Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, you may be brand new to online marketing, or you may be a seasoned hand.  Regardless, you should absolutely be using some sort of autoresponder software on your website, for three main reasons:

1. Database Building

Building a database is one of the most profitable things you can do for creating residual income and having a long-term asset.  At HBSA, we use always go into a new market with the mindset of building assets.  Different business models take different tools to execute, and our mindset has always been “long term”, and having a database is essential to building a long-term, profitable asset.

2. Automated Followup

Are you busy?  Got a lot going on? Yeah, we know.  We do too.  And the fact is that as much as we all love the “human touch” in business, humans make mistakes.  They overlook details.  The forget stuff.

And that’s why we love autoresponders so much.  We use this technology to take some of the “oops, it slipped through the cracks” out of our businesses.   It basically allows you to write up a series of emails that go out on an automatic “drip” timeline, so that each person who opts into your list gets a predictable, steady flow of content and information from you.  Helps to build relationships, and be of service to your clients.

3. Broadcasting

This is where you can send out an email to your entire list, just with a click of one button.  Makes sending out invitations to webinars and teleseminars a breeze.  It also allows you to advertise time-sensitive specials and updates to your list as you need it.  I sent out an email last week to over 126,000 people, and it took less than 15 minutes.

Here are some additional considerations when using an autoresponder:

1. Website

What is your website designed to do?  If you have an optin website (which you can build easily with Weebly) then an autoresponder works well.  If you have a blog, it works well.  If you have a corporate website, and no offer to give people who opt in, you probably won’t get much action.  Give people an ethical bribe (i.e., a good reason to opt in) and you’ll get better results.

2. Single Opt In Vs Double Opt In

This is a hotly debated topic in the permission-based marketing field.  Kinda like when you get a bunch of Mac fanboy’s in a room full of PC nerds, the inevitable argument can be well-stated and well-made by either side, and it’s ultimately a matter of opinion.

The process for a single-optin setup is:

Lead goes to website >>> Lead opts into autoresponder >>> Lead receives what was promised immediately upon first email

The process for a double-optin setup is:

Lead goes to website >>> Lead opts into autoresponder >>> Lead gets email from autoresponder asking lead to confirm their identity >>> Lead receives what was promised after they confirm their subscription

Email marketing purists argue that double optin helps keep spam rates low (sometimes true) and filters your most “serious” people up to the top.

Personally, I prefer single optin.  I prefer to let leads filter themselves.  Fact is, some people want what you have (they opted in already) but they won’t confirm a subscription.  Plus, those email confirmation messages sometimes get sent to the users spam filter…meaning they never even get a chance to double opt in.

I’m able to keep spam rates low by only sending broadcasts that contain value.  Seems to work ok for us

3. Setbacks

You’re going to have setbacks when using an autoresponder.  It’s a fact.  If you’re new to autoresponders, understand that it is definitely one of the most profitable tools you can introduce to your online marketing campaigns.  It’s also new – which means you’ll need to learn the system.  As goofs will occur, it’s important to understand the mindset for how to deal with setbacks.  At the same time, you can avoid a lot of the more common goofs by getting an autoresponder service that simply has quality training on how to use their products.

There are several autoresponder softwares available.  We personally like Aweber.com for autoresponder software.  They have the highest deliver-ability of any that we’ve tested (and we’ve tested a lot).   Feel free to test ‘em all out, but this is the autoresponder we use.

Questions? Comments?  Post ‘em up below.

However, there is one mistake in particular that I’m seeing more and more that is concerning, simply because of ramifications of this mistake.  I’ve watched a lot of business owners crash during this recession, many of which fell prey to this one mistake.

And that one big mistake is simply this:

“Leveraging yourself up to your eyeballs with liabilities!”

Ever heard of “other people’s money”?   OPM? Leverage?  They all mean the same thing – borrowing money.  Debt.  That’s it.

Now, I’m not anti-debt.  I’ve used it before, with great success.  It has helped me get to where I want to be, and faster.  Borrowing money to purchase (or gain a controlling interest in) an asset can turn good investments into great investments.

I also use credit every month to bridge cashflow.  It makes it much, much, MUCH easier to get bidness done.  So I’m pro-debt and pro-credit.  The problem comes with the intelligent application of this tool.  And the consequences can be huge.

“He who owns one’s debt owns one’s ass”

- Charlie Munger

I know debt can be a sensitive subject, as it is intensely personal.  However, if you can stick with me for just a bit, I’m going to show you the incorrect and correct applications of leverage.  And if you’re struggling to keep your head above water, I’m gonna show you why you were probably set up to lose this game right from the get-go…and how to turn the tables starting today.  Let’s lay a little groundwork first…

A Boring (But Potentially Life-Changing) Math Lesson

Do you like math?  I don’t.  In fact, I used to pick on kids in school who liked math (because I was TERRIBLE at it).  However, just as knowledge = power, ignorance = weakness.  Not knowing some very basic stuff makes you a great target for getting pwnd by the entire financial industry indefinitely.  If you want to get out of the  rat-race, you gotta know a few things about math and money.  So stop trading pigs on farmville and two-fisting that sandwich for a minute and pay attention!

Do you know the difference between an asset and a liability? If you said “yes”, then good for you.  Most people who are struggling with debt know the difference.  The problem is not one of knowledge, it’s one of application.

In case you don’t know, an asset is something that puts money in your pocket.  A liability is something that takes money out of your pocket.  Assets make you money.  Liabilities cost you money.  Assets make you rich.  Liabilities make you poor.

The biggest problems comes with using leverage to buy liabilities.  Things like:

• Cars
• Vacations
• Homes
• Clothes
• Entertainment

Etc.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of these things.  I’m all about having a great time.  The problem arises when we use LEVERAGE to have a good time, as leverage introduces interest into the equation.  We’ll discuss leverage in a minute – but first thing to realize is that cars, vacations, and your home all cost you money.  They do not make you money.  You take money out of your pocket to get them…and they don’t put money in your pocket.  That’s point 1 – assets make you rich, liabilities make you poor, and you have been conditioned since the day you were born to buy liabilities (I’ll talk about that in a few minutes).

Compound Interest – The 8th Wonder Of  The World

That’s exactly what Albert Einstein called compound interest – the 8th wonder of the world.  I’ll go through the math now, and then give you a shortcut after.  **NOTE** Even if you hate math, this information can change your life.  Once you put it to work FOR you instead of AGAINST you, then everything changes.  Here’s how it works:

There are five variables in the equation:

P is the principal (the initial amount you borrow or deposit)

r is the annual rate of interest (it’s a percentage – and interest rate)

n is the number of years the amount is deposited or borrowed for.

A is the amount of money accumulated after n years, including interest.

Finally – there is the number of times the interest is compounded (one per  year, once a month, etc).

