Brainstorm: How To Sell Santa Letters On eBay…

From the mailbag and forum – Question from Michele:
“I have been selling on eBay for the past few years around the holidays to make extra money. I just bought Mila and Alice’s new ebook on a Santa Letter Biz. Any suggestions, hints or advice on how to make this successful and set myself apart to sell this on eBay? If it works, I’d like to continue with other holidays also. Thanks.”

There are quite a few options for selling Santa letters – here are a few suggestions:

1. Research: Whether your research involves watching eBay for competitive products or testing out your own listings… start out with research to see what kind of market there is on eBay for Santa letters.
2. Don’t plan on making all your money from the letters: Have a plan… use the letters to build an income down the road. I talked about this in the previous post – about using eBay to drive traffic to your business or to build a list. Capture email addresses from interested visitors and customers and follow up with additional products or info – maybe you do this year round and offer Letters from St. Valentine and the Easter Bunny too! Could be a subscriptions… could promote affiliate products (does the Santa Letter ebook have an affiliate program??) – get creative.
3. Try using eBay’s classified ads to promote the products. For $9.97 a month you can list a classified ad that appears just like an eBay auction – only it is for lead generation. Interested parties have to fill out a contact form if they are interested… allowing you to follow up. Once you have that email address, you can follow up and hopefully make some nice sales on more than just the Santa Letter. eBay is very relaxed with their limitations for classified ads – here is a link to eBay’s site: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/f-ad.html

Remember, it is about getting creative and coming up with ways to separate yourself from the competition… these are just a few ideas to help you get the wheels turning – but, I think you could do quite well on eBay with these if you have a good plan.

Stop Depending on Selling To Make Money On eBay!

Okay… coming from someone who teaches that eBay is a great source of income – what’s up with a post that says ‘Stop Depending On Selling To Make Money’?…

I still think eBay is an incredible resource for making nice profits on eBay… but, there are many ways to do this. Most people who consider eBay as a business they can run from home – they are thinking the money will be made by selling items through eBay’s listings or through an eBay store… and there are PLENTY of people who do so – they sell thousands of dollars worth of inventory a month and have created a nice living for themselves. There are a few, however, (and the number is growing daily) who have learned to USE eBay to drive traffic to other forms of income.

If you can get out of your mind that all of your money will be made selling on eBay, then your eyes will be exposed to a whole new world of growing your business. I’ve heard many work at home moms discuss the value of building a squidoo lens… or being a part of Facebook – or the like; however, not many consider eBay in a similar fashion.

eBay is one of the top visited sites in the world… why not learn to take advantage of that traffic? There is a transformation in your thinking when you start focusing on using eBay to generate traffic to your online business… you start looking at it as a marketing tool instead of as the main source of income. This can be a very powerful thinking pattern – and if applied properly, can be very lucrative. Here are a couple of suggestions for doing so:

1. Put in place a follow up system for your current customers. It is proven that it is easier to make a sale to a previous customer than to find a new customer – yet, many sellers do not follow up with their customers for return sales. Better yet, build a website with items that are like what you are selling on eBay and promote that store in your follow up (pulling the traffic from eBay). If the goal is to drive people to your website store outside of eBay, you can limit the items you are selling and reduce your listing fees.
   
   
2. Capture email addresses and build a list of leads from visitors to your listings. eBay has a very strict policy for what can and cannot be mentioned on an auction listing. You can’t blatantly promote your website or business on your auction listing; however, there are techniques you can use that can get you the same result. For example, you are allowed to point visitors to your About Me page – and the rules for what can be included on an About Me page are much more relaxed. You can point to your website from your About Me page… or better yet, offer a free report in exchange of an email address to build your list right there on your About Me page.
   
   
3. Let’s build on the free report idea… Offer a free report or membership on your About Me page that your customers would be interested in. Consider the niche you are selling in… if you are selling antiques on eBay – what kind of information would your customers or visitors be interested in learning about? Maybe how to care for antiques… or how to identify antiques. If you are selling children’s items – consider what kind of information your customers would be interested in knowing… maybe tips for new moms… or how to juggle being a new mom with the rest of your life… you get the idea. If you don’t have the expertise to write a short report – you can search google and find all sorts of free reports you can give away.
   
   
4. Learn how to use classified ads on eBay. Most sellers don’t even know what classified ads are… yet, it looks like they are turning out to be a cool tool for lead generation. You can actually include a link to your website or phone number right in the ad – and what is really cool is that they show up in search results right along side the auction listings.

