Instant Income – Income Building Plan For Small Business

New Income Strategies to Get More Customers – And Instant Income.

If you’ve struggled in this economy with getting people to look at your products, service or consulting services, be assured there are things you can do to bring in more customers.

I just finished a brand new guide on the subject detailing:

• Four strategies for immediately getting thousands of prospective new customers to look at your product or service.

• A complete strategy for adding new dealers and distributors for your products.

• Referral systems that encourage others to send business to you.

• Four ways to sell more to existing customers.

You’ll get guidance in finding new income for your business, and it even includes sample ads and the templates for creating the marketing pieces you’ll need — there’s even an internal audit to get your business ready to bring on new dealers and distributors who will grow your business with new outlets for your product or service.

You can get the NEW Income Strategies Guide by clicking here. Best of all,  it’s free.

Be assured, it’s not another one of those sales letters in disguise. It’s real information your business can use now. (Of course, if you’d like to read a sales pitch and want many more ways to grow and thrive in this economy, click here to read more about the Instant Income Business Enhancement System — complete with a 320-page manual, marketing and advertising archive, cash-flow planning calendar and other tools that are focused solely on boosting cash-flow in your business.)

Need more customers? Here’s how to attract 800+ prospective customers in one day

Just One Press Release Generated More Than 800 Prospective Customers In the First Three Hours Alone for My Company.

What Could YOU Write About to Create the Same Kind of Interest in Your Products and Services?

Today’s List and My Most Popular Free Report Tell You Where to Start…

In this kind of economy, most businesses are looking for more customers–or a way to sell more to the customers they have already.

One way to drive prospective customers to your business is to use the tried-and-true strategy of writing and submitting press releases to media outlets–but with a twist.

Of course, gone are the days of sending a one-page press release to your friendly local newspaper and reading it in the business section the following week. Today, it’s unlikely that your paper is even owned by a local publisher–and often the “local news” is handled remotely by disengaged editors and journalists.

So how can you compete for coveted editorial space in your local market–or reach prospective customers in other cities where you don’t have a presence?

The Internet is the key.

One of the most popular free reports I’ve ever released (and one that I’ll be taking down soon as we upgrade the Instant Income website) is this one on Internet press release distribution.

We’ve employed this strategy for years and, in one stellar case, generated over 800 new customer prospects who opted in at our website in just the first few hours.

Lots of my readers have downloaded this report on how to replicate the strategy, but many of you still ask, “What can I write about that’s newsworthy in my business?”

Many business owners assume they have nothing worth talking about in the media. “We really don’t have anything to say in a press release,” they say. “We’re just a dress shop. Who would want to know about us?”

But even a small local business can make publicity and media work for them.

If you own a pizzeria, for example, can you give an opinion about genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) now finding their way into even simple foods like pizzas–then convey that your pizzas are better because they’re made with organically grown meats, non-BGH cheese, locally grown organic vegetables and unbleached flour?

If you’re a solo entrepreneur, a consultant, a web designer or other independent contractor working for other businesses out of your home, can you present yourself as a leading expert at some aspect of your industry? If you’re a graphic designer, for example, can you release information about how small businesses in a tough economy can get twice the professional look at half the price, by using digital-press and print-on-demand technology?

And if you’re a manufacturer, can you talk about how businesses don’t need to go offshore with their manufacture of XYZ widgets, since you’ve perfected a unique process that not only turns out a better design than traditional widgets–but also cuts cost by up to 63%?

To help you develop your own ideas of what to talk about in the press and broadcast media, take a look at the list below. More »

How to convert more leads into customers

70% of our readers said they need to convert more sales leads into customers. With these simple techniques, even your administrative, operations and retail staff can become sales superstars…

Two weeks ago, I promised to report on the results of a comprehensive survey we presented to Instant Income readers. Among other questions readers answered was this one:

What are the most critical things you need to start doing in your business today?

Many of you said you needed to “launch new products and services.” Others identified “staying in communication with past customers” as a priority. Many more identified “marketing our services more aggressively” as critical to their business.