When the interest is compounded once a year, it looks like this:

A = P(1 + r)n

However, if you borrow for 10 years the formula will look like:

A = P(1 + r)¹⁰

This formula applies to both money invested and money borrowed.

But what if we increase the number of times it is compounded?  What if interest is paid more frequently?
Here are a few examples of the formula:

Annually = P × (1 + r) = (annual compounding)

Quarterly = P (1 + r/4)4 = (quarterly compounding)

Monthly = P (1 + r/12)12 = (monthly compounding)

Now, I’m too damn lazy to work the figures long-hand.  Thankfully, the world is populated with geeks that make this stuff easy for us lazy gits:

Compound Interest Calculator

Ahhhhh…sweet technology to the rescue.

So let’s play with an example on that:

Say we borrow $1,000 for a year at 7% interest, compounded annually.  Means we’ll pay back $1,070.  No big deal, right?

It’s not – until we extend that timeline.  That’s when the magic happens.

If we take our crappy little $1k loan out to 10 years, 7% interest compounded annually for ten years, we’re paying back a total of $1,967.15.  OMG!  That’s nearly a 100% ROI in ten years for doing nothing but using compound interest.  That’s like getting TWO ham sandwiches for the price of ONE!

Now, let’s get a little more personal.

Let’s say you have a credit card that charges you 18% APR, and you put a $5,000.00 vacation on the card.  Then, let’s say you add an extra $100.00 to that card every month ($1,200.00/yr) for five years.

That vacation and measly $100.00/month addition costs us a total of $21,569.15 after five years.  If we ignore it another five years, the total grows to $59,475.35 (chokes on ham sandwich).

Let’s make it bigger still – $250,000, 20  years, 7% APR = $967,421.12.

Are you seeing the power of this?

Small decisions over time  have big consequences.  HUGE consequences.

Now let’s say for a minute you’re on the other side of the table.  You use that principal to buy assets instead of a vacation, and we leave the numbers the same.  You turned $5,000.00 and $100.00/month for ten years into $59,475.35.

Now you might say “OMG, there’s no way I can find a return like that out there!”

Well, your credit card company has found a way to get that kind of return at your expense.  In other words, you are their asset.  They are your liability.  So it’s more than possible – it’s happening – right now – every day.  If they can do it, why can’t you?

That leads to another very important point:  this is a ZERO SUM GAME.  Your asset is someone else’s liability.  Your liabilities are someone else’s assets.  Sum zero.

Now that might sound harsh when you think about it.  If you’re a nice person, you don’t want to be creating liabilities for other people!

Thing is, we ALL need liabilities. Take your home for instance.  Your home is your liability.  It costs you money – you don’t make money on it.  Nonetheless, we all need a roof over our heads (and a way to keep out all these damn leaf gecko’s).  So you buy a rental home, and provide it to someone needing a place to stay.  It’s your asset, their liability, and a win/win situation for all parties.

(Note: I know your “financial advisor” might tell you differently about your home being a liability, with appreciation, tax write-offs, etc.  You work the math all out and see how much you “make” with your home when you are financing using compound interest.  My bet: you lose money, but I’m not a tax advisor, so go see a qualified professional if you want that kind of advice).

Recap

So to sum to this point:

• Many people get poor with the incorrect application of leverage
• The incorrect application of leverage is the purchase of liabilities instead of assets
• Assets make you money, liabilities cost you money
• The purchase of assets and liabilities is a zero-sum game.  Your assets are always someone else’s liabilities, and your liabilities are always someone else’s assets
• When you finance liabilities (which cost you money) with compound interest, you lose even more money

Inevitably, there are two questions that come up at this point:

1. “How do I know for sure if something is an asset or a liability?”

2. “How do I start using this principle to make money?”

Let’s take the first things first: there is no such thing as a “sure bet” in this world.  In other words, no risk = no reward.  We all long for security, but the truth is that there is simply no such thing.  Security is like the leprechaun that resides at the end of the rainbow with his pot of gold and delicious Lucky Charms.  Many have searched for it and failed.   Reason? It doesn’t exist.  There’s no sure thing in this world, and that fact alone keeps most people stuck in their ruts.  Even if someone is in a bad situation, it’s a situation they are familiar with, and it’s easier to stay there than step into an unknown scenario, even if it could lead to a better life.

So there’s no sure thing – but how do you know you’re using your money wisely, and allocating your resources to put yourself in a good position?

First – your biggest asset is YOU. So if you are investing in  yourself and your skill-set, that’s a good indicator that you are making a smart choice.  (Note: it’s not a sure bet.  I’ve known people who have invested $200,000+ in self-improvement stuff, and not done a damn thing with them.  You have to use your investment in order to see a return.  Don’t continually invest in learning stuff without applying it).

Ultimately, YOU are the reason a good investment is good…or a bad investment is bad.  I said earlier that cars are typically a liability, right?  While that is generally true, I have a friend that makes himself a cool $20,000 of extra income every year buying and selling cars on craigslist.  He knows cars.  He has mechanical skills.  And he uses that knowledge to turn what is typically a liability into an asset for him.

Second thing is that you make money when you buy, not when you sell.   You can make money with anything if you buy it right.  You can lose money with anything if you buy it wrong (i.e. overpay).  There’s no such thing as the perfect asset.  People make money with stocks, real estate, and bonds.  People lose money with stocks, real estate, and bonds.  It’s not that they are “bad” or “good” – it’s all in how you buy ‘em.  So when you are buying something, keep in mind that whether you make or lose money will depend upon how you buy it.

This applies to:

• Advertising
• Houses
• Vehicles
• Stocks
• Bonds
• Precious stones
• Numismatic coins
• Foreign currency
• Raw materials
• Leases / contracts
• Jewelry
• Art
  
• Anything

If you’re trying to make money, you make it when you buy, not when you sell.

So the question is…are you feeling the pressure yet?

When someone sees that THEY are their own best investment, and that they can make money with anything is purchased right (i.e. at a discount) or lose money with anything purchased incorrectly (i.e. at a premium), it can easily lead to paralysis by analysis.

Why? Because it’s easier to do nothing than do the wrong thing.  It’s easier to keep “searching”, or keep “learning”, or keep “studying” than do something risky (i.e. productive) with that knowledge.

So here’s how you can start:

1. Save

If you are going to buy anything, you’ll need some money to do it.  Start saving your duckets.  George Clasen recommends paying yourself 10% right off the top of your revenue, to be yours to keep.  I HIGHLY recommend his classic The Richest Man In Babylon if you haven’t read it.

If you can’t save 10%, save something.  If you can’t save anything, make more money.  You can always get a part-time job.  Here are 14 ways that explain how to make legitimate money online if you’re short on ideas.    Save that coin for an opportunity to buy something when it’s undervalued, and you can get it at Wal-Mart prices.

