When you decide to start your own online home business there will come a time when you will need to build a list of potential prospects.

Offline you would make a list of family, friends, business acquaintances, fellow employees and any one else you can think of who may benefit from your business.

Online you have a number of methods of building your list.

• Offer a free report in exchange for their contact details.
• If you are in Network Marketing join a site like MLM Lead System Pro and use their system to build your list.
• Create a Facebook Page that captures emails.

Your goal is to build a targeted list.

Here are two different examples for building your prospect list.

———

First List Building Example

Let’s say that you are working in the offline market, that is helping local businesses with their online advertising.

I have a number of products that I sell to those businesses to bring them more customers.

I can also build a team (recruits) and earn residual income from their efforts.

In fact my long term goal is to stop doing the direct sales and just train new team members to build up the residual income.

Where do I find recruits online?

Create a simple product, say “How to Close Five New Clients This Week”.

Then offer it as a WSO (Warrior Special Offer) on the Warriors Forum targeting the Offliners, which is one of the largest niches right now on that forum.

But here is the trick.

Offer 100% commissions to all of the current warriors promoting such products.

They will promote the offer to their existing offliner’s list.

You create a capture page to deliver the product.

And here is another trick -> tell them you need their email so that you can send them free future updates.

People like that.

And the great thing about the Warriors Forum is that the product can be small and specific with a price tag of less than $10.

The product just has to offer some value that can be absorbed in one reading.

Your goal is to build your list of people who are already working in the offline market.

You can put those captured emails into an auto-responder and gradually introduce them to your business.

Your cost?

Zero dollars and maybe a few hours to put together a report.

———

Second List Building Example

Many of you are already involved with Network Marketing or are contemplating it.

You have a number of targeted groups you could go after.

• Those who are looking to start a home business.
• People involved with an existing MLM who are not successful, yet.
• People involved with an existing MLM who are looking to diversify.
• Someone who may be interested in your product.

On Facebook most of my friends are Network Marketers (I know I need to get a life).

Many post daily updates about their mlm product.

I suppose it is easy to do but are they really attracting attention?

You know what attracts my attention?

Those selling tools and programs aimed at helping me build my business.

If they talk about those tools daily, in a valuable way by providing free advice, then they build their brand.

This does not happen overnight, it takes time and consistency.

And their posts are not about selling, they are about providing value, in small bits.

You can do the same thing.

If you do not have your own product then become an affiliate for someone who does.

Some of my Facebook friends are involved with “Mentoring for Free” and they are doing it wrong.

When we become friends they send me an email asking how they can help and offering me a free ebook.

That’s it for engagement.

They never bothered to read my page or check me out to see if I needed help.

Talk about a passive way to build a business.

If I was involved with that program I would become their Facebook poster boy.

Every day I would post at least three updates talking about how they were helping my business.

And I would do it by telling personal stories, either about myself or others.

You can build a list using social engagement, you just have to be consistent and provide value.

———

Just ask yourself a simple question, what does my target list need, and then provide it without selling anything.

The technique was used way before the internet arrived.

I still receive a free desktop calendar from my insurance company every year.

You should be doing activities that continually adds to your prospect list, whether it is in direct sales or recruiting.

———

I would like to do a shout-out for an event that is coming up the last weekend in October – Collaboration Live – Northeast.

It will feature Richard Goutal plus some great speakers, Al Carlson, Crystal Curtis, Dr. Bob Clarke and Dena Bethea.

Think about how you could increase your prospect list by attending a live event.

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

P.S. Share your thoughts below in the comments and if you found this post valuable please do share using the nice icons below. I truly appreciate all of your comments, whether you agree with me or not.

To attract your niche market you need to first identify them. (Market Research)

Second, you need to know what they type into the search engines when they are looking for you. (Keyword Research)

Once you know that, make sure you provide what they are looking for when they visit your blog. (SEO & Webdesign)

Sounds simple right?

My philosophy is simplicity.

Keep it simple and deliver.

So what is my next project?

Well, since my blog is about creating cash flow for your retirement I should write a report on that subject.

Makes sense.

I will then give that report away for free on my blog.

