Lee McIntyre’s Honest Marketing Blog

Are You Making it Hard For Your Customers?

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I’m currently in the process of trying to signup for a mobile broadband contract so that my laptop can connect to the net while on the move.

This summer I’d like to do a bit of travelling around, and in an ideal world I’d be able to quickly check my emails for 5 mins each morning before enjoying the rest of my day.

About 10 minutes ago I rang BT to ask a couple of really quick questions about one of their price plans. The phone rang and rang and rang, before eventually I had to go through an automated menu system.

FINALLY I was able to speak to a real person and I explained I needed information on their mobile broadband service. Before I even finished I was placed on hold, with no explanation, probably while she went away to get someone who knew the answer to my question.

About 1 minute later and she returned wanting to know my name. She didn’t explain why she needed this, so I asked. Her reply was that this was needed for her records.

I just wanted to ask a quick 10 second question!

I relented and gave my number only for her to tell me that it wasn’t coming up on her system, whatever that means. To fix this she now needed my postcode, and residential address. Arrrgghhh!

All I wanted to do was ask a QUICK question before placing an order.

What kind of crazy business practice is it where they make you jump through so many hoops just to ask a question? In the end I could take no more and politely told the lady that my brain was about to explode before gently hanging up the phone.

Do you make your customers jump through hoops? How easy is it to order from you? How easy is it to ask a question and get a reply?

If you’re not going out of your way to make the sales process as smooth as possible then there’s a good chance this is costing you sales. After all, if someone wants to give you their money you really should make it as easy as possible for them to do so!

Anyway, I’m off to see if it’s possible to get through to a human who can answer my quick question at Vodaphone...

Popularity: 55% [?]

5 Easy Ways To Generate Hot Content Ideas

You’ve probably often heard me mention often about the importance of building a list and sustaining a great relationship with your subscribers.

As you know, it wasn’t until I started to build my list that I saw my income begin to truly skyrocket!

In the past, I’ve tried the usual methods of trying to make a sale, like driving traffic to affiliate pages, writing and submitting articles, creating Squidoo lenses - you know the drill…and I’d be so thrilled when I’d see that occasional sale show up now and then in my Clickbank account.

But cripes - the work I had to go through….I barely made minimum wage!

Trust me when I say that owning your own popular newsletter makes the process of making sales a whole lot easier.

If you’ve been around here for awhile you know that I’ve worked hard to build a strong relationship with my subscribers.

How did I do that? It’s simple.

At every turn I’ve provided incredible free content and great products which solve problems.

But why don’t more people out there do the same? Well one reason I hear a lot is that people just struggle for top quality content ideas.

So what do you do when it’s time to give your subscribers some fantastic, fresh content that will help them solve yet another problem yet your brain has run dry?

Look below for 4 easy content generation ideas…

1 Get Your Creativity in Full Speed

First of all, try to get your creative juices flowing by taking some time to clear your mind. If your mind is all jumbled with problems or obstacles decide that you’re going to
work on solutions to those later.

I’ve even found that just by spending some time tidying up my desk will help clear my head!

Then go ahead and brainstorm some ideas for awhile.

Now go for a walk, a bike ride, do something fun or different for a while and totally forget about the brainstorming. Come back a few hours or even a day or so later, and you’ll find more often than not that you’ll have many great new ideas come to you effortlessly!

2 Always keep A Small Notepad with You

You never know when a great idea will suddenly pop into your mind. You’re sure you’ll remember it though without writing it down. TRUST me you won’t remember them all!

I don’t know how many times I’ve had wonderful ideas for great content then later tried to recall them and I absolutely couldn’t. How frustrating!

So do yourself a huge favor and carry around a small notebook with you so you wont forget that next suddenly brilliant idea.

I also find that writing my ideas down gets them out of head and allows me to relax better too.

3 Find offline magazines in your niche

Take a visit to your local bookstore, or any store for that matter with a magazine rack.

Take a look at some of the articles in your niche. What kinds of articles are they writing about?

These articles are usually picked for these magazines because of their high topic interest and appeal to your niche. These may trigger many related ideas for your niche. How can you expand upon these articles?

Do you have knowledge that you can use along with some of the ideas in the articles?

Checking out the hot content that makes the press can be a brilliant way to come up with sizzling content ideas of your own!