2. Get Knowledge

You need to know the value of things in order to establish what is considered an “under-priced” asset or an “overpriced” asset.   You also need to understand the potential risk/reward of an asset.

For example, if I am buying advertising, I need to understand how I am going to turn that advertising into dollars and cents.

If I am buying a rental property, I need to understand the price of that property relative to other similar properties, the local market demand for rent, factor in taxes and repairs, to see if it’s a good or poor investment.

In other words, you need to be an educated investor.  I don’t mean that you need to go to ever seminar available about a subject, but you do need a cursory understanding of your niche if you expect to make money in it.  A library card goes a long way in this endeavor.

Key = START SMALL

Don’t go big if you’re just getting started.  Go small.  Minimize your risk.  You are guaranteed to make mistakes (newbie!), because that’s the only real way you get knowledge and experience.  Just make sure you make small mistakes.  You do this by betting small – don’t bet the farm if you don’t have experience.  Learn from your mistakes, and repeat the process.  That’s how you turn the tables so that you have your resources working for you, instead of working for your resources.

Just remember – don’t leverage yourself for things that take money out of your pocket (liabilities).  If you keep your overhead low, you can accomplish amazing things.  You have options.  When you’re liquid, the world is your oyster.

Two Final Points

First, this type of thinking is very different from what you’ve been conditioned to think.  We live in a society that applauds the purchase of liabilities.  I’m all about the invisible hand,  but I’m also a big fan of delayed gratification.  Yes, you can have everything you want.  But can you wait a little bit to get it?  Can you control yourself to not gratify your immediate urges to acquire liabilities, but get assets first?  This simple shift can change your entire life.  Just waiting to get your liabilities until after you have a strong asset base can make all the difference.

Go ahead – get a private jet and a gold-plated iPad.  Live a little!  Just do it after you have the assets to pay for it.

Finally – I believe anyone can become independently wealthy.  But it may require you change some of your financial habits (at least short term).  No matter if you have a million bucks of personal debt and you’re making minimum wage, I believe you can turn it around.  You need to take action NOW to change the behavior that got you in that situation, but time and applied effort can work wonders (remember – compound interest’s most astounding work is done with the application of time).

There’s always hope. And there’s no reason you can’t completely change your life and financial future.  It may take some short-term sacrifice, but you can do it.  You’ll live.  Most of the world lives on less than $3.00 per day.  You can survive…thrive…and eventually, rise…if you’re willing to make the sacrifice.

REMEMBER: it’s a zero-sum game.  Do the right thing.

But before we get into all that, we need to talk about an ugly truth that may seem obvious.  It is easy to overlook this seemingly apparent factoid when we are looking for ways to earn some income online.   Many choose to glaze over this truth, or ignore it altogether, and do so at their own peril.

It is simply this:

Making money in anything takes work. The Interwebz is no exception.

Do you work hard at your job?  I hope so.   Because to succeed in working from home, you’ll need to work just as hard for yourself as you have for any employer, and maybe even harder at the beginning.  The rewards are more than worth it, but it does take sweat equity…especially if you’re doing it on the cheap.

I’m going to give you some of the best ways to get started in making money online.  One thing that I want you to keep in mind is that making money online from home is not a fallacy or a myth.  Real people do it every day.  I’ve been making a killing online for a long time.   It’s a TON of fun, it’s interesting, and it doesn’t take technical genius to figure it out.  It does take some perseverance, a positive attitude, and some focus.

Also, keep in mind that this post is to help someone get started making money online.  Not everyone is going to make seven figures online, or even wants to.  I do, and it takes a helluva lotta work to do it.  It doesn’t take near as much to make an extra $500 – $1k per week consistently, and the ideas I’m going to give you are designed to help you get up to that level.

Let me first clarify the options you have to make money online.  There are only three:

1. Sell your stuff

2. Sell other people’s stuff

3. Sell the traffic for advertising

That’s it. There are several different specific strategies that you can use to make money, but those strategies will always boil down to using one of these three core methods.   As you review the following ideas, keep in mind that they all fall under one of these three headings – selling your stuff, other people’s stuff, or advertising.  (The MOST profitable peeps online use all three, but I suggest you start with one to get some profit coming in).

1. Amazon Mechanical Turk

Overview

Amazon Mechanical Turk (or “MTurk”) is a place where you can get employment for carrying out a variety of online tasks.   It could be as easy as making comments on a blog post – we do that on this blog ) Or it could be creating image tags on a website.  Employers will publish “HITS”, which are just job tasks, and how much they are willing to pay, and you select the tasks that you want to complete.  Typically, the pay is lowish.  You will not get rich on MTurk.  But it takes minutes to set up an account, it’s easy, easy work, and you get paid quickly.

Pros:

• Free
• Easy
• Fast

Cons:

• Can be monotonous
• Lowish pay

Links: www.mturk.com

2. Google AdSense

Overview

Google AdSense is a way for you to receive advertising revenue on a website.  You get paid when people visit  our website, and click on the Google ads on the site.  Ever see these when you visit a website?

Those little “Ads by Google” are Adsense ads.  Basically, you insert a snippet of code on your web page, and Google will deliver “relevant” (term used very loosely) advertising on your website.  When someone clicks on an ad, you split the money with Google.

Setting up a Google AdSense account is free.  If you’re doing this on a shoestring budget, you can get a free website with Weebly.  You can also set up a free blog with Blogger.  Either way, you get a site, you stick AdSense code on it, and you’re ready to make money.

Pros:

• Easy to start
• Free to start
• Pay is only dependent on how much traffic you buy

Cons:

• You must drive traffic to your site if you want anyone to click, and that may take some time if you’re using free traffic strategies.
• You must place the ads on your site to get the maximum number of clicks.  Read this for more on Adsense placement.

Hint: DO NOT CLICK ON YOUR OWN ADS…EVER.  If you do, you will lose your account.  Not that I would know personally…but you know, I’ve had friends that it’s happened to.

Links:  Google AdSense

3. Create Websites For People

Overview

Seriously, it’s not that hard.  If you use Weebly, you don’t even really have to know anything about HTML.  You just have to know how to drag stuff into a box, and write words in it.  Easy.

If you wanna get fancy be charging several thousand of dollars for custom graphics, custom copy, etc, then you need to have some skillz working with code.  But if you’re just throwing together a site for your friend for $100, you don’t even need to know anything about websites…you just need to know how to mess with Weebly, and even then you can mostly suck and still pull off a decent job.

Pros:

• Starts out easy (if you want) – can get as complex as you want
• Huge profit potential (some pro’s charge $10,000 per website)
• Fast (how long does it take to throw a Weebly site together?…)

Cons:

• Can be complicated work (ranges from mildly technical to “OMG, someone get Steve on the horn!)
• Can encounter complicated clients (read this to see how a web design goes bad).

But once you run out of friends, who can you sell websites to?  Gr8 question!  Check out the next way to make moola online.