Makes sense again.

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

P.S. Share your thoughts below in the comments and if you found this post valuable please do share using the nice icons below. I truly appreciate all of your comments, whether you agree with me or not.

If you want to learn how to be a better copywriter, then this course is for you.

The normal price for this great product is $197 but for the rest of today only you can pick it up for $27.

Now that is a deal of the day.

Click here for The Copywriters Guild Deal of the Day

The Copywriters Guild

Seven modules – Speed Copy, Squeeze Pages, Autoresponders, Sales Pages, Order Pages, Up-Sells, and Test & Track

Three Bonus Trainings

Plus seven Free Bonus Reports

I paid the full price and it was well worth it.

Click here for The Copywriters Guild Deal of the Day

 
*****UPDATE JULY 18, 2011*****

The deal is now closed, thanks to all who purchased a great product at a great discount.

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

Why so long?

The number one reason is that I have been concentrating my time on revenue producing activities.

The second reason includes procrastination, not making up my mind and trying to be perfect.

You see, Day 4 is about creating the front page to my blog and also ensuring that when someone lands on that page they know exactly what this blog is about.

So what is this blog about?

It is about creating cash flow from owing your own business that will provide for your retirement.

So it is targeted to those 40 and over, Zoomers, or Boomers with Zip.

Most people approach retirement the traditional way.

Work hard at a job, save for retirement, quit that job (retire) and live off of the savings.

And this traditional way is not working for many.

My solution.

Concentrate on building a cash flow that continues into retirement.

I finally got over trying to be perfect, because my front page is far from perfect.

For example, I am not happy with the video, however it is good enough until I update it.

But let’s look at the changes I have made.

I hope you all agree it is nice and clean, that was my objective.

I realize you may ask where I capture readers to add to my list.

My blog is about building relationships and I do not ask people to join my list when I first meet them.

I do have an advantage over some of you who are working on your cash flows using network marketing.

In my business I do not need a lot of people to join my team. Ten max at a time.

The front page does not have a lot of distractions.

I have my picture, which I think is important since I am branding myself.

I have all of the major ways for people to connect with me.

My recent posts and categories are displayed prominently.

And the footer has my contact information in citation format with some nice social proof.

Simple.

Of course I have the disclaimers, terms of service and privacy links at the very bottom.

Here is my philosophy.

Build relationships with like minded people.

Again, simple, like my front page.

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

P.S. Share your thoughts below in the comments and if you found this post valuable please do share using the nice icons below. I truly appreciate all of your comments, whether you agree with me or not.

Today I am going to look at my external and internal links to determine which ones should be “nofollow” links and which ones should open in a new window.

I am not a PageRank hog, but I do not see any reason to pass PageRank to any external websites except for comments and possibly other blog posts.

I also do not want to pass PageRank to certain internal pages, like my Privacy Policies.

As for whether or not to open a new window my rule is simple, all external links should open to a new window while internal links do not.

I do not know about you but I hate it when a website opens new windows for internal links. I end up with many browser windows opened for one site.

However I do want to open a new window when someone clicks an external link because I do not want them to forget about my site.

To make these changes depends on the theme and plugins used.

Some themes are “SEO” optimized which I hope means you have complete control over your internal and external links in the theme.

Some plugins will have options for “nofollow” and whether or not they open in a new window. Many do not.

No matter which theme you have you will still have to deal with plugins and may have to dig deep and make some code changes.

Below are some videos on how I modified my theme and plugins to achieve my linking goals.

Make sure you click the Full Screen icon in the bottom right of the video after you start to play, otherwise you are not going to be able to see what I am doing.

Video 1 – Overview

Video 2 – Modify “Find me on” Plugin

Video 3 – Top Commentators Plugin and Text Widget

Video 4 – Google Friend Connect and Networked Blogs

Video 5 – WP-Policies Plugin and my Theme Footer

Video 6 – A closer look at editing WordPress plugins

Video 7 – Theme Header

Video 8 – Comments

I know that is a lot of videos so here is a quickie summary.

