CLICK HERE (affiliate link) to find out more about it.

I’ve bought Andrea’s book and she’s really helpful. She knows her stuff when it comes to using Facebook to market your small business.

Are you frustrated with Facebook? You are not alone!

Do any of these conditions apply to you?

* You have worked hard, created your Facebook Page and you still don’t have too many “fans”.

* Or you have a large community but you aren’t getting the interaction you want and just don’t know what to try next.

* You feel like Facebook takes too much time and isn’t giving you the results you want.

CLICK HERE NOW (affiliate link) to find out more about it.

Some of it is vintage.
Some of it is hand made.
Some of it is a combo of both.
Some of it, you’ll need an attitude to wear.

All of it looks great.

CLICK HERE – Millinery & Vintage Fashion to see the shop.

This is a vintage hat and net that we “repurposed” and embellished on. We found the hat in a local second-hand shop with nothing but the shell and netting. To make it a one-of-a-kind piece, we added grey ostrich feathers and black cock tail feathers, along with a dainty little red silk ranunculus. This would be great to wear on an evening out!

Read the entire article at:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/70798887/repurposed-vintage-pillbox-hat-with

I think this is true for all artists.

But the reality is, most people are not reading your blog because they have an inherent love for purple dogs and green sofas. They’re reading your blog because THE PERSON YOU ARE inspires them. They’re not reading your blog because they’re thinking of buying your paintings, they’re reading your blog because the way you approach your work inspires them. It sets an example for them. It stands for something that resonates with them. IT LEADS THEM TO SOMEWHERE THAT THEY ALSO WANT TO GO.

And if your blog can do that, suddenly your readers are associating purple dogs and green sofas with something that ACTUALLY matters to them. And then, and only then, do they pull their credit cards out. Ker-chiing.

That’s the REAL job of the artist: To be a leader, not to fill the space with pretty “stuff”

Read the entire article at:
http://gapingvoid.com/2010/06/14/wmabf/

The North End Caffe

I discovered a new place to eat recently. I drove by it all the time, but never stopped.

One day, I saw them shooting the TV show, Diners, Drive ins and Dives there. Guy and his red Camaro were out front. I’m a huge fan.

I stopped by later, to get an order “to go” and check them out. It was a friday night at dinnertime, so the place was busier than an Apple store on iPad day.

The guy who took my order was really friendly. I told him it was my first time there.

The owner talked to me a bit and gave me free samples of their fried pimento cheese balls. That name doesn’t do them justice. They were little bites of heaven.

When I got home, my wife and I tasted all of the food we got. It was all amazing.

I think they use too much butter on everything. (How can that be bad?)

We kept saying to each other “Try this! Isn’t this amazing?”

(If you are ever in Manhattan Beach, stop by The North End Caffe. Try the “Shroomin’ Chicken” or the “Kahlua Pig Monte Cristo Egg Rolls”.)

Painted in big letters, above today’s specials, across the entire wall at the back of the restaurant, is the phrase “FAME OPTIMUM CONDIMENTUM“.

FAME OPTIMUM CONDIMENTUM

I asked the owner what it meant.

He said is was latin for “Hunger is the best seasoning”.

He was right. I wanted this food and it tasted great.

Story Two

A reader recently asked me to look at their site to see what was wrong with it.

They followed all the SEO advice I’d written and did everything they could to get more traffic.

They weren’t getting much, and the traffic they did get, didn’t convert into sales.

I looked at their site. It was obvious what they were selling.

The site looked OK. No spectacular design or anything out of the ordinary, but it was fine.

The products that they were selling were not exciting. I know that I personally wasn’t interested in their type of product, but I knew some people would be.

But the designs and colors and the finish and everything about the products just seemed blah to me.

I didn’t care. I had no desire.

I had no hunger for those products.

If they were food, they’d taste like oatmeal.

Without the raisins.

Basic Business

You’ve heard of “supply and demand”, right? The higher the demand and the lower the supply, the higher the cost.

When the price of gas goes up, people drive less. There’s less demand. The price comes back down.

I don’t really care what the prices are at The North End Caffe.

I love their food. I want their food. I’ll buy their food. Here, take my money, please!

The products in the second story are not worth anything to me.

I wouldn’t even want them if they were free, because then I’d have to walk them out to the curb on trash day.

A common mistake that I see with people’s businesses, is that they create and sell what they want to create and sell, with no regard for what the market wants.

If there is no demand for your products, you are going out of business.

