I got this pretty interesting email the other day. This is a typical question many home business owners/small business owners have. I thought it would be good to share this with everyone.

Hi Ben,
I am about to invest in advertisment for my Cognigen website. I wanted to ask you if you could point me to one that really does work? I only have $40.00 to invest in it to get traffice to my website. Do you have one that you use that can really get me some customers?

Thank you,
M.

What is your goal?

Is your goal customers? Or is it distributors?

It sounds like from your email, your goal is customers. $40 worth of advertising isn’t much. I used to spend $500 a month in advertising my Cognigen business. Thats to get 8-10 sales.

You could advertise $40 and maybe get one sale. If you are selling a product that pays out $50 then you just made a profit of $10.

This is probably the kind of thing you want to do right? Unfortunately it isn’t that easy.

1. The basic Cognigen web sites aren’t that good at making sales. For one thing everyone uses them. So many web surfers have already seen the same site owned by another Cognigen agent. For another thing they aren’t very good at sales. They try and list all the different Cognigen products and stuff. If I am going for sales I want the only links on the page to be links to B
BUY the product OR a pay per click link that makes me money back.

Depending on your skill level you’ll want to create your own sales page for the product or at the very least look into a Cognigen Premium Site, or link to as specific a page on the Cognigen site as you can. For example you wouldn’t want to link people to http://www.ld.net/?teamwork because that isn’t a very specific page. A lot of people will come there and immediately click away because they don’t see what they are looking for.

Lets say you wanted to sell VOIP broad band phones you’d pick a service like Packet8. Instead of sending them to your generic ld.net page you’d send them here: http://ld.net/packet8/?teamwork

2. We haven’t even gotten to the advertising yet!

Pay Per Click advertising is a great way to get instant traffic to your web site. However that is just “traffic” and isn’t necessarily buyers. You have to learn how to target specific people and get to the buyers. There are a lot of buyers out there you just have to figure out how to get to them. You can easily spend too much money on Pay Per Click and blow out your entire budget without actually getting a single sale.

Honestly if you have $40 to invest in getting sales, I’d say the best thing to do is invest in your own education. You could invest in one of these areas:

1. Learn to make a sales (web site) really just a one page sales letter helping you presell your product and capturing the person’s information so you can follow up with them.

2. Learn to use pay per click advertising to promote your business.

Let me know what you decide to do and I can point you in the right direction.

- Ben Fitts

Popularity: 3% [?]

After several days of research on web conference solutions I’ve come to a conclusion.

Web Conferencing is NOT for Mac users.

I’ve tried several different solutions, but none of them seem to have Macintosh based clients. It seems like the only web conferencing solutions that support Mac are server based solutions that require you to setup your own web conference server, or solutions that are extremely expensive.

I have 600+ users. My last web conference had 50 seats and I ran out of room. That solution cost me $120 a month. To upgrade to 200 seats would cost me over $200 a month! Sever based solutions are even MORE expensive.

What I’ve settled on is Hot Conference. It requires a small software install. The install process takes about 1 minute. I even created a camtasia video for my users on how to install it. The camtasia video is 2 and a half minutes. Simple, right? I created another short 3 and a half minute video on how to use the software.

It supports an unlimited number of users for $29.95 a month. If you want more than one conference room you will pay $44.95 a month. That gives you 5 conference rooms (unlimited seats) and the ability to resell the software.

The only downside I see so far is that the software doesn’t support Mac Users.

However it does allow me to record the voice broadcast as an MP3 file. So I can use Camtasia to record the screen, and I can save an MP3 of the audio. Then all I have to do is combined the video and the MP3 into a Camtasia project. I can then export it as a flash video, windows movie, quicktime, etc. Sounds complicated? Not really. It will probably take me about 5 minutes to convert my training into a Flash movie and my Macintosh users can watch the replay of the training session.

Cool right?

If you want to see what I’m doing visit my training site and you can see the camtasia videos I put together. Plus you can download my conference room software and try it out for free.

- Ben

Popularity: 4% [?]

What Web Conferencing Systems do you use?

I’m going to be hosting another training for my Remember Greeting Cards members. I’m going to be teaching them how to use the tools I’ve created for them to customize their web sites. I want to host my trainings using a web conferencing system so that my users can watch me. A lot of people learn by watching so this way they can see what buttons and links I click on. They’ll learn faster this way.

Last time I used Voxwire which cost me $110 for just 50 users. I filled up all 50 lines.

