Learn the Facts Here!

Because it is so hard to find buyers that will spend money with you, many companies go out of business before they ever get started.

Especially small businesses.

If you’re going to make money online and build a safe, consistent income, then you must know where to find buyers that will buy from you. A steady stream of buyers will give you the power to overcome mountains of obstacles, give you great staying power in any economy, and drastically improve your quality of life.

There are four aspects of finding buyers that buy that I’d like to focus on. Today, I will cover the first and most important. Today is the “what” … the next three weeks will be the “how.”

At the core of finding buyers that buy is a concept called “Psychographics.”

Psychographics is the study and classification of people according to their attitudes, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and aptitudes. It’s knowing the words they use, the emotions they have, and the choices they make on a daily basis.

Do not confuse this with “demographics,” which is the study of facts about people. Their age, their gender, where they live, number of children, etc. …

These kinds of facts and figures are important, but they only give you a small insight into the buyer’s life and desires. It’s far too shallow to really bring in consistent, safe, ongoing sales.

You must go deeper. You must understand what makes their heart race, what keeps them up at night, and what drives them to do irrational, spontaneous, totally emotional things.

Michael Masterson (aka Mark Ford), has been teaching the need to dive deep into the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of buyers for many, many years. He calls it the “Core Buying Emotion.”

Many people think that you can sell someone just by appealing to a set of base emotions like greed, fear, anger, sex, etc. And, it is true. Those emotions are very strong. But human beings are much more complicated than that.

Michael puts it like this … and you can substitute “online marketing and sales” for the word “copy” …

“Great copy, ultimately, is an exploration, stimulation, or provocation of the prospect’s greatest and deepest desires, fears, hopes, and dreams.”

Savor that statement because it’s worth millions of dollars once you discover how to explore, stimulate, and provoke the buyer’s Core Buying Emotion. This Core Buying Emotion is uncovered only when you come to understand the psychographics of your target audience.

There are several other powerful advantages to understanding the psychographics of your buyers:

1. First, you know exactly how to talk to them. You understand their Core Buying Emotion.
2. Second, you immediately know where they are. You’ll remember that finding where your buyers are is the first step to discovering your Optimal Selling Strategy. (Another of Michael Masterson’s powerful phrases and concepts; see Ready, Fire, Aim for details.)
3. Third, you know what design, images, colors, and styles will appeal to them and entice them to buy and buy more often. (Yes, the book is judged by its cover … )
4. Fourth, you know how to price your product or service.

In the next three weeks, I’m going to talk about the “how” to uncovering the psychographics of your market. I think you’ll be surprised at the methods I use.

There are several parts of this discussion that I want to spend a little more time on. Because of that, I’ve decided to sit down and record my thoughts in audio format. I suspect this will take me 30-90 minutes.

I’m calling it, “Buyer Psychographics: Strategies for Finding Buyers that Consistently Buy.”

This in-depth discussion is really only for those who are ready to go deeper. Because of this, I’m inviting everyone to get a copy of the audio file, but requiring that you raise your hand and opt-in.

To receive a no-cost copy of my audio discussion, “Buyer Psychographics: Strategies for Finding Buyers that Consistently Buy,” click here now and fill out the simple form that follows.

Click Here to Get “Buyer Psychographics” Now

Please note: During this discussion, nothing will be sold. I’m just interested in helping you understand this crucial part of building a safe, consistent income online, no matter what the economy.

Before I let you go, I want to share a very interesting story with you. I think it will illustrate how weak it is to rely on demographics alone and how powerful psychographical data can be.

A number of years ago, I attended an expensive, private, four-man business-building mastermind session. Before I got there, I had no idea who the other three participants would be. This kind of situation always makes me a bit nervous because you never know who you’re going to get “stuck with.”

At first, I thought my deepest fears had been realized. It appeared that I had nothing in common with the other people in the room.

I was the only one on a first marriage. I was the only one with children still at home. I lived out in the country, while they lived in the suburbs. I drove used cars — actually a minivan and a 15-passenger van. They had a variety of sleek sedans and sports cars.

To me, it seemed like an odd group of people to put in the same room for a mastermind session. We didn’t even have the same kinds of businesses … I was online, another guy was retail with a storefront, another was a stock trader, and yet another was mail order of cosmetics and skin care.

In other words, our demographic footprint was miles apart.

Then, during a break about halfway through the first day, one of the other guys mentioned that he had just bought a “nuke.” He gave no other description. But I laughed, and asked him if he put it in a “super.” He smiled and said he did. Then, another guy asked if he had smoked it first. He had. The conversation sped on from there as we talked about queens, combs, drones, extractors, and dozens of other things.

You see, as it turned out, all of us were beekeepers.

What were the odds of such a diverse group of men all being beekeepers? As we talked about it, we dove into “why” we all had bees.

We discovered that the reasons were all the same: Bees made us unique. It was challenging and difficult. It was hard work. It connected us with nature. It was therapeutic and healthful. Perhaps most of all, our hives were symbolic of our intense drive for independence. This was also at the core of our business ownership.

In other words, at the core, we all shared a unique set of emotions, thoughts, and motivators.

We went one step further and reviewed the materials our host had used to sell us on the four-man mastermind session. We quickly discovered that he had effectively used almost all of those emotional triggers in his materials.