But a whopping 70% of readers — the largest percentage by far — said they needed to immediately “improve our sales function to convert more leads into customers.”

Today’s post is dedicated to meeting that need.

Start With Specific Offers That Pre-Sell Leads Before They Call or Come Into Your Store

Perhaps the easiest way to make a sale is when the prospective customer calls your business or visits your store already pre-disposed to buy a specific product or service. This kind of pre-sold situation can only happen when you make specific offers in your lead-generating materials and give prospects every reason why they should want what you’re advertising.

What makes an offer “specific”?

Presenting (in an advertisement, email, radio commercial or other device) a unique item or product bundle, with compelling benefits why the prospect should be interested, at a specific price that would be considered a good value, along with a call-to-action for the prospect to call or visit your store within a specific time period. That’s a specific offer.

Unfortunately, so many businesses advertise non-products and non-benefits like, Quality, service and low prices or In business for 27 years! But instead of sounding like every other business in town, why not make a specific offer that has a sense of urgency about it and gets people to pick up the phone and call you? More »

Offers That Bring In the Cash

When it comes to making compelling offers in your advertisements, sales letters and webpages, I like offers that say:

There’s only one package, it includes these items (or services), the price is this, and here’s why that price is such a great deal.

I never recommend gimmicks like bronze, silver and gold packages with different benefits and different prices. Too many choices can confuse the reader — and a confused reader will say “no” every time, rather than struggle through too many details.

Unlike the Two-Step Offer I talked about previously, a “straight sale” offer is designed to close the sale and persuade the reader make a buying decision solely from the piece they’re reading at that moment. This might be a letter, a newspaper ad, an email… even a postcard. It’s designed to induce the reader to act immediately on what they read and make a purchase from you.

What kinds of straight sale offers work? Here are the top five:

1. Limited Time Offer. It works well if you’re promoting a service with an upcoming start date or a product where the special pricing or combination of items in the product bundle won’t be available after a certain date. Why? Because there’s a time limit for people making a buying decision. Limited-time offers convey a “sense of urgency.”

2. Discounted Price Offer. I dislike random or percentage-off discounting because I think it sends the wrong message to your prospect — that somehow when you charged full price you were charging more than was reasonable or fair. But if you have a legitimate reason to discount, this kind of offer works well. If you sell equipment, for example, and recently bought inventory of the newest model, you could say, “We just received a shipment of the brand new XK-48 Widget. But we also have lots of the previous model left over. They’re still excellent units, but you know what? We need to sell them to make room in our warehouse. We have 127 units left. As a favor to you, we’re going to offer it to you, not at the original price of $995, not even at the discounted price of $695. We are going to offer it to you for our cost — just $422.68.”

3. Limited Availability Offer. This is a very effective offer for any kind of service that people are eager to schedule. For example, once the weekday morning downtime in your day spa is filled, you won’t be able to offer your premium aromatherapy massages at half-price anymore just to fill your schedule. There is tremendous incentive in these types of offers for people to respond before all spots are taken.

4. “Don’t Let Competitors Respond First.” This is a very compelling offer, particularly for high priced business products or services where you are able to limit who you sell to. Being naturally competitive, most business owners will jump at the chance to be the one and only person who captures the product or service you’re offering — thereby cutting their competition out of the running for your product or service. It causes prospects to decide more quickly…and to not think about it too much.

5. Free Bonus. You may have heard other marketers say, Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak. What this means is that you create your offer in such a way that you talk more about the valuable bonus than you do about the actual product or service you’re selling.

In my next blog post, I’ll give you a short tutorial to help you write your own offers.

Have you registered to get the blog feed yet? Don’t miss what’s coming up. Click here to add my RSS feed.

Finally, feel free comment on what you’ve read so far. What changes, if any, will you make to the way you promote and sell your products and services? What kinds of offers are you making right now that work.

Tell me by leaving a reply below.