1. Whether modifying a theme or plugin to find external links in the code search for “href=”

2. Once found you should see coding like “a href=http:” etc

3. I find the best place to add my code is between the “a” and the “href=”

4. To make a link “nofollow” add rel=’nofollow’ or rel=”nofollow” depending on how the code is using quotes

5. To force a link to open in a new window add target=’_blank’ or target=”_blank”

6. A little tip – use \” instead of just ” if the coding is confusing, ie target=\”_blank\” – by doing this you do not have to worry about how the coder is using quotes in their code

And that’s it

You could always just tell your webmaster what your goals are for internal and external linking and they can take care of it for you.

Me, I like to fool around with code.

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

P.S. Share your thoughts below in the comments and if you found this post valuable please do share using the nice icons below. I truly appreciate all of your comments, whether you agree with me or not.

For me, this is important.

When someone finds my front page in the search engines I want to deliver exactly what they are looking for.

No surprises.

No hitting them with ads to divert their attention.

If they come to my page and decide to leave so be it, I did not do my job.

I may add an exit pop-up with a last ditch message, but I will save that for the end.

I need to have a message that compels them to find out more about what I have to offer.

Which means I need to do some really good keyword research.

But first up, a video on how to structure my first page.

I am going to create a static page that will be optimized for my target niche and keywords.

Make sure you click the Full Screen icon in the bottom right of the video after you start to play, otherwise you are not going to be able to see what I am doing.

People have asked me “Why a Static Page” and my best answer is that it gives me 100% control to target my niche.

My front page will attract my niche and lead them via links to my blog posts that may provide solutions to what they are looking for.

My blogs posts will be even more targeted to sub-niches.

That is my goal.

In the next video I show you how to specify which widgets will show up in your sidebar depending on which page you are on.

I think that is enough for Day 2.

Having the right structure in place is key.

You might have guessed that I am a minimalist when it comes to my blog.

Now that the structure is getting into shape I need to find keywords my niche is typing into the search engines everyday looking for the solution I offer.

That is not easy.

I am trying to attract a specific demographic who are looking for a solution to their cash flow problems in retirement.

But I am working on it.

Any suggestions?

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

P.S. Share your thoughts below in the comments and if you found this post valuable please do share using the nice icons below. I truly appreciate all of your comments, whether you agree with me or not.

It proved to be too long and too confusing, so I decided to break it up into five parts.

Part 1 – Overview: Goals and Tools

Make sure you click the Full Screen icon in the bottom right of the video after you start to play, otherwise you are not going to be able to see what I am doing.

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

P.S. Share your thoughts below in the comments and if you found this post valuable please do share using the nice icons below. I truly appreciate all of your comments, whether you agree with me or not.

And technically you have to spend $10 today to receive a $20 gift card to use on Amazon.com

But heh, it is still a good deal, right?

The point of today’s blog post is that in Internet Marketing nothing is ever truly offered for free.

Nothing!

Is it good marketing to give away something for free?

It depends.

Some marketers will give you a piece of crap just to get you on their list.

Have you ever given up your email only to feel dirty later after reading the piece of s#$% someone gave you?

I have.

But let’s say you give someone something for free, your best report, or best video on how to do something that is truly valuable for that person.

Something that provided a solution to a problem that someone had without upsells or all the other crazy things marketers do when they first “get” you.

Do you think providing true value can build relationships?

I do.

Talking about upsells, have you ever experienced upsell hell?

You know, upsell after upsell after upsell just to finally get to that piece of s#$%.

Personally, I am really hoping that marketing model dies.

I like to think of my online business as a business.

You walk into my business, look around, see something you like, ask a few questions and hopefuly I provide the right answers.

The idea is to develop a relationship, not be viewed as an email on a list.

Unless of course you are an Affiliate Marketer who sells “How To Internet Marketing” stuff where the size of their list is the equilvalent of, well you know.

Hmm, this is turning out to be a rant and I have not even given you the 10 bucks yet

Now do not get me wrong, I love Affiliate Marketing and I have made a good income doing it.

Think about this.

In the past, real world marketers marketed products that were the passion of someone else.

In many cases they were either an agency or an employee doing their job.

But someone else had the passion for creating the product and they outsourced the marketing.

