For months, I’ve been planning how best to tackle the local market, and I’ve finally made some good progress with recruiting local clients. I’ve realized for years that local markets are virtually untapped, and not nearly as competitive as the online world. The biggest hurdle for me is that I’m the world’s worst salesman.

For me, working online means communicating by email, receiving payments online, and never having to sit in traffic.  It also means little or no rejection.  I do all my marketing online for a low cost, and customers come to me from all over the world.  The local market involves actually meeting face to face with potential clients, talking on the phone, and sitting in traffic occasionally.  It also involves a much higher chance of rejection.

It’s working pretty well so far though.  I’m already pulling in several hundred dollars a month from local businesses, and since I bill monthly, every new client I recruit adds to that total.  I have some marketing ideas that I’ll put into place next week, and I hope to triple my client base in the next several weeks.  With some luck, I’ll have a large enough client base by next Spring that I can hold off on recruiting new clients, and simply maintain my business in a few hours a day while I travel around Europe again with my family.  Now that would be great! 

I’ve read a lot on the Warrior Forum and other places about local marketing, but I haven’t come across any good information about exactly what I’m doing.  I’m sort of winging it so far, but through trial and error, I’m learning a lot, and I’m growing the local part of my business.

I have a lot of other projects going on right now as well.  I’ll post more about them soon.

–Robert

p.s. - For a preview, check this out - Free PLR Articles - It’s a concept I’ve been testing with pretty good success so far.

Over the years, I’ve created lots and lots of websites.  Some, I haven’t touched in years, and some, I update nearly every day.

One site I created mostly for myself is ComicStripArchive.com

I am a huge fan of comic strips.  I’m not a super-hero kind of person, so I’m not really into comic books, but I love the daily strips - even the soap opera strips, which can often be hilarious without even trying!  Most comic strips have archives online, but most only link to the past month of strips, even if the archive goes back several years.

I created  a simple PHP script which links to the archives for each comic strip, making it easy to find years worth of strips.  Mostly, I did this so I could access old strips easily, but I figured I wasn’t the only one who liked old comic strips, so maybe other people would enjoy it.

Did they ever!

Within a few months, I was getting tens of thousands of visitors a month, and now I get over 5,000 unique visitors a day on a slow day!  The site usually gets over 25,000 visitors a month directly from highly-targeted Google searches.  It’s a marketer’s dream!

The problem is monetizing that traffic.  With that kind of targeted traffic, one would think some decent income would be easy, but I’ve really struggled to make any sort of worthwhile income from the site.  I added a blog, to ensure fresh content, added Project Wonderful ads, and recently added Amazon boxes that have books related to whatever comic strip page the visitor is viewing.  Still, almost no revenue.

I have some ideas to attract even more traffic that I’ll probably implement in the next few weeks.  Still, if 5,000 visitors a day isn’t making much, 10,000 visitors a day won’t make much more unless I’m able to step up the monetization.

I’ve thought about trying to build a list, but I’m unsure of exactly what type of content I would offer, and what type of incentive people would have to join the list.  This will probably be my first step.  Even with a list, though, comic strip readers aren’t the most rabid buyers around.

This would make a good case study, especially if I’m able to increase my profits in a big way.  I’ll be discussing this site more over the coming months, I’m sure.  Be sure to check back.  If you have any profitable ideas, I would love to hear them!

Robert

I’m heading to bed, but I wanted to share something quickly.

I’ve had a membership site, the Online Marketing Toolbox, for several months now.  I promoted it through various advertising, and to my customers who bought websites from me, and though I had occasional signups, membership was very low.  With the economy in trouble, and revenue dropping, I made a commitment to make the Online Marketing Toolbox a site that every serious online marketer would want to be a member of!

One of the main changes I made was to the layout.  I had hastily designed a quick layout when I started the site, and though it looked pretty nice, it didn’t make customers say “Wow, I want to get more sites from this guy!”.  At least, I would imagine it didn’t.