Until next time,

Janet Switzer

photo credit: Eleventh Earl of Mar

Here’s how to break through the ‘Traffic Barrier’

Most websites get 10-50 visitors a day. Boosting that traffic to 200 per day can pay off with new customers and tons of product sales.

What most people don’t realize is that targeted traffic is the key to generating customers on the web — not whether you have videos at your site or whether your color scheme is blue or green. In fact, traffic is one of those metrics that anyone serious about their online marketing should monitor closely.

After monitoring hundreds of websites of all types, here are a few observations from my web team:

1. It takes 200 visitors a day to be profitable. For some reason, 200 is the magic number. Most websites get 10-50 visitors a day, but those that get 200+ find opt-ins and sales really take-off when they hit that 200-visitor benchmark. Google can help you get these 200 visitors if you’ll make a few simple upgrades to your site to meet Google’s criteria for ranking websites in the search results. Other search engines (such as Bing and Yahoo) will rank your website, too.

That’s why we call these simple upgrades search engine optimization — the art of “tuning up” a website so the search engines can more easily find your website and rank it for consumers who are searching for your kind of product or service.

One of the easiest upgrades is to tune-up your homepage so that it answers not only search phrases that you have the ability to rank under — but also search phrases that have the capacity to deliver enough traffic to get you to this 200 visit-per-day benchmark.

When my team looks at traffic reports for client sites that are getting 200+ visitors per day, we find that just three to five search phrases — all within a topic or subject area — drive 40% to 50% of the traffic.

For example, if you’re a business management consultant who works with all kinds of small businesses, your first inclination might be to develop your website’s message, copy, offers and language for small businesses at large. But doing this means that you’ll be competing against literally millions of other websites who are targeting the general small-business category (including those owned by major corporations).

It’s unlikely you would ever show up on Page One of Google — or even page 20 or 30. You simply wouldn’t rank. But create unique webpages within your website that feature language, opt-in offers and blog content for niche categories — such as “management consulting for apparel manufacturers” or “management consulting for electronics retailers” — and you could easily get ranked much higher in far smaller, probably under-served and therefore more responsive categories.

But be careful not to go after niches that are too small. they won’t deliver the traffic you need to reach the 200+ visitor mark. More »

Can you charge $1,000/hour for consulting? Here’s the marketing campaign you’ll need…

Many Professionals Charge $500 to $1,000 Per HOUR for Their Private Consulting and Coaching Services…

The Next Person to Join This Elite Group Should Be YOU.

Here’s one thing I’ve learned from developing strategy and marketing campaigns for many of the biggest name experts out there…

When they make themselves available to do private consultations and coaching, they charge a very high price per hour.

Think about your own situation for a moment. If you’re a coach or consultant and you’re not already charging more than the most expensive lawyer or the most sought-after expert in your industry, you need to increase your fees now.

Why? Because doing so leads to an immediate boost in your leading expert status.

Think about it.

Would the best-known expert in your industry charge $100 an hour — or a high price that people would be happy to pay just to get on their calendar?

Of course, you can’t charge high fees just for 60 minutes of one-on-one chat time with a client. Today, I reveal the same strategy I’ve given to hundreds of clients over the years for packaging expensive consulting and coaching time, while providing maximum value, impact and credibility.

But before I detail the complete strategy and provide all the sample documents and marketing emails you’ll need to execute this strategy — all FREE TO YOU as my gift — I have both a favor to ask and an announcement to make… More »

Cool Sales Tools for Solo Entrepreneurs and Small Companies.

Technology Makes Launching a Professional Sales Effort Easier Than Ever Before

Even If the “Sales Team” Is Just You…

If you operate with a very small staff or run the business by yourself (whether by choice or because of a limited budget), you can still launch an effective sales effort and convert prospects to buyers.

Technology makes it possible.

I’d like to introduce you to some “cool tools” for salespeople (even if the sales team is just you). We’ve used many of these tools for years in my company with great conversion rates. Others are newer technology you should become familiar with.

