Lesson One

The Importance of getting an Auto Responder and Building a List

“The beginning is the most important part of the work”
- Plato

It had been four years since I had last had a beer with the Guru and although we had spoken on the phone a few times in recent months, I wasn’t too sure what to expect.

You see, I knew him as a pin-striped corporate Sales Manager, like I still was. He had told me he was making money on line and I kind of imagined him living a frugal “hand to mouth” existence and driving an old beat up car. After all, the guy is 37 years old and has four kids aged between 4 and 12. So when I pulled up outside his house at 8.00 pm after working my day job, it was very dark. There was a steep driveway leading down to Guru J’s house, which I couldn’t really make out. The first car I passed on the steep driveway had baby seats in it and it was a Mercedes-Benz R320, with mag wheels. Parked in front of the R Class was my dream car, another bloody Mercedes-Benz.

Now I was committing one of the deadly sins “envy”. Deep down I think I was hoping that Guru J had two rich friends visiting. Then “oh shit” I felt the squelch of a rather large dog shit under my shoe. Just then, the Guru J’s lovely blond wife greeted me and within minutes my shoes were off and I was catching up with my old friends.

They had no other guests and were living happily in a sprawling comfortable house with a huge home office. Guru J most definitely had my attention for the first lesson, so I hope I’ve got yours.

The Guru assumed I knew nothing and he was fairly right. Guru J told me to write down three facts: -

To make money online:

1. I would need to build a basic website (See lesson 5)

2. I would need to spend a little bit of money to get traffic to my website and track where it was coming from (see Lesson 6)

3. When the traffic came, I would need to capture the visitors name and their email address.

If I could do these three things, I could make a fortune on line.  I asked why if it was that simple wasn’t everybody doing it?   “Lack of discipline” was all Guru J said. 

Let me lay out the full plan.  You can get any Auto Responder you like, there are many companies offering this service.

Guru J suggested this company – get your free trial here

I found this company to be terrific and they offer: -

 Brilliant on line tutorials, 24 hour on line support, Unlimited email addresses, Unlimited Auto Responders, fantastic personal service.

So, if you are doing any on line advertising or promotions of an affiliate product or a book just like this one, why not build your own simple one or two page website? See Lesson 5 and capture the traffic details yourself.  This will then enable you to do the following no matter what you are selling or promoting –

(1) Get the visitors name;

(2) capture the name and an email;

(3) send the captured name to a sales letter so you have a few options available like.

If they leave, you already have the email address so you can send your new subscriber your series of follow up messages.

You have started to build your list for this niche.

If they decide to buy your affiliate product, you process the sales through your shopping cart.

From your shopping cart, you simply redirect your visitor to your O.T.O (one time offer) – (Lesson 21). Then whether your visitor buys your OTO or not, they get sent to a thank you page which plainly and clearly explains how they can claim or download the purchased product. 

Let me list the steps you need to follow, just like Guru J did for me –

1  Pick and purchase your domain name

Refer to (Lesson 22) for more information about this important step)

2.  If you already have a website name registered; make sure you have a matching email address for the website.

3.  Find a good web hosting service

We explain what constitutes a good host – read more at (Lesson 22)

Now you have picked a good domain name for your website, finding a great hosting company to host your website is crucial and again (Lesson 22) tells you what a good host should provide you.

4.  Automate your business with an Auto Responder 

Once you have a web presence having obtained a domain name and selected a hosting company, you need to find a way to capture the names of the people who visit your website and then be able to automatically send them your marketing messages.  As I said earlier, this company is our choice.  You can trial them for free here with no commitment or credit card details required for your free trial.

5.  Set up your Squeeze Page. 

A squeeze page is a web page put up with one intention.  To capture your visitors name and email address. Note the following crucial things:

• A headline;

• Bullet style points about the key benefits and features of your product;

Create a call to action, which is the invitation to your visitor to opt in by entering their first name and their email address. 

6. Create your sales page – See (Lesson 14)

Once your visitor enters their details and hits the submit button, we re-direct them to this page.  This is even more important than your squeeze page.  The words on this page can determine your success or your failure on line, so read (Lesson 14) when creating this step.

7.  Sequential Selling Messages

The Guru taught me that success in this business is totally determined by the quality of your follow up messages.

About 98% of all the visitors that you get to your website will not buy anything from you until they are sent about seven messages.  Incredible but true and this explains why so many new Internet Marketers burn their cash on “pay per click” and never return to the business.

These sums up the steps you need to take in setting up an Auto Responder.

The Guru made me write this down before leaving that night and then he made me say it really slowly to myself.

 “The most important thing any Internet Marketer can do is to get an Auto Responder”

So at least take advantage of the great free trial from the best in the business to learn a little more about how auto responders work.

Why have I mentioned Auto responders three times?

1. They are an asset for your on line business;

2. they can make you thousands of dollars of recurring income;

3. you need an auto responder and I promise the rest of the book is not as repetitive; it’s just that not getting an auto responder is my biggest regret so far on line and my business has exploded since getting one.