for this particular listing). Now wait, $75 is just for their first sale. This person is now a lifetime customer!


QUESTION: Could you tell us about a “light bulb” moment that you've had? A moment when you've thought to yourself, “If only I'd known that earlier...”

Jermaine:

Originally, I was just focused on getting the sale. But I soon realized that my mission was to help musicians reach their music goals. After that realization, I added message boards, chat rooms, and the like, and sales skyrocketed! Why? Because members saw that we were a legitimate company willing to help them.

People have no reservations buying from a company they trust and feel helped by.


QUESTION:
What have you done to automate your site?

Jermaine:

Well, pretty much everything is automated. I don't really do anything anymore other than look for new partners.

My shopping cart takes the order, confirms it, and sends it to my credit card processor. The customer then automatically receives a thank-you e-mail.

After two weeks, the customer automatically gets an e-mail asking how their course is coming along. Customers are thrilled at our customer service and actually believe that I sit down each time to send them e-mails.


QUESTION: What would you consider to be your major achievements?

Jermaine:

My all-time greatest achievement would be the fact that I took absolutely nothing and made something out of it.

I hope this encourages people not to give up because start-up capital may be low. Make the best out of what you have! With research, dedication, and patience, a “little” will eventually turn into a “little more,” and a “little more” will turn into “some,” and “some” will turn into “a lot” -- I know because I've been there, and I'm still working on getting “a lot”!


QUESTION:
What do you think has helped to make your site so successful?

Jermaine:

It wasn't until I created a long, catchy information-packed salesletter (set up as one long piano lesson) and asked for the sale that my sales skyrocketed! No matter what I sell in the future, I will never ever use a simple “buy me” link again. People aren't online with the intention of buying, they are online for information -- and that's just what I give them! Lots of it!

Corey, you're my main influence and I like to use your structure (even though we're selling totally different products). I hardly ever got sales when I just listed a few points about the book and a picture of it. Now, despite what anyone says about people not reading long sales material, sales continue to pour in day after day.


QUESTION: What is the biggest mistake you have made since you first launched your site?

Jermaine:

Hmm... When I first got started, the biggest mistake I made was placing advertisements on my site because I thought they looked good.

Now I understand that this is one of the biggest mistakes a webmaster can make (especially with untargeted ads). I will never again show a banner advertisement on my site unless it is advertising another product of mine.


QUESTION:
What major mistakes do you see other Internet entrepreneurs making?

Jermaine:

I think the number-one mistake Internet entrepreneurs make is not taking the time to make their site as professional as possible. Credibility is a huge issue on the Internet and if you can't convince your customer that you are a trustworthy company, then you won't get a sale from them


QUESTION:
What advice do you have for beginners who are interested in selling over the Web?

Jermaine:

You need a good product! And you also need good marketing, because a good product without the proper marketing techniques yields nothing!

I would say, design your product and your sales page first, test it with various audiences, and release it to the public to see how it does -- and never quit testing ideas and new products. Always ask yourself, “What can I do to increase sales?” I ask this question every night before I go to bed. It has led to so many new thoughts and concepts. With a good product and effective marketing, you're destined to succeed.


QUESTION:
Finally, how has running HearandPlay.com impacted your personal and professional life?

Jermaine:

The site has allowed me to become independent from my parents at an early age while everyone else I know either still lives at home or depends on their parents. I have been able to live alone, furnish my home, upgrade my music studio, and attend college without worrying about finances.

Most importantly, it has allowed me to employ my mom, who was laid off last year. I soon look to employ my sister and grandmother (part-time because she loves to have something to do). Basically, everyone around us knows about HearandPlay.com and I think it will be in the family for generations to come (if it doesn't get bought by a major corporation).

Without this site, I would still be living at home depending on my parents for money. I feel blessed and thankful for the ability and mindset to start a business at such an early age, and I pray that I'll have the know-how to take this venture and other endeavors to the next level!

Final Thoughts from Corey:

HearandPlay.com is a perfect example of how to profit from a niche you're passionate about! Jermaine has studied all the marketing strategies he could get his hands on and adopted the winning techniques of successful sites.

