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The online home of Tyson Faulkner

One of the most important things I've learned so far from my List Building Masters tele-series is that building trust is so valuable. It may end up in fewer short term profits, but once your name gets out there and that you're trustworthy it will pay off big time.

Not to mention that being trustworthy and having integrity is something that you should focus on in EVERY aspect of your life, not just business.

Today I've got 5 ways to build trust with your mailing list, that I learned from Mark Hendricks. It was posted on DailyBlogTips.com as a guest post. Go check it out and let me know what you think!

Here's the link:

5 Ways To Build Trust With Your List

Online forums are a great place to spend a few minutes every day hanging out with people that have the same interests you do. You can share stories, ask questions, and help others with their problems. Plus by putting a link back to your site in your signature you can generate new visitors/prospects/customers.

Forums are also a great place to establish your presence. Whether you know it or not people will be watching you and seeing if you provide value and are worth following. Once people know you are looking out for their interests they will trust you and likely buy products from you or take your recommendations.

There are forums on literally every topic out there, so no matter what niche you're in you should be able to find a couple to participate in. Since I'm in the "marketing" niche, I hang out at the Warrior Forum a lot.

I also just found a new work at home forum that's a little smaller but is growing fast. Paul Lynch created it and he's actively involved helping the community out with their marketing. Go check it out!

Like everything though the key is consistency. If you show up once a month and make 5 posts no one will know who you are. If you just hang out for a few minutes a day and post a few times though you will build a presence.

Also don't forget to sign up for the free List Building Masters teleseminar series I have running. You can learn from 12 top marketing experts to build your list the right way from the start.

Most of us on the internet don't have anyone watching over our shoulders making sure we get things done. This can lead to terrible procrastination and work ethic, at least it has for me at times, what about you? To get the results you're after (more traffic, leads, and sales in most cases) you'll have to get out there and do what no one wants to do.

You need to spend more time creating actionable content that you put out to the world away from your websites. If you spend most of your time on your own sites and blogs, there's no way for people to find you on the net.

I listened to a Brian Tracy interview recently where he stated that most businesses spend 11% of their time and marketing. Marketing is the activity that brings in more customers, which are the lifeblood of our businesses, yet most of us spend around 11% of our time on it? No wonder we aren't getting the results we're after!

Instead, we should follow the 80/20 rule…80% of our time spent on marketing, and 20% of the time spent on our own sites. While a blog post may be considered marketing by some, it's still ON YOUR SITE. So no one can find and read it until they find your site somehow. I'd say blog posts and emails should be stuck in the 20%.

So if you have 5 hours to work on your business, spend 4 hours purely on marketing efforts. Start creating excellent, actionable content (content that tells people what to do) and putting it out there on the world of the internet for people to find.

If someone sees your video and likes it, they'll come to your site. If someone reads and article your wrote and wants to learn more, they'll clickthrough. But without that content "net" out there in the internet your potential customers will never be able to find you and you won't be able to help them.

So join me and commit to doing MORE of the activities that will actually produce the results we're looking for in our businesses. What do ya say?

The next step that you need to take in your list building quest is to create a squeeze page. This one page will be where you drive all your traffic to. As those people come and visit your site, they will see your squeeze page, want to learn more, and sign up to be on your list.

A good squeeze page will be a web page that is very simple and gives your visitor only one choice, and that's to subscribe to your list and start receiving emails from you. If he/she wants to do anything else, then they will have to close the page or hit the back button.

There should be absolutely no distractions that could take them somewhere else. That is absolutely critical!

There should be only 4 parts to your squeeze page

1. Big, bold headline
2. Bullet points
3. Call To Action
4. Opt-in Form

Let's go through these one at a time.

Big, Bold Headline

This is the most important part of the page. Since you only have a few seconds to capture the attention of your average visitor, this is where it's done.

It's the biggest text on the page and at the top so naturally it will be where they look first.

Now how should you write the headline?

It SHOULD NOT be a statement of what your free report is. A headline like this will give you a terrible opt-in rate:

"Grab A Copy Of My Free Dog Training Tips Report"

It won't work because quite frankly…nobody cares about you or your report (sorry!). The only thing your visitor cares about is what it will do for them.

