Growing up I was always an entrepreneur. I really enjoyed selling things to people that they needed and making a profit from my efforts.

But as I got older and my ambitions grew I found it harder and harder to market things to people because I looked so young and people didn’t take me seriously based on prejudice.

The Internet changed everything for me. Online marketing allowed me to use my brains and without being judged based on how I looked was able to sell a product to thousands of people who did take me seriously based on the merit of my product and marketing in my strategies.

Internet marketing platform took what used to be a weakness and turn it into a strength.

The hardest thing getting started in Internet marketing is knowing what direction to go in, go to believe as far as advice and information, what information is important to your particular goals and strategies, and what information will help you at all.

In my journey to learn online marketing I jumped or lots of groups to figure out what was the basic knowledge and needed and what was his opinion in other people’s ideas of how to apply the same basics.

If I were to give somebody starting out invites I would tell you to try to elicit the things that keep repeating which are generally the basics and at first they ignore the things that seem like someone else’s idea of a strategy.

Once you get the basics down and you understand how the basic online-marketing works then you can elicit your own wisdom would strategies may or may not work for you, or your foundation will be based on some else’s opinion on cold hard foundation of facts.

1) Have beginner’s mind. Attend and observe a travel
tradeshow, seek out information and expert advice before you exhibit.
Take workshops and read all you can on travel trade show marketing.

2) Pre-show mailings and phone invitations to customers and
prospects will increase booth attendance. Multiple personalized letters
and postcards promoting special offers redeemable only at your booth
works great. Start one - three months before show.

3) Show management is an asset and can provide you lots of
extra profitable exposure. Work with them on providing value to
attendees through your travel presentations, workshops, sport simulator
and fascinating attractions. If you earn pre-show publicity via their public
relations/media firm, you could triple or more your booth traffic, often for
no charge.

4) Invest in quality. Use an exhibit with easy-to-read graphics, ‘key
word” descriptive and bold “benefit-oriented headline graphics.
Prospect should quickly understand what types of activities you offer,
where you go and level of difficulty; all in less then 5 - 10 seconds or
your prospects are gone.

5) Establish team-created objectives. Incorporate your most
friendly, motivated, and knowledgeable staff. Role-play and practiced
boothmanship before show.

6) Arrive before show. Meet with media; establish sales
representation and network with fellow travel professionals. When the
show starts you’ll be better prepared and rested then most.

7) Smile. Don’t pounce on prospects. Establish rapport before
qualifying prospects. Ask open-ended questions, “What do you think
about foreign travel and river rafting?”

Use brochures (better yet a cheap flyer) as a disengagement
tool. Use “no’s or not interested” as an opportunity to move on to
another prospects who’s interested in your type of trip or destination.

9) Take care of yourself. Schedule your staff so that everyone is
well rested. Drink plenty of water. Eat well-balanced meals. Avoid
alcohol at all times during show. Wear comfortable shoes. Stretch your
muscles while checking out other exhibits. Use breath mints.

10) Follow-up. Contact key prospects immediately after show
with letters, calls and brochures. Continued mailings and contacts
increase chances of sales 65%.

Tim Warren is the author of “Tourism Marketing Success”, http://www.AdventureBizSuccess.com/tourismmarketingbook.php
guaranteed to help you standout from the crowd and sell more in your
tradeshow booth, website, advertising, brochure and more. Since 1994,
tourism marketing, E-marketing, destination marketing, tourism
marketing books and products. For free articles, mini-courses and E-
mail newsletter exclusively for tourism and hospitality professionals and
trade associations: http://www.adventurebizsuccess.com

You’ve probably know many answers to this question: a good marketeer palces links, bad one - don’t, good one makes surveys, bad one - don’t, etc. All of these answers are right, but there is one key difference.

I’m gonna share it with you. In a moment. But let’s start with a story first.

Do you remember that story about Henry Ford creating a 6-cylinder engine? If not - do a search - it’s a great story to learn. What was his key to success?