Don’t make what you want. Make what your market wants.

Find their desire and satisfy it. This is true of jewelry and oil pumps.

Make people happy and you’ll never have to worry about money.

Conrad Walton wants to ride off into the sunset in the end.

What About Me?

I know I’ve been bugging you about “telling your story” as part of your marketing. I bought Johnny B Truant’s course in “StorySelling” (affiliate link). I’ve learned a lot and preached a lot about it.

I know it’s been frustrating for some of you. I think one of the comments was essentially “I work hard and do a good job, but beyond that, I got nothing.”

In the midst of it all, I had to stop and ask myself, “Conrad, what’s your story?”

I didn’t have an answer.

The 3 Act Play

Back when I wanted to make a movie, I learned about script writing. I know that a good story has three parts, like the classic the three act play.

First, there’s the set up. This is where you explain the characters and the situation they are in. All of the background is explained in this part. Characters are identified and fleshed out.

The second act is the conflict. There has to be a conflict of some sort. An obstacle to overcome, an adversary to fight, an internal battle to win. It could be a dragon to slay, to rescue the princess. It could be the Rebel Alliance striking against the Empire. It could be obscurity.

The final act is resolution. This is where all of the tension of the second act is resolved. If this was a horror movie, this is where the monster dies and they all live happily ever after. This is where “the Chase” is, you know, when they say “cut to the chase”. There’s a car chase, shots fired, then an explosion, and the bad guys get caught. That’s resolution.

Hero’s Journey

One of the all time classic plot lines is called “The Hero’s Journey”. Typically, the protagonist is someone that readers identify with. The Hero have to go somewhere to do something that will accomplish some great feat. The Lord Of The Rings comes to mind.

I started to think about me, my character. I think that I’ve been on a journey, and continue to be on a journey. I tried to think about what I’ve overcome, what conflicts I’ve had.

The story of Johnny B Truant is that he was in financial ruin, caused by bad real estate deals, who became friends with Naomi at Ittybiz.com, who took him on as a mentor, then he went on to make millions of dollars and live happily ever after. That last part might not be right.

When In Doubt

I couldn’t think of my “story”, so I did what I always do when I’m lost and confused.

I asked my wife.

She thought for a while.

She finally said that I have always fought the establishment. I introduced new ideas, but they got rejected, only to have the establishment come around and accept them in the end.

There was a little flash as the light bulb appeared over my head.

She said that I am always trying out new things, new technologies, trying to figure out a better way. I’ve never been afraid of change. I’ve often failed, but I’ve never given up.

The light bulb was glowing brightly.

Act One, Scene One

Here are some anecdotes from my past to illustrate.

In 1994 or so, I worked for a large aerospace company, in a cube farm. I was in a group that documented the procedures the entire department used. I had one of the only 3 computers in the entire department. (We were blasting into the 90s!)

I had been learning about this new Internet thing, I had my own web server and was writing HTML, so I had one of the first versions of Netscape on my computer. I had it up on my screen when I went to lunch. A co-worker, who was not a friend, made a screen print of it and put it on my manager’s director’s desk. The director’s name was Bud. Bud was from Texas.

After lunch, I got called into Bud’s office. As I walked in behind him, I saw the word “Internet” written on his blackboard. As he walked by, he underlined it with chalk. These were the days when the Internet was only used by hackers, child pornographers, and copyright infringers, you know.

I sat down and he asked me “What do you know about that?” I said “Well, um… I know a lot about that. I think we should use it to publish our procedures with, actually. What do you want to know?”

“Oh.” Pause… “Well, don’t use it during work hours!”

“Sure boss, whatever you say.”

Two weeks later, he asked me to write him a web page so it would be easy to check his stocks… during the day… during work hours…

Act One, Scene Two

I had a similar story with the church I was going to at the time. One of the first domain names I registered was the name of this church. I created a web site for them on my own server.

I was called into their office also. I was told to take down the web site. The Internet was only used by the aforementioned scofflaws. They didn’t want to be associated with them. “Do it now.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I didn’t take it down. (Yes, I was disobedient to my church leadership!)

I don’t think they knew how to check if it was up or not.

Within months, they started asking me to update it.

When I left that church, (and you knew was going to leave it sooner or later…), they demanded that I give them the domain name.

I gave it to them.

Act Two

I learn technology as fast as I can. I am an expert in lots of technical stuff.

I break rules that need to be broken and do what needs to be done.

I fight the man, fight the establishment. I’m in touch with my inner hippy, in that regard.