Links:  Weebly.com

4. Become A Freelancer

Overview

Everybody has expertise in SOMETHING.  Can your expertise, knowledge, or skills be delivered by the phone or the Internet?   Then there are probably people out there looking to outsource those skills.  Want them to outsource it to you?  Check out Elance.com and Odesk.com.  These places are the mecca for all things outsourcing.  You can do work all sorts of work there (like designing websites!)  Or writing articles.  Or a cacophony of other tasks.  It works kinda like Ebay, but in reverse.   Someone needs a job done, workers bid on it, and the work provider selects the worker they want to complete the task.  Pretty simple.

Pros:

• Access zillions of work providers
• Get paid fast (after the job is done)
• Difficult to get scammed, as Elance/Odesk play referee

Cons:

• You may find a loony for a work provider (it can happen)
• Will have to build up your reputation to get credibility on the websites…similar to Ebay user feedback

Links:  Elance.com, Odesk.com

5. Blogging

Overview

Blogging in of itself is not usually a profitable venture.  But if you write about interesting stuff, you will get traffic, and if you have traffic, there is always opportunity to make money.  Remember the three profit strategies that we talked about at the beginning of this post?  Well, there are three ways to make money with a blog:

1. Sell advertising space on your blog

2. Sell your own products that relate to your blog

3. Sell other people’s products that relate to your blog

There are other ways to make money with a blog, and I’ll talk about those in a minute.  Let’s lay some groundwork first:

A blog is simply a place where you can write about stuff (whatever you want), and other people can comment.  That’s it.

You can get a free blog at Wordpress, Blogger, or Weebly.   The process works like this:

1. Choose a market (or a niche, or a vertical…whatever you wanna call it, they’re all synonyms).
2. Create a blog
3. Start writing stuff people want to read in that market!
4. Repeat step 3 over and over

But how do you know what people want to read about?  Answer: with keywords!

Keywords are simply search terms.  (For a full list of vocab definitions on Intro-net stuff, click here).

So you find out the keywords people are searching for, then write stuff based on that.  It’s really that simple.

You can see what people are searching for using a keyword tool like Wordtracker or the SEO Book (both have paid options…but we like the freebie version just find).

The way WordTracker or SEO Book works is like this:

1. You type in a keyword search phrase

2. They will guesstimate how many people are looking that phrase up each day.

And by guesstimate, I mean they will make up a number out of thin air (kinda like Fractional Reserve Banking).  The point in using the tool is not to get an accurate count of real search volume, but rather getting keyword combo ideas that you wouldn’t normally cook up yourself.

Additionally, I play the “Alphabet game” with Google.   The video quality is less than awesome, but you can watch the tutorial of me demonstrating this here.

So…now you know how to see what people are searching for, and you know how to set up a blog…but HOW DO WE MAKE THE MONEY?

You can just throw up some Google Adsense ads for starters.  Or you can get fancier and sign up for one of the zillions of other advertising networks out there.  THIS is the most comprehensive list I’ve found out there (if you find one better, let me know).

Pros:

• Fast
• Easy to start
• Freeish to start (if you want a self-hosted blog, or a blog that is customized it costs money, otherwise it’s free)

Cons:

• Must write coherent sentences
• Must be at least moderately interesting
• Need a monetization strategy

Links:  Wordpress, Blogger, Weebly, Wordtracker, SEO Book, Ad Network List

Then there is affiliate marketing.  Let’s talk about that.

6. Affiliate Marketing

Overview

Affiliate marketing is simply selling other people’s stuff in exchange for commission.  Simple concept, but execution can be more difficult.

The benefits of affiliate marketing are many, but the biggest advantage is that you don’t have create your own product to start making money.  You can sling someone else’s product, and make money with it.

Downside to affiliate marketing is that it can be all kinds of shady.  Merchants (the people that have products to sell) can skim sales, rip clients, or go bust and not pay you.  The other side is that it can be ridiculously profitable, and easy to do.

As an affiliate, you can either sign up directly from a merchant, or you can use a network to act as an intermediary.  We do both.  If you start looking at affiliate marketing, you will most likely find tons of ebooks for sale offering the “secrets” to affiliate marketing.  Before you start spending your hard-earned cash, I suggest you read NickyCakes’s Affiliate Newbie Guide.  It’s the best resource I’ve found thus far for laying the foundation to get started as an affiliate.

Pros:

• Huge profit potential (full-time affiliates can bank five figures a day)
• Low barrier of entry (just about anyone can get started quickly)
• Little-to-zero customer service (although if you are building a list, you’ll want to provide some level of customer service to ensure your people stay happy)

Cons:

• You can get screwed if you promote a shady offer (this, this, this, and this are all examples)

Bottom line - affiliate marketing can be fantastico if you do it properly.  If you pull stewpid stuff (like sending in false order, making false claims, etc) then you’ll fail.

Links:  Affiliate Newbie Guide

7. Writing For Others

Overview

We talked about blogging earlier.  Thing is, there are a lot of lazy people that want the benefits of writing content online, but they just don’t want to write.  That means you have a huge opportunity to write stuff for others.

There are several strategies for making that happen.  One is simply publishing articles for others.  You can bank $3 – $10 per article by publishing aritlces for other people on EzineArticles.com, ArticlesBase.com, GoArticles.com, and others.  You can find plenty of people willing to pay for this content on Elance.com or Odesk.com.

You can also write content directly for websites as well.  Associated Content and Helium are two places you can get started writing for websites on specific topics of interest, and they pay on performance – meaning, you are paid for as much and as hard as you’re willing to work.

Then, if you have a blog and you’ve built up a bit of traffic, you can provide reviews for other people’s products or websites on your blog.  Places like ReviewMe, Sponsored Reviews, and LinkWorth will pay you to write these reviews.  All you gotta do is provide relevant content.

You can also write newsletters, reports, and blog content for other people directly.  These types of jobs are all over Elance and ODesk.  Check it out.

Pros:

• Easy
• Free
• Can be lucrative (depends on your writing, scope, etc)

Cons:

• Can be tedious/boring (depends on what you’re writing about)
• Must write well (otherwise you’ll be paid peanuts)

Links:  There’s a lot of ‘em above in the article

8. Create Authority Hubs

Overview

An authority hub is just a definitive resource page about a particular topic.  The topic itself doesn’t matter as much as the desire for the information.  But…how do you know what people want?  Check out item # 5 above.  HubPages and Squidoo are two places that allow you to create an authority hub, and use Adsense and affiliate marketing to monetize the hub.  People click on the pretty ads, you get paid.

You can create authority hubs on just about anything you can imagine.  Subjects like:

• Tea Bag Folding
• Your experience being homeless
• The side-effects of dog medicine
• Weird facts about Hitler
• Bachelorette party ideas

There all sorts of stuff that people want to know.  I bet you have some weird, random knowledge that others are looking for right now.  Make money with it by putting it on an authority hub.