Here’s the short list:

Online Schedulers Eliminate the Need for Human Appointment-Setters And Reduce the Number of Prospects Lost to “Phone Tag”

One of the newer technologies that’s a tremendous benefit to salespeople is an online scheduler that lets prospective customers choose their own appointment time from a pre-programmed calendar. You send prospects to this online scheduler function either directly from a sales letter at your website — or from offline marketing activities such as your newspaper ads, business cards, flyers and brochures.

You don’t need to even go through the hassle of adding a page to your website, since the scheduler “resides” at the scheduler service’s website. Simply provide a link such as www.yourwebsite.com/get-information-by-phone or www.yourwebsite.com/book-an-appointment — with that URL re-directing to the scheduler.

You determine which days and times you want to make available for sales calls. And when prospects book an appointment, that time is removed from the available inventory. Also, their name and information is never seen by other people booking appointments.

One benefit you’ll really appreciate is that prospects book appointment times themselves — one more action-step that qualifies them as a motivated buyer. Additionally, you’ll no longer need human appointment-setters since the software does it all…24 hours a day. And far fewer prospects are lost to “phone tag” since the system sends an email reminder to the prospect to be ready for your call at the appointed time.

Of importance to solo entrepreneurs is that it also makes your small business seem bigger to prospective buyers.

Best of all, online scheduler services can be had for as little as $30 per month.

The service we like is TimeTrade.com. (I don’t get anything for recommending it, I just like the system and know it has worked well for us.)

Voice Broadcasting Lets You Call Hundreds of Prospects With a Sales Message, Yet Never Pick Up the Phone

I’ve written before about voice broadcasting and its benefits for solo entrepreneurs. For about 11¢ per name, you can record a one-minute (or longer) sales message, then broadcast that in your own voice to thousands of customer or prospect phone numbers. The key is to record a message in your natural speaking voice—as if you had just dialed that prospect personally. This provides a high-touch effect with very low-touch technology. Just the fact that you called is very powerful because so few small businesses (perhaps not even your competitors) use this technology effectively. More »

Contrary to Popular Belief, Newspaper Advertising and Other Print Advertising Still Works.

In Fact, for Some Businesses, It’s Actually a Less Competitive Environment Today.

Here’s a Contrarian Strategy You Can Profit From…

I’ve always been a fan of newspaper advertising, so when I sat down to write this — lo and behold, I was surprised at the negative comments newspaper and other print advertising is getting from the small business community these days.

It doesn’t work, they’re saying.  I’m doing all my advertising on Craigslist for free, others claim.  Print is dead, many advertisers opine.

But even though newspaper subscribership is down and advertising in major metro papers has followed suit, smart advertisers are using these facts to their advantage.  For one thing, with fewer ads appearing in newspapers, the ones that DO appear are much more effective — either because there’s little competition in that business category or there are simply fewer ads on the page.

And if you own a business that serves a local market (versus a national or international clientele), it’s quite possible your ideal customers are STILL reading one or more of your local newspapers regularly.

Who Might These Potential Customers Be?

More »

How to Write Newspaper Ads That Generate Cash-Flow

If you have a local business, one of the easiest ways to generate instant income—and create new customers at the same time—is to write a compelling newspaper ad today, run it in the newspaper tomorrow and watch sales and phone calls flood into your business over the next 24 hours.

To craft these compelling messages, top marketing copywriters use a technique called direct-response advertising.  Direct-response advertising is a method that causes the reader to take immediate action.

It’s based on the premise that if you give a reader all the information they need in order to make a buying decision, then add a number of scientifically tested words and phrases that trigger an emotional reaction, readers will respond almost immediately to your ad—and will respond in much higher numbers.

It’s easy to use direct-response techniques to write newspaper ads that get attention.  In fact, by using direct response copywriting, your ad will stand out simply because it’s so different looking from others that appear in the paper.

One of the most successful newspaper ads I ever created was a half-page that featured a client-testimonial ad (inside its own boxed border) on the right third of the space, while the remaining two-thirds was filled with what appeared to be a lengthy “feature story” about the business being advertised.