4 Look through Amazon.com

Look through the most popular book listings in your niche. Take note of the book titles that
seem intriguing or that jump out at you.

This should generate lots of other content ideas. You could even take this a step further and go to your library or local bookstore and search the
book content for additional great ideas.

Look for books that have lots of reviews and a high customer rating. Why? Because if the book is selling then you know this is the kind of hot topic that your audience might appreciate you covering.

5 Look through Niche Forums

Check out many of the forums in your niche, and take note on subjects where there is a lot of activity
and discussion.

You’ll often find extremely valuable content ideas here as people post many of their helpful tips and solutions to problems here.

And don’t just pay attention to the great advice being given by others in your niche….make sure you also look carefully at the questions being asked too.

What problems do people have? What solutions can you provide?

Marketing is all about giving people what they want so spend some time in the forums and listen carefully to the discussions taking place.

And that’s it!

Give these 5 tips a try next time you’re struggling to come up with a knockout idea to give to your subscribers.

And don’t forget to let me know what you think below too..

Popularity: 58% [?]

Low Cost Way to Get 1,000 Workers Today

I’ve spent about 3 hours today trying to come up with ideas for the slogan for a project I’m working on, and I have to admit complete and absolute defeat.

I have no idea why, but for some crazy reason I’ve suffered a complete brain freeze today and have been unable to even get close to the kind of slogan I’m looking to create.

Why is it that sometimes the ideas just flow and then others your brain is like an information black hole?

Don’t worry though as in these situations I have a plan that allows me to leverage the work of 1,000 people or more, without it costing very much at all….

Right now I have over 1,000 people working on the logo and slogan of my new project and it’s costing me only $100.

How? Well I simply contacted my local school and explained that my business is holding a contest with a $50 prize to the student who can create the best logo, and a $50 prize to the student who comes up with the best slogan.

Now think about this for a second…

Simply by engaging with my local school and by offering a small cash prize I’m able to tap into the ideas of more than a thousand people. How nifty is that?!

As part of what has been agreed, EVERY student in the school will have a go at the contest during registration period, and then I will attend the school one day and announce the winners, and briefly talk about my business too.

Now I love this because I really enjoy going back into school, but this also makes great business sense too.

I’ve done something similar to this in the past with my own classes when I was a teacher and always received GREAT answers, so I’m confident that with the whole school taking part I’ll end up with a top class slogan and logo.

Here’s a top tip…

Many schools are really eager to form relationships with local businesses, and if you can offer your time and expertise to do a short presentation, and maybe offer small prize, you’ll be amazed at the amount of talent you can have beavering away for your business.

And it benefits the schools massively too of course…

As a teacher I loved these kind of contests and the kids loved them too. Not only are you getting the ultimate work force on your side for a low price, but you’re also doing a public good too by connecting with a local school and engaging with local children and giving them a taste of real business.

It’s win win, and your local schools will love you for it too!

As a teacher I used to run a Young Enterprise group where I showed a group of 16 year old how to create their own business, and they loved every second. The talent pool within your typical school is huge, and it makes good sense to offer your time and a small prize to the school in exchange for tapping into these incredible young minds.

If you’re like me and you often suffer from draining brain freezes every once in a while, then don’t be afraid to engage with your local schools and you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to instantly tap into a creative workforce of 1,000 people are more. And it’s great fun to do too!

Popularity: 53% [?]

Quick Tip to Boost Your Productivity

I’m on major drive to improve my productivity at the moment, as I’m determined to get more work done while spending less time at my PC.

I’m trying a few new things to speed up my performance, but one thing has boosted my productivity like no other, and I really wanted to share…

If you’re reading this and happen to have a desktop AND a laptop, then this tip is for you!

I’ve recently taken deliveryof a new PC, and have set this up in my home office with the laptop beside it.  The advantage of this is I can work on the new PC, but I can also have some applications running on the laptop as well.

This doesn’t sound like a big improvement, but trust me when I say that I’m literally amazed how much more work this allows me to get done.

You can see some pictures below…

Yesterday I discovered a cool tool that makes this setup even more juicy.  It’s call Synergy and it allows you to control two computers with just one keyboard and mouse.

So when you have it running, you can move the mouse off one screen, and it automatically pops up on the other!