Well, probably good intuition, and I can’t argue with that. But the point of the story is that he persisted on something nobody believed. Nobody else believed it is possible, but he insisted.

And his persistence paid up. So, the secret component in Internet Marketing is persistence. And persistence makes amounts.

For example: one link in your forum signature can make you 2-50 visitors (that wouldn’t make you any money probably, however nothing is impossible). But if you participate in 100 even not-very popular forums - you’re gonna get 200-5000 visitors. And if you sell something for $50 that’s gonna make you on average $100-$2500.

Do you see the point here? Let’s take a look at it in different way. Let’s imagine that you’re exchanging links. If you exchange with only 10 sites (which seems to be not very hard) - you’re gonna get some amount, let’s say 10 visitors per day. And now imagine exchaging links with 1000 sites - that’s 1000 visitors. How to get thousand link partners? Well, get 10 each and every day and in 3 months you’ll have a thousand.

And thousand links for search engines is way to understand that your site is relevant. It’s pretty argueable point, but that’s how Google, Yahoo and many others think. So that’s how a marketeer should think. So get links and many of them. You know that’s needed to be done, but why don’t you do that?

Do you know that you should post your articles to many sites? But why don’t you do that?

Be Persistent! I can’t stress that enough.

One of the biggest mistake of newbies is that they try something for a day or two, see no result and stop doing anything. That’s WRONG! Continue to do something for at least a month to see results, unless you have a million dollars to spend and nobody will ask where did it go. I doubt that’s possible nowadays.

What to do about that? Here is the plan:

Ask yourself: what would be the best to do in next month that will get ABUNDANT result in future? Write that! And do that! Do you need to write 100 articles? Do that! Nobody’s going to do that for you, unless, again, you’re too rich to do that.

Success is waiting for you, just be a lot more persistent. Remember, failure sometimes is a last step left to a great success. Many rich people will tell you that. Go ahead and ask them. And probably they’ll agree that you MUST be persistent in your goals.

1. So set a goal today 2. Start to do it 3. Don’t analyze results until you have done really massive result.

About The Author

Max Clixel is an author of www.Clixels.com “Clixelling your way to Marketing”. You can reprint this article freely as long as it’s reprinted completely including this paragraph with active link and without any changes.

How do you create a direct mail advertising campaign that gets results?

The following tips on creating a direct mail advertising campaign have been street-tested and will bring you huge returns in a short period of time.

In Fact, these tips enabled me to generate over $47,000 in mortgage commissions in less than 30 days!

Keep reading and I will share 3 key elements to creating an effective direct mail advertising campaign:

Key Element #1: The prospect list - Mail to a targeted list of prospects

Here are a couple of ways to find targeted prospect mailing lists in your niche:

Look in your industry trade publications. I found great list providers for my direct mail advertising campaigns in the back of Mortgage Originator Magazine - A popular mortgage industry publication.

Or, search Google.com for: your industry + “mailing lists”. For example, I am a mortgage lender so my search would be: mortgage + “mailing lists” in Google.com.

By the way, when purchasing a prospect list for your direct mail advertising, be sure to get some kind of personal information about your prospect to use in your campaign.

Here is an example of personal information I use in my direct mail advertising campaigns:

* The prospect’s current mortgage company

* The prospect’s original loan amount

Key Element #2: The Envelope - How to get your letter opened

The envelope must entice your prospects into opening and reading the enclosed letter.

Here are some ideas for getting your envelope opened:

1. Insert a personalized “RE:” line above your prospect’s name in a window envelope.

I found that the original lender’s name works well in my campaigns:

RE: ABC Mortgage

John Doe

123 N Main St.

City, State Zip

—Bar Code—

2. Use this text with your return address in the upper left corner of the envelope:

Administrative Office

1234 South Broadway Pkwy.

City, State Zip

Confidential Information

Personal and Confidential

Key Element #3: The direct mail advertising mail piece - Get your desired result

The purpose of your direct mail advertising mail piece is to get your prospect to take a desired action. For me, that action is picking up the phone and calling me for a loan.