Anyway, after discarding over a dozen potential designs, I finally came out with one I was exceedingly happy with.  Of all the website designs I’ve ever created, it’s by far my favorite.

What I found over the next month, is that potential customers like the new design too - enough to increase my conversion rate by over 400%!

It was hard for me to believe at first too.  Not only did my signups increase, but the biggest increase was from my website customers.  These customers saw my work firsthand, and yet only a handful were interested in joining before.  Now, five times as many were eager to signup.  It was truly amazing!

As a web designer, I’ve always felt like a good design can really change the perception of a potential customer, and now I have living proof!

Goodnight, and God Bless!

Robert

I wouldn’t consider myself to be great at writing sales letters.  I guess I’m okay at it, but when I write some copy and then read it back, I’m rarely impressed.

The other night, I was writing the sales  letter for a new promotion I’m running for the Online Marketing Toolbox.  I’m giving away a free hardcover copy of my favorite business book, the “book that changed my life” - The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferris.  As I was writing the story of how I came across the book, how quickly my life changed for the better after I read it, and what my lifestyle is like now, I was actually kind of amazed.

Every bit of it was true, and if I do say so myself, it was actually a pretty compelling story.  With all of the work, and the pinching pennies, and the late nights that I’ve put it over the past year, it’s very easy to forget some of the highlights.  I set my own hours, I travel the world, I’m with my wife and daughter all day every day.  It’s really a great thing!

Anyway, I figured I should post at least some of the story here.  If you want a free copy of the 4-Hour Workweek, be sure to pick it up from here.

—–

Last year at this time, I was waking up at 5am every day to take a 2-hour commute in gridlocked traffic to a boring, low-paying job! I had a wife and infant daughter at home who I missed terribly, and I worried that I was being deprived of watching my daughter grow up.

Backpacking through the Swiss Alps

My wife and daughter on the
beach in Mendocino, CA

Finishing up work in Munich
before heading to Oktoberfest

My daughter being silly
at the Eiffel Tower

I had been tinkering with my online business for seven years, and it was still just making a few hundred bucks a month. My deliverance came in the form of a Secret Santa gift from a coworker, though he wouldn’t have known at the time what a profound impact his gift was about have on my life.

I used the $20 Borders gift card he gave me to buy a copy of the 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris. I had never heard of the book (or the author) before that day, but it looked like a good read, so I decided to buy it and take it home.

I broke out the book on New Years’ Day, and I couldn’t put it down. I read the entire book in one day, and before nightfall, I was taking notes, making plans, and telling my wife all about how our lives were about to change. I’m sure she thought I was crazy!

90 days later, on April 1st, 2008, I said goodbye to my job, and my family and I started our new lifestyle, completely free from the restraints that nearly everyone else has holding them back. I now set my own hours, and I can do my work from the office in my home in Baltimore, from a cafe in Paris, or from a beer hall during Oktoberfest (I’ve actually worked from all of these places).

After I quit my job, we immediately took three weeks to drive up the West coast, from San Francisco all the way to Vancouver. We backpacked around Europe for three weeks last September with our 18-month old in tow, and had more fun than I even thought possible! We’re taking a cruise in just a few weeks, and we’re planning several more international adventures — and I owe it all to one little book - The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferris!

— Click Here To Read the Rest of the Story (and get the 4-Hour Workweek for FREE)

I’m sure I’m not the only small business owner who has been struggling a bit recently. Over the past few months, my online revenue has dropped significantly, especially from the source of income I was relying on the most.

Of course, this provides a good lesson that I’ve always known, but never got around to heeding fully - don’t put all your eggs in one basket!

Now, I pull in revenue from several different streams of online income, but since one of these streams was doing particularly well, I spent most of my time cultivating it. Now that the revenues from that stream have scaled back considerably, I’m left scrambling to bring up my income.

There is a silver lining though. I think in a year or two, I may look back to these few months as the catalyst for making my business grow to unprecedented levels. Without the revenue I was relying on, I’ve been forced to push the limits of what types of services I offer. I’ve had to leave my comfort zone, and I’m already seeing great results.