What can you learn from Jermaine's success? Well, if you have a service business, sell information, or want to boost your subscription rates, here are some of Jermaine's strategies you can start using right away.

  1. Help people, don't sell people:
    Once Jermaine realized that his visitors were looking for information and were not necessarily ready to buy right away, he focused on creating credibility and offering tons of value through free courses and e-mail newsletters.
  2. Follow up with your visitors:
    Offering free courses as daily e-mails over the space of a week or more is a great way of building a relationship with your vistors. If you have any information that lends itself to a daily or weekly "lesson," experiment with presenting it as an autoresponder series from your site!
  3. Create a great opt-in offer -- and make sure people see it:
    No matter what your opt-in offer, make sure your vistors see it! Jermaine reports that his subscription rates jumped to nearly ten times previous levels once he introduced strategic pop-ups to encourage visitors to sign up for one of his newsletters.
  4. Know the value of your marketing:
    Jermaine manages to squeeze great value out of his $1,500 a month marketing budget, thanks to his ability to use AssocTRAC to track the value of every single cent he spends on pay-per-clicks, banner campaigns, and any other advertising. If a specific keyword or web site is under- performing, he can pull it right away (or tweak it to boost value). By not relying on instinct alone, he's making the most of every penny.
  5. Long copy sells:
    Jermaine reports an explosive growth in sales once he switched from simply listing the features of his course to providing a full-length salesletter -- presented as a lesson -- and asking for the sale.

Remember, Jermaine's story is just one of the in-depth interviews at Secrets To Their Success. Every month, I post two new interviews and a site review, so there's always tons of great material for you to check out.

In fact, right now there are over 250 pages of information already posted on the site. And I always make sure to get the real "nitty-gritty" info from the netrepreneurs I interview so that you can literally model their success. (And find out exactly which tools and resources they're using!)

It's a really great resource site that I'm actually pretty proud of, so I'd love it if you could check it out. Just go to: www.SecretsToTheirSuccess.com

"Still NOT Convinced Yet?"

Here's a little something for you...

Exclusive Case Studies: Three “Regular People” Share Their Secrets to Earning $100,000+ with Their Internet Home Businesses

Below are the stories of three successful online entrepreneurs, each of whom has taken a different approach to profiting on the Internet. What do they have in common? They all made the decision to focus on just one marketing technique at a time and to do it really well!

This is a great lesson for any business. All too often, I see entrepreneurs trying to market their businesses a dozen different ways... and not really succeeding at any of them! The problem isn't a lack of great marketing ideas, but TOO MANY marketing ideas!

If you have many different marketing strategies in place and you find that none of them are really getting you the results you need, try focusing on just one and giving it all you've got. I think the results might surprise you!

As you read the case studies below, remember that these are "real people" just like you and me. Each one of these entrepreneurs focuses on just one marketing strategy at a time, does it well, maximizes profits, and then moves on to the next one. They all say they know there is much more they can do -- but they recognize that they don't have to do it all right now.

PLEASE NOTE: The three profiles I've included for you here have been heavily edited and condensed. The success stories that are posted at the SecretsToTheirSuccess.com Private Site are typically 15 - 20 pages each, so there is no way I could reprint them in full in this newsletter.

Case Study #1: Truck-Bed-Covers.com

When Eric Weeks of Truck-Bed-Covers.com decided to start an online business, he knew it was critically important that he get traffic to his site -- so he decided to focus all of his attention on search engine optimization. This one technique has brought Eric huge success. Using this single strategy, he sold $800,000 worth of product in his first year online -- over $200,000 of which was pure profit!

When Eric first started optimizing his web site for high search engine positions, he saw it as a challenge.

“The opportunity to compete for top search engine positions was exciting to me,” Eric says. “I love competition. It gave me a target, a bow, and the arrow.”

So he started educating himself on how to achieve Top 10 search engine placement -- focusing all his energy on this one aspect of building an Internet business.

“I studied every article I could get my hands on pertaining to the subject,” Eric says. “And the site began turning a profit day one. Top listings on Yahoo! and Google for the term ‘truck bed covers' (which gets roughly 800 searches daily according to WordTracker) and a healthy profit margin ensured early success.”