Pros:

• Free
• Easy
• Payment depends on your efforts (create more hubs = get paid more)

Cons:

• Can be slow (depends on what your hub is about and how much search volume relates to it)
• Can be competitive (lotta people are looking to make money free and easy

Links:  HubPages, Squidoo

9. Help Unemployed People Find Jobs

Overview

Know anyone who is unemployed?  If not, go knock on some doors – stats show at least 1 out of 10 people are out of work right now.  It’s even higher in Michigan.  Where there is need, there is opportunity.  People need jobs?  Hook ‘em up and help ‘em out!

There are companies that will pay you to refer people seeking jobs to them.  It’s a great way to get into the headhunting…I mean “recruiting”…industry.  Some places that will do this include:

• BoHire
• ReferEarns
• Zyoin
• JobTonic
• ReferYes
• Refcon

Pros:

• Fast
• Free
• Easy
• Can be {very} lucrative

Cons:

• Uh…it’s money for referring your unemployed friends.  I’m not seeing any cons on this one.

Links:  see above.

10.  Submit Stock Photos

Overview

Are you good at taking pictures?  Well, don’t feel bad, neither am I.  But if you want to get good, you can make bank selling your photography to online stock photography websites.

Here’s how it works:

1. You take a picture, and submit it to a stock photo directory.
2. They either take it, or tell you to go fish.
3. If they take it, you get paid every time someone else downloads and uses the picture.

The Rolls Royce of stock photography is (currently) IStockPhoto.  There are others, like Fotolia and Shutterstock.  It’s not a bad way to create some good residual income for yourself.  You take the picture once, and you make money again and again – as many times as people download it.

You may ask yourself “who downloads this stuff?”  People like me.  We use stock photography all the time.  And I can tell you there are NOT enough good pics out there for what we use in our operations.  We need more…so get to work!

Pros:

• Residual income
• Can make money doing something you love (if you love photography)
• Free (unless you don’t have a camera)
• Easy (if you’re good at taking pictures)

Cons:

• Can be challenging (if you suck at taking pictures)
• Takes time (you don’t get much for each picture, so it takes some time to build up a portfolio and build up your income)
• Can be ego-bruising (if you think you’re a great photographer, you will probably get humbled at some point.  No directory takes all pictures from all photographers all the time)

Links: IStockPhoto, Fotolia, Shutterstock

11.  Start A Forum

Overview

A forum is like a water-cooler for a workplace.  It’s just an area to shoot the breeze, share thoughts on whatever.  Forums are usually themed on a specific subject – green energy, addiction, and landscape architecture are all themes for forums.  Just like we saw with Authority Hubs, the sky is the limit in terms of subjects, and it’s limited only by your creativity.

But how do you make money with a forum?  Remember – you can sell YOUR stuff, you can sell someone else’s stuff, or you can sell advertising.  You can do all three with a forum.  Setup can be free to start if you use Lefora.

Pros:

• Easy
• Free
• Potentially lucrative long-term (a forum can be long-term asset…i.e., it can be sold)

Cons:

• Can take time to build up membership
• Can take a lot of work on the front end getting it all sorted

Links:  Lefora

12.  Set Up An Amazon Store

Overview

Rather than ’splanin it all out, you can check out the blow-by-blow here.

Pros:

• You partner with a huge name…Amazon.com
• Can have high profit-potential

Cons:

• Somewhat technical
• Regulation danger (some our brain-dead lawmakers are busy passing laws that are getting affiliate accounts shut down.  If you have any interest in making money with Amazon, or affiliate marketing in general, you can read about the dangers of what is happening here, here and here.  If you’d like to write your representative and let them know how much they suck for supporting these anti-constitutional economy-killing laws, it takes less than 30 seconds to do it here – https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

13. Etsy

You might be saying “forget all this computer shtuff!  I wanna work with my HANDS!”

If handmade stuff does it for ya, then you can use Etsy to sell.  It’s the place for all things handmade.  It takes zero HTML knowledge to put a store together quick and easy.

Etsy isn’t a freebie – it costs you $0.20 USD to list an item for sale, they are gonna shave a 3.5% sales fee off the total price.

Pros:

• Easy
• Fast
• Unique (you make stuff with your hands and sell it – things like crafts and physical goods)

Cons:

• Not totally free

Links:  Etsy.com

14. WAHM

Stands for “Work At Home Mothers”.  Guys, don’t be intimidated, they have job openings and business opportunities for dudes as well   They are a clearing-house for work at home jobs and various business opportunities.  Everything from telemarketing to consulting work, programming, proofreading, virtual assistant positions, customer service jobs, claims adjusting, public relations, ap development, blogging, speechwriting…if it can be done remotely, chances are they have a job opening here.

What I like about WAHM is the quality – they don’t allow scammer fake-work-at-home  jobs to get listed.  They are human, and I’m sure a slippery punk could get through their screening process, but they take quality control seriously, and do a pretty good job with it.

Pros:

• Free
• Fast
• Easy Or Difficult (Depends on the type of work you want)
• Potentially lucrative (again – depends on the type of work you want.  Don’t expect to get rich proofreading.  Sales jobs will most likely pay the best)

Cons:

• Potential risk of getting hosed if you run across a scammer (the flag is if they ask YOU to pay THEM to work.  Legit employers will never ask you to send them money to get set up – they may hold back earnings, or ask you to have a headset or equipment to start the job, but will never ask for cold hard cash).

Links:  Work At Home Jobs

So you can make money with any or all of these strategies. There are many more that are a combination of the above, so don’t limit yourself here.  Creativity rules, and the sky is the limit.

I also wanted to include a quick note about about some very easy ways to lose money trying to make money online.  These all suck big-time.  I can’t cover all of the various creative ways people have invented to lose money trying to make money, but here are a few to keep in mind.

Easy Ways To Lose Money:  Fast, Not-Free, And Definitely NOT Fun

1. Stuffing Envelopes

I’m not going to say that every envelope-stuffing job is a joke…but…well…ok, every envelope stuffing job is a joke. I have NO idea why there is so much desire for this type of work, as it appears to be the most boring job on the planet, comparable to getting paid to lick salt cubes for a living.  I mean, who says they want to grow up and stuff envelopes?  Regardless, there is a lot of demand for this type of work {just check the keyword search volume}, and several scamsters have cashed in by promising to provide “work at home jobs” stuffing envelopes and offering exactly nothing in return.

There are some BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES for stuffing envelopes that may work (emphasis on the word “may“).  But they are NOT JOBS.  These are direct-mail businesses, and they can provide legitimate services.  But if you think you can sit on your couch chomping potato chips in your underoos, making “$2, $5, even $1,000,000  for every envelope you stuff!”...then let me pour an ice cold bucket of reality over your head and be the first to tell you that it ain’t gonna happen.