I’ve built my business on some of these techniques and know many, many others who have as well. In fact, Jim Cockrum is the expert when it comes to learning how to creatively use eBays traffic to build profits. If you are interested in learning more about how to use eBay to build your business and not be dependent on selling item after item, I highly recommend signing up for his free newsletter at www.my-silent-team.com. I also couldn’t say enough about his top selling ebook, The Silent Sales Machine On eBay – where he outlines exactly HOW to build a business using eBay as a traffic generator. His book is full of ideas to motivate and get those wheels turning. I bought it in 2003 and have read it many times since. You can learn more about the ebook here: www.jennihunt.com/recommends/SilentSalesMachine.html – this book is the real deal!

 It’s your turn… Let’s brainstorm a bit…

What are you selling? How can you use eBay to drive traffic to your business?

Still Doing All the Work Yourself? Cut it Out, Mom!

As an “Internet Based Mom”, one of the best things you can do for your business, your family and your SANITY is to:

Stop trying to do everything yourself!

Managing a business, a household and having enough time to enjoy life is enough of a challenge. Trying to perform every single task that your business or even your household needs is near impossible.

Recently, I wrote a handy 16-page guide to help you get the assistance you need in your business – without breaking the bank.

No matter how busy you feel at this moment, please take 20 minutes to download the guide, read it and make plans to implement your outsourcing strategy. That 20 minutes you spend right now, will save you countless hours in the future.

Click here to download yours (PDF)

Don’t Forget To Pencil In Your “ME” Time

I bet you can remember the last time you did a load of laundry, the last time one of you little ones gave you a hug or perhaps the last time one of your little ones did a little artwork on the wall (smile) but when was the last time you took time out for you?

With all of this time management talk here I want you to know that it is very important to be sure to take time out for yourself.  I’m sure you are aware of the saying ‘If mama’ ain’t happy, nobody is happy” Well, I tend to agree with it so I try to take time off when I can to replenish my mind, body and spirit. Usually after just a few hours out alone, I feel so refreshed and ready to tackle just about ANYTHING.

Be sure to steal a few hours for yourself to get away. If for some reason you can’t leave the house perhaps just take some quiet time for yourself after the children are in bed and treat yourself to a good book, a bubble bath a nice movie or anything else that you get enjoyment from.

So here is my challenge Moms… Post here and tell us what you plan to do for YOU this week. It can be something big or small but it should be something just for you.Personally, I am going to meet some friends on Saturday, catch a move then grab some lunch. What do you plan on doing?

New Book Alert: Podcasting for Profit

Leesa Barnes is releasing her new book Podcasting for Profit this weekend at the Podcast and New Media Expo being held in Ontario, California.  I look forward to reading her book and gleaning many fresh ideas for my podcasts.

Check it out: Leesa Barnes Book Tour

Copywriting Basics

Here are a few basic rules to keep in mind when writing your website copy:

1. Know your most wanted response and concentrate strictly on that.  This will help you stay on track with the writing.  A sales letter that tries to be all things to all people will confuse and distract your prospects.

 2. Your headline has one job – to grab the reader’s attention and get them to read the page.  Don’t try to include too much in the headline or make it do too many jobs… remember the number one goal – command attention.

3.  Copy Test – If the reader reads the headline, order info and PS they should be able to understand your offer.  Give your copy the test and see if it’s working for you, or better yet ask a friend who doesn’t know a lot about your business to do the test for you.

4.  Headline Test – The headline should be able to stand on it’s own.  If you remove the headline from the copy can it stand alone?  Example: “Learn to Ski in 2 days” that headline can stand alone.  Example: “Whey Every Person Needs To Have One of These” that headline does not stand alone well.

 5.  Speak to reader – Remove the “I’s” and add more “You’s.”  Just about anything you write, even a personal story, can be written for the reader.  A simple way to do this is to go through your copy and remove the number of “I’s” versus “You’s” …. you want more “you’s” than “I’s”.

These are 5 quick & basic tips to help get your copy off to a good start.  I’ll be back with more tips later :-)

How Often Should You Backup Your Blog?

Mara sent in this excellent question,

“How often should you do a thorough backup of a blog? I have the backup that Wordpress has set up to backup daily. However, I’m sure there’s something I should do with all the rest of it, right?”

I commend you for taking action to back up your blog. It wasn’t so difficult right?