The keyboard also changes with the mouse too, so if you navigate to your laptop with your mouse, you will also find that the keyboard works over there as well 

If you do happen to have a laptop and a PC then give this a try today.  You’ll be amazed at how much more work you get done in the same period of time! 

Popularity: 56% [?]

3 Reasons Why The Old Internet Marketing Rules Are Broken

Spend any time on various internet marketing forums and plenty of people will tell you that email marketing is dead. They say that unsubscribe rates are at record highs and that spam filters are rampant.

And they’ll also tell you that it’s becoming almost impossible to profit from email marketing unless you have a giant list.

What a load of crazy talk!

Yes it’s becoming hard to profit from email marketing if you treat your list poorly, and if you’re still applying the same email marketing techniques that stopped being effective in 2003, then your revenue will probably be in freefall.

But if you roll with the punches and adapt with the times then it’s perfectly possible to make a huge online income with even the smallest email list, despite what the doom lords mights say.

3 reasons why the old email marketing rules are less effective than ever before…

1. Reverse Sweep Viral Marketing

Social media has meant that the internet gets more connected by the day. In the past, big name marketers with huge lists could blast their subscribers with offer after offer, but that doesn’t cut it any more.

Do that now and your bad rep will spread around the net like wildwire. The web is getting more connected and this type of email marketing is subsequently becoming less effective by the day.

2. Prospects are Becoming Tired and Jaded

One time only offers and pretend time limited discounts might have worked a few years ago, but these tactics are becoming less and less effective as time goes on. Not everyone has been exposed to these methods of course, and there are some niches where this still works.

But it’s certainly a fact that the tried and tested aggressive selling IM model is becoming more impotent by the day.

And here’s something else to think about.

While a pretend time sensitive countdown timer might have left an upset customer grumbling to themself five years ago, the widespread use of social media networks means that this customer is now just as likely to be grumbling to others….and this kind of bad vibe spreads (and that’s not good for business)

3. Web 2.0 Momentum means the days of just talking at your prospects are over

The really smart marketers are now finding out where their prospects hang out and then participating with them. You can still talk ‘at’ your customers of course, but if you want to make the deep connections that will lead to an increase in your profits then you need to start communicating ‘with’ them instead.

Don’t let anyone tell you that email marketing is slowly dying.

What’s actually in terminal decline is the old rules of the past, but if you’re prepared to ditch them and start giving instead of selling, then you just might notice that email marketing works after all…

Popularity: 56% [?]

The Key to Your Future Success: Stop Thinking and Start Doing

If you ask enough people advice on how to make money online then it’s inevitable that sooner or later someone will tell you that the key to achieving massive online success is to ‘take action’.

I remember hearing this a lot when I was a struggling beginner, and to say that this phrase frustrated me would be an understatement. It’s all very well telling me to take action, I used to think, but what actions in particular should I be concentrating on?

Telling a struggling marketer to take action almost feels the equivalent of a headmaster telling a teacher to ‘do something’ when confronted with a particularly challenging class.

When I was a teacher many of my collegues endured difficult classes that they simply couldn’t control, but when in the grips of despair to be told to just go out there and do something, at best wouldn’t have been particularly helpful, and at worst could have been confidence shattering.

Telling someone who doesn’t know what to do to ‘do something’ is often frustrating, unhelpful, and potentially damaging, yet why do so many marketers insist on using the ‘take action’ line as a one size fits all response to marketers in distress?

I’m not criticising other marketers here, and I also often resort to this stock answer when confronted with a marketer who is desperately trying to piece together the pieces of the online puzzle.

Let me explain why…

When I was a newbie who was unable to make any money online, the advice to take action was sharp and irritating, but it was also the most useful piece of advice that I ever received.

The reason that most marketers don’t know what action to take to get their internet business off the ground is because they’re faced with too many different paths to choose. Most beginners don’t struggle because they don’t know how to get started, they struggle because they don’t know where to start because they are faced with too many different choices.

I was exactly the same, and before I started making serious money online I spent my time thinking, whereas now I spend my time doing. I still think, plan, and analyse of course, but the balance of activity is now firmly weighted toward the process of building my business through the completion of tasks.

You can plan to build a tower for enternity, but unless you eventually grab hold of a shovel nothing will ever get built!

Education is important, and it’s essential that you learn about the various techniques that can help you build your business, but implementing the learning is equally important, and is often the element that’s missing and holding back a beginner from achieving the success they crave.