So what you need to do instead is pull out the free content you're going to giveaway and find the biggest benefit that your ideal prospect will pull out of it.

If the free content you are giving away teaches how to potty train a dog in just 2 hours, that's a pretty big benefit. So in your headline make that promise to your visitor.

"Train Your Dog To Stop Peeing On The Carpet In Under 2 Hours"

Be as specific as possible, make a promise that your prospect can't refuse. If someone visits your page and they have a dog who won't stop soiling their carpets do you think they'll close your page if it has that headline?

Bullet Points

Next include some bullet points that give some other very specific promises that they will instantly get if they sign up. Use the same logic as your headline, use the biggest problems that your market has and promise to solve them (just make sure your content does that, no lying!)

You shouldn't go overboard with this. Pull out the best ones you've got and throw them on there, don't try for 10 bullet points, just a few will suffice.

Something else you shouldn't do is put blocks of text describing things. Your squeeze page should be as easy to read and as simple as possible. The more text that's on it, usually the worse it will convert.

You're not trying to sell them something, just getting them to give you their email.

Call to Action / Opt-in Form

I'm grouping the last 2 together, because they should be implemented together. At the end of your bullet points, add a line that says, "Enter your email address now for instant access" with a big ol' arrow pointing to the opt-in box.

Never have a button there that just says "submit." They button they hit should have yet another call to action on it. Something like "Download Your Free Report" or "Get Instant Access Now." Don't be afraid to make your opt-in form big and obvious. Putting some big red arrows that point to it can also help your visitors know exactly what to do to get your awesome information.

Creating your squeeze page should not be a huge deal. You've already done the research and know what your prospects are looking for. You have already created a chunk of free, valuable content that you're going to give them to build trust and capture loyalty.

So really all you have to do is put it into some short words, format it and put it up on the internet. Don't make it harder than it is!

If you're using WordPress, you may notice that creating a new page won't work too well to create a squeeze page since it will look like your blog with all those distractions. If you don't want to mess with HTML, grab these WordPress landing page templates and you can create a pro squeeze page with WordPress no problem.

ACTION STEPS:

Step #1: Practice writing a few headlines until you get one that really pops out and promises a huge benefit that you can deliver on.

Step #2: Pick out 2-3 more big benefits and format them into specific promising bullet points.

Step #3: Write a call to action that tells your visitors exactly what they need to do to get your awesome information for free.

Step #4: Copy & Paste your opt-in code from Aweber onto your new squeeze page.

Easy right? Don't overcomplicate these things, the power is in the words you use, not the design. If you have 2 different ideas for headlines or squeeze pages, make two pages and use Google's website optimizer to split test them. That way you'll know for sure which one brings in more subscribers.

After you have your list system set up, all that's left is to start driving traffic. Do at least one thing a day to drive traffic to your squeeze page and your list will start to grow consistently.

Now that you have a website and your autoresponder, it's time to create a product of real value that you can give away. There are a couple types of products that you can give away, but I would highly recommend information so that's what I'm going to talk about.

Information is quick and cheap to produce, all you have to do is know a bit about your prospects, which shouldn't be a problem since you did Step #2 right?

Since you know what your market is trying to achieve by searching the internet, all you have to do is give it to them. Brainstorm a bit and figure out what their number 1 goal is. If you can get them 1 step closer to reaching that goal with your information, you've got a winner.

For example, if you're in the dog training niche, what is the biggest, most pressing concern a new dog owner has? Probably potty training right? A dog that jumps up on people or doesn't come right when you call him is much more bearable than a dog that always soils your carpet.

If you can write just a few pages about something that your prospect can take action on and achieve, you'll have gained their trust. Remember, this is your first impression so you want to make it as good as possible. If you just give them a crappy ebook about dog history or something, they won't care if you send them another email. But if you taught them how to potty train their pup and it worked, they'll be excited to hear from you to learn more, this is what you're after!