But that’s all “set up”, the first act. That’s the background to who I am.

What’s my second act? What’s the conflict that I’m dealing with today?

One Tablespoon, Twice A Day

I’m afraid it might be me. I need to fight my own establishment. I’m being oppressed by myself. This fight is an internal one.

I’m best known for not being known.

I think the dragon I have to slay is obscurity. To do that, I need to overcome some of my own fears and insecurities.

Today, I’m going to take my own medicine and start working hard, being committed to marketing my stuff. I’m going to implement all these things that I’ve been telling you to do. My goal is to become better known, to be “Internet Famous”. I want to ride off into the sunset in the end.

I want you to come with me. Are you ready to get famous and make money?

Here we go. I’m counting to 3 and jumping off.

I hope there’s a happy ending.

What’s your conflict?, your second act?

I always hear people say that teachers should be paid more because they are taking care of our children, our most precious future, the most important job of all.

I think they should be paid less, and here’s why.

An Example

I know a, um… a person. Let’s keep this all anonymous so no knows I’m talking about them and hates me. I actually have known a few teachers in my life. Every teacher I’ve ever known has been a caring, loving, good person. They are intelligent people who want to make the world a better place. People who really care about children. All good stuff.

That’s not why they should be paid less.

This person can’t make enough money as a teacher to make ends meet. They have to take on a second job, doing menial work that doesn’t pay very well. If they demanded more money as a teacher, they would get fired and someone else would get the job.

The problem is that there are too many people who are good teachers. It’s not hard to be a good teacher. You have to remember to not drop kids on their heads. You have to make sure they don’t bite each other. I think you can take some classes to teach you how to be a better teacher, but it’s not “hard”.

There are a lot of good teachers in the world.

That’s the problem.

When anyone can do what you are doing, then it becomes a commodity and then it’s all based on cost. Walmart crushes you.

Rock Stars

Rock stars and professional sports players are criticized for making too much money. It seems that making $80 million a year is excessive. Is it? Is it fair?

It doesn’t matter if its fair. It’s the way things work.

Why can they command outrageous amounts of money? Because they are them!

You want to see Lady GaGa in concert? How about Taylor Swift? Bruce Springsteen? Want to see the Lakers play? The Yankees?

They all have a unique personality, a unique story. They are who they are and no one can do what they do.

You can’t call up a temp agency and get a stand in to sing for Taylor Swift one night because she’s not feeling well.

You can certainly get a substitute teacher for third period Math.

Be Who You Are

One of the basic principles of business is that when there’s a small supply and a large demand, it costs more. That’s called supply and demand.

I got this from Gaping Void, one of my favorite blogs (that you should read every day.)

“Don’t be the best in the world at what you do; be the only one in the world who does what you do.”

That quote is me paraphrasing Jerry Garcia, lead guitar of The Grateful Dead. The thought always resonated with me.

If people like what you’re doing, and you’re the only one who’s doing it, you win.

Read the entire article at:
http://gapingvoid.com/2010/10/03/dont/

No one can be you, other than you. If you want to be unique, if you want to be an artist, then you need to embrace who you are. Tell that story. Not for your own satisfaction, but for your clients. You need tell your story so people want to be your fan and pay you money for your stuff.

Think of your favorite rock star.

You want to drive up the demand for you.

Next Steps

If you want to be “handmade jewelry,” you’ll drown in a sea of competitors. If you want to be the artist that makes jewelry made from glass tumbled in the ocean, then collected by hand on the beaches of Southern California, then you are Mermaid’s Purse. There’s only one place to get Mermaid’s Purse sea glass jewelry and that’s from Deborah.

Find out what makes you unique. Maybe it’s your personality. Maybe it’s a combination of a normal product that’s been presented in a new way. Whale Tails Chips is that example (It’s a chip AND it saves the whales). Maybe it’s your own journey to where you are now. Maybe it’s a niche of the larger market.

Find out who you are and tell that story.

Your assignment this week is to write one blog post, on your blog, (you have a blog, don’t you?), describing what makes your company different than any other company in the world.

Leave a comment with a URL to your blog post so we can read it.

Tell us why you are a rock star and not a sessions player.

I wouldn’t promote anything that I didn’t buy myself and believe in.

-conrad

The first month I ever made any money online, I made $3000. In my first year, I made over $100,000.