Here are some tips to help you get your desired result from your direct mail advertising mail piece:

1. Personalize the mail piece

If possible disclose small pieces of personal information about your prospect to get their attention and build rapport.

Here are some examples of personalized text I use in my direct mail advertising campaigns:

“Based on your original loan with ABC Mortgage in the amount of $250,000 your new payment would be $924.05.”

“Based on our calculations, this loan program may save you $32,841 in interest charges over the next 5 years and $197,046 over the life of your mortgage!”

2. Include a few “bio lines” under your signature. Tell them a little bit about who you are.

Here are the “bio lines” I use:

To your financial success,

My Signature

Hartley W. Pinn, Jr

Senior Mortgage Planner

10 Years Mortgage Experience

Licensed Financial Planner

Married with 3 children

3. Offer a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) in your mail piece

If you don’t currently have a unique selling proposition for your direct mail advertising campaign - Find one. What makes you different from your competitors? What makes you better? Why should a prospect use you over a competitor? Answer these questions and you will have your unique selling proposition.

Here are some sample USP lines that work well in my direct mail advertising campaigns:

“No House Payment Until April 2006!!! Imagine what you could do by skipping your February and March house payments.”

“Additionally, we specialize in loan programs with No Points. We can pay this customary closing cost because we are paid directly from the new lender.”

4. The call to action

Ask them to take your desired action:

“Call now and ask for me personally so we can discuss your individual needs and goals.”

“Be sure to visit www.YourWebsite.com to view this Free Video: “How to Get Paid For Refinancing”. Discover how to use your mortgage loan as a tool to secure your financial future. It’s the most informative site on the web!!”

Well, that’s it! I wish you all the best with your next direct mail advertising campaign. The only thing left for you to decide is how much money you would like to make over the next 30 days? Mail more letters and you will generate more sales!

Hartley Pinn has recently created the Mortgage Leads Generator Training Course to teach people how to make over $50,000 a month working part-time (10 to 15 hrs per week) as a mortgage loan officer.

To download a complementary direct mail advertising letter that has produced more than $2,500,000 in mortgage commissions over the last 12 months visit:
http://www.Mortgage-Leads-Generator.com/a/refiletter.htm

Please feel free to reprint this article as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.

I want to share a story with you that might find some value
in.

In high school and college I wrestled. In fact if you did a little Google search right now you’d
probably find a few of my old pictures and stories relating
to it.

Well, actually I started wrestling the sixth grade. When I began wrestling I was about 5 feet and I weighed
about 190 pounds and I couldn’t win a wrestling match to
save my life.

I think in middle school I probably won maybe 25% of the
matches I wrestled in. But then something happened when I got to high school. I got on the team not knowing what to expect and I saw for
the first time what I wanted out of wrestling.

Prior to that point, I didn’t know what I was doing or why
and so I just sort of went with the flow. It was in high school that I defined my goal.

There was this laid back senior on the team named Eugene. He
pinned just about every single person he wrestled and for
whatever reason I thought this was the coolest thing.

I wanted to be like Eugene. As fate would have, in that same year I lost about 50
pounds and I met a man that changed my life. An unlikely short Russian man by the name of Alex, our high
school wrestling coach.

Although it was hard to understand him at first he gave me
something that I don’t think any coach had ever given me
before.

He believed in me. The stage was set.

I mimicked everything that Eugene did in practice down to
his work ethic and Coach Alex was there to support me every
step of the way.

I can’t say that I got that much better as a wrestler my
freshman year in high school, but it didn’t matter at that
point. I knew what I wanted and I wasn’t going to stop until
I got it.

For the next 3 years I spent every summer going to off
season tournaments and wrestling camps. I even took notes
and studied them at night. The other kids thought I was a
little strange, but it didn’t matter to me.

I was doing what I thought I needed to do to achieve my
goal. By the end of my senior year in high school I was All State
and an All American.

It was one of the best feelings of my life.

Getting there wasn’t easy.

It took a lot of heart, studying, skill, practice,
discipline, and a measurable goal.

