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Denise Hall Publisher/Editor denise@home-business-on-a-budget.com http://www.Home-Business-on-a-Budget.com Home Business on a Budget Newsletter is a bi-weekly publication. My mission is to help you succeed in your home business without spending an arm and a leg. Each issue contains useful tips, information and articles. Good luck in your business ventures! Translate this newsletter to another language: http://world.altavista.com/ Do you have a friend who would like this newsletter? By all means, pass it on please. The more, the merrier, as I always say! 
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My 2 Cents Worth - Editor's Chit-Chat
Hi All! Welcome to another Sunday with yours truly and thanks so much for letting me be a small part of your day. :~) If you're new today, a warm welcome to you. I hope you'll enjoy the issue. Did you miss me while I was on vacation last month? :) There's nothing better than having all my kids and grandkids here for a visit. I live for those moments, but unfortunately, they come too few and far between. We had a great time taking the kids to the water park and the local festival, as well as just hanging out together BBQ'ing and making s'mores over a bonfire in the backyard. My two little grandaughters thought it was a real treat coming to this grandma's house to visit. (Their other grandma only lives half an hour from them.) Even though it was a long drive from Wyoming to Michigan (about 25 hours) they were well-behaved in the car and excited to meet their aunts and uncles. (They were way too little to remember the last time they saw them.) I promised you some pictures of everyone so here you go: See the Hall Clan My oldest daughter, Michelle, just announced that she's pregnant with her first baby and due next March, so we're all excited about that. By then, she and my son-in-law will have moved from New York to North Carolina, so I'll have a little farther to travel to visit them than I do now, but I'll make the trip anyway. LOL After all my kids left, my friend from Germany came to visit. We hadn't seen each other in 17 years, but she'll be retiring in 2-3 years and she's thinking about coming to this area. I took her around northern Michigan so she could see the area, plus we went shopping and just hung out. We had a wonderful time, and I don't know when was the last time either one of us was so relaxed. I think we both need a vacation a little more often. LOL My son's band has started doing some local Battle of the Bands, and they're doing very well. (They've only been together about 3 months.) They only won 1 competition so far, but they came in 2nd and 4th in the other two, out of 7 or 8 bands each time. Plus, a local radio station played one of their songs Friday night. They do a "weeknight music fight" where they put two songs up against each other and the listeners call in and vote for the one they like best. (They normally don't play music by local bands, but one of the DJ's was at a Battle of the Bands a couple of weeks ago, heard Brad's band and asked for a copy of their CD.) They won the competition, so their song will get played on the radio now, plus they'll go up against another song on Monday night. (Then Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, too, if they keep winning.) I'm so proud of them! Whew! That's a lot of news for one sitting, but hey, I haven't talked to you in a month. LOL I'll stop here, though, so you can get on with the rest of the issue. I'll see you here in 2 weeks. Until then, be profitable! Denise
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Feature Article
Here's How To Make Internet marketing Work For You! Subtitle: Why It Ain't All So Cottin' Pickin' Complicated, Why You Do NOT Need 1,000 Power Points And Pages Of Flow Charts And Systems, And Why I Believe You Should Learn To Do Things Yourself Before You Outsource By Marlon Sanders Let's cut through the bull, the smoke, the mirrors and talk about ALL you really gotta do to make it in this business. There are SO many programs, systems, approaches and so much pitching, posturing, promising and claiming, people lose sight of the simplicity this business. Folks, you GET people on your LIST and you SELL them! That's it. Stop over-complicating. How do you GET people on your list? You give 'em something free they just gotta have. How do you sell 'em? Guess what? You send SALES pitches via email that go to audio, video and so forth. This is a SALES game. We SELL people for a living. It's NOT complicated in that sense, although execution can be a challenge. Forget all the complicated nonsense you've heard. You GET people on a LIST and you sell 'em. You don't need 1,000 Power Points to know how to do that. You don't need 10 or 20 staff and buildings and offices! You need an autoresponder, and something FREE and a way to ADVERTISE it. Come on. It ain't rocket science. Get 'em on the list, find out what they WANT. SELL! Sorry that isn't sexy or "sophisticated." Now, later, if you're like me and don't wanna work much, yeah, you can hire a customer service person and a webmaster. For 7 or 8 years I used Lisa in Canada. You can do that too after you have the money. The ONLY reason I have an office now