MMM: How A Home-Based Business Rockets From Scratch To $78 Million - Online and Info Product Marketing

MMM: How A Home-Based Business Rockets From Scratch To $78 Million

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Hello,

Marlon here.

This week's ARTICLE:

How A Little Short Guy, Terrified of Selling, Started
A Business From Scratch At Home And Made $78 Million

By Marlon Sanders

— Is a “lead generation system” worth $78 million?
— The difference between “selling stuff” and a System for selling
— What separated Walter from everyone else?
— The 7 killer mistakes people make in creating marketing Systems
— Why people don't value what they don't pay much for
— How Walter generated leads at seminars
— The vital necessity of steady lead flow
— Do you know the marketing play you're running?
— How long does it take to build a marketing funnel?

Six weeks ago I challenged you to create your own product and a
sales letter all in one week. I HOPE you're still acting on that.
Are you doin' or are you talkin?

Take the article, change the URL in the resource box at the
end to a reseller ID and stick it on your web site, blog,
Facebook blog, Myspace blog, Hub Page, Squidoo lens, or Google
Pages.

Put it up and announce it on Facebook, Twitter, your blog,
email, or whatever else you have.

This IS an article people will want to read. You WILL make
sales from the link in the resource box.

If you don't have a reseller ID, just go to:
http://www.getyourprofits.com and sign up. It only takes
2 minutes.

There are 4 ADS at the end of this ezine. You can replace
all THOSE with reseller links if you want.

Marlon

P.S. After you read today's article, please pass it along
on your blog, email or just to a few close friends.

Then hit me back on my blog.

I personally comment back. Let me hear from YOU!
https://www.marlonsnews.com/

PPS: Other marketers ONLY send you good content during their
product launch. I'm with you every week, motivating, inspiring,
educating. Where are THEY when a product launch isn't going down?

I'm here every week delivering rock solid content based on years
of experience. If you like what you get here, and want more of
it, please pass the word along on forums, blogs and so forth…
that THIS is the ezine to come to for real world marketing help.

******************************************
Marlon's Marketing Minute
Electronic Newsletter
http://www.promotemarlon.com
Vol. 4, #18, May 23, 2009
******************************************

This issue contains:

A. Sponsor Advertisement: Step-By-Step Screen Caps and
Videos Guide You To Creating Your Own Marketing System

B. Announcements from Marlon (Important)

C. Main Article: How A Little Short Guy, Terrified of Selling,
Started A Business From Scratch At Home And Made $78 Million

D. Services You Can Use

Brought to you by: Marlon Sanders – Publisher

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A. Sponsor Advertisement

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B. Announcements from Marlon

==> Give Away “The Best Of Marlon Sanders” to your friends
or list and snag spending cash and prizes!

I've just released “The Best Of Marlon Sanders”

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==> Download your FREEBIE ebook now.

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There is a squeeze page. The idea is for you to enter
the email address you actually READ! I'll send out a version
later where you can bypass the squeeze if it bugs you.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
C. MAIN ARTICLE

How A Little Short Guy, Terrified of Selling, Started
A Business From Scratch At Home And Made $78 Million

By Marlon Sanders
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“So Marlon, how did you like the swimming pool?” he asked me.

“Walter, what swimming pool?” I whipped back.

He said, “You open the door in my bedroom and it
goes into a room with an Olympic-sized swimming
pool that belonged to FDR.”

FDR stood for Franklin D. Roosevelt, the famed
President that got America out of the great
depression, according to many historians.

Anyway, I opened the little side door in Walter's
bedroom and sure enough. After you walked through
the spa room, there was another room with this
olympic-sized swimming pool in it. And you could
see the steps and the rail FDR used to lower
himself out of his wheelchair into the pool.

You know you're doing OK on money when you have an
ex-President's pool in your bedroom.

Walter had built a new house. So I was staying
in his bedroom in the old one. My purpose there
was to write sales letters for him.

Back in the day, I charged per page.

Copywriter's today would make fun of charging per page.

But they don't get it.

Back in the day, there were precious FEW copywriters.
You could charge however you wanted. My fees at the
time were in the top 5% or 10% of all copywriters.
Not that I had a LOT to compete with.

So here was this little short guy. Walter “Itsy
Bitsy” Hailey. He started out as a failure in selling
and ended up making 600 million via a few businesses.

His FIRST successful business sold for $78 million,
even though the actual “earnings” of the business were
only a few million. He always told me he started it at
home from scratch. Of course, he quickly outgrew his home
and moved to offices and all that jazz.

Why? Because a really large company stood to make a
small fortune from the lead generation system he'd
assembled. THAT is how valuable a lead generation
system is. In essence, this company paid $78 million
for not much more than a lead generation system!