For those who are just starting to take on the challenge of search engine optimization, Eric offers the following advice:

  • Use your main keyword in your URL.

  • Separate each keyword in your URL with a hyphen to make it easier for the search engine to locate that keyword when spidering your site.

  • Try to get as many reputable, relevant sites linking to you as possible.

  • Include good, relevant content.

  • Place main keywords in hyperlinks.

  • Wherever possible, use text logos instead of "jpegs" or "gifs" -- search engines won't spider image files.

Remember, Eric's success came from focusing on just one marketing strategy and really conquering it. Only now that he has mastered search engine optimization will he start to think about some of the other marketing ideas he's had floating around in his head for some time.

“If we weren't the first listing on page one of the major search engines -- if we were the first listing on page TWO, we'd only do a small fraction of the business we've been doing,” Eric says.

Case Study #2: Sage-Hearts.com

Promoting affiliate products can be a great way to earn money on the ‘Net -- especially if you don't have a product of your own to sell. But just putting up a few links and calling it a day won't cut it. If you don't give your affiliate endeavors the attention they deserve, you will likely be disappointed by the paltry commission checks you receive.

Rosalind Gardner of Sage-Hearts.com has established herself as an expert in online dating services by building a site that provides tons of useful information about the online dating scene. And she's used that reputation to build a healthy affiliate income, promoting the top dating sites she reviews. Her focus has allowed her to earn $30,000 to $50,000 per month, with a whopping 40% to 50% profit margin.

Rosalind owes her “super-affiliate” status to some very simple but incredibly effective techniques that allow her to have conversion rates 3 to 5 times higher than most.

How does she do it?

“High-volume traffic sites are one of the first keys to earning excellent revenue from affiliate programs. A great conversion rate is another important factor,” Rosalind says. “I believe the main reason for my excellent conversion rates is that I offer excellent products that I've researched thoroughly and on which I'm willing to stake my reputation.”

And there's the key -- Rosalind thoroughly researches any program she plans to get involved with, making sure she's comfortable with both the service she'll be recommending and the program itself.

“Fortunately, top-quality services and reputable affiliate programs tend to go hand-in-hand,” she says.

Here are some of the things Rosalind recommends you look for before joining any program:

  1. A great product: She recommends only products and services she would be willing to pay for herself. “I frequently purchase and test products before listing them for sale on my sites,” she says.
  2. High commissions: Some programs will pay as little as 5% commission (which means it will take a huge volume of sales to earn any real money); some will pay as high as 50%.
  3. A high-quality affiliate interface: You should be able to quickly and easily access your sales and visitor statistics at any time.
  4. Excellent -- and available -- management: Great management is usually a sign of a great program. “The best companies take care of their affiliates by ensuring that their program managers are accessible and responsive,” Rosalind says.
  5. Real-time statistics reporting: Real-time reporting allows you to track the success of any advertising or promotion.
  6. Low minimum payout: “One of the companies I promote has a $1,000 minimum payout, which means I don't get paid until I've generated $1,000 in earnings,” Rosalind says. “That's fine if I can do that every month, but suppose it takes a year?”
  7. Frequent payout schedule: Payout schedules can vary from weekly, to bi-weekly, to monthly, to quarterly. Frequent payouts mean your income is more regular.

She also recommends making sure that you understand your affiliate agreement by reading it from top to bottom before signing up and monitoring your statistics to keep close track of payments.

Once you're comfortable with the program, make sure you give your customers a reason to click on your affiliate links -- and that the affiliate products and services you're offering appeal to your site's audience.

Rosalind has accomplished this by personally reviewing and profiling the dating sites she recommends. Plus, she makes a point of constantly updating her reviews to make sure her visitors have a compelling reason to return time and time again.

Case Study #3: InvestmentHouse.com

Free opt-in newsletters are another great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field. They're also a great tool for capturing the names and e-mail addresses of potential customers so you can contact them again, continue your relationship with them, and hopefully convert them into customers.