Hmmm . . .

Sounds a lot like network marketing?

All I mean to say by this little story is, if you have a
goal for your network marketing business that you truly
desire, a support system to help you get there, and the
drive to do it you will.

If you’re not where you want to be with your business
consider it your freshman year!

You have 3 more years to grow and learn.

Actually I think network marketing is a lot easier than
wrestling.

I mean . . .

I’ve never had to skip one single meal or try to loose 10 or
more pounds in a day while network marketing while in
wrestling it was just part of the routine.

Don’t skip any meals I promise it won’t help you network
marketing business.

Daegan Smith is an Expert Internet Network Marketer. “Learn
How To Make $10,717 In Less Than a Week While Quickly And
Easily EXPLODING Your Network Marketing Organization Without
EVER Buying a Single Lead?”
==> http://www.internetmlmsuccess.com
==> mailto:netmlmsuccess@aweber.com

One of the fundamentals to finding success on the Internet via the search engines is to make your Web site appear not just as a business Web site, but also as a resource for your industry. While you don’t want to detract from the “theme” of your site, providing helpful articles and tools can draw visitors that would have never found you before. Whether you’re simply reprinting materials from magazines or other news sources (after getting their permission) or producing in-house materials such as a monthly newsletter, this kind of content can lead you to the promised land.

What do the copyright laws have to say about reprinted materials? Well, the same rules apply on the Web as anywhere else. You need their permission to post, but most publications are more than happy to allow you to do so because it generally leads to more traffic for them.

If you don’t have access to any good third-party content, what about all the information that is stored inside your head? We all know the tricks of our trade and can be considered experts in one area or another, so why not write about your experience and share it with others? Your writing abilities can lead to great things for your Web site.

Type “How To Shop for a Web Design Firm?” into Google and see how many Web sites show up. You’ll see pages upon pages of results that have archived an article, written just a few months ago. Type the name of other “Recommended Reads” and see how many pages show up. Using RSS feeds, we’ve syndicated our knowledge to Web sites around the world.

Does your company have a public relations department? If so, they’re no doubt busy publishing press releases frequently, so why not post these to your Web site? If you don’t have a public relations department, have one of your marketing people do a little bit of research and you’ll find numerous examples of press releases to mimic.

There are many ways to accomplish this type of publicity and many of them carry very little or no cost at all. All it takes is a little research and a little time, and soon you’ll be seeing a lot of traffic.

WebSolutions Technology, Inc. is a professional Web site design, development, and hosting company based near Chicago, Illinois. Their expertise in Web design and eCommerce has been highlighted in print and television and their custom developed solutions have been highly successful for businesses nationwide. WebSolutions is currently celebrating their tenth year in business. Please direct any inquiries to sales@wsol.com or call 630.375.6833. Visit our Web site at: http://www.websolutionstech.com.

The inception of the world wide web has proliferated the pyramid scheme in the same way the fast food industry has exploded the production of french fried potatoes. Millions of dollars are lost each year by victims of these multi-level “business opportunity” scams.

According to a report published by the FTC, over 1.55 million U.S. citizens lost money to illegal pyramid schemes in 2004. The total incidents of such loss exceeded 2.55 million, indicating that many consumers were duped more than once by this type of scam.

Over 90% of all acknowledged cases involved either an email communication, or a print reference (newspaper, magazine, etc.) to a web site where consumers were exposed to an income opportunity that turned out to be a fraudulent multi-level marketing plan. It is clearly safe to say the internet has become the number one courier for this particular form of deception.

So what exactly is a pyramid scam? It’s a fraud model that generates revenue through the exponential recruitment of opportunity seekers, all of whom are required to pay a fee for joining the organization.

The majority of these membership fees are collected and divided among the new recruit’s upline. The higher an individual is positioned within the pyramid structure, the more income he or she will receive as a result of the recruiting efforts of those on the lower levels.

Ultimately, the pyramid system will collapse as the market for new members is saturated. Those at the top will walk away with considerable profits, while the overwhelming majority of participants will have lost their entire investment.