When people saw my quick success, they asked me, “How did you do it?” But it wasn’t an innocent inquiry — it was usually said with frustration, exasperation, and sometimes anger. They meant, “I’ve been trying to make something happen and am getting nowhere. What are you doing that I’m not doing? What makes you so special?”

For a long time, I didn’t know what to tell them. I told them I was persistent, that I was good at networking, that you have to make as many friends as possible and get as many people as possible to like you. All of that was true, but none of it gave the whole picture.

Then it hit me all at once. I realized why my persistence eventually paid off, why I was able to convert networking leads into business, and why I was able to turn all of those friends into loyal customers.

What I realized was this: I sell everything with stories.

Read the entire article at:
http://johnnybtruant.com/storyselling-101-store/

What are you going to do?

Our cat Spike, on his iPad, made by Apple.
This will almost make sense in a minute. Keep reading.

Beyond SEO

SEO is about search terms and keyword density and algorithms. There are no interesting stories or relationships in SEO. If you want to go beyond SEO, you need to work on relationships, and those are built on stories.

When I say stories, I don’t mean literal stories. I mean an image, a presentation of your business that sets it apart from other businesses. A story is what your company means to your users.

For a classic example, when I say “Apple”, you think of Steve Jobs, white earbuds, and arrogance.

When I say “Prius”, you think of “the environment”, “best gas mileage in the world”, and “kittens”.

I don’t. I hate Prius drivers. I think of arrogance and elitism. What do you think of that?

See what just happened there? I made a statement. Some of you cheered. Some of you now hate me and want to see me dragged behind a Prius until I’m dead. (Sorry. I was just making a point. I still love kittens.)

I just told you a story about me. Now, I’m “the guy who hates Prius drivers.” You can either embrace that or hate me, but you won’t forget me. Steve Jobs makes statements with his products too. You either like it or you hate it.

You need to make a statement, so that people can embrace you. No statement, no fans. What is your company? Fill in the blank “My company is the one that _____.”

I guess the central point of this is that you have to know who you are, really know who you are, before you can communicate that to the world.

Glorias Mexican and Salvadorean Restaurant

Fear

There’s fear to be overcome here, no matter what business you have. There’s a fear of rejection, of judgement. What if you lose sales? What if you offend someone? What if people criticize you or your products?

I would answer that by saying, unless you make a statement, tell a story, then you will lose sales for sure. You won’t be rejected because they will never know that you even exist.

I say be who you are. Loud and proud.

You will make more money doing that than by being polite.

Be Someone Else

If you’re not happy with the current state of your business, you can invent someone new. I follow Johnny B. Truant, who allowed me to guest post on one of his sites. You know that’s not his real name. When he started writing, he was afraid of what people would say about him, so he created an alter ego. There’s a real person behind it, but what you see on the Internet is from an invented person, or maybe a personality.

So you may ask: Who am I, really? And I’d answer without hesitation that regardless of the name on my birth certificate, I’m Johnny B. Truant. He’s who you see here — who you’re reading right now. He’s who I always was, deep down — even before that part of me had ever seen the light of day.

Here’s what any of this has to do with you, with any writer, or any creative person.

People ask how I write so much, and how I’ve been able to capture a decent amount of attention in a short period of time.

The people who ask me this are stuck. They’re spinning their wheels, unable to get past a block in their own creative process.

My advice to those people is this: Look deep inside yourself. Find the equivalent of your own Johnny. Then, lend him your keyboard or whatever you use to create, and see what happens.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.copyblogger.com/johnny-b-truant/

This is about marketing. Marketing takes the best parts of your business and promotes them so that people will buy your stuff. If you’re not happy with everything about your business now, reinvent it. Come up with a new twist, a new story.

This doesn’t have to be exactly about you. It doesn’t have to be exactly about the truth. It’s about the enhanced truth. It’s about “brand”. A brand is nothing more than shorthand for the story. People don’t have time to analyze the truth. They only have time to understand the story.

Do you make great tasting tortilla chips? or do you make Whale Tail Chips that support saving the whales? Do you sell door hardware? or do you sell cool barn door hardware that will make your house modern and unique?

Think of every company or personality that you know and love. What is their story? Starbucks? FOX? WordPress? Wacom? AT&T? Obama? Glenn Beck? Cambell’s Soup? Mermaid’s Purse Sea Glass? Handmade Jewelry? Conrad Walton?

Comments

I have to tell you that I was blown away by the comments that you left last week. I asked for creativity and vulnerability. You gave us that and more. Wow. I want to see a photo of The Floor Elf, so I can run away in horror. I want to hug and cry with Nan and Deborah. Everyone else poured out their thoughts and feelings and that really moved me.