The “feature story” had its own headline, photo and photo caption and actually appeared to be separate from the boxed ad to the right.  The “ad” used direct-response techniques, while the “feature story” was written in typical journalistic style.

How can you create direct-response style advertisements? More »

Before You Hire One of the New Reputation Management Firms, Here’s What You Can Do on Your Own to Boost Your Reputation Online…

Online Content About Your Business Can Be Inspiring, Informative or Downright Embarrassing.

The hottest trend in small business marketing these days is “reputation management” — the monitoring, correcting and enhancing of online information about your business. And whether this information takes the form of reviews on consumer sites… or third-party blogs featuring your business name… or even someone infringing on your trademarked product name, online content about your business can be inspiring, informative or downright embarrassing.

Not surprisingly, a whole new crop of service providers has emerged to help you manage your company’s online reputation. But before you hire any of them, here’s what can you do on your own:

Step 1: Monitor What’s Being Said About Your Business

At the very least, you should program Google Alerts to email you a message anytime your business name, product name or owner’s name appears in news stories worldwide. You may not receive an email alert every day, but you’ll find out each time something new appears anywhere on the Internet. Be sure to put your name or product in quotation marks so Google correctly searches and delivers results (for example, “Janet Switzer” or “Instant Income”).

You can also monitor your online reputation using:

• Addictomatic.com — Type your name or product name into the search window and Addictomatic will return dozens of links showing where you appear online…Twitter, YouTube, Bing, Truveo video search, WordPress, Ask.com and even the Flickr photo site are scanned for your presence. While you’ll find individual listings (including some you didn’t even know about), Addictomatic is superb for giving you an idea of the pulse you have created online on any given day.

• Trackur Free — This social media monitoring software (they also have a free plan) lets you search for one term at a time such as your name or your company’s name. Trackur’s all-in-one-place dashboard finds what’s being said about you on in the social media universe and compiles it for easy review. It also ranks the reach and impact of the places you appear. In other words, are comments about you being read by millions of consumers or just a few? More »

Writing a Blog Can Bring You Extra Exposure on the Internet.

Why Blogging Is Still a Powerful Marketing Strategy

Writing a Blog (or Having Someone Else Write It for You) Can Bring You Extra Exposure on the Internet With Likely Buyers in the 34-73 Age Group… If You’re Selling to a Younger Crowd, However, Facebook and Twitter Are the Place to Be.

In a recent feature story, the New York Times examined the latest trends about blogging, Facebook and Twitter.

Their conclusion? Blogging is down…but also up.

First, the downtrend: A Pew Research Center study cited in the article said that “from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; among 18-to-33-year-olds, blogging dropped two percentage points.”

Now the up-trend: The same Pew survey found that, “While the younger generation is losing interest in blogging, people approaching middle age and older are sticking with it. Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points to 16 percent. Blogging by 46-to-55-year-olds increased five percentage points to 11 percent, while blogging among 65-to-73-year-olds rose two percentage points to 8 percent.”

Other research says these age groups are not only writing blogs that maintain a meaningful dialog with their market or audience, they also read blogs — and act upon them. 33% of people surveyed said they had read blogs, while 47% of people in another survey said they read reviews, recommendations and other website content before making a product purchase.

Link Bait: The Most Important Reason Why Blogging Is Still a Powerful Marketing Strategy

When you write a blog post (article), and upload it to your blog, the title of that blog post gets indexed (or listed) by Google right away — usually within 5-10 minutes, in fact. So one way to turn your blog into a true marketing tool and magnet for prospective customers searching online, is to put likely search phrases in the titles of your blog posts.

For instance, if you sell electric cars, one way to get immediate traffic to your blog (and therefore, your website) is to write an article entitled, “10 Ways to Choose an Electric Car.” You can write another blog post called, “Buying an Electric Car at Discount Prices.”

We call this strategy “creating link bait” — producing blog articles, web copy, and other website features specifically to get attention from Internet browsers or to encourage other website owners and bloggers to link to your website.