How often depends how active your blog is. If you post daily or several times a day every day, then daily is probably right. But if your posting schedule is weekly, there is no reason to put that load on your web server. So a weekly backup schedule works.

The key thing to know is, don’t wait too long between each backup. If you post daily, then a weekly backup schedule won’t help you so much. It will still be better than no backup, but the idea is to try to grab the freshest data as possible. Matching your backup schedule to your posting schedule is probably the best.

What else should you do? Backup the WordPress files itself. In particular, the wp-config.php file and the wp-content folder. The Database Backup Plugin only grabs your data (content) but not the themes (design). If you have done a lot of work to your theme or installed a lot of plugins - and most of us have – , it’s wise to keep a copy of it.

How to do it? This video will help you out. Keep those questions coming in.

Get Your Holidays In Gear!

I am so excited!  Christmas is now one of my very favorite times of year (this has not always been true – click on the link below to read about THAT journey!).

Because I know so many direct sellers struggle with balancing business, home and family commitments during November and December, I’ve developed quite a warehouse of Holiday Resources and Ideas to help make the season meaningful AND profitable. 

One of my favorites is a class I teach in the fall of every year called Get Your Holidays In Gear. I taught it “virtually” for the first time last year and am thrilled to be teaching it again beginning Wednesday October 17.  You can read more about it by clicking here: http://www.directsellingleaders.com/gyhig_ds.html

And just so you know, I am offering it at a ridiculously low price ($79 for four weeks – please don’t tell my husband!) because I want to take this amazing class and need to gather the fund pretty quickly. So, you win by designing your holiday season around money AND meaning and I win because I can take a fabulous training class – YEAH!

So if you want a rich holiday season in every way, click here: http://www.directsellingleaders.com/gyhig_ds.html

Love & Success!
Sarah

It’s A Family Affair: Stop, Drop & Organize

Do you remember back in school they had a Stop, Drop and Read portion of the day?  Well, when the teacher called it out you were to stop whatever you were doing, drop it neatly on your desk, grab a book and read.

Well, why not do the same with organizing. We all know it isn’t just us moms that tend to let things pile up. We may have a spouse, significant other, kids, pets and more that help to keep the house unorganized and at times cluttered.Why not create A Stop Drop and Organize time 1 time on Saturday and 1 time on Sunday (just for 10 minutes each).

You can get everyone to participate.. Yes a toddler too :)  Simply get some note cards, and write down some chores on them (chores that can be accomplished in 10 minutes) have each family member pick a card then “get to it”. You can gear the tasks towards the person’s abilities (e.g. while older kids can help out with cleaning up the kitchen or bathroom, a toddler may be responsible for putting away his/her toys.)  Pick your card, set the timer and everyone goes their separate ways for 10 minutes and does there best job.

Just think.. in a household of 4 people you are getting for great tasks completed in just 10minutes.So, do you think you can do that?  How you think you family would react?

What’s All This About External Hard Drives?

Hi y’all, I’m back this week with a brand new question from Kit. She asks,

Could you tell me about the pros and cons of using external hard drives? So many work at home moms I’ve talked to lately are purchasing them. Are there any tips or tricks we need to know about?

There are probably more pros to external hard drives than cons. 99% of the time, people get external drives for backup purposes or to carry copious amounts of data between two locations on a regular basis. Since we are talking in the WAHM community here, I expect it’s not the latter.

Think of them this way. You know how we used to carry around the 5″ floppies, then it was the 3.5″ floppies then it was CD’s and USB sticks? Well, an external drive really just acts/works the same way. Only, you get this huge amount of storage space.

This is what makes the external drive an excellent place to store backups or files you don’t use every day and want to archive. By moving them to an external drive, you free up your computer’s main hard drive.

Because external drives are mobile – just unplug them and go – that also means you can access your data anywhere e.g. a presentation at your clients’ office. There are smaller 2.5″ drives that can fit in your pocket. Very sleek and nice.

Tips?

• Don’t buy anything smaller than your existing hard drive size.
• Keep and work on those active files in your existing hard drive. You can work directly off an external drive but transferring/saving files can get slow.
• Unlike USB flash drives, external drives can be delicate. You really don’t want to drop it or handle it too much.
• Like your computer hard, they can fail. So if you store your backups in them, don’t just rely on that alone. You should always store your backups in as many different places as possible. E.g. one copy in the external hard drive and another one online or a 2nd external hard drive.

Thanks for asking, hope that answers some questions. Do you have a question? Don’t be shy, send them in.

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