is I have aspirations of growing a bit bigger. There are people who have a hidden agenda to take what is at heart VERY SIMPLE and make it endlessly complex so you'll buy program after program after program. Which is fine IF you're at the level you need those things. I contend you FIRST need to learn a few simple things about how to GET people ON your list then SELL 'em. And you do NOT need a team of 20 outsourcers to do that for crying out loud. Seriously, you don't. You know the Power Point slides showing you the 1,000 things you gotta do in this business? That's bull. I'm sorry. It's TRUE at a certain level if you WANT to grow big and have 10 or 20 or more employees. And yes, systems are good, even for small businesses. With all due respect to my peers, you don't need to do all that stuff. You just flat out don't. You need to do a FEW of 'em. Not 1,000. You advertise or promote something free. You have people sign up for your list on your autoresponder. You write emails and send. You have conversion audio, video, blogs, etc. Yeah, if I can convince you that 1,000 things are necessary and you need endless people and systems to DO those 1,000 things, I can SELL you a LOT of products, seminars, coaching, systems. There is NOTHING wrong with coaching programs and seminars. I think they're GREAT. I should do 'em but don't. However, for you to feel confused and overwhelmed and think you can't do this business without 'em? Come on! Get real. Those things are great IF you have the time and money. But I know people who do $100,000 a month and have ONE employee. I have another friend who does $100,000 a month and has I think 1 full time and 2 part time. You need someone doing customer service. You maybe need a part time webmaster and later a full-time one. If you want to grow bigger, you can later have a product creator or an affiliate manager. But at FIRST, you got few sales. You don't NEED the service person until you're rocking and rolling. The webmaster? You do stuff yourself. Please. Or, in a pinch, you outsource to one of the inexpensive and talented graphic designers. I've had people tell me they've been in 2 or 3 coaching programs or bought $40,000 of products and they're so confused. OK. Let's clear up that right now. This is going to sound a little "preachy" or hard core. I'm the original Marketing Evangelist, so what I can I say? Step one: Get people on your list Step two: Send emails Step three: SELL Which part of that equation is confusing? See what I'm saying? THAT's what you do. THAT's ALL you do. Everything else is fluff. Well, how do I get people on my list? Try advertising and offering something HIGHLY attractive for NADA. Try that. Where do I advertise? Where the people hang out! Blogs, forums, web sites. Seriously, where ELSE would you advertise? On ships? On the sky? See, this is basic logic. What kind of ads do I run? Ummm, ads that offer something FREE, maybe? Banners or text? Both if they work. What about affiliates? Yeah, they're good too. What do I sell? Uhhh, products people wanna buy. Either yours or other people's. You got two choices -- create your own or sell others. Since back when I was marketing on AOL and Compuserve offering my little FREEBIES through classified ads. The GAME was the same! People were doing TELESEMINARS back then! And even doing them on autopilot. Yes, it's true. What if people don't buy? Employ the full arsenal of audio, video, PDF's. And raise your copywriting ability or hire better writers. I have a "conversion formula" that is gold. But I won't teach it for free. Here, let me spell it out step-by-step. 1. You gotta know WHO you're targeting and HOW you're gonna reach them. That means knowing the blogs they read, the forums they go to, the web sites they read, WHO they look to for advice and who has the lists (potential affiliates). Do NOT freak out if there are others selling in your niche or market. This is a GOOD thing. It shows there's money. And it gives you joint venture partners. 2. You gotta have a HOT FREEBIE that people will crawl over broken glass to get their grubby little hands on! People say all the time, "I can't get anyone to join my list." Well, guess what? You don't got a freebie, or your folks don't want it! That could be due to the freebie itself OR to the presentation of the freebie. There is a thing called "signaling value." Actual value is NO more important than the signaled value. You signal value through your graphics, words, and social proof. Presentation is everything. Your headline and bullet points have a BIG influence on whether or not people join your list. I'll repeat: It isn't enough anymore to JUST ask people to join your email list. You have to GIVE 'em something very enticing for doing so. If they don't join, isn't it rather obvious the problem is your freebie wasn't enticing enough, either due to the freebie itself or the presentation? Part of this process includes having a THANK YOU page and a CONFIRMATION email that are effective and get people to confirm. 