Now on to the next step. This isn’t just about making you feeling better. This is about selling your products, by putting a real, human story behind them. Take your vulnerabilities and fears and journeys and turn them into sales points. Tell us who you are, so we like can you (or not) and buy your stuff. This is about marketing.

Enemies

A note about enemies. If you haven’t made someone mad or offended someone, then you aren’t trying. Do you think that Steve Jobs cares if you think the new iPhone is great or not? Be bold. Make a strong statement that chases off some people and draws others even closer to you. You won’t make fans without making enemies. The worst thing to happen is to not make either.

I’m starting to ramble. I can tell by the soap box that I’m standing on. I’ll get down and let you have your turn now.

What is your story? What is your business? Why should anyone care? Why should I buy your stuff?

Please leave a comment. Thanks.

The question, however, was not typical. Read it all.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/DamikDesigns

The thing is, right now, I am suffering from information overload. I want to set up a wordpress site, but I can’t think of any keywords that are relevant.

The only thing I can think of is “I make jewelry. Should I call it jewelry something or something jewelry? I’m doing lamp work, so should I work that in somewhere? But I don’t want it to be something dry. I want it to reflect me a little bit, is that a good idea or do I want it cut and dried? (Oh a squirrel.)

Maybe I should call it Danie’s Lampwork Pendants? But my etsy site is Damikdesigns don’t I want my page to allude to that somehow? Besides I’m doing more than just lampwork pendants, was it here that I read I shouldn’t sell a variety of things on my etsy site because it will start to look like a garage sale? But I don’t want to manage too many etsy sites and my product list for any one endevor would be too short because of the whole attention thing, so maybe I’m just not cut out for thi- “.

Then I pass out because somewhere along the way I forgot to keep breathing.

I thought that was funny enough that I read it out loud to my wife.

(Write that down. It’s on the test. “She was funny.”)

She goes on to say:

I got to the part where you mentioned the email lists and how important they are. My heart sank a little, because I just don’t have tips, hints, or services that anybody would be interested in. I don’t have anything to offer that would inspire someone to want to read emails from me.

So tell me… Would YOU want to read a newsletter written by someone like that? I think she’s hilarious. I would subscribe and I don’t even care about “lampwork beads”, whatever they are.

It’s not about the beads or tips. It’s about Danie.

Never Going To Win

I got a lot of my newsletter subscribers from Etsy, through the kindness of a forum post by Linda Welcome, who makes felt mice, who wrote a glowing review of the SEO book I wrote. I still get traffic from that post, months later.

(Write that down too. “Got traffic from forum post.”)

Now, as much as I love my Etsy people, they all seem to have the same problem. They are all trying to optimize for the same keywords. I mean, how many people can be on the front page of the search results page for “handmade jewelry”? Sorry, but you guys are just in a crowded field and you’re just not going to win the SEO battle.

Winning Is Not Enough

On the other hand, I have a client, Barn Door Hardware, who sells specialty doors. They own their keyword on the search results page. Go ahead and look it up. They are number one for any of their search terms. Since they own all of the search traffic, where do they get more traffic? What other sources can they tap into?

Another Way To Win

I always thought that SEO was the best way for most people. You get a bunch of free traffic from random people searching for your keyword and that’s that.

I was wrong.

I’m becoming aware, over the last year or so, of another way to get traffic. This method is beyond SEO. I’ve seen people get popular, get loads of traffic, and make a bucket of money using this method. It won’t shut you out if you have a lot of competition for your keyword. It will add to you traffic if you own all of your keywords. It’s available to everyone.

Oh, and it’s hard work and takes time.

Cult Of Personality

The idea is that, instead of basing marketing on keywords that people search for, you base marketing on you. You build relationships with people. You talk to people. You get to know friends of friends. You have the “conversation”. It’s all about relationship building.

I know this sounds like high school all over again, but it’s more than that, and much more formal.

The ways to build relationships with people are going to be through a few channels. You should be writing in a blog. Ask people to subscribe to your newsletter. You should be commenting on other people’s blog posts. Research the blogs in your market and target them with comments. Get to know people and be social with them.

Johnny B Truant wrote a post about it here. http://www.copyblogger.com/popular-blogger/

This is all going to be based on you, or at least a personality that you can assume. This is the difference between “MP3 Player” and “iPod”, between “Over played popular music” and “Lady GaGa”. It’s beyond the keyword and into the personality.