Here's a list of questions you can ask about your prospects to come up with a killer lead magnet…

1. What is the #1 goal they could achieve, and how can you get them 1 step closer to that goal?
2. What keeps them up at night?
3. What do they desire most?
4. What are they afraid of?
5. What other products have they bought/been sold?
6. What frustrates them every day?

Delivery

There are a variety of ways to deliver your information, I have experience with two of them so I will suggest you use those.

First is an ebook. Ebooks are simple to make and pretty much everyone that has an internet connection can read them. All you have to do is type up your info into a Word document or OpenOffice doc, and hit the "convert to pdf" button. It couldn't really get any simpler.

Then you zip the file and deliver it to your new prospect's with a download page and your autoresponder.

The second delivery method I learned from my fellow marketer, Igor Kheifets. It's a great way to instantly deliver your information and move your new subscriber down a line of steps. Note: this won't work if you have 30 pages of information to give away. In fact it works best with about 3 pages, or a couple videos.

Basically what you do is spread your lead magnet out across several web pages. So if you have a Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3. Direct them to step 1 right after they subscribe. Then at the bottom of step 1 put a link that says "Go on to Step #2" and so on.

When they hit the last step, you can put a link at the bottom that leads them to one of your products, an affiliate product, or anything else that you want them to see and may help them learn more about the topic.

This delivery system makes sure that they see your content immediately and move down the path that you want them to.

Using WordPress to do this can save you a lot of time since it's so user friendly. However, I wouldn't suggest you use normal blog posts or pages because of the high number of links that could distract your new subscribers and send them elsewhere. If you're not an HTML geek like me you can pick up my WordPress landing page templates, they work perfect for this sort of thing.

After you have your lead magnet all ready to go, you've got to hook it up to your autoresponder so your new subscribers will be instantly taken to it after they sign up.

To do this just log in to Aweber and create a new list. Follow the simple instructions to get it all set up. When you create your web form during step #2 there is an area that you can customize where new signups are directed. In that box, choose "custom URL" and put in the URL of your download page (if you chose ebook) or your step #1 web page (if you chose the second option).

That's it! You're one step closer to gathering subscribers and building your list.

ACTION STEPS: Create Your Lead Magnet

Step #1: Brainstorm your ideal prospect's biggest, most urgent problem and how you can fix it.

Step #2: Write a short information product that contains actionable content to help your new subscriber reach his/her goal.

Step #3: Decide on a delivery method; ebook or web pages.

Step #4: Create your pdf with openoffice (what I use), or create your web pages that will deliver your content. Pick up these WordPress templates if you'd like an easy way to do it.

Step #5: Hook your new subscriber magnet to your autoresponder. (It's the URL that your web form redirects to if you're using single opt-in)

There you have it! In just a few hours you could have a hot lead magnet that will build trust with your subscribers and have them asking for more!

Wow! It's been awhile since I posted step #3 to the List Building Crash Course, but I'm back and hopefully will get this thing back on schedule. Today I'm going to dive in to step #4 of starting your list…Getting the essential tools.

So far if you've been following this tutorial, you should have your market all picked out and your WordPress blog up and running. Now you need to start building your list, so let's get an autoresponder!

It's very important that you don't skimp here. This is how you are going to communicate with the massive list that you are going to build. If you go for a cheap or free method, you may find that the huge list of email addresses you've spent time and money building is worthless because your emails get caught in spam filters and don't get read!

As your business progresses, you are going to be sending thousands of emails to thousands of people weekly, and if only 3% of those emails get to inboxes, your business will be sunk. And I can guarantee that if you do it yourself this will be the case.

The best way to build a stress free list that you can communicate with is to start out right from the beginning. This means having someone else (with more resources and knowledge than you) manage your list. Thankfully this is extremely cheap to do too. For just $20/month you can have Aweber manage your email list and send out any followups you want them to. Plus you can make an unlimited number of new lists so there's lots of versatility.

If you think $20 per month seems too expensive, then you need to go back to step #1 and get your business mindset back. This is a business expense (that you can write off by the way) and is a necessary part of owning an internet business. Plus once you get serious about your business making $20 a month from your list will be no problem at all, so don't worry about it! Investing in the right tools will pay you back exponentially in the long run.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Go to Aweber right now and buy their autoresponder for $20/month. I believe you can even get your first month free, which will allow you to get your list up and running and earning money before you even pay anything.