Now marketers create their own products but their expertise is marketing not passionate product creation.

Their passion is marketing and the product does not matter.

How often have you heard how easy it is to create a product, just outsource it.

Not much passion in that.

Okay end of rant.

In my opinion, if you are in Network Marketing keep your list but concentrate on the relationship.

Build the relationship by giving away high quality content on your blog.

Build the relationship through social media.

Build the relationship by attending local events.

Build the relationship by actually having a conversation in person or on the phone.

Oh yeah, here is your free $10 if you are in the USA -> $20 gift card for $10 to use on Amazon.com

There is only a few hours left on this deal so take advantage.

Yeah, yeah, I know scarcity, but it is not me it is Amazon limiting the time period their offer is available.

So what’s up next?

I do not like my home page and it has been a thorn in my side for awhile now.

So this weekend I am going to redesign it from a seo point of view and capture it on video for my next post.

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

P.S. Share your thoughts below in the comments and if you found this post valuable please do share using the nice icons below. I truly appreciate all of your comments, whether you agree with me or not.

I ended the discussion by promising to show you how I automate the process using a paid program, however I am going to save that for next week.

Tracking keyword conversions is very important. There is no reason to rank for keywords in search engines if you do not know how they convert on your website.

In the following video I show you how to track keyword conversions on your blog using Google Analytics.

Make sure you click the Full Screen icon in the bottom right of the video after you start to play, otherwise you are not going to be able to see what I am doing.

The idea is to be able to identify which keywords your readers use to find your blog and subsequently opt-in to your list.

Steps to Track Keyword Conversions

Step 1 – Sign up for a Free Google Analytics account

Step 2 – Install “Exclude Pages” plugin for your WordPress blog

Step 3 – Create a “Thank You” page for your blog that your opt-in auto-responder will redirect to. Ensure you uncheck the “Include this page in lists of pages” option created by the “Exclude Pages” plugin

Step 4 – If you are using an XML Sitemap plugin then exclude the “Thank You” page you created above

Step 5 – Install “Google Analyticator” plugin for WordPress (or similar plugin)

Step 6 – Follow the instructions to have Google Analytics track your blog

Step 7 – Create a Google Analytics Custom Report

Step 8 – Use the following settings: Metric – Unique Pageviews | Dimension – Page | Sub Dimension – Keyword

Step 9 – Save the report and view the results by selecting your “Thank You” page and drill down to see the keywords

Bonus Video on How to Hide Pages on your Blog

Make sure you click the Full Screen icon in the bottom right of the video after you start to play, otherwise you are not going to be able to see what I am doing.

So there you have it, everything you need to know to identify which keywords are leading to opt-ins for your list.

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

P.S. Share your thoughts below in the comments and if you found this post valuable please do share using the nice icons below. I truly appreciate all of your comments, whether you agree with me or not.

In the first video I start with the Google Keyword Tool by entering keyword phrases I obtain from SEO Book.

SEO Book’s free keyword tool is powered by Wordtracker.

Google Keyword Tool is also free however I suggest you obtain a gmail account and login when doing research. That way you will not be limited on how many results Google will give you.

Links to all of the tools I mention are at the end of this post.

Make sure you click the Full Screen icon in the bottom right of the video after you start to play, otherwise you are not going to be able to see what I am doing.


Video 1 – Google Keyword Tool and SEO Book

In the second video I use the Google Keyword Tool by entering a competitive website.

Again, watch the video in full screen mode.


Video 2 – Google Keyword Tool using a Competitive Website

Keyword Research for Free Steps

Google Keyword Tool and SEO Book

Step 1 – Enter your starter keyword and press Submit.

Step 2 – Export the Keyword list to a spreadsheet.

Step 3 – Copy the keywords (100 of them) into Google Keyword Tool “Word or Phrase” box.

Step 4 – Ensure you are searching all locations and not your local location then press Search.

Step 5 – Sort the keyword list by “Global Monthly Searches”.

Step 6 – In Match Types unclick “Broad” and click “Phrase”.

Step 7 – Download the results to your spreadsheet by clicking “Download” and selecting All from the drop down box.