When I tell people to take action, I’m encouraging them to put into practice the marketing priciples that they’ve learned. First you educate yourself, and then you apply that education, and then you analyse what worked and what didn’t.

The day I finally stopped just trying to learn all the time, and actually started applying the concepts that I had in my head was the day that I finally turned a profit.

Most people reading this will already have a few ebooks on their hard drive packed full of useful ideas on how to make money online, and the best advice that I can give you is to go away now and put one of those ideas into practice. Stop trying to search for the internet magic bullet and instead start building a business based upon the online marketing principles that you’ve learned.

I personally spend a fortune on my marketing education, but I always make sure that I follow up by putting some of the ideas into practice almost immediately.

If you haven’t yet got to the stage where you feel that you have learned enough to put something into practice. then visit the Best Warrior Threads section, or watch the Standing Start Profits membership videos, but promise yourself that you’ll take immediate action the second you finish learning.

The first thing that I did online wasn’t a roaring success, and yours probably won’t be either, but the combination of learning and then doing will accelerate your education, and you’ll achieve your goals that much faster.

Now go out there and start applying what you know and you just might find that success finds you a lot quicker than you were expecting…

Popularity: 49% [?]

Can You Really Make Money With Niche Marketing?

One of the questions that I get asked a lot is ‘can you really make money with niche marketing’? Many people seem to be under the impression that only way to make serious money online is to sell to others who want to achieve internet success.

I can see why people think this, and it’s true that there are plenty of opportunities to make a huge income in the make money online niche, but there are also opportunities to earn a healthy income in plenty of other niches too, it’s just that they’re often a little harder to find.

I haven’t updated my classroom management blog for about six months, and yet I still get traffic. In fact, I haven’t done any marketing at all on that site for the same length of time, yet I still make sales daily, as you can see from the picture below.

I don’t make a huge amount from this site, but I’m more than happy to receive a few dollars here and there considering that I do zero work on this.

My teaching resource business also makes me sales each day, and I’ve done even less recent work on this business.

Making money online is all about finding what people want and then giving it to them, and this applies just as much to the many niche markets as it does to the seemingly ever present Internet Marketing merry go round.

You can make plenty of money with niche marketing, but you just have to look a bit harder before you can find the products that people are craving….

Popularity: 28% [?]

7 Tasks to Boost Your Income From Scratch

To say that I’m stunned by the overwhelming response to my contest post yesterday would be a complete understatement.

I had a feeling that this contest would be well received, but to receive 99 comments, and hundreds of questions, in less than 24 hours is simply mind blowing.

I’d like to thank everyone who has taken the time to post a question, and I promise that I’ll put my all into the free ebook that follows.

The book should be ready early next week, but while you wait I have some links below that answers many of the questions currently being asked in the contest thread…

1) Download a Ten Question Lee McIntyre Interview With Paula Brett

A few months ago we had a contest on the Standing Start Profits website where the members had to submit a set of questions for me to answer. I then compiled the questions and answers into an ebook, which you can download for FREE by clicking HERE.

2) Download a 30 Minute Lee McIntyre Audio Interview With Graham Cox

I took part in this interview several months ago and it was the first audio interview that I ever did. I sound a bit nervous , but Gramham was an excellent interviewer and he leads me down the road of revealing exactly how I managed to grow my business so fast.

Click HERE to download this audio interview.

3) Read My From Zero to $20,000 Warrior Forum Post

In this post I revealed how I had managed to grow my internet marketing business so fast, and how you can do the same too. This post was a massive hit on the Warrior Forum, and now resides in the Best of Warriors All Time Thread list.

Click HERE to read this post.

4) Subscribe to my Newsletter

I’m hugely proud of my newsletter, and I try and pack in as much content as I possibly can. When you subscribe you will get instant access to all of my previous issues, and this is the ideal place to find out how I’ve managed to grow my business so fast and how you could do the same.

Click HERE to subscribe to my newsletter,

5) Read my ‘How to Build a List Using eBay’ Post

This was another post that I made on the Warrior Forum which also now lives in the Best Warrior Thread list. In this post I explain how I use eBay in my teaching niche business, and you can take these concepts and apply to your business in any niche.

Click HERE to thread this post.