Was it worth it to them? Sure was. They stood to
make many more millions from it on a yearly basis.

But all his success boiled down to one thing —
having a SYSTEM for selling stuff, whatever it was.

Notice I didn't just say “being a great sales person.”

You don't build billion dollar businesses by selling
everything yourself. You create a SYSTEM for selling
that's a whole process.

Once you get that System down pat, you can bring in
sales people on salary or commission (or both) to
do the selling for you.

Lead generation on a consistent basis separated Walter
from everyone else. He created Systems that generated
tons of leads. All sales people want qualified, warm
leads more than anything else.

If you have warm, qualified leads (interested people)
then the sales people will come.

One time Walter and I took a walk outside his ranch
home up the somewhat steep hill there. I fired question
after question about his lead generation System.

I could write a book or two on what I learned from
Walter.

But the main thing is that a sales machine does NOT
run without a steady flow of leads.

Here are a few common mistakes people make in putting
together their lead generation System:

1. Failing to identify the hot buttons of the target
audience.

You can't get people into your marketing funnel unless
and until you know what turns them on. Walter knew
the hot buttons of his audience inside and out. This
is step one.

Just as an example, when Walter spoke at conventions
for dentists, he offered a freebie report on a super
hot topic if they'd just give him their business card.
Almost everyone did because he KNEW their hot buttons.

2. Failing to know in advance the OUTCOME you want
when someone enters your marketing funnel.

Walter had a clearly defined path his prospects would
go through.

Where are they going? What actions are they going to
take? How are you going to get them to buy progressively
larger amounts over and over?

3. Trying once or twice to get people into your marketing
funnel and then giving up.

Success results from testing and tracking a variety of
possibilities over and over. Walter used inbound sales
people for this. But in other businesses, he used outside
commission sales people.

4. Not knowing in advance the “marketing play” you're
running.

Are you targeting people who are underserved? Overserved?
Non consumers? Are you playing offense? Flanking moves?
Guerrilla tactics?

5. Using feast or famine lead generation techniques
that leave you high and dry after “the big event” is over.

Walter lived and breathed lead generation, just as you
should. You just can't set up too many lead generation
systems.

One thing Walter did in his seminar business for dentists
was tons of public speaking. This crude lead generation
method takes a lot of work but he did it all the time
because he knew how critical a constant flow of leads was
to that particular business.

6. Failing to split test many variations of your name
capture “squeeze” page until you get 50% or more to join
your list on a consistent, routine basis.

7. Failing to have a pre-planned, tested follow up
sequence in place.

Now, that may sound like a daunting task. But a friend of
mine just totally rebuilt his marketing funnel since January
of this year. He anticipates doing $70,000 this month, all
from consistent, steady lead generation, without product
launch mania.

He anticipates being able to ramp up his funnel to $100,000
a month within 6 months. And this guy has been involved
in Internet marketing for only 2 years, more or less.

What's his secret?

Focus on lead generation, Systems and the marketing process.

Just consistent, steady, routine Systems in place.

Who do you want to target?

Why do you want to target them?

Do they have money to buy?

What will you offer them as a freebie to GET them into your
marketing funnel?

What marketing sequence will you follow up with to get them
to buy?

What are YOU focusing on?

Have you been focusing on finding places your target audience
hangs? Creating offers that get them on your list? And then
a sales process or sequence that gets them to buy progressively
larger dollar amounts from you?

Some people hesitate to sell larger dollar amounts.

I can tell you from a great deal of personal experience that
people will benefit VERY LITTLE from things they pay little
for. Psychologically, they don't value or respect the information.

It's why I'll be drastically increasing the price (and value) of
my Ateam calls shortly. At the stupid cheap price of $37, I can't
even get my members to show up on the calls.

Why?

Flat out I'm charging too little. You don't value what you don't
pay much for. You need to realize this and get bold about charging
your customers what your products and services are worth — without
guilt.

If you don't value what you sell, how is anyone else going to value
it? I'm NOT saying charge for shoddy products. It's a given that
you sell quality products and services.

But don't be shy about charging for what you sell. Of course, you
have to learn the marketing SKILLS that allow you to GET PAID for
the great value you offer.

One of my friends used to sell a seminar. He had to raise the
price to $5,000 before he could actually get people to DO what they
learned. Any price less than that and they didn't value the info
enough to actually do it. They just viewed it as something
interesting to think about.

Again, people don't respect and value what they don't pay for. Mark
it down. Repeat it as your mantra. You know that whole thing about
“move the free line?” Yeah, it's true — on your initial marketing
funnel. You gotta do whatever it takes to get people INTO your
funnel.