Eric Aafedt of InvestmentHouse.com offers a number of online newsletters, both free and paid, to a subscriber base that is currently 130,000 strong and growing.

With an emphasis on opt-ins over traffic, Eric grew from gross revenues of $80,000 in 1998 to a whopping $2 million by 2000 -- and now, a couple of years later, he's got the rules of success down pat.

What's his secret?

“My focus is solely on getting opt-in e-mail addresses and then converting them to paying customers over time,” Eric says.

That's why Eric offers both free and paid investment newsletters. Once visitors opt in to one of his free publications, he offers them:

  • A free 30-day trial of one of his premium (paid) newsletters, plus information about a free trial of Investors Business Daily (for which Eric gets an affiliate commission).

  • Great free content with soft sell ads.

  • Special offers for premium reports.

Notice how Eric's focus on newsletters allows him to leverage his opt-in list, nurturing them until they become paid subscribers?

“If I was going to give just one tip,” Eric says, “It would be to have a process in place that constantly keeps you in touch with your opt-in list and that constantly gives them the opportunity to see that you provide a quality service... and then requests that they ‘convert' -- or in my case, register for a premium service.”

It's an art form he's truly perfected, allowing him to create huge success -- and profits -- based on his subscription income alone! And remember, a paid subscription produces ongoing revenue!

“It's great to sell a product for $29.95,” Eric says, “But it's so much more powerful to be able to sell it 12 times to the same person in a year!”

Of course, with an opt-in list as big as Eric's, automation is critical. It used to take three full-time employees to keep his business running. Now, with all of the newsletter processes automated, he has been able to reduce his payroll by 60% -- and focus more of his own time on growing the business.

Final Thoughts:

There are hundreds of techniques you can use to build a successful online business. But if you try to implement them all at once, you're going to be scattered and unfocussed -- and none of your strategies will work as well as they could.

Take a look at your web site now and choose one area to really focus on. Then, dedicate yourself to learning absolutely everything you can about that one area -- so that you can truly become a master. You don't have to know everything to have a successful online business, but knowing how to do one thing really, really well is a great place to start.

And if you think you've got a success story that my "Secrets To Their Success" subscribers would like to read about, please do not hesitate to visit www.secretstotheirsuccess.com/suggest and tell me all about it. I'm really looking forward to hearing from you!

The Three Common Traits Shared By "Mom & Pop" Web Sites Earning $100,000 to $600,000 A Year 

I would like to share some personal insights with you that I believe will really help you to move forward in your online business goals.  The spark of inspiration for this editorial came when I was reviewing the interviews we have conducted for our new private site "Secrets To Their Success" http://www.SecretsToTheirSuccess.com where each month we interview two real people who have had extraordinary success on the Internet

Each interview tells a real-life story of hard work and dedication, but there are also messages that are not so obvious at first glance.  It is these underlying “common threads” that really interested me.  I wondered, “What are the common traits shared by these one and two-person Internet business owners that have allowed them to build web sites that generate incomes of $100,000 to $600,000 each and every year?”       

Since they sell everything from body building programs to designer soaps to courses on daytrading, “what” they are selling is important, but it is not the key factor in their success. Their ages, formal education, or prior knowledge of the Internet did not appear to be relevant to the ability of these men and women to make money online either. 

The closer I read, the more it became obvious that besides all of the strategies and techniques these people reveal as part of their “success formula,” there are actually three common traits shared by all of their success stories that have allowed them to grow their businesses to generate such extraordinary incomes…

Trait #1 - They just plain got started.

Most of the people we interviewed had little or no prior knowledge of the Internet.  Typically, this was their first Internet business.  Some had never even turned on a computer!  And that is the first point I want you to know.  It doesn’t matter what your knowledge level is when you start — the important point is you need to begin.

You don’t have to do everything well.  In fact, you don’t have to do anything well when you start!  But you have to START.  Take the first steps (no matter how small) to move your web site dream into reality.  You don’t need to wait until you know “everything.”  

These successful netrepreneurs did not wait until their web sites were “perfect” or until they knew everything there was to know about selling on the Internet before they got started; they’re living proof that you don’t need to be an Internet marketing guru to start making money online.  I am sure you, too, have a great idea that has been percolating in your brain.  You just need to start.