6) Subscribe to the Lee McIntyre RSS Blog Feed

Since this blog was born I’ve worked hard to fill it with the best content around, but in 2008 I’m going to take things to another level. This blog is going to be packed with the best learning resources around, and the best part is it will all be 100% FREE.

If you want to get notified each and every time the blog is updated then simply click on the ’subscribe in a reader’ link to the right of this post. I use Google Reader to subscribe to my favourite blogs, and I’d highly recommend that you do the same.

You can also get updates delivered to your inbox by simply entering your details into the email subscribe box to the right of this post.

7) Watch the Standing Start Profits Core Training Videos

In the Standing Start Profits membership area you can find 10 core training videos that will show you exactly how I managed to built my internet marketing business from scratch. These videos prove that anyone can make money online even if you have no list, no contacts, and no JV partners.

If you’re already a member then you can login in the usual way, but if you’ve not yet joined then don’t worry as it’s not too late. Hit the link below to join now and you could be watching the videos in just a few minutes time.

Click HERE to join Standing Start Profits now.

And that’s pretty much it!

I’ve been inspired by the response to my contest blog post, and hopefully the links above will give you some good solid information while I sit down and answer some of your questions.

Enjoy the links and don’t forget to let me know what you think in the comments below…

Popularity: 24% [?]

Free Content For Profit and Cheap Shots of Vodka

One of the myths that I hear a lot online is that it simply isn’t possible to make money by giving away free content, and that if you education your userbase to expect valuable information for zero cost, then you’ll have a fantastically hard job subsequently selling to these customers.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth, and this is advice could be dangerous to your business.

Giving away free content in almost any niche will help you earn the trust and respect of your target market, and will ultimately make the act of selling that much easier.

It took me a long time to understand this in the teaching niche, but when I finally grasped the power of earning trust through the zero cost content that I provide, the results were astonishing.

If you give your target customers content for free, then a relationship will be built and many pre sale barriers will be removed.

Here’s an important point though….

A few years ago I went on holiday to a pretty ‘cheesy’ beach resort in Spain.  Many of the local bars gave away free shots of local alcohol in an attempt to get you into their bar where they would subsequently try and sell you more expensive drinks for the rest of the night.

In fact, this policy of giving away free shots as a loss leader was so prevalent that almost every bar on the beach front followed the same policy.  The result?  Well, we usually setup camp in the first bar that offered us freebies and then proceeded to spend our measly allowances on beer and cocktails.

The bar had earned our trust, we were grateful for the freebie, and we were happy to give them the rest of our money for the next few days.

We spent money on beer, cocktails, and bar food, but did anyone spend money on any more cheap shots? Of course not, because you could get cheap shots for free anywhere on the strip!

My point is that giving away free content can be a potent strategy for business growth BUT sometimes you have to be careful about the content that you choose to provide for free.

The bars in Spain had educated the local market that shots of vodka should be free of charge, and subsequently no one would ever consider paying for one.  Likewise, if I had given away Auction Profits Unleashed, then it would have been subsequently difficult to sell Auction Secret Profits as I would have educated my market to expect such content for free.

Earn the trust of your target market through the most incredible free content that you can muster, but you must simultaneously protect and maintain the value of the premium content that you subsequently hope to sell.

And here’s something else to ponder too.  On the Spanish strip EVERY bar gave away a free shot as a profit seducing loss leader meaning that you had to do something really special to stand out from the crowd.

The bar that we spent the bulk of our time in didn’t give away free cheap shots of vodka…they gave away bottles of Champaign if you were in a group of 6 or more!

Now, I just prefer Beer if I’m honest but when someone offers you free Champaign you’re not going to say no are you?!

Giving away free content to earn the trust of your market, while also protecting and enhancing the value of your premium material, is a tricky balance to maintain.  And this balance gets a lot tougher too when people in your market start handing out the equivalent of free Champaign!

Start giving away the good stuff today but make sure that in doing so you don’t compromise the perceived value of your premium offerings or your generosity will be counter productive.

And if you get to the point where everyone else is giving away similar free content?  Well, then it’s time to find the Champaign of your market and give that away too (as long as it doesn’t undermind the value of what you subsequently hope to sell of course!)

Popularity: 20% [?]

How to Boost Your Email Open Rate Everytime

Every morning I receive a lot of junk mail through my letter box, and usually it all goes straight into the bin.  This morning though, one such letter caught my eye so much that I seperated it from the other junk letters and opened it right away.