2. That's it for today! It's an easy step, but so important to having a thriving online business. Do it now.

Welcome to the List Building Crash Course…Step #3! Now that you are in the business mindset (step #1) and know your market (step #2) it's time to establish your online presence.

So here's the key question…Do you have a website that acts as your business hub?

I don't suspect you would start a brick & mortar business without having a place of business, so why would you start an online business without having a hub that is your online place of business?

I know you may not want to spend any money because you were told on the internet "You can make money for free!" which I guess is true, but it's so much harder. Plus, all your work affiliate marketing is not building on something you will ultimately benefit from. Remember, we are trying to build a business, not just make a few bucks online.

And a normal part of any business is expenses. But unlike the old brick and mortar businesses, it only costs like $20 to start a business online, instead of paying thousands of dollars a month to pay for a building and all the physical things you need in the traditional business.

By having your own website, you can point all your marketing efforts to that site, getting your business name out there and known instead of promoting some other site like Squidoo or Hubpages like crazy. It's much more effective to build your own site in the long run, and actually not that much less effective in the short-term.

Sure Hubpages will rank higher and faster right out of the gate, but you don't control those properties, which makes them hazardous to your income. If they decide your content doesn't fit their site all of a sudden you're sunk. But if you've got your own site your good to go.

So I hope, by now, you are convinced that  you definitely need your very own website. So go get one! It's so easy to get your first website up and running that I'm going to give you some simple steps to do it right now, no more procrastinating!

Your First Website Up and Running In 1 Hour Or Less
ACTION STEPS

Step #1: Go to Namecheap.com and register a domain name. If you've already got a clever business name or something grab that. Or you can do something similar to what I did and register your-name.com or something similar. Just make sure it isn't something that you'll hate in the near future and you're good to go. This step will cost you a whopping $9.69.

Step #2: Go to Hostgator.com and buy a hosting plan. The one I use is called the "Baby plan" and is only $10/month, talk about low business expenses! I would avoid getting the smallest plan because it only supports 1 domain, and in the future (maybe right now) you will want to be able to easily add new domains. If you're feeling real professional and want a toll free number for your visitors to be able to call go for the "Business plan." 

All of Hostgator's plans are pretty good, they give you unlimited disk space and bandwidth so, in my opinion, it's the best option for your first hosting plan.

Step #3: Login to Namecheap.com, go to "manage domains," and click on the domain you just purchased. Then go to modify Domain Name Servers (DNS) and point the DNS of your new domain to your Hostgator account. You can find the DNS in the welcome email that Hostgator will send to you. (They look like this: ns###.hostgator.com)

Step #4: Install WordPress onto your new domain. This is insanely easy with Hostgators cpanel setup. Type in this address into your browser: http://www.yourdomain.com/cpanel. This will take you to your new website's cpanel. From there click on the little Fantastico icon, then scroll down to WordPress and select that. Then just click "New Installation" and follow the simple steps to instantly install WordPress onto your website.

Step #5: Customization. You've now got a website up and running, but it's probably using a default WP theme and doesn't look very good. So what you want to do is browse through some themes and find a good one that you like and fits your business. Don't spend too much time on this step, you could literally customize your site for hours, but it won't do much for your business, so try to stick to productive activities.

Another important customization step is adding plugins to your new site. You can find them by logging into your wp admin area, then navigating to "Plugins" then "Add New." This will give you a search box where you can enter keywords to find the plugins you want to install. Here's my top 10 list that I install on every site I make:

• All-in-one SEO (Great little SEO plugin)
• All-in-one Webmaster (to make integrating with Google webmaster easy)
• Contact Form 7 (easy contact form so I don't have my email published)
• Google Analytics for WP (web tracking is a must)
• Google Web Optimizer (split testing made easy)
• cbnet ping optimizer (so your blog does ping spam SE's)
• prettylink (easy link customization/redirection/cloaking)
• smart sharing (adds the cool floating share window. Can't find this through WP site, get it here
• Exclude Page From Navigation (So I can create squeeze pages and not have them on my WP menu)
• Google XML sitemaps (auto uploads sitemap to Google)

There are a ton more plugins, but I try to keep things as simple as possible. Start with these 10 and get them all set up and operational, including Akismet that is already installed on your site.

