Why Learning From Experts Is Good ….. But Gut Instinct Is Better!

The most important thing I’ve learned is that rules are made to be broken, and sometimes yield unexpected success.

It’s fine listening to what the experts say, that’s how most lessons are learned, so I have people like Yanik Silver, Terry Dean and Allan Wilson to thank for my recent online successes. They were the ones who inspired me most when I first began selling online a few years ago, after 15 years or so selling information mainly by mail order and direct mail.

But I learned long ago that what’s best for one person, isn’t always best for another, so I’ve developed what I learned from my three wise men into something that suits me just fine.

These are the things I’ve learned which I hope will help others achieve success.

1) Remember the customer is king, always, and my friend. He or she is the one who pays my bills, feeds my children, allows me to work from home instead of some stuffy office or smelly factory. And because the customer ranks so high in my estimation, he (from here also to mean ‘he or she’) deserves my undivided attention, both on and off the Internet. This way he’ll trust me and knows I’m here to help him get full benefit from what he buys. So if I’m selling something countless other people are selling, I’m the one he’ll buy from. And if he doesn’t want to pay me online he can phone me instead, to talk about the product, and hopefully order. Moral: include a phone number on your site alongside your email address.

2) Act in haste, repent at leisure. You can’t get it right every time and there will always be someone who disagrees with you or just wants to ruin your day. I used to over-react and take it all to heart and say things I shouldn’t really say. Now when someone upsets me in an email I resist the urge to blast a strongly worded reply within seconds of receiving theirs. Not a good idea, especially since one such letter from me can be found in a popular Internet marketing forum! I won’t tell you which!

3) I’ll never take my eyes off the big ball again. For years I’ve earned a good living from mail order and direct mail, placing low cost ads. to generate enquiries for my books and gathering names to target new offers later. This Internet thing took off fast, a steady stream of orders arrived each day, and convinced me this was the way to go. I worked harder at this low-cost marketing medium, all the while neglecting my own list of past buyers and enquirers. Yes, I broke my own rules about customer care and took longer answering letters, returning phone calls, and let once regular customers go elsewhere to buy. Hence tip Number 4.

4) My biggest tip? Don’t look at online and offline marketing as separate entities. They’re not, and they can work wonderfully well in tandem. For example, I’ve found the best way to market my web site is off the Internet. This goes whether I’m placing small ads. in appropriate niche publications or sending snail mail to whet the appetite and prompt individuals to see more of what I’m offering online. Faced with a mass of emails in their box each day or a one-page letter the postman delivers, I know which I’d choose to inspect further. And that tiny ad. in the morning paper, with the tempting headline and just a few minutes needed to satisfy their curiosity, who could resist going online to solve the mystery?

5) There is no bad time to market. As July draws closer, it’s a signal for most information marketers to pack up for summer, enjoy the money they’ve made in the ‘good’ marketing months, and wait until the ‘best’ time to market again - roll on September. This, apparently, goes for mail order, direct mail, and Internet marketing. Rubbish! For years July and August have been my best selling months, if only because so many of my rivals are hibernating that I have more of the market to myself.

6) Just a simple numbers game. Few get rich quick in any business, even online marketing. All success is numbers based. The more time you spend marketing online or off the Internet, participating in forum discussions, answering emails, creating intriguing signature files, testing ads., the more you learn from other people’s experiences, the more you learn from your own, the more fun you’ll have and the more money you’ll make. Oh yes, and that goes for direct mail and mail order, too.