2. Data Entry From Home

Again, I’m not going to say that every data-entry gig is a joke…ah damn, well actually they are all a joke. You may be able to find a company where you work some of the time on premises and some of the time at home, but most (like 99.9%) of all the data-entry “jobs” are bogus. Again, I have no idea why people seek out this type of work, as watching paint dry would be more exciting than entering data into some random database while getting a monitor tan all day.

Plus, it begs the question – if you’re willing to enter data for someone else, how about just writing articles for other people, or writing blog-posts for yourself?  It’s 5% more effort for 1,000,000% more pay, and it’s 1,000,000,000,000% more interesting.

3. Project Payday

Project Payday has become a prolific online ripoff.  It basically teaches you to sign up for risk-free trials from companies, and then cancel them after banking a commission through an affiliate link.  It’s a rip on the merchants that provide offers on CPA affiliate networks.  It’s not direct-fraud, but it’s implicitly fraudulent, as the technique is the equivalent to throwing a financial Chinese finger trap on a legitimate company offering.  The motivation to get the product offered on the free trial rests solely in getting the commission money from an affiliate for the free product, not to actually TRY the product itself.  There are many terms used to describe this process, but I think the most accurate two are “lying” and “theft”.

This kind of crappola perpetuates fraud in the industry, and encourages an adversarial relationship between merchants and affiliates.  Affiliates can forget that without merchants, there’s not much to sell.  Similar strategy to eating your own hand if you get hungry.

I think it’s a great way to create even more  problems in an industry that is already plagued with fraud.  You may be able to score a couple hundred bucks ripping off companies with not-real orders, as there’s always a way to scam the system.  But it takes ten times more effort to scam people and companies out of their money than it does to simply provide something of real value and sell it.

What goes around comes around.  You hose people, you’re gonna get hosed sooner or later.  ‘Nuther way to say it is you reap what you sow, so keep that in mind when you’re makin’ your monies.

That’s all I gots. Go make some monies!!!

Enjoy the recording below.  We also have some recommended resources below, and if you have any questions just let us know in the comments.

Gmail Riches – Highly recommended resource to use Gmail Marketing on AdWords

Marketing Sherpa – Compendium of case-studies, surveys, and online resources for marketers.

Pingdom – Checks your web page load time.

AdWords External Keyword Tool – Pure awesomeness.

“Do I have to be ________ (talented, smart, brilliant, good looking, a technical genius, a great speaker, etc) to be rich / successful?”

The answer is no.

Most wealthy people are not that smart – and they are happy to admit it.

Many wealth people are not particularly talented – and they will admit that too.

The vast majority of wealthy people are not blessed with uncommonly good looks, a privileged background, or any other type of advantageous predisposition that would guarantee success, or even make it easier to acquire.

In fact, in my examination of the wealthy / rich / successful from the rest of population, there is really only two character traits I can observe that stand out:

1. They Know What They Want

Do you realize how uncommon it is for someone to really know what they want?  People can say they want success with a business…then give up at the first sign of setback.  People can say they want to lose weight…and three weeks after their new years resolution, they’re back in front of the TV at night, chowing down on Pizza and cookies.  People can say they want to be married…and then get divorced just a few years later.

Successful people can make a decision, and stick to it.  They’re not changing their minds and second-guessing themselves every other day.  They don’t have a “flavour of the week” when it comes down to their priorities and their focus.  They make a decision, and stick with it.  Rich people, accomplished people, successful people in ANY context have the ability to do that – to simply DECIDE.

Mark Zuckerberg knew that he wanted to create an amazing social network. He DECIDED to do it, and dropped out of  Harvard to make it happen.

The Beatles knew they wanted to accomplish big things in the music world – and didn’t blink when Decca Records rejected them (d’oh!)

Larry Ellison knew that he could help transform the software industry…and put his money where his mouth was and dropped out of his phd program to pursue the building of software titan Oracle.

Dangerous Question For Your Consideration:

Do you know what you want?  Not just today – but long term?  Can you define it specifically?  Most importantly, are you taking definitive action every day to make it a reality?  Or are you “keeping your options open?”  Remember, the power of decision is huge.

2. The Pursue What They Want Without Fail

Thomas Edison conducted over 700 experiments to develop a working light bulb.  When asked about it, he didn’t view them as failed experiments, but rather, “I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

Abraham Lincoln had the misfortune of growing up in poverty, losing his fiancé,  lost two business AND a business partner (and assumed the debt of both), experienced a debilitating nervous breakdown, and was summarily defeated in 8 separate elections before he became the 16th President of the United States.

It would be a mistake to look at these men and assume they had some sort of “special power” unique to them and nobody else.  In fact, the same determination that existed in them is available to all of us.  We just have to choose to use it.

Successful people can spend long amounts of time concentrating and focusing on a singular pursuit.  In a world in which ADHD is commonly used as a reason for not being able to concentrate, people 100 years ago didn’t know it was an available condition.  As such, they took the practice of concentrating the mind on a singular item or pursuit to be a skill to be mastered, not much different than playing the piano or riding a bike.

This doesn’t just apply to professional accomplishment.  Many people pursue a partner with dogged determination until they are married…at which point, they gradually lose interest and take their once-cherished partner for granted.  Few people bring an attitude of “pursuit without fail” into their personal relationships…and experience the results of such neglect in all sorts of not-fun ways.

On the flip side, ask anyone with a successful relationship what they do to achieve it, and they will nearly always list their willingness to “work though things” (pursuit) as one of the keys to their success.

Dangerous Question For Your Consideration:

Do you pursue without fail?  Do you dig in when the going gets tough?  Are you willing to spend days…weeks…years…decades…pursuing what you want with passion and enthusiasm?  Does it take long to become cynical or jaded when gratification is delayed?  Are you willing to give a pursuit EVERYTHING you have…even if the payoff is uncertain…even improbable?

The truth is that success in any pursuit is not reserved for the brilliant, naturally-gifted, or lucky;  it’s available to anyone who is simply willing to make a decision to passionately pursue something they want…and do it day in, and day out without fail.

Bad news: Setbacks are practically guaranteed. Factor them into your business plan.

Good news: Setbacks will cause many of your competitors to quit (yeah!), and create new opportunities for personal growth.

As Napoleon Hill said:

“Every setback has within it a seed of equivalent or greater benefit.”

And that’s true.  Let’s take Pat as an example…

Pat is an HBSA student that has been advertising online for over a year now.  A couple weeks ago, he was slapped by the big G.

He had every reason to feel sorry for  himself.  After all, he’d been an advertiser in good standing with Google for a long time.  How dare they slap him!

But he didn’t go that route.  Instead…he slapped back.

And a scant 17 days later, he’s back to generating leads online.