Criteria set forth by the FTC to define an illegal pyramid scheme is based on the following primary consideration: Is the consumer required to pay anyone for the opportunity to operate a work from home business and, if so, is the consumer led to believe that most of the money earned through the opportunity will be from recruiting others to the business model and/or from purchases made by these recruits?

For good reason, pyramid schemes have been made illegal in most countries. Sadly, this legislation has done little to curtail the problem, and the constant resurgence of unethical, multi-level confidence tricks can be observed daily via the internet.

Many of these programs attempt to obscure their true nature by centering their program around a product. However, it’s not very difficult to see past this thin disguise if you apply a bit of sound judgement.

For instance, many of the products attached to pyramid scams are nothing more than brochures, audio tapes, or ebooks that instruct new recruits as to how they might refer others to the opportunity. A collection of names and addresses, represented as a list of potential referrals, or “leads”, is another bogus product offered by many pyramid scams in exchange for their membership fees.

Some multi-level income plans broker more substantial products, such as vitamins or functional PC software. However, when these products are sold at well beyond fair market value, and the majority of retail activity is actually the result of new recruits buying from their upline, there is a fair chance the business model is an illegal pyramid scheme.

As a new opportunity seeker, how can you avoid becoming a victim of illegal pyramid systems? By keeping it simple.

There really is no reason to complicate the process of doing business. You sell a product or service, and in doing so, you collect a prescribed amount of currency.

Maybe you own the product you are marketing, or maybe you are an affiliate marketer who promotes other people’s products in exchange for a percentage-based sales commission. Either way, there is no need to involve a forced matrix, a three-tier referral network, a power leg, or any other superfluous gathering of people who are willing to surrender a portion of their earnings to their upline structure.

Honestly, why bother with a system that uses a complex referral based compensation plan to obscure the simple process of profiting from direct sales? You are far better off looking for an affiliate program that is based on a quality product, and compensates you through a staightforward commission plan.

Allegedly, not all multi-level marketing systems are pyramid scams. I’m not a lawyer, so I lack the acuity required to validate or debunk such an assertion.

What I can say with confidence, however, is that the majority of multi-level payment plans I have encountered bear a startling resemblance to pyramid models. For this reason, I urge you to look deeply and carefully into any affiliate program or income opportunity that functions from a multi-level platform.

****************************

Tim Whiston is a full-time entrepreneur and internet marketer. He publishes a monthly ezine, and is the author of Net Marketing Exposed.

****************************

I, too, was skeptical when I was first introduced to the concept of generating an ‘automatic’ income. I mean, don’t we all get paid in direct relation to the amount of hours we work? We trade time for money if we are employed by someone else.

Internet Marketing can be such an incredible vehicle for amassing fortunes of money, easily and effortlessly. While it is true that a certain amount of effort and work is initially necessary when first setting up a website to conduct an online business venture, once done properly, profits can begin to pour in, even while you sleep or are on vacation. Imagine the freedom and peace of mind of that kind of arrangement!

This is accomplished by virtue of the fact that websites run on auto-pilot. This means they are set up to automatically showcase what you have to sell and also to accept and process payments for any sales made. This is done 24/7. Compare this to a regular business which is only able to generate profits during regular business hours. There are only so many hours in any given day, week, month or year that one can work or trade time for money. Let’s not forget those times that one cannot work due to illness or for personal reasons. Then even less money is earned because there are less working hours to be paid for. Not so in an online business. Money will continue to roll in with little or no effort on our part once things are running smoothly. Of course we may want to improve our products and services every so often so that we can stay ahead of our competition but this should require only minimal attention every now and again. It’s now easy to understand why having an Internet Marketing business has the potential to be so much more efficient, effective and profitable than regular businesses.

All the rich people in the world know that one key to financial freedom and success is to make your money work hard for you versus you having to work hard for your money. Internet Marketing is one of the smartest and easiest ways to be able to generate a perpetual income with which to build a solid assets base ultimately leading to financial freedom. Isn’t that an infinitely more appealing prospect than trading time for money?