Once they're there? Charge 'em. Seriously. If you don't “get
that” then you really don't understand how the human brain works and
you've got a lot of learning about marketing, psychology and the
human brain to do. Now, if you don't care what people do, or if you
don't care if they benefit, then yeah, sell your stuff for a song
and a dance and be done with it. You won't help that many people
but you'll get lots of compliments on how cheap you are.

So what secret did Walter have others didn't?

1. He built lead generation machines.

His Systems generated thousands and thousands of leads from hot,
interested prospective buyers (what we in the biz call “prospects).

2. He charged a fair but substantial price for what he sold.

There's a saying that the trick to having money is to get people
to buy from you, or something like that.

I think it was Zig Ziglar who said poor sales people have skinny kids.

3. Walter had a passion for learning

There's this odd balance between buying information and doing.

If all you do is buy, buy, buy and you never DO, then you're on
the wrong path.

At the same time, you'll find out that Charlie T. Jones spoke
the truth when he said, “Leaders are readers.”

You gotta balance learning and doing. You need BOTH wheels on
your marketing machine.

ACTION STEPS

1. Find out who you want to target with your offer.

2. Make an enticing offer to get people into your marketing funnel.

3. Create a lead generation machine to send lots of people into
that marketing funnel.

4. Assemble your follow up system to get people to buy from you.

5. Charge for the value you create. Don't undersell yourself.

6. Split test the living daylights out of your lead capture page!

7. Sell progressively higher-priced products with matching greater
value and service.

———————————————————–
Marlon Sanders is the author of “The Amazing Formula That
Sells Products Like Crazy.”

To get on his killer ezine list, to get cheat sheets and all kinds
of other goodies every Saturday and during the week, to get simple,
to-the-point Internet marketing know that works real world without
all the hype, go to: https://www.marlonsnews.com and subscribe

Check out all my products here:

http://www.getyourprofits.com

(SIGN UP AS A RESELLER, put YOUR reseller URL and ID where
the above link is, post this on your web site and make some
dough for spreading a killer guide everyone will want to
read.)

//////////////////////

REPRINT RIGHTS: You have permission to use the above
article without omission and including the resource box.
You have the right to insert your reseller URL for any
products I mention

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

D. Resources for continuing education

(If you want to post this ENTIRE ezine, you can replace the
following links with your RESELLER links)

1. Save 100's on graphic design. FREEBIE report:
http://www.designdashboard.com/top10

2. The big picture of how a marketing process or system operates:
http://www.amazingformula.com

3. How to create your lead capture pages and follow up sequence:
http://www.promodashboard.com

4. How to create info products, so you have something to sell
http://www.productdashboard.com

5. Discover how to identify and sell to over-served, under-served
and non consumption markets. Unique info you won't read elsewhere.
http://www.myredfactor.com

==============================

E. Tinu finally will hold you by the hand and teach you the
secrets of Evergreen Traffic step-by-step

Who Else Wants An Organic Traffic Master To Hold Your Hand
And Walk You Step-By-Step To Getting Big Rushes Of Organic
Traffic To Your Web Site That Doesn't Cost You A Wooden Nickel?

http://www.TurboProfits.com/tracking/go.php?c=4_24_ezine_tinu

Copyright 2009 Higher Response Marketing Inc.
All rights reserved.

  • Brad West says:

    Hi Marlon,

    At one point I was just like Jennifer, except for the great location, I'm in Las Vegas.

    7 or 8 years of reading learning following people allot of times the wrong people, and buying the wrong stuff. Then one day i was reading don't even remember who it was and it hit me hard. I was reading and recording all thin information that was sometimes 4 and 5 times redundant.

    Crap!! pull up your boot straps and just do something with all this knowledge, I said to myself. I guess some people forget to do the take action part. It is a little scary but the more I fail the more successful I am.

    One thing I did get some great stuff out of was the 30 Day Challenge with Ed Dale. Don't know about taking everything done there as gospel but the mechanics of the program are great. Also working with others as a team is highly encouraged. Very helpful to have others to bounce things off of and communicate with.

    The internet business can be a lonely one if you let it be.

    Thanks for the post

    Brad West ~ onomoney

    [Hey Brad, how are you? I'm probably not clearly articulating my ideas at the moment. The post made sense to me! I wouldn't post at all except I'm going stir crazy. Tomorrow I find out if the doc will let me drive. Enough about me. Brad, not sure which sentiment of Jennifer's you're identifying with. If it's her confusion with what to do in order to make money, it's not all THAT complicated. You target your market, build your list, sell stuff to your list. My Dashboards show exactly how in detail to do that. If you don't have Productdashboard.com and promodashboard.com, I can't recommend them too highly. On the ACTION part, I couldn't agree more. And that IS how I designed the dashboards. For action. But with or without them, DOING as well as learning is absolutely critical. Agreed that Ed Dale is a great teacher. Pretty cool dude, too.]