That’s an HBSA record – going from slap to mac in 17 days.  I called him up and forced him to tell me what he did to make it happen.  He cordially agreed.  Here it is:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Aweber and InfusionSoft are both considered tools for automating your marketing.  Aweber classifies itself as more of a straight Autoresponder (versus a gay autoresponder) and InfusionSoft classifies itself as more of a tool for automating all aspects of marketing.  I use both on a daily basis, and have so for years.  IMHO, they are different tools for different purposes, and both are great depending on where you are at in your business.  Lemme break ‘em down for you here:

Aweber – “Emailers Only”

Aweber’s system is the best for automated email followup.  Notice I didn’t say “broadcast” followup – just the automated stuff.  They have a pristine record with the ISP’s, and they aim to keep it that way.  What that means is that marketers who abuse their service (sending out spammy emails, etc) lose their accounts.  I like them for automated email followup, but I do NOT recommend them for broadcasting.

They stick to email only – they have no setup for direct mail, voicemail broadcasts, etc.  They do not claim to be a CRM tool, and offer none of the features to assist with that.  One could make the argument that they should add those tools to their system, but Tom Kulzer (their CEO) seems laster-focused on maximizing their brand in the email marketing vertical.  Good on ‘em.

The Good Stuff:

- Inexpensive (account starts at $15 USD / month)

- Easy for newbies (they have tons of free training, and the interface is simple)

- Dummy-proof (they make you comply with CAN-SPAM, which is good for people who don’t have  clue what they are doing).

- HIGH Deliverability (if the email doesn’t get delivered, then nothing else matters)

The Not-Good Stuff

- Limited customization (they don’t use triggers, they require double-optins to view one of their pre-written messages or require that they approve any custom messages)

- Limited features (it’s email only – no other marketing features included)

- They will spank you if your spam complaints get too high. This is good and bad – the idiots who spam people to death lose their accounts and therefore allow Aweber to keep deliverability high for everyone else.  Problem is that if you have too big a list, you can’t really broadcast at all, as even a small percentage of complaintes comes up as a flag.

- List segmentation is limited. You gotta get a shopping cart if you’re doing sales, and it’s tricky to do very sophisticated list segmentation.  For example, even if someone double opts for one list, they gotta go through the same process if they take an action and join another list.  It’s fairly redundant.

- Not big-list friendly. If you have a list over 20k subscribers, then you will have some special challenges.  List-importing is limited (they must all double opt to Aweber’s system when you import them) and if you make a change to your followup, then EVERYONE gets the change and cycles back through your followup again.  There isn’t any feature to make a change and integrate for new list joiners only – everyone gets it.  No big deal when you have a list of a few hundred or few thousand people, but it’s not so cool when you want to make a change and it affects 70k subscribers.

Get An Aweber Test-Drive Here

InfusionSoft - “IT Personnel Only”

Infusion was originally promoted by Dan Kennedy as the be-all, end-all of marketing automation.  It originally sold for $6k to set up, plus $300/mo for ongoing usage, and nobody knew what the hell to do with it after they got it.  Their training sucked, customer support sucked, and it was so damn complicated that marketers could barely send broadcasts without help from the IT department.

They have since upgraded their training, and adjusted their pricepoint to a sane level that actually reflects the value of the service.  They also got some customer support reps that knew what the hell was going on, which helped everyone out.

The “brains” behind the system is a tag setup, meaning that once a lead comes in, they are given tags to identify them for specific email followup campaigns, voicemail followup campaigns, or direct-mail followup campaigns.  Once you figure it out, it’s actually pretty cool – it offers much greater flexibility with your marketing in list segmentation, and you can make your segments much more action-oriented.

The Good Stuff

- Infusion is much more than email automation.  You can run affiliate programs, monitor and track leadflow through sophisticated funnels, integrate custom shopping cart solutions (or use theirs), run continuity programs, drop voicemails/direct mail, and manage fulfillment reports all from one interface.  It’s nice

- Much more sophisticated list segmentation.  By using triggers, you can be very, very specific with your followup marketing campaigns.  You can ensure that people who click a link get a separate followup series from those who do not, those who open a specific email can be separated from those who don’t, etc.

- Easy list importing and double optins.  You have much great freedom to customize your double-optin emails and links, and they allow the importing of previous lists (hot damn!)

- Much easier on Spam complaints.  They do not take the “marketer is assumed guilty” approach to broadcasts.  Really, this is good and bad (I’ll explain in a minute)

- Pricepoint is currently MUCH more reasonable.  It’s running $199 to start, then scales up depending on how much email volume you’re pushing.  When you factor in the other stuff it does, it’s pretty cost-effective.

The Not-Good Stuff

- Not for newbies. It’s not an easy system to learn (even now).  You don’t need an IT staff anymore, but you will need some time to get how the system works.  In order to make use of the additional customization features, you (or someone you know) will need to have some technical competency (comfortable working with html, API’s, etc).  Nothing too fancy, but it’s not “plug and play” like Aweber.

- Questionable deliverability. Their domain has been greylisted.  That’s not good.  I still don’t understand how they track spam.  They approached me several months ago saying our spam rates were way too high.  I looked in the system, and saw them chillin’ at 1.2% (1.2 people out of 100 were hitting the spam button when we mailed).  They said we were at 5% (which is crazy-high).  We said that the back office didn’t reflect those numbers – they said “tough – sort it, or we are shutting your account down”.  So we broke up for a little while (we have since been happily reunited).

- Good old-fashioned “dumb” in the system. Now, this is coming from a current InfusionSoft user.  I love many aspects of their system, and am currently spending several hundreds of dollars every month for it’s usage (and I happily pay it – saves us a bunch of time and money).  But there are some things that we have found that just don’t make a damn bit of sense with their setup.

For example – we needed to change merchant accounts for some of our continuity subscribers.  They had no feature to do this en masse - we had to manually go through hundreds of records one-by-one and update each to run through the new merchant account.

‘Nuther example - when you unsubscribe from an InfusionSoft email, they ask the person unsubscribing if they would like to flag the message as spam.  Yes, they actually present a “yes or no” push-button option to mark email as spam if a subscriber wants to unsubscribe.  That may have something to do with their greylisting issue…

‘Nuther example - they accidentally charged a bunch of our clients an unsolicited charge on their credit cards.  Yeah, I know – DUMB.  We refunded everyone, apologized to all of them because it lokos like we did the charge when IS was the culprit.

Good news is that they have gotten progressively less-dumb as they have developed as a company, and they are the first to make apologies when need be.  But they have had to apologize a lot.