Note – I changed Google’s Keyword Tool results from Broad to Phrase before I downloaded the results to my spreadsheet because the Phrase totals are more relevant for what we are doing. The Broad search result totals are for all of the words in the phrase which are of no use to us. I also did not choose any Categories. If you are doing keyword research for an affiliate product you may want to consider selecting relevant categories.


Google Keyword Tool using a Competitive Website

Step 1 – Search Google using your starter keyword. Make sure you are searching the appropriate Google country and not your local one, unless of course you want to search local. To override Google from redirecting you use the following url : http://google.com/ncr

Step 2 – Select one of the sites returned in the search results, not sites like Wikipedia, Ezine Articles, but rather one where the top level domain was returned.

Step 3 – Copy the domain name and paste into the Keyword Tool “Website” box.

Step 4 – Ensure you are searching all locations and not your local location then press Search.

Step 5 – Sort the keyword list by “Global Monthly Searches”.

Step 6 – In Match Types unclick “Broad” and click “Phrase”.

Step 7 – Download the results to your spreadsheet by clicking “Download” and selecting All from the drop down box.

Step 8 – Reload the Google Keyword Tool page to clear out all of the previous returned results.

Step 9 – Copy the keywords (100 of them) into Google Keyword Tool “Word or Phrase” box.

Step 10 – Ensure you are searching all locations and not your local location then press Search.

Step 11 – Sort the keyword list by “Global Monthly Searches”.

Step 12 – In Match Types unclick “Broad” and click “Phrase”.

Step 13 – Download the results to your spreadsheet by clicking “Download” and selecting All from the drop down box.


Spreadsheet Analysis

I use Excel as my spreadsheet, however you can use a free version from Open Office. Their link is below.

Google Keyword Tool will give us 800 keyword phrases. I will combine those 800 results with my initial 100 keywords and using Excel’s duplicate remover I will trim down the list. This post is not meant to be an Excel or other spreadsheet tutorial so if you do not understand something just ask.

I am only interested in three columns; Keyword, Global Monthly Searches and Average CPC.

I delete all other columns and I sort by the Average CPC, lowest to highest.

I will also filter the columns to show me Global Monthly Searches higher than 500. (You may decide to look at searches greater than some other higher number.

I will add a column to record Google’s number of results for phrase searches I may be interested in.

Now comes the manual work (remember we are not using paid tools).

I will scan down my spreadsheet looking for keyword phases that interest me that have reasonably good monthly searches and a low CPC.

Obviously if the CPC is really low, like zero, that may indicate a poor keyword. If the CPC rate is high that may indicate a keyword that is too competitive.

While scanning down the list I ask myself “If someone typed in that keyword phrase are they looking for me?”

When I identify a keyword phrase of interest I will do a phrase search in Google and note the number of results. If it is less than 60,000 I am interested.

The next step, assuming the search results are low enough, I will do a broad search to see what the top ten results are. I do a broad search because that is how people actually search.

This is where Firefox and the “SEO for Firefox” add-on come into play.

I will do my searches using Firefox and determine how competitive the keyword phrase is by looking at all of the wonderful stats that “SEO for Firefox” will show on the search results. I look at PR and backlinks mostly.

It is very important to review the search results and determine if you can beat some of them.

If the top results include just high authority sites then move on, especially if their domain names are listed as opposed to some deep page. It is possible to beat authority sites when the competition is low and their search result is for a deep page.

So that is how I do keyword research for free, or at least how I use to do it.

I now automate most of the process.

In a future post I will show how I automate the process using a paid program.


Keyword Research Tools

https://adwords.google.ca/select/KeywordToolExternal

http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

http://www.openoffice.org/

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

P.S. Share your thoughts below in the comments and if you found this post valuable please do share using the nice icons below. I truly appreciate all of your comments, whether you agree with me or not.

There are also many opinions about which skills are most important.

Some skills are very mechanical, like creating a website or a landing page.

Mechanical skills can never be the most important because you can easily learn them or outsource them to someone else.

Copywriting is an important skill and can even involve creativity but for me it is still not the most important.