3. You gotta send out emails that send people to "conversion pieces." Now, in "Amazing Formula" I originally told people to just send emails. The game has changed. Now those emails have to send people to selling tools like podcasts, pre-recorded videos, live streaming video, PDF's, screen capture video. And you need to incorporate Twitter and even Facebook or Ning (Ning.com). That WHOLE formula is explained graphically and in more DETAIL at: http://www.promodashboard.com/video That page is in and of itself an example of what I just described. Here's another page that personifies the process. A podcast I call "the pizza cast." http://www.promodashboard.com/pizzacast/ Here's another one I did for this project: http://www.marlonsanders.com/destiny/ Here's the thing: Creating screen video, podcasts, pre-recorded videos, PDF's. All those things have learning curves. And a LOT of marketing is literally just about overcoming the learning curve of the tools. The FIRST time you do any of those, it's new, different and uncomfortable. I HATE learning curves. Which is why we do the Dashboards to begin with. A lot of people don't get this. I can NEVER teach you every little thing. It's NOT about that. It's about overcoming the 70% or 80% or even 50% of the learning curve FOR you. I've found once you "get it." Once the initial FEAR is gone. Once you feel oriented, you can learn the rest yourself pretty easily. It's just getting over that initial HUMP. There's always going to be learning curves. You'll never have every little detail figured out for you. But once you know the little tricks and secrets of turning video into flash, stickin' it on a web page and linking to it, doin' your podcast recording with Audacity and turnin' it into flash with Sonic Memo. Once you can do your screen recordings in CamStudio or Camtasia then add some music in the editor, add a title frame then save as the "right sized" flash file, so it streams well, you're 90% of the way there. This is what I've found. One thing a lot of beginners don't get is you have to learn to OPTIMIZE your graphic images (jpg's or gif's) and your flash audio and video so the file sizes are SMALL. For example, this video was 8 meg: http://www.promodashboard.com/video A beginner that didn't know the tricks would've had something 30 or 40 megabytes that didn't stream. In other words, viewers would get that herky jerky motion. Oh, and you see that turning CUBE at the beginning and the rockets that fire? Normally, that would increase your file size too much. But NOT when you do it right. ----------------------------------------------------------- Marlon Sanders is the author of "The Info Product Dashboard." If you want to create your own info products, go to: http://www.productdashboard.com
Grins 'n Giggles
This was taken from a newsletter that I receive each day. Get daily Internet tips, tricks, jokes and information: http://www.resource-a-day.net/member/index.cgi?gifts_n_things2002 Funny Advertisements For sale: an antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers. Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home, too. Dinner Special -- Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00. For Sale -- Eight puppies from a German Shepperd and an Alaskan Hussy. Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children. Toaster: A gift that every member of the family appreciates. Automatically burns toast. Stock up and save. Limit: one. Man wanted to work in dynamite factory. Must be willing to travel.
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Expert Advice
7 Steps To Promos That Work Subtitle: How To Find Your Target Folks, Get 'em On Your Email List, Then Send Out Emails That Get 'em To ACT! ... And What You Can Do Starting Today! By Marlon Sanders The formula for making sales online isn't particularly complex. 1. You find out where you people hang out 2. You find ways to reach 'em with your message 3. You offer 'em somethin' free to get 'em on your list 4. Capture their name and email on your Squeeze page 5. You send emails 6. From emails you send 'em to multiple conversion processes 7. Follow the 3 laws Let's break this down. 1. Find out where people hang out. This means you find the forums they hang out in, the blogs they read, the sites they go to. That way, you can do your surveys, run banner ads, and find the folks who have the lists. 2. Find ways to reach 'em with your message. a. Find out where you can buy banner ads How about the forums? The blogs? The web sites? b. Look for text links too If you can't buy banner ads, look for Google Adsense on pages. c. Who owns lists and sell products? You'll know these people because in their sig line on their forum posts they're offering something FREE. In the article directories you'll see their articles. And at the end in the resource box, they offer somethin' free -- JUST like you wanna do. 3. Offer 'em something free to get 'em on your list Give people something so enticing they HAVE to join your list. That can be a free audio, ebook, PDF, video or newsletter. Or anything else that'll get 'em on your list. Run banner ads or Adwords ads offering something free. Come up with a freebie the folks with lists can send out via an affiliate link, so a cookie gets set. Write articles with your freebie in the resource box and submit those articles to the article directories. 