Google Loves Blogs

Not only does Google consider websites with blogs more authoritative, the continually updated and increased content that a blog brings to your website also gives you extra points with Google when it comes time to rank you against other websites in the search results.

To see an example of how fast Google indexes an article and returns it as a search result, click this link. You’ll see THIS post, which I’ve turned into an article on my blog, ranked by Google for the search phrase “Writing a Blog Can Bring You Extra Exposure on the Internet.”

What Can You Do to Make Writing Your Blog Easier?

More »

The “Gotta-Make-Money-By-Friday” Marketing Strategy

If You Haven’t Reactivated Past or Inactive Customers, You May Be Sitting on a Gold Mine of Instant Income

Too many business owners spend valuable time chasing new customers, when past buyers or existing customers can actually be a greater source of Instant Income.

Assuming that your past buyers had a good experience with you and that you have nurtured the relationship over the years, it’s easy to develop special offers on new products and services for them—and sell them into a new opportunity.

What could you do to reactivate past customers?

Answer the questions below to plan your campaign: More »

Three Seconds Is All You Get to Capture the Interest of Visitors to Your Website.

Here’s How to Make Sure They Keep Reading…AND Become Customers.

A headline and the first two paragraphs…that’s about all the time you have to hook website visitors and get them to opt-in without clicking away from your site.

But unfortunately, most businesses fail this 3-second test — or worse, they ask website visitors to make too many decisions when landing on their homepage.

What Your Website MUST Have in Place to Generate Both Instant Income and Long-Term Revenue

Most business owners understand the need for a website, but all too few understand what a website is really supposed to do. Your website is a delivery vehicle for your message, just like newspaper ads, postcards, telemarketing or direct-mail packages. And like those other devices, your website must immediately capture the interest of visitors — then convince them to identify themselves as prospects for your product or service.

To begin with, your website must convince visitors to provide their name, email address and other identifying information in order to access a free giveaway that has value — such as a buyer’s guide, online tutorial, savings coupon, newsletter subscription, evaluation, self-audit or other instant download. The format of your giveaway item doesn’t matter–whether PDF, audio MP3 or other format–just as long as it can be easily opened, read, listened to, viewed or otherwise used by the people who opt-in at your site to get it.

It should be downloadable at your website to keep your delivery costs at zero.

And it must be compelling. These days, convincing visitors to opt-in isn’t as easy as it used to be–mainly because registrants know they’ll be emailed advertisements and promotions later. You need to provide a tangible benefit in return. Even giving things away for free requires a persuasive and specific offer.

“We have great prices!” is not an offer. Similarly, “27 years in business!” is not an offer. And “Sign up for our newsletter” has not worked as an offer for at least a few years. More »

Why Is My Business Not Showing Up on Google?

Earlier this year, I was talking with one of the world’s top Internet pros. He’s not one of those “gurus” who keeps jamming your inbox with yet another get-rich-quick scheme. He’s actually the guy in the background who’s orchestrated the web marketing activities of many of the biggest names you’ve heard of.

We were lamenting how too many business owners spend thousands of dollars and months of their time putting up a website — only to be dismayed wondering when all the visitors will appear.

What’s worse, when they try to find themselves on Google, using keywords and terms appropriate to their company, their website doesn’t even appear in the rankings.

“Why is my business not showing up on Google?” seems to be the most common complaint today.

In fact, it’s so common that I decided it was important enough to dedicate an entire issue of the Instant Income Revenue Report to solving this dilemma.

Today I’ll be explaining how to get listed on page one of Google’s search results for your type of business… in the next 24 hours… absolutely free.

How to Get Google to Become Your Most Active Business Partner

Getting traffic at your website isn’t rocket science.

In fact, the world’s #1 search engine and traffic generator — Google — wants you to be successful. When you set up your site the way Google likes to see it, Google rewards you with higher rankings. (The reverse is also true: Fail to do what Google wants and it will punish you with lower rankings and sometimes by even “de-indexing” or blacklisting you.)

More »