You’ve heard it over and over, “The Money is in the List”, followed by some sort of pitch for a list-building product or system.

That’s what Internet Marketers have been pitching for years… And, in a general sense, they are absolutely correct. If you don’t have a list of prospects or customers, you will not be able to generate as much revenue as you can without one.

All Lists are not created equal.

But, having a list and having a Good List are not the same thing.

Some companies make their living by providing lists. They collect email addresses and contact information using their specialized methods, and then offer them to you for a price. It is a good business model, one that has been around for decades. Someone wants to promote to a certain market, and these lists can help.

But, regardless of how well-targeted they are, each of those contacts on the list are cold-calls for you. None of them have ever heard of you, let alone be interested in anything you have to say. These aren’t Prospects, they’re Suspects. I suspect you’ll not get much Respect from them.

Your approach to this list is like tossing mud against the wall and seeing how much will stick. What a great way to treat your potential customers.

The Real List

Your Real List is one that contains people who know you – who have elected to hear from you – at least once. They are receptive to an approach if not an offer. They are Prospects, not Suspects.

You get these Prospects by enticing them to Opt IN to your newsletter, or email tips or to get your free Report. You have built in them enough interest or trust that they WANT to hear more from you.

Instead of finding them and cold-calling until they submit, they have found you through their interest in your niche. They sought your topic out of the Internet, and here they are. NOW you get to impress them with your knowledge and command of the topic – your Authority.

The Money Is In the Relationships

It is better to have the name of someone who knows you than is is to have just a name. It is better to get them to know you through meaningful contacts than to bulk-blast them with junk.

As you collect names of those interested in your topic, you begin to develop in them a special relationship. You are helpful. you are interesting, you are unique. You continue to tell the truth.

You can’t force them to become your friend, but you can help them trust you and your information.

Trust Is the Crucial Key.

Everybody wants to make a sale. Not everybody wants to make an effort.

It takes dedication and long hours devoted to building trusting business relationships. Trust is hard to develop and easy to lose. Your battle is not with your competitors, but with yourself. You need to be truthful and trusting at every turn.

Claim to have a guarantee? Better honor it faster than you promise. Claim to show the true path? Better have all the trail signs in place and complete. Claim to be interested in their success? Better prove it by offering success tools.

Step away from any one of your promises for even a second, and BAM! your trust dissolves. And you won’t get a second chance to rebuild it.

Make New Friends, but Keep the Old.

This comes from a song we used to sing around the campfires. One is Silver, and the Other is Gold. And you can’t tell the difference.

As you establish relationships, make it your goal to be friendly and helpful, and to retain as many Prospects on your list as possible. Keep them by offering them truth and value.

Establish routines that allow you to contact them with useful information. Keep your interactions low-key, and don’t flood their inbox with selling.

And seek out new Prospects. Always be prospecting, and converting them into fans.

Conclusion

It isn’t the LIST, it’s who is IN the list. If they seek you out, don’t let them down. Treat them like you want to be treated.

I had a lightbulb “doh!” moment a few days ago. I’d like to share so maybe you won’t hurt yourself slapping your own forehead.

eBay’s Changing Environment

eBay, in its own efforts to attract more high-volume Sellers and to settle the fears of new Buyers, has been re-working various fees and listing policies. Most notoriously, they have removed the option for a Buyer to use personal checks or Money orders as a method of payment, and forced most Sellers to accept PayPal as their only means of payment.

But, eBay has also raised the Final Value Fees on items sold from a Store, lowered the fees to List a Fixed Price item, and the fees for any Book or CD/DVD.

This is all wonderful and confusing and maddening and generating “who-knows-what-this-will-do-to-MY-business” howls from Sellers of every business level.

One change we have taken advantage of is the new Fixed Price Listing fee structure. They are now just a Flat Fee. For a single price of $0.35, we can create a Fixed Price Listing offering unlimited number of the item. It used to be based on the Total represented by the cost times the quantity. Now – Flat Fee for any quantity/price offering.

Yay!

The Gold Among Dross Secret

But, buried in these changes was a simple concept that I had overlooked or dismissed as not important.

Was I ever wrong.

It was a simple change to a previously forbidden or very restrictive policy. This is found in their “Circumventing Fees” examples.

Choice Listings - A listing where a seller allows buyers to choose from a selection of completely different items.  In general, sellers are permitted to offer a choice of sizes, colors and configurations of a particular item within a listing,  However, a listing may not offer buyers a choice of completely different items.

This is the final piece:

Listing a single item but offering additional identical items for sale in the item description is not permitted.

Exception: Multiple quantities may be sold in one listing through the following formats:

• Dutch auction-type listing
• Fixed Price listing
• Lot listing

So What?

As it turns out, we sell primarily Brand New items. We do a good buying job, and then offer them on eBay and our other online store, www.bobbibopstuff.com.

We sell 8 different designs of the same Locking Diary for teens. We sell a dozen different designs of Blank Book Journals. We sell several items that are identical except for design or color.

All Righty Then!

My lightbulb is that I now only need to create a single listing for Teen Diaries, show all the design choices, and ask the Buyer to indicate how many of each design they want.

I can then keep track of how many are left. As we run out of a particular design (which happens far more often that I generally keep track of) I can modify the hosted photo of that design to say “Sold Out” and then any and all my listings with that design are current as to availability.Ordinarily, I will have 3 or 4 listings of a design, sell out, and then have to find and cancel the remaining ones – wasting the listing fees in the process.

WooHoo! I cut my listings to only a fraction of my previous number and I keep track of inventory all in one swell foop.

Conclusion

What did I learn from this? Sure – I learned a technique for saving eBay fees.

Mostly, I learned to look a bit more slowly at the fine print, and to think more seriously about always finding ways to improve my business. Saving a dime is a dime more of profit. Save enough dimes, and the Profit dollars begin to add up.

What did you learn?

John L

1. Find a Market
2. Find a Product or Service
3. Sell Lots
4. Control Expenses

Market

This is a pool of potential customers. You know who they are, and you know what they want or need. You can serve a large market, or a niche market. But, you can’t sell to “everyone”.

It helps to have a Market with fewer rather than more competitors.

Product or Service

Your Product or Service needs to be something your Market wants or needs, and something that is different from all the others, You don’t want to be waving the “Me Too” banner too wildly.

Sell a Lot of It

Now, we’re getting somewhere! Selling is where it’s at… Sell a Ton of them and all will be well.

Maybe. Many a going concern collapsed by only focusing on sales.

Control Expenses

This is where Business Success is made or not. Profit is the end goal of any business venture. Without Expense Control, there are not likely to be any Profits. Certainly not as much as could be.

Think of this. Profit equals Sales minus Expenses. A Sale brings related Expenses. Only a portion of a Sales dollar makes it to the Profit bucket. However, Saving a Dollar, or NOT spending one, drops it right to the Bottom Line.

The Bottom Line

The Bottom Line is that the more that you sell AND save, the bigger the Bottom Line.

Watch Your Pennies and the Dollars will take care of themselves.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…