  • Paul says:

    Thanks!! This is the most exciting and informative blog that I've yet to come across. Believe me in my quest for knowledge I have read many. Most have only lead me to products or supported products which greatly releived me of my time and money. Few if any provide the richness of info you offer. Kudos!! Will continue to follow and refer.

    Paul

  • TheNightOwl says:

    Marlon,

    This is a terrific article! I've heard about Walter Hailey before. Maybe from you; maybe from someone else. I can't remember.

    Isn't he the dude who was the shy-shy-shy salesman and took a completely different approach to the stereotypical, bombasitc jerks that we normally associate with Sales?

    At any rate, he was obviously doing something right and it seems that you've pointed out a couple of those things right there in the article.

    1. HOT BUTTONS — Man, I keep makin' this freakin' mistake, y'know. Intellectually, I KNOW this to be the way to go, but clearly there's some emotional block that's sabotaging my efforts to really do that well (whether it's in relation to proper market research, or keyword research, or headlines, or the offer to get folks into the funnel, etc).

    Here's an example: I just re-did a flyer that I'd been testing. Not much response. Talked to some folks, got a sense of their hotbuttons, rejigged it. Nice.

    But your article gave me a slap upside the head because I realised that right at the call to action, I'm not hitting ANY of those hot buttons! Eek!

    (It was, I think, the part about how Mr Hailey wouldn't give the pamplet unless he got their business card which triggerd my "Doh!" moment.)

    That will be changed pronto. Molto grazie!

    2. LEAD-GEN SYSTEM

    Again, I think most of us in the selling game kinda "get" this on an intellectual level, like "Yeah, of course we've got to have a lead-gen system in place!" but I wonder if people have ever mapped it out?

    Getting FreeMind (http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download ) and then doing a kind of "reverse mindmap" (you like that? I just made that term up!) where you end up with all the different ways your business touches prospects around the OUTSIDE and how that leads step-by-step to banking cheques in the CENTRE… that might help to visualise not only your system, but how different elements integrate with each other…

    …AND — very importantly — where you may have holes in the system and where you could interlink things already in place for a more or less synergistic effect.

    If I have time over the next week I'll knock one up and add it to the autoresponder sequence for my readers.

    —————–

    Thanks for taking the time to write this article, Marlon. I think it's a goodie!

    Best regards as always and get well soon,

    TheNightOwl

    [Hi Night Owl! Great to hear from you….I'm glad SOMEONE got what I'm articulating. My thoughts aren't the clearest at the moment. I'll be back to normal in a week or so when I can DRIVE and get to Starbucks. Man, I'm REALLY missing Starbucks. The reverse mindmap idea is very clever.]

  • Jennifer says:

    Hi Marlon,

    I left this page read your email again and thought as I have all along this guy sounds genuine, maybe he actually does read his emails occassionally and needs some feedback. I thought it was funny how you said you needed to sell some things to pay bills, because I remember the first video I watched of you saying how cashed up you were. Yours was one of the first marketing videos I watched, since then my email has been blocked up with marketing stuff, I've watched, I've downloaded, I've impulsively bought and got refunded because I didn't even understand what I was buying. It's all good but I'm so confused I'm still just sitting here in awe of the stuff that is available. Anyway I don't know at this stage where I will go from here, some things seem so easy but aren't, some things seem good but then they're too complicated to understand. Who do you follow, look I'm giving you some great ideas for your next book. Internet overload, I'm not a bad writer myself and could write on anything, but it's hard to focus at present.

    I will go to your web apge again sometime and read everything but right now I've just got to get my office in order and do some housework.

    Thanks for all the good information. I live on the Sunshine Coast in Australia and it's a beautiful part of the world.

    I would like to make a living on line, but I guess like everyone else it takes time to feel comfortable with it all I'm only just learning how to operate a computer.

    Have a great day. And let me know if you do read this.

    Sincerely,

    Jennifer

    [Hi Jennifer, what I said about the bills was really in reference to the video I sent out this week. Some people didn't like it because it had no content and was really just a promotion. I"m trying to explain to people who have been on my list a long time that like ANY marketer, I can't always send content. I have to break it up by selling stuff. There's really nothing here to be confused about Jennifer. You build your list, create products and sell them. My emails this week are a bit off since I'm a bit stir crazy being couped up at home! I have another week to go before I can drive much. Whew. If you are confused, I recommend you read my report for newbies: http://www.marlonsanders.com/newbiereport/ and also bestofmarlonsanders.com. I've been doing this full time since 1998 ….or before….I think I started 1996. Amazing Formula was the first product many modern day gurus bought. What I teach really does work. Build a list and sell stuff.]

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