By deeply understanding our psychographics and using them effectively, our host had persuaded four totally demographically-different beekeeping business owners to gather from the four corners of the United States and pay him over $20,000 for the privilege of doing so.

Understanding our Core Buying Emotion allowed him to gather customers and charge prices that otherwise would have been outside of his reach.

That is the profit-creating power I want to give you.

I hope you will carefully read the next three segments of this series to find out how to do just that. I also hope you’ll register for my new, free audio presentation, “Buyer Psychographics: Strategies for Finding Buyers that Consistently Buy.”

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Brought to you by: Wes Waddell – Small and Home Business Best Friend.

Are you using social networks to build your reputation online? Whether you already are or you are just getting started with sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Ning, building your online reputation is your biggest responsibility.

Here are five ways to make sure you do it right.

#1: Be Proud Of Being You

The first thing is, you have to be yourself. You have to be who you are. Because although you can get away with being fake for a little while, as soon as one person realizes that you’re not who you say you are, your reputation is destroyed almost instantly because of the power of social networking.

So be yourself. And don’t be afraid of being yourself. Realize that you have some gifts and some knowledge that people need to know about, and those that want to learn from you are going to gravitate towards you. Those that don’t think you’re worth listening to are basically going to ignore you. And it’s at their peril, so don’t worry about them.

#2: Transparency – Never Hide From Your Audience

The second thing about your reputation is you should try to be transparent at all times. This means you keep everything real with your audience.

For example, over the last year, I used social media to show you my move from Maryland to North Carolina, including drama with the movers, picking the house, and getting it set up. I also pulled back the curtain to show what it takes to run a product launch.

When I did my last product launch, I was Twittering every day what I was doing to get ready for this site. Most of the gurus out there would keep everything under lock and key, and I was being very clear, saying, “This is what I’m doing to get ready for this launch.” It actually helped me have a better launch, even though I told everybody exactly what I was going to be doing.

They didn’t think that they had some surprise or whatever like most people teach; they just were excited to be part of it and part of the story. So be transparent. Let people know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and they’re going to learn how to trust you.

#3: Be Positive For Positive Results

The third way to build your reputation is to be positive.

There are folks out there who generally can do a good job of being negative. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that to be a very long-term profitable strategy.

It may get you some attention at first and spark some controversy, but that’s not the way to go. Be looking forward to the optimistic of your industry, of your business and what the results are going to be.

It would be easy for you to go onto Twitter or onto Facebook and talk about how you’re having a bad day or this product sucks or this week sucks or this relationship sucks. But you’re not really there for a support network, per se.

You’ll find some of that. If you have something bad happen in your life, sharing it with your followers will be very therapeutic for you and you will get a lot of support back. But when you’re just blasting negative things out, you’re going to get negative things in return, usually.

So try to be positive as much as possible and look for the opportunities that are out there and look at them from that positive perspective.

#4: Build Your Reputation And They Will Come

The fourth thing you must do is to be patient. This is because, initially, your reputation is going to be built only by yourself and the first initial people who get to know you. But as time goes on and you get more followers and you build a larger network of friends and peers, your reputation will solidify to allow your business to grow.

Once it hits a tipping point, your reputation and business accelerates at a very quick pace.

So be patient and let it happen. Don’t try this stuff out for a week and then come back to me next week and say, “Well, it didn’t really work. I didn’t really get any results yet.” You’ve got to let social networking play out over a few weeks and then a couple months and so on. A year from now your business is going to be tremendously different compared to where it is right now.

#5: Contribute To The Conversation – Every Day!

The fifth thing about your reputation is you need to be someone that people look to as a contributor, not as a leech, not as a mooch, as a contributor.

You have to be willing to be involved in the conversation, and you have to be willing to give as much or even more than what you’re going to get in return. The people who do that are growing so fast it makes my head spin.

I feel that I’m a pretty giving person but I see some other folks out there that just keep on giving, giving, giving and they just build up a huge following and that social capital is a real asset to your business. So you need to make sure that you’re contributing as much as possible to the conversation.

I don’t mean that as just go around randomly and try to help people. Within your specific task, your specific industry, the things you know well, you need to be at the forefront of letting people know how to do what you know how to do without charging them money at first.

They’ll come and find your site and your products and they’ll pay you for that as time goes on and their needs grow. With social networking you need to be building your reputation up first.

If somebody has a question, you should be one of the first people who answers and you need to answer without reservation not just, “Oh, I answered that in my eBook; go buy it”. They’re going to find your eBook if you just talk to them and give them solutions to the problem they are struggling with at that moment.

Give people your input, your encouragement for them to get better at what they are trying to do.

Any little quick free advice you can give, give it.

Actively Build Your Reputation With Social Networking And Reap The Rewards

You’ve got to be in this for the reason of having fun and really building that relationship. Dollars will come, there’s no doubt about that. But first, connect with people and really help them out. Understand that they’ll become loyal followers of what you do and see you for who you are.

Follow these 5 steps to building your reputation online and you’ll not only beat your competition, you’ll have more fun doing it!

Bob Jenkins teaches business owners how to use internet marketing strategies effectively to attract more customers and get more sales without spending a fortune on advertising. Get more free social networking lessons at www.DiscoverSocialNetworking.com.

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Wes Waddell

www.SpidersMarketingWeb.com