In fact, I didn’t even think it was a junk letter at all!

The letter was basically a sales pitch for a credit card company, but they had used a very clever technique to ensure that I opened the letter.  On the envelope there was a clear piece of transparent plastic, and pressed up against this was what looked like a credit card.

All of a sudden the letter stops looking like a credit card sales pitch, and starts looking like an actual credit card being delivered in the post, which is certainly not the kind of thing to throw away.

I rushed to open the letter only to find that it wasn’t a credit card at all, just a very clever marketing technique. By making the envelope look like it contained an actual card it forced me to take action and open the envelope right away. 

Did I then get sucked in by the pitch and order a credit card?  No, but half the batler is getting people to open the letter and the technique proved to be incredibly effective.

I thought this was a super effective way of getting this particular letter opened, and it got me thinking about my email marketing.  People don’t like adverts, and they certainly don’t want to read advert after advert when they go online.

The credit card letter that I received worked because they did a great job of making the card look like anything but an advert, and this is a great lesson for our email marketing.

When sending an email to your list it’s the subject line that will largely influence whether or not people will open and read.  Work hard to make your email sound less like an advert, and more like it contains something of value and your response will increase as a result.

When you next send an email ask yourself whether the subject line will make others want to open right away, or whether it’s going to make people want to hit the delete button, or worse ignore it all together.

Crafting a subject line for your email can often be rather dull work, but it’s certainly time well spent. If you succeed in making your emails sound less like an ad, and more like something that must be opened now, then you’ll boost your open rate in a flash.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Quick Tip For Grabbing Joint Ventures

If you have an existing product, and you want to give your sales an instant boost, then Joint Ventures really are the most effective way to achieve this.

It’s no wonder then that I get so many JV requests each and every week, and I really do welcome them all.  I want to provide the best deals possible to my subscribers, so I actually enjoy flicking through the Joint Venture proposals that come my way.

In the video section of Standing Start Profits, I’ve talked a lot about the need to flesh out your JV requests, and to make sure that you actually give plenty of detail to the person you’re contacting.  Before I can even consider promoting a product I need to know the price, whether a discount can be offered to my subscirbers, the affiliate commission, and how you’re accepting payments.

I’m also interested in whether the JV partner can reciprocate in any way too.  If you don’t have an existing lists then don’t worry, as if you’re imaginative you can still offer something in return.  I recently promoted a product for another marketer, and in return he added links to my products inside all of his books and on his thank you pages.  He didn’t have a list, but I liked his imagination, and of coursem his product was a good one.

For me personally, the quality of the product, and the availability of a discoun, are the most important considerations, but if you can cross promote in any way then that obviously increases your chances too.  

I like to look after my subscribers, so I’m more likely to promote a product when I’m reassured about the quality, and giving me proof that it has been popular and well received by customers always catches my eye.

In other words, when you’re trying to secure Join Ventures you need to make sure that you go out of your way to provide the person you’re approaching with all the information they need to make an informed choice. 

I get a lot of JV requests, and 90% of them don’t even include the product for review.  I really like to try and help everyone I can, and it furstrates me that this isn’t possible, but I get so many JV requests that unless I’m emailed with all of the details then I can’t even consider it.

I mentioned this to someone recently, and he told me I should just reply and ask for the information.  Maybe I should, but I’m super busy as it is, and I just don’t have time to do this with everyone who emails me, although I wish I could.

If you’re reading this and you have a quality product that you think would be relevant to my list, and if you’re prepared to offer a discount to my subscribers, then log a ticket at AskLeeMcIntyre.com, and include as many details as you possibly can.

I want to help my readers as much as possible, so if you want to Joint Venture with me, then log a ticket today, and I’ll review it over the next few days.

Can I sell millions of dollars worth of your product?  No, but most of my emails usually generate $1,200+.  Okay, I know that’s small fry compared to many people, but it’s still not bad for a day’s work is it?

Send me your JV requests now, as I’d love to hear them. 

And don’t stop with me either.  Get out there and send as many JV requests to as many marketers as you possible can, and start right now.  You’re going to get knock backs along the way, but the more people you contact, the more JVs you’ll get.

Now go get them!

Popularity: 9% [?]