Get An InfusionSoft Test Drive Here

Final Verdict

Both systems are, overall, good systems.  Both are also imperfect, and that probably won’t change.  Our recommendation is that if you are in primary need of automated EMAIL followup, are new to autoresponders in general, or have a very small list, then go with Aweber.  If you send frequent broadcasts, or use other marketing mediums (phone / mail) or have a need for customizing your sales funnel, then go with InfusionSoft.  We use both – Aweber for automated email followup, InfusionSoft for everything else.  And dats the way we like it

**NOT RECOMMENDED**

Listen, it takes a real stinker to get on my “not recommended list”.  But here are a couple that we simply don’t recommend under ANY circumstance:

Lyris

Lyris is a huge company chock-full of non-marketing morons.  Seriously, they don’t get it.  Their system is near-impossible to use, takes FOREVER to set up, and has terrible deliverability.  They do offer triggers, but they don’t work most of the time.  On top of all of it, they charge several thousand to get set up, and several hundred to several thousand per month.  Their customer service is lame, and they try to lock people into long-term contracts.

We simply don’t recommend them unless you are looking for a tax write off (without any emotional gratification).

“Free” Autoresponders

In the autoresponder world, the axiom “you get what you pay for” isn’t always true.   Sometimes, you get way more for less money.  But every free autoresponder software that we have used wasn’t even worth the time it took to download.  If you’re going to be mailing, you gotta pony up and treat it like a real business.  It doesn’t mean you need to get the most expensive solution out there, but you want to be paying for something if your’e going to be mailing on a consistent basis.

I know there are exceptions for everything, and we may get a thousand hate mails talking about how their free service rocks.  If you find a great freebie, good on ya.  In our experience, shelling out $15/mo for everything you get with Aweber is more than worth it.

Friends.

Family.

Traveling.

Great food.

Presents.

The holidays are a wonderful time for building memories.  There’s no doubt about it.

This holiday season, let me encourage you to put another quick “to do” item on your list.

Spend about 15 minutes reflecting back over this past year.  About the things that you did.  And the things you didn’t.

And as take a stroll down the hall of memories that you’ve made the past 12 months, consider the choices that you made.

You probably made some choices that you’re very proud of – and some that may not make you so proud.

Whatever the case, as you move closer to January 1st, 2010, consider what it would take for you to make this next year the MOST memorable year of your life.

What would it take?

Would you need to improve your business to a level previously unimaginable?

Is there a relationship that needs to be dramatically improved?

Is there a health goal that is becoming critical to reach?

Whatever the case, I encourage you to consider these questions so that you can skip the new years resolutions – and instead, focus on the one big thing that – if achieved – could make this next year absolutely unforgettable.

Then – hold it in the fore-front of your attention for the next 12 months.  We’d love to hear about the end results

If you have any questions inthe mean-time, shoot us a quick email and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Cheers to you.

Not because there is anything wrong with free marketing – they are often the most effective kind.

And not because I mind giving free advice – I do it all the time, and enjoy it.

And certainly not because there’s anything wrong with “free” – it’s my favorite price.

The problem lies between the ears of the person asking for it.  Usually, there is a negative situation that is promulgating their request [more specifically - lack of funds].

Bootstrap ideology is fun – and growing a business from the grassroots can be an exhilarating challenge.

But one of the main reasons that businesses fail is because they are under-capitalized.  And that is what makes me cringe when I am asked for free marketing ideas.

So – if you’re under-capitalized, and you are reading this for free marketing ideas – I suggest you solve your capitalization issue before trying to expand your marketing efforts.

Now – for actual marketing ideas.

There are two over-arching systems that you can set up for free (or near free) marketing promotions [there's actually more, but there's no reason to write a full book today]:

1. Incentive-based referrals from existing clients.

2. Lead-generation using complimentary products.

From my experience, most people looking for free marketing ideas don’t have many (if any) existing clients.  However, using existing clients as a platform for more business is one of the most effective ways to increase your marketing immediately.

The key is incentive and followup – you have to provide a strong incentive to your clients to get them to take an action (in this case, providing a referral). It’s called an ethical bribe – creating a “square deal” for your client in exchange for them putting you in touch with more potential business.

Example 1:

You own a restaurant.  You offer each and every table that sits down a free appetizer for try a free subscription to your email newsletter. (ethical bribe # 1).

You then email an offer for a free entrée if they recommend 5 people whom they think would dig your restaurant.  You then follow up via email, letting the recommended know that they have been referred by so-and-so, and that you’d like to offer them a free appetizer for trying out your restaurant.

Example 2:

You sell cellular phones.  Whenever an existing client is buying a phone, you offer them a free upgrade (either to their plan, free text messages, whatever) in exchange for them referring 5 people who they know.

Then (while they are in the store, and getting their phone book changed over), you ask them who the 5 people that they would live to speak to more often but are not on your phone company’s service plan.  Those are your 5 referrals – you then contact them with a special offer based on so-and-so’s recommendation (talk to Joe for your first 2 months free for switching service providers, get a free plan upgrade, etc).

This works well with existing clients.

“But what if I don’t have any any clients?” I hear a someone in the back of the room whine in a nasally, high-pitched voice.

Answer - FIND SOME.

Lucky for us, we live in a nation that has $1.7 TRILLION in annual discretionary income.  There are plenty of people looking for what you have.

But to find new clients, you have to focus on generating a targeted lead.

Solution:

I prefer online lead generation.  Because it’s easy.

Here’s how it works:

1. Pick a product that compliments yours (does not COMPETE – but compliments).

2. Sell it on Amazon, Craigslist, or Ebay - wherever.

3. Follow up with the lead with YOUR product.

That’s it!

Still struggling to get this?  Perhaps some examples will help:

Example 1:

You sell a weight-loss program.  Let’s say you’re the last person left selling a coaching program for the famed pineapple diet (you can do better than that!).  You sell a book about Pineapples online.

You don’t care about making money with this book – in fact, you can even afford to take a hit with it, because you’re just trying to generate a real-time, targeted lead.  Once you sell a copy of this book, you follow up with the client with your own Pineapple Fad-Diet Coaching Program.

Example 2:

You sell Hostas [rather - hosta bulbs].  You want to sell more.  So you pick up a book on Hostas – sell it – follow up with the purchaser with offers for host bulbs, planters, additional info – etc.

Again – you don’t care if you make anything by reselling the book.  You’re using the it as a tool to get people who are interested in what you have to offer.  This is a fantastic way to conduct market-testing as well.

“But what about Web 2.0? I’ve heard you can get lots of customers by using Facebook and Youtube…” my pretend question-asker asks.

True statement! You CAN get lots of clients with those tools.  To do that, you have to develop lead generation campaigns that lead with value, and they require building relationships and providing useful stuff to the people in those spaces.

And that takes work.

It’s fun, and very effective.  But you gotta get setup with video equipment, or start writing, or start tweeting.  And most small business owners just need to start selling something to make money, and Twitter (or Facebook) is not the place to conduct that type of conversation off the bat.

It’s easier to take someone that has already sold themselves on a niche, then move in and provide superior information, better service, and more valuable and actionable advice.