In my opinion the most important internet marketing skill is the ability to generate traffic.

If you can generate traffic to your business everything else will fall into place.

Sure, converting that traffic is important, even knowing how to squeeze every penny from your traffic is important, however no matter what business you are in if no one opens the door to your business you fail.

If you have traffic then you can concentrate on conversion, and certainly if you get this step wrong you will fail while those who get it right prosper.

But step one is getting the right customers through your door to take a look around.

One could argue that you could also outsource your traffic building and I would agree.

However there are elements of generating taffic that I would not outsource until I thoroughly understood the process.

One element is keyword research.

Knowing how to do keyword research will help you target the right people to your business and get you free traffic from the search engines.

Once you have your keywords you could easily outsource the rest of the project, from on and off page SEO to article writing.

Of course there are many ways to generate traffic; social media, buying ads, PPC, but getting traffic from the search engines is one of the easiest ways if you know how.

In my next post I am going to make a screen capture video on how I do keyword research, from beginning to end.

So now might be a good time to subscribe to my RSS feed to ensure you do not miss out on a very important internet marketing skill.

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

P.S. Share your thoughts below in the comments and if you found this post valuable please do share using the nice icons below. I truly appreciate all of your comments, whether you agree with me or not.

Here is a great article about how a bricks and mortar company is successfully marketing their new product.

http://www.financialpost.com/small-business/advice/story.html?id=1767135&p=1

Notice anything familiar?

Targeted Media Campaigns

Focusing on where customers are looking

Press Releases to promote Expertise

Solution based Articles

Newsletters full of useful information

Working with Business Partners on sharing knowledge

Test everything

Target, Target, Target

80% of revenues comes from 20% of your customers

Listen to your customers

Form partnerships

This stuff really works, both offline and online, you just have to take action and actually do it.

Peter Fuller MBA CA
905-566-1927

That was my first “online” business where I made money.

Well it turns out my memory was a bit bad, it was actually called Online Sports.

However, the moral of the story was that it was hard to setup. 

The content source was difficult to create.  It took a lot of technical know how and patience.

I shut down the BBS when my content provider wanted to quadruple the cost which made my model non-profitable.

I did not blame them because they were looking to provide their content to large companies who wanted to establish a presence on this new thing called the world wide web.

Today it is so easy to setup a website with up-to-date sports scores and news feeds, back then it was very hard.

But do you know what was easy back then to do?

Getting Traffic.

A client of mine could not pay me and instead we struck a deal where I took over ownership of their website.

I was excited because I knew nothing about the WWW.  Today everyone says the internet, but it was the creation of the world wide web and browsers to access the hypertext documents that made things happen on the internet.

I also knew nothing about the niche content the website was based on.

I did some research, bought a book on HTML coding, found someone who knew everything about the niche content, and then formed a partnership with them.

I did not have PHP or MySQL to help me.

I did not have a WYSIWYG webpage editor.

I did not have WordPress.

I did not even have Google.

What I did have was easy access to customers.

Back then the primary source of generating traffic was trading reciprocal links, the type of links no one seems to care about today.

But those links brought us huge traffic.

Link pages were huge back then, not something you hid on one of your back pages.

So much traffic we did not care about conversion rates or what type of font to use for the heading.

It was simple, so simple.

Well, except the part where I had to write a Perl Program to interface with the credit card processor to automate the membership site.

Today I can setup a PayPal button and have it on my webpage in 34 seconds.

People came to our site because they saw a link that interested them.

When they arrived at our site they found exactly what we promised in the description they read before clicking the link.

We provided great content that people were willing to pay money for.

But again, the content took time and effort to create.  It became our passion and it was not something we just would contract out to someone else because it was our ideas.

We got so good at it we were accepted to a small elite group of webmasters who shared ideas and concepts on how to build really good sites.

So, content was hard and traffic was easy.  But content was also fun.

My partner decided to move to Florida and I was starting to get burned out creating html pages.

So we sold the site for a very good price.

I find it interesting how things have changed since then.

Now I can create a website in thirty seconds, install WordPress in just a few more minutes and have it populated with some good content in just a few days.  Of course it is not my content but it is content.