Pissed Off

I wrote about my struggle with traffic and anger and jealousy in a guest post that was just published at Question The Rules. Johnny was starting up a blog on the site and asked for guest posts. He got a ton of them, but selected mine to be published first. From his response and the comments I’ve gotten, it seems that people are strongly reacting to the personal journey that I traveled. I was told that it took nerve to put that out there.

(That’s on the test too. Write down “personal journey”.)

I got a spike of new people subscribing to the newsletter from that guest post. All of a sudden, there are a bunch of people who know my name, my URL, and my Twitter ID.

Getting Started

I’ll be exploring this more in the future. I’m getting better at it. I’ve come a long way and I’m learning more all the time.

The overview of the method is to figure out who you want to be friends with, then go be friends with them.

To get started, do some research on who you want to be friends with.
Who is doing similar things to you?
Who could use the help that you can give?
Who is a heavy hitter in your niche?
Who is just cool?
Who sounds like fun?
Who is interesting?
Who needs what you have?
Who wants what you have?

Write out a list of URLs for people and places that you want to build a relationship with. Then start building. I know you’re afraid and have no time, but it will be OK and totally worth the effort.

The Test

You didn’t think there was really a test, did you? Ha! Pop quiz, everyone. Stop talking, pull out some paper, and look up here.

For your test, I want you to post a comment below that describes you and is either
1. something funny, or
2. a fear you have, or
3. a journey that you are taking (took?).

I want you to share just a little piece of yourself (and a URL). You get points for vulnerability and creativity.

Your time starts now.

It’s not.

While it’s true that SEO will get more people in the door of your web site and you can build traffic using purely SEO tactics, that’s only half the story to making money.

Imagine this

Imagine a real estate agent at an open house. Strangers walk into the house, say pleasant things, then leave, probably with better ideas on how they will fix up their own house. No sale.

Imagine a guy selling hot dogs from a cart on the corner of two busy streets in downtown. Strangers pass by all day. In a split second, they decide if they want a hot dog or not. Most people, not so much.

They both get a lot of traffic, but not a lot of sales. Traffic is only half the solution.

Now imagine going to your favorite place to eat. You walk in. They know you and welcome you back. You sit down and the waitress asks how things are and if you want your usual. She pours you coffee without asking because she knows that you want it.

The difference

What is the difference? The difference is “relationship”.

Now, you’ve probably heard that before. I have. It’s a buzz word and blah, blah, blah. Who cares? What does it mean to me?

I didn’t believe this for the longest time. I’ve recently become aware of the value of relationship. It seems that all of the people who have succeeded on line, have used relationships to do it. I’ve slowly become a believer.

There are a lot of methods and strategies, but I want to focus on one that is easy and direct, so that you can start using it right now.

A mailing list

Yes, a mailing list. The biggest business mistake that you are making is not having a email mailing list.

I can hear you groaning, but let me tell you, if you do not have a mailing list on your web site, you are leaving money on the table. Someone if stealing food from your baby’s mouth.

A web site is built for lots of people to stop by and check out. They can do it any time and without you ever knowing who they are.

Email is direct. It’s from me to you. You talking to me? Yeah, I’m talking to you.

I’m not talking about spam here, either. To be successful, people have to open the email and read it. They only way to do that is to give them something of value.

If someone sent you an email every week that contained the winning lottery numbers for that week, I think you might be motivated to open it.

How to do it

Here’s the general process. First, you get an email management service set up to manage this thing. Put a form on your web site, inviting people to sign up for your newsletter. Offer them something of value in return as an incentive. After people sign up, send them email, with some valuable information that they are interested in. They get in the habit of opening your newsletter email.

At this point, you have a relationship. You are no longer a guy selling hot dogs on the corner, you are the waitress pouring coffee for your favorite customer who leaves you big tips because he knows you and likes you.

When the people who get your newsletter are looking for what you have to sell, they will come to you instead of your competitor. When you have a new product, you are not pitching a product to a demographic, you are sharing cool new stuff with your friends.

There are a lot of details to make this work better, but this is the basic idea. You need to know that a mailing list will make you money in ways you didn’t expect. I didn’t believe it until I tried it. It really does work.

The next step

Here is my affiliate link, (that means I make a commission if you use it to sign up), that takes you to Aweber, the company that I use to manage my newsletters. (Yes, I have multiple newsletters for multiple sites and purposes.)

CLICK HERE FOR MORE MAILING LIST INFORMATION.