The first thing I did to try and earn more revenue was to promote my custom website design. I had built a website months ago called Porcupine Website Design, mostly to assuage friends and family who occasionally ran across people who needed a website and wanted to know where to send them. I was making enough money by pre-designing websites and selling them, that I didn’t have much time to do custom work.

Promoting that has opened me up to several new customers, generated tons of great website ideas in my head, and really expanded my view of what’s out there, and what people are looking to create.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had to take a hard look at my business model, and determine how I can not only make money online right now, and how I can build my profits to make sure my business is secure in the future.  I think I’m well on my way.

I have a special place in my heart for Yanik Silver.  I think his hype can be a bit over the top sometimes, and the price for most of his products is quite high, but if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be writing this blog.

Seven years ago, I bought a copy of his book ‘33 Days To Online Profits’, and that was the start of my internet marketing career.  The methods in the book didn’t apply very well to what I was trying to sell at the time, but I learned things about the world of internet marketing that I had no idea even existed.  That book opened the door for me, and eventually led to an escape from my “Day Job”.

I recently joined his Maverick Business Insider newsletter.  It sounded interesting, and Yanik always seems to be at the forefront of the latest marketing trends.  With the package came his short, but interesting book - “34 Rules For Maverick Entrepreneurs”.

Rule #3 intrigues me, but goes against the way I usually do business.  Rule #3 states that you should always charge a premium price for your product or service and then over-deliver.  Though I agree that going above and beyond your customer’s expectations is a great way to keep existing customers coming back again and again, I’ve always been of the mindset that you should charge a price that makes the customer think “How could I not take advantage of this awesome deal?”

Recently, a lot of my income has come from custom web design and coding.  I create website layouts and graphic design, do a bit of coding, install scripts, etc.  Since people can hire anyone in the world, this is understandably a competitive market.  I charge what I believe to be a fair price, but one that potential customers will see as a bargain.  And it’s worked.  I’ve gotten quite a few customers recently who were attracted to my low prices.  It’s hard for me to justify charging a lot more when it’s clear that my customers sought me out because they wanted a low price.

Of course, Yanik’s a millionaire many times over, and I’m not, so I think if anyone’s mistaken here, it’s probably me.  I’ve been studying Yanik’s methods, and I’m definitely going to make a few changes to the way I do business, now and in the future.

Back to the first product I ever bought - I followed up my purchase with a similar but more extensive product of his a few weeks later.  That product came with a special benefit.  Yanik would personally review your website once you finished it and give you pointers.  I never cashed that in.  Maybe I’ll send him here once it’s up and running a bit more and see what he thinks

I’m sure I’ll discuss more of his rules in future posts.  What do you think about Yanik Silver’s rules, his products, seminars or anything else he does?  I’m really interested to hear what you think.

Welcome To ‘How I Earn Money’.  This project has been in the works for years, and I’ve always seemed too busy to actually post to it.  This time, I’ve challenged myself to follow through and post at least several times a week if not more.  I’m hoping this can be a good sounding board where I can discuss ways that I make money online, talk about new projects I’ve been thinking about putting into action, and talk to other people in the internet marketing community.

First, let me introduce myself.  My name is Robert Dickson and I live in Baltimore, MD.  I’ve been working online for several years, though I finally made the jump to working from home full-time less than a year ago.  I have many streams of income, including a few info products I’ve created, affiliate and AdSense websites I maintain, web services I offer, like Web Design and Coding, and a membership site that I run where I offer unique niche websites and other great stuff to my members.

With my niche websites and web design, I work with a lot of newbies, and I feel like I have some pretty good advice to give, having been around this industry for most of a decade.  I am always learning more though, and this should be a good place to share everything with anyone who cares to listen.

If you want to know more about me, you can check out the ‘About’ page, or just read the posts.

If you have questions, or if you just want to say hi, feel free to leave a comment.  And of course, please subscribe to my RSS feed.

Thanks!