Trait #2 - They focused on one thing and did it well.

The second common thread I want you to know about is that each one of these people focused on just one marketing strategy at a time, did it well, maximized profits, and then moved on to the next one. That’s why they also said that they know there is so much more they can do. 

There are many ways you can promote your web site:

  • Some of them will give you a quick traffic boost (such as pay-per-click search engines);
  • Others will establish your reputation more slowly (such as writing articles and providing free content for other webmasters);
  • While others (such as finding strategic partners who will link to your site) will pay off well into the future for the work you do today. 

That’s the good news!  You don’t have to put a lot of pressure on yourself believing that you have to do it all or know it all.

To follow their lead, focus on just one marketing strategy such as submitting your site to the search engines, publishing your own newsletter, or learning about how to write effective sales copy… and then really master it.  Learn all you can and apply the knowledge as you learn it.  This is how you can generate $100,000+ from your online business — by focusing on one marketing strategy at a time.

Start by choosing the theme of your web site and then strive to become the dominant site serving your niche market.  Next, make a list of all the different ways to increase the sales to your web site and then decide which one will make you the most money and start with that one.  Leave the rest on your “to-do” list until you have squeezed every dollar out of the traffic generation technique, sales strategy, or design element you are working on.  There will always be loads of other ideas just waiting for you to use to earn even more profits.

Trait# 3 - They wish they had modeled success sooner.

These successful candidates confess to having made mistakes — costly, frustrating, and time wasting mistakes that could have been easily avoided.  This is the hard way to learn.  After all, you don’t have to be the one who makes the mistake to learn from it.  It is much easier to learn from other people’s mistakes.  They all said that they could have been earning a MUCH bigger income MUCH faster if they had only started their Internet education earlier and modeled the success of others. 

And that leads us to the third common thread I want to share with you which is… all of these people have committed to educating themselves in the most profitable marketing strategies and techniques.  You don’t need to personally conduct your own “trial and error” experiments to discover what software to use, which online resources are the most helpful, or which overall web site designs are producing the best results in today’s competitive Internet environment. 

Others have already cut a path through the Internet jungle for you.  Just get on the right trail and apply the strategies and techniques as you learn about them.  Great ideas are transferable.  What works for others can be adapted for your site, too.

Final Thoughts:

Building a successful online business is more of a journey than a destination.  What works today may or may not work tomorrow.  That’s why the learning process never stops.  The fact that the Internet continuously changes is the number one advantage you have over your competition if you stay ahead of the learning curve and they don’t.  Make a commitment to continuous learning.  Study top sites like the ones on http://www.SecretsToTheirSuccess.com and model your web site after them. 

These successful netrepreneurs are regular people who did not start out with multi-million dollar advertising budgets, huge staffs, or advanced technical knowledge.  In fact, most of them started out with almost no budget, by themselves, and with little prior knowledge of marketing on the Internet.  Your site does not have to be perfect to make money, but you can’t make money until you start! 

Corey Rudl, president and founder of the Internet Marketing Center, is the author of the No.1 best-selling Internet Marketing course online for 6 straight years in a row, the Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet. An internationally sought-after Internet business consultant and speaker, Corey focuses his energy on the research and development of practical, cost-effective Internet marketing strategies and software for the small and home based business owner.

P.S. Well, what are you waiting for? Enough with your excuses and procrastination to do it "some other time" already!  You've got to take action now! Click here to activate your $0 FREE exclusive membership and instant access to Corey's "Secrets To Their Success" site now! 

***SPECIAL UPDATE*** Have you gotten your hands on Corey's No.1 Best-selling Internet Marketing Course, the Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet yet? His newly updated 2004 Version has just been released and is updated with over 1000+ brand new pages of the  Internet's most effective marketing strategies, this version contains new additional FREE bonus giveaways (worth $957.00) and no-nonsense techniques that you simply must know if you want to start, build, and grow a successful business on the Internet, from the ground up... This is truly a MUST-HAVE! Click here to get your copy today! 

 


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