The Fallout From My Latest Free Viral eBook

Well, it’s certainly been a busy few days!  Two days ago I released my latest report, 500 Dollars Only, and I gave it away for free.

At first glance this might seem like a crazy decision, but there are plenty of benefits in giving away a free report in this way.  And the benefits can be lucrative too!

In just a couple of days I’ve added 600 new subscribers to my list, and I’ve sold just under $900 worth of information products. 

In fact, the benfits from giving away an book like this go way deeper than the front end income too….

1) My current subscribers become more satisfied with the service I provide making them more likely to buy products from me in the future.

2) I gain new subscribers who are now more likely to buy my products in the future.

3) My list becomes bigger making it easier to negotiate big discounts off popular products, meaning my subscribers become even more happy.

4) Some people bought resell rights to the 500 Dollars Only and sent it their email lists.  This means even more backend income, and more subscribers as the free ebook becomes viral.

5) More people become aware of who I am, and how I like to market.  This helps build my ‘brand’ and makes future projects easier to achieve.

And there are many more benefits too!

If you have existing products to sell, and you’re wondering how to drive traffic to them, then you should seriously consider creating a free ebook.  Giving great content for free in this way can often be even more lucrative than if you sold the book as a standalone project.

If you try and give good content first, then the process of selling really does become much less difficult.  If you want a quick and easy way to boost your online business then go away and create a free report now.

The impact upon your business could be huge!

Popularity: 12% [?]

Download RoboForm For Free And Increase Your Productivity

When it comes to trying to make money online, anything that improves your productivity should be welcomed.  Time is a finite resource, and if you run your own business you should always be on the lookout for ways to get more done in less time.

Increasing my productivity is currently a MASSIVE focus for myself here at Lee-McIntyre.com.  I’m trying to establish as many systems as I possibly can to ensure that I get the maximum amount of work completed, and in the minimum amount of time.

One tool that helps me save a ton of time is Roboform.  It’s easy to use, yet extremely powerful, and it saves me oodles of time everyday.

I have SO many passwords and usernames to remember it’s untrue.  In the past I’d log all of this information in a spreadsheet, and then dig out the information when logging into various sites.

Just checking my affiliate commissions across all my Clickbank accounts would take a considerable amount of time!

Roboform speeds up the whole process, and now I just need to select where I want to go from a drop down menu.  Roboform takes  me to the destination address AND logs me in too!

How’s that for a timesaver?!

And the best news is it’s completely free too.  If you haven’t yet allowed Roboform to save time for you and your business then download for FREE by clicking HERE now.

This is a fantastic free tool, and I’m very happy to give it the full Lee-McIntyre.com seal of approval!

Popularity: 26% [?]

Running an Affiliate Program Using E-Junkie

I’ve spent a lot of time this week trying to figue out a way to set up a quick and easy affiliate program using Paypal.  Those who read my newsletters know that I often like to take a new product into pre launch, allowing some select JV partners the opportunity to promote, before finally selling on Clickbank.

This is a great system, that works extremely well for my business.

But it does pose the questions of how do you run an affiliate program for the two week period before going live on Clickbank?  In the past I’ve tracked manually using the excellent DLguard, but doing so is cumbersome and time consuming.

Step forward E-Junkie!

For those who don’t know, E-Junkie is a hosted digital delivery option where you pay a modest fee monthly, in exchange for having your digital products delivered.

Personally, I prefer to use DLguard for digital delivery, BUT the E-Junkie affiliate settings really caught my eye.

For some pre launch JVs, I’ve been able to create an account, and set up a private affiliate program within minutes.  It only costs $6 a month and there are no per transaction fees either.

I’m happy as my fees are low, and the affiliate is happy as they get real time tracking.  I’m a big fan of paydotcom, but with the JVs that I have lined up, using E-Junkie will save me hundreds of dollars in transaction fees.

You can check out E-Junkie for yourself by clicking HERE.  It comes HIGHLY recommended and gets a very firm Lee-McIntyre.com stamp of approval!

Popularity: 8% [?]

Resize Your Pictures Quickly And Easily

If you’re like me, and you often need to resize your pictures for your web pages fast, then click HERE to check out a great FREE online too.

There are no affiliate links here, just a good recomendation for a nice free tool that I used this morning.  It’s really simple to use, and enables you to resize your pictures fast.  A nice little free tool.

Popularity: 10% [?]