4. Capture their name and email on your Squeeze page My friend Jonathan Mizel coined the term Name Squeeze page. To PROVE he invented the term, he trademarked it. In case you've mistakenly read someone else invented it. Anyway, you offer a freebie on a page where folks get the freebie if they join your email list. Not so complicated here. 5. Send emails This means firing up your autoresponder and loading up emails. It means learning to write subject lines, format your emails and write bullet points that arouse curiosity and get people to click. You gotta become a master bullet-point writer. It also helps if you can spin a good story, just like you do with your friends over the phone or at the coffee shop. You mix in value with or between your pitches so your open rate remains high. A lot of people make the mistake of watching their unsubscribes alone. You gotta monitor your OPEN rate. That is crucial. It tells you if you're getting or losing attention. This is an attention economy. 6. From emails, send 'em to multiple conversion processes. In other words, you send an email offering a free video. The free video gives a pitch for something. Or you send 'em to a podcast. Or you send 'em to a free report or a sales letter. Or you send 'em to live streaming video. Now, WHAT do you sell? Initially, sell affiliate products. Make Camtasia or CamStudio videos that do your pitches. Or write pre-sell pages that give a little pitch before you send people to an affiliate link. You know, warm 'em up first! WHICH part of this process is the HARDEST for you? Which part do you need the most help with? Hit me back on my blog: http://www.marlonsnews.com Do you buy into this process? Or are you following some other system? If so, what? Is this so "old hat" you don't wanna hear about it anymore? Or are you STUCK somewhere? 7. Make an irresistible offer. So now the person has gone to your audio, video, blog, or sales letter. Now you gotta sell 'em something. With first time prospects, give 'em your best offer. Probably something cheap or free. Although it depends on your market. One of my friends offers a free book then sells a $4,000 software package. When 3% of the people buy it from the book, the numbers add up. Others offer a $1 membership offer that goes into recurring billing after 14 days. That is, after 14 days they're charged for the membership site unless they cancel. And they get charged every month. When you have 2900 people getting charged $37 a month, it adds up. 7. Follow the 3 cardinal laws a. Protect your business number one Follow the law. Pay your taxes. b. Maintain the goodwill of your list Don't milk your cow so much he/she dries up. Offer value to your list. Keep that relationship up. c. Make sales What you can do TODAY: You start with step one. Go find out where you target market hangs out at. What blogs do they read? What ezines do they subscribe to? What web sites do they go to? What forums do they frequent? Then, when you find that out, look for banner ads you can buy, blogs you can run ads on, text links you can buy, pages with Google ads on 'em. And start looking for the folks who have the lists. Marlon Sanders P.S. Here's what I want you to do: Go to my blog and tell me if there's a step here that hangs you up or you have problems with. Be as specific as possible: http://www.marlonsnews.com Is this all old hat to you? Too common sense? Do you want something newer or sexier? Or what's STOPPING you from following this formula today? Here's the thing: My new Promo Dashboard will walk you through most of these steps and much more. But I NEED to hear from YOU because I need to know WHAT to put in it to help YOU the most. I need to hear your feedback on my blog. ----------------------------------------------------------- Marlon Sanders is the author of "The Info Product Dashboard." If you want to create your own info products, go to: http://www.productdashboard.com
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It's Your Dime - Reader's Feedback
None today. Your contributions here. E-mail your comments, profiles, or feedback: denise@home-business-on-a-budget.com?subject=Here'sMyDime
Free Stuff
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Editor's Closing Comments
I hope you've enjoyed today's issue of Home Business on a Budget. I always welcome reader's feedback, comments and suggestions. Please feel free to e-mail me if you ever have any questions that I can help you with. I am always willing to help in any way I can. I also accept guest articles for publication. Please send them to the e-mail listed below with "article" in the subject line. Denise Hall Publisher/Editor Contact me: denise@home-business-on-a-budget.com Website: http://www.Home-Business-on-a-Budget.com
LEGAL STUFF
I accept no responsibility whatsoever for the content, profitability or legality of any published articles or advertisements contained within Home Business on a Budget Newsletter. And, although all of the articles have been selected for their content, the publishing of such articles within this newsletter does not constitute a recommendation of the products or services mentioned or advertised within those articles. Be responsible! Always do your own Due Diligence before responding to any offer. I respect the privacy of my readers. I will never supply or sell your personal information to any Third Party!
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