However, getting sufficient traffic to the site suddenly requires rocket science.

Not only do I have to worry about getting traffic, but now I have to get “targeted” traffic.

I have to tweak the heading to just the right colour and font because it will increase conversions by 2%.  That 2% may be the difference between failure and success.

Back then we created desire by just having good content.  Now I have to have just the perfect copy to convince people we have good content because now it takes more convincing.

All of these things are important, but it all starts with the the customer walking through your front door.

Most if not all businesses that fail do so because they did not have enough customers.

Knowing how to get customers, paying customers, is the single most important skill you need to develop.

Squeezing them will come later.

http://www.michelfortin.com/stop-gambling-customers/

Michel has the ability to rant and complain and yet not offend anyone.

I on the other hand will tell someone where to go and I will name names.

Of course sometimes I end up on the short end of the 80/20 rule for customer service.

I am going to keep this post short because I am working on Part II of “The old days were a lot harder and easier”

Go read Michel’s blog post and make sure you post a comment.

I was a fan of some local bulletin board systems and decided to start my own.

I was now a SysOP.

My system was called All Sports.

I located a company down in the States who provided me with a satellite feed for real-time score updates and news articles.

I started with a stand alone 386 and graduated to two computers, the older 386 and a brand new Pentium.

I used DR-DOS rather than MS-DOS and as I recall, it was because it had built-in Novell networking.  I cannot quite remember what version I was using but Novell owned DR-DOS for a little while before selling it off.  It was buggy but it worked for my needs.

Trust me, networking and multi-user environments were tricky back then.

For the BBS software I tried a few but settled on Galacticomm’s MajorBBS.

So, in my basement I had two computers talking to each other using a DR-DOS version supplied by Novell running Major BBS with four phone lines hooked into some modems.  I think I may still have the card I used which actually allowed up to eight lines.  It looked like a card with octopus connections.

For most that would be the hard part to get everything working, but then my satellite receiver arrived, and boy was I excited.

Up to the roof I went, followed the instructions to obtain the signal, ran the special cable to the basement and somehow plugged it into the back of the 386.

They supplied some software so that I could read the news and scores on my computer which was great but I needed an automated way to feed it into my BBS.

By this time Galacticomm changed Major BBS to Worldgroup and somewhere within Worldgroup they could import the feeds into the BBS if I placed them in a certain file folder in a Novell standard format.  My memory is weak in this area but I managed to do it.

I figured out how to write a program either in Pascal or C to parse the feed and do what was necessary to get it all to work.  All the network had to do was allow the 386 to save files on the Pentium computer.

Did I mention that I rarely slept during the long startup phase.

I still remember the day I turned everything on and watched the live feeds being picked by the BBS software and automatically posted to the message boards.

I was in heaven.

I took some ads out in my local paper and actually convinced people to pay me more than my cost per month and I was in proft.

I had my first content automated membership site, albiet using a BBS platform that was also a social forum within the sports niche.

We had get-togethers in the real world, went to the Jays and Argo’s games as a  group and had a blast.  I even ran contests where I gave away Leaf’s tickets.  I got the Leaf’s tickets, which were a hot commodity, from a local business for games that they could not attend in return for advertising on the BBS.

At the height of All Sports I had over 200 members each paying me a whopping $5 per month.

Then the World Wide Web started to encroach on my business and my content provider was getting greedy.

Next, my foray into the maze of the internet where things got easier.

I wrote an article and someone posted a comment that I should increase my due diligence. They posted a url of a youtube video based on a phone call to the IRS.

The problem is that they did not ask the right questions.

Here is an excerpt from my article.

Some argue that cash gifting is legal because of the tax code. They even quote the sections. Those sections are about how to, or not to, tax gifts. The code contemplates legitimate gifts between family members and friends, not an organized gifting program.

If you could rely on the tax code to give legitimacy to cash gifting programs then all pyramids would be legal.

In fact the tax code expects you to claim all of your income regardless if it is from a legal source or not. Just ask Al Capone.

So you cannot look to the tax code to determine if an income activity is legal or not.

So I decided to call the IRS and actually ask the right questions.