Step #6: Create Some Pages. Your website should be pretty good-looking now, so you've got an official business hub on the internet, congratulations!

Now you can create some content pages like an About Me, Contact, Privacy Policy, all that stuff, and maybe even write a couple small blog posts about your business and where you're headed.

You're now set to start getting visitors to YOUR website, and can now create squeeze pages and host download pages and everything you need to run an online business. See you in step #4 where we discuss autoresponders, why you need one,  and what you should and shouldn't be looking for in one.

So now that we know that we have to get in the right mindset, that we need to focus on building a business slowly, not just trying to make money online. It's time to dig in and get started with our marketing plan. If you missed step #1, read about the internet marketing mindset here.

And like I said I'll be tagging everything with [LBCC] since it's the List Building Crash Course…so it's easy to find. =)

Choosing Your Market

It's really important that you do this step and put a lot of thought into it. If you just go with the first thing that sounds good, it will be really hard to build a sustainable business, especially if it's not something that you enjoy. That said, think about what you like to do and how you could sell information to people who like the same things.

There are a ton of markets out there so it's not necessary to go into one or the other just because "it seems like there's money in it." If you're passionate about something, you'll find the money in your market. If you go into a market that seems like there's money in, but you have no passion or drive to continue, you'll never succeed with your business because it will just be too hard to keep going.

Getting To Know Your Market

Choosing the market you're going to dive into is not quite enough. If you want to be effective in your niche you need to have intimate knowledge about the people you will be marketing to. Remember, in order to build a business in your market, you must provide value. In order to provide value, you must know what your market deems as valuable (seems simple right?)

Truthfully this can be one of the harder things to figure out, at least it was (and is) for me. I tend to focus too much on myself and how I see things in my market, instead of focusing entirely on what OTHER people think/feel/need. To figure out what your market needs you must become one of them. Start frequenting the forums, start conversations with people and learn what kind of questions they have. Once you figure out what they are looking for, then you can give them what they need.

ACTION STEPS:

I decided that I need to include action steps on each one of these posts. After all, theory is good but what do you do with it?

#1: Brainstorm some ideas about some markets that you would LIKE to get into. Not that you think would be good money makers. What do you want to do? What areas would you like to become an expert in? You don't have to be an expert in your desired field yet, but you should want to become one. Reaching expert status will help you make more sales and build a bigger audience faster.

#2: Once you have your business ideas, you better see if there is money in it. I know I said that you'll find the money, which is true to a point. But if it's something obscure then you may have trouble finding the people in your market. To do this, visit some sites like Clickbank.com and Amazon.com and do some keyword searches for your niche. See if there are products already being sold to those people. If so, then you've got a green light to go forward.

#3: Now that you know what market you'll be diving into, start getting to know those people. Visit forums and Yahoo answers and do Google searches to figure out what kinds of questions they have. Where do they need help and what goals do they have? Once you know who your prospects are, what they need, and what goals they are trying to achieve, then you'll be set to give them exactly what they want.

Write all this stuff down! It's very important to keep a log of what you're doing. That way in the future if you start to lose focus you can 'reset' and see what your business plan was in the beginning.

As always if you have any questions or comments please leave them below, I'd be happy to help in anyway I can!

When I first heard about the ability to make money using the internet, I totally avoided anything that talked about mindset. I believe that was one of my biggest mistakes. If I had my mind in the right spot and really focused when I first got started online, I believe I would be much farther along in my business than I am today.

So don't just skip over this part because it doesn't seem important right now. The mindset you bring into this business is the only thing you've got to start with, so make sure it's solid and in the right place.

The Internet Marketing Mindset

The first thing that you have to get through your head is that your goal should not be to "make money online." If you do, you'll end up bouncing from program to program that promises just that: easy money with the internet.

Instead, you've got to see it as starting a business, because that is what you're going to be doing. 