Cherylin Gilad

To learn more about the power of Internet marketing, go to www.InternetProfitMentor.com and check out their free course which includes e-books and over 11 hours worth of video instruction.

Cherylin Gilad is an up-and-coming Internet Marketer. She is presently working diligently on creating a website to showcase what she is passionate about - alternative healing.

“You can make a lot of money on the Internet doing nothing!” That’s the number one Internet marketing myth.

It’s an urban legend, of course. But yet, that ideaology is still pervasive on the Internet.

So, I’m here to give it to you straight. Yes, you can make a lot of money on the Internet. But you first have to take the time necessary to educate yourself on Internet marketing. And after you do that, you have to work your butt off!

Now I’m sure many of you reading this article don’t want to hear that. And those guilty of helping to perpetuate the myth point to the success of the current “flavor of the month,” Brad Fallon.

However, what they don’t tell you is while Brad is doing exceptionally well right now, initially him and his wife Jennifer busted their butts, working day and night fulfilling their many orders.

All of the successful people I know work hard like that. In fact, some of the most successful people I know work the longest hours.

Take me for instance. Most mornings I get up at five or six o’clock, because I can’t wait to get started. And most nights, I don’t get offline until around 10 or 11:00.

Now by my calculations, those are 17 or 18 hour work days. But it doesn’t seem like work to me at all, because I’m doing what I love. And that’s the whole point! I’m not putting in those hours because I have to, I’m doing it because I want to.

Why? Because I live by a certain philosophy which is:

“Any success you achieve will be in direct proportion to your hard work, desire and determination. The harder you work and the more desire and determination you have, the greater will be your success.”

The above philosophy (which I coined, by the way) keeps me focused, hungry and working hard. Oh sure, I could work an hour or two on my computer every day and goof off the rest of the time. And do you know what would happen to my earnings? They would plummet–as would the earnings of most of my collegues, if they started playing more than working.

In conclusion, short of winning the lottery, robbing a bank or inheriting a fortune, with very few exceptions, I know of no legitimate way to make a lot of money without working hard for it!

About The Author

Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: dean@lets-make-money.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 09, 2004

Los Angeles, CA- Ezina Moore, also known as Leslie Elizabeth Waddell, her name when she was Miss Black USA, is a musical titan. She sings and plays with passion and purpose on songs like “Power of Women.” Power of Women is the title of her new album released on June 22, 2004 on Soulful Warrior Records.

If there was anyone that defines the motto “I am woman hear me roar,” it is Ezina. She plays her left-handed guitar with the ghosts of all the blues and rock greats hovering above. Like a woman Lenny Kravitz, she empowers her cause by doing it all.

While aspirations to be the female Prince seemed far-fetched, growing up in a Christian family, nothing was to stop her from following her heart. The need to be expressive in every possible way necessitated the need for Ezina to play the guitar and sing, giving her talent the maximum exposure. With beauty queen looks and the heart of a lion, she has captured the hearts of fans all across the globe.

With a gig at The Knitting Factory, Los Angeles on August 9, 2004, and more tour dates to follow, Ezina is in position to take her career to the next level.

Her new record is available at Tower Records, Best Buy and FYE Stores Nationwide and online at:

http://www.ezinamoore.com
http://www.cdbaby.com
http://www.amazon.com

Tour Dates:

Sugar Bar, New York City August 13, 2004
Spokane Rocks Festival, Spokane Washington August 20, 2004
Meany Festival September 16-25, 2004
Berlin Germany September 26-October 2, 2004

Booking Info:
Soulful Warrior Multimedia, Inc.
PO Box 1174
Hollywood, CA 90078
email:Kevin Fraser-booking@soulfulwarrior.com

Talk To Ezina: ezina@ezinamoore.com

###

About the Author

MuzikMan conducts interviews, writes reviews, biographies, press releases and articles for Independent and Major artists Worldwide. Articles are dispersed on a vast network of websites. Links to sites with great music content are provided on my Homepage and Links Page.