You wouldn't just go out and start a brick and mortar business with no plan or budget or any structure of any kind. So don't do it with your new internet business. Just because it costs hardly anything to get started, you should still treat it as a real business that you own and are committed to making succeed.

If you don't have the drive to stick in there when it's hard, then you will never have a successful online business.

But if you DO treat it like a business and commit to never giving up, once you've got your business up and running it will pay you back exponentially for the time that you put in it. The internet is a truly powerful medium to use to build a business with.

So whatever you do don't fall into the trap of "I'm just going to make money with the internet." When it doesn't happen immediately you'll get very discouraged.

When you get into the business mindset you know you're in it for the long haul. So it doesn't seem like a big deal to spend a couple bucks on the tools you need to run your business. When you're just starting to build your list of prospects, you're not going to be getting 500 new subscribers per day. It may start at just 1 per day, then 5 per day, and as long as you keep working at it in a smart way, that number will keep increasing.

When you start looking at it this way, your goals will be a little farther out and much more realistic. So instead of being disappointed when you can't quit your job after a couple weeks of work, you'll be focused on building your business up so you WILL succeed and be able to quit your job and work from home maybe in a year or two. Sure it may come sooner, but you're setting yourself up for failure if you believe the hypey sales letters that say you can make $50,000 next month and be set for life.

Commit to your business, don't get distracted, and focus on growing your business slowly over time.

I've decided that I don't post to my blog nearly often enough, so I am going to start a complete, step by step tutorial that will give me something to post about in a sequential order. So here's what I'm going to do…

I know that one of the hardest things to do when you're getting started with internet marketing is focusing down to one project and really working on that.

When you're new I think the most important project to focus on is building a list in your market. It doesn't matter if you're in the gardening niche, gaming niche, or IM niche, a list of people who are interested in your subject will be an extremely valuable asset in your business (maybe the most valuable).

Once you have a list you will be able to send instant traffic anywhere, have leverage to get JV partners, and make it easy to make monthly income with affiliate sales. Building this audience will be key for your business to thrive.

Some marketers will tell you that you should immediately sell something and build a list of paying customers right out of the gate. The only problem I have with this is if you're just getting started, then it's hard to sell something. It took me a long time before I created a product that I thought was worth money. Of course this is mostly just a mental block, but until you have enough experience in your market then you may not have the confidence to move forward and ask for money.

Another thing to consider is that it takes a lot of work to create a product. It's not like all you have to do is write a 30 page word document. There's other things that go into a product like sales copy, payment processing, graphics, etc. that can be very hard for someone new to wrap their head around. So start simple.

After you do have a list of people who signed up to get something free from you, then you can turn those people who already know you into buyers once you do release a product of your own.

But for the time being, there's no harm in giving good stuff away for free then selling proven affiliate products to your list. Another bonus of doing this is that once you do create a product of your own, you can go to the owners of the affiliate products you've been selling and many times they will be happy to promote your product because you've been helping them out by selling theirs.

This post is rapidly getting much longer than I intended. So I'm going to try to wrap it up…

Here's the bottom line:

BUILDING A LIST IS IMPORTANT!

So I want to show you the simplest way you can start building a list fast. My goal is to post a new step once every couple days for you to work on. Each step is going to be insanely simple and easy to implement. If you just follow the steps that I lay out you will have your list up and running by the time we get done. Subscribers will be coming into your account and your online business will be officially started (if it's not already)

I was originally going to put this all into a book and charge for it, but I decided that I would rather deliver it in a step by step tutorial fashion so anyone can access it and get their business started fast and easily. That way it will be available to reference any time online on my blog.

I would really like this to be as interactive as possible. I want to know what steps you're struggling with and how I can better help you. So please let me know if you have questions using the comments below and I'll get them answered as we go. And even if you get in a little late, I always check the comments so don't hesitate to comment on an older post, I WANT to hear from you!

I'm really excited to get this started (and I hope you are too!) so I'm going to get to work and I'll see you in a couple days! If you haven't yet, subscribe to the RSS feed and you'll be able to get instantly updated when I post the next step.

Have a great sunday!

Tyson