I’m currently looking at two systems. One is Hot Conference which costs me $44.95 a month but it includes 5 unlimited seat conference rooms. If you want only one conference room you can get it for just $29.95 a month.

The other one is Pro Builder Plus. Pro Builder Plus offers marketing tools like 100 line conference systems, voicemail broadcasting, and web conferencing. Their system runs $29.95 a month. However their web conferencing system isn’t quite ready.

Do you have a web conference system that you use?

I’m looking for something with a capacity for at least 100 users, and 200 would be great.

Let me know by leaving a comment if you have a web conference system you’ve used that you like.

- Ben

Popularity: 3% [?]

I just sent this to my Instant Buzz eBook mailing list. I thought I’d share it here with all of you.

The ebook isn’t ready yet so I decided to leak some of my Instant Buzz tips from the eBook.

– — –
Which is better?

Spending $150 to advertise Instant Buzz on another traffic exchange?
Spending $150 to buy Instant Buzz advertising credits?

This was recently a problem I faced. I have a new program I’m promoting and I wondered what would be the most effective way to advertise. I actually tried both. I bought some Instant Buzz ads and I bought some ads from TrafficSwarm. TrafficSwarm was advertising a 50% bonus on all ad purchases.

My Instant Buzz ads came and went really fast. I was testing a few different ads. One of them turned out to be pretty good. Others weren’t. Most of my ads were wasted in just a couple of days.

With my TrafficSwarm ads I pointed them to a web page I developed to promote Instant Buzz. The ad worked great. I got a bunch of new Instant Buzz sign ups. I even made back 2/3rds of my Instant Buzz investment because I sold Elite upgrades too.

BUT whats even better is… I estimate I’m generating 7,000 new Instant Buzz ad impressions as a direct result of my ad campaign and all my new downline members.

Lets take a look at those results. Instant Buzz Bar Ads start at $50 for 40,000 bar ads.

40,000 ads / 7,000 ads a day = 5.7 days

So in 5.7 days I’m earning $50 worth of Instant Buzz Ads. In 17 days my TrafficSwarm ads have paid for themselves! AND they keep earning me more and more and more ad impressions every day!

To see the TrafficSwarm ad I used you need to join our downline club, Ultimate Rep. It is free to join so why not try it out?

Once you join Ultimate Rep you’ll have access to all of our ads which you can use to promote Instant Buzz, GDI, Cognigen, Empowerism, TrafficSwarm, and a bunch of other programs.

Stay Tuned for more Tips!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Hi everyone,

It has been several days since I wrote about Ultimate Rep and Pro Builder Plus.

Since then I have been doing a lot of research.

One of the things that concerned me was that Pro Builder Plus was using a payment processor I had never heard of to pay commissions. They sent me a url of a non-descript web site to setup my account so I could receive payment. It wasn’t PayPal or StormPay or some of the other well known payment systems. It was something called GlobalXChange which I had never heard of. I tried to check out their web site and it didn’t really have any information.

It turns out they are a legitimate company. They are Canadian base and use a Canadian bank to pay out commissions. They send you an ATM card that you can use to withdraw money from your account anywhere in the world.

One of the reasons why Pro Builder Plus is using GlobalXChange is because of this international reach. Many payment processors do not process payments to individuals in India, China, and other Asian countries. GlobalXChange does, and that is why Pro Builder Plus uses them.

If you want to do further research on Global X Change check out their web site at: http://www.globalxchange.biz

I’ve also been doing more research into Pro Builder Plus. Since then Pro Builder has been adding lots of features to their service. They’ve added a 100 line conference system anyone can use. They’ve also added a very cool voicemail broadcast service. I can send voicemail broadcasts (recorded voicemail messages) to my ProBuilderPlus contacts, my ProBuilderPlus Members, and my ProBuilderPlus PreEnrollees.

I’m pretty excited by the voice broadcast feature! I’ve been looking into it for other businesses and the rates were higher than what I’m getting with Pro Builder Plus. I’m also looking forward to Pro Builder Plus’s expansion. They just launched in January and are already adding lots of new features.

So, for now, I want to rescind my earlier warnings I’m going to give ProBuilderPlus and GlobalXchange my seal of approval.

Regards,
Ben Fitts

Popularity: 6% [?]

Yesterday I wrote about Ultimate Rep.

So far I’m doing ok with it. $600 earnings. Building a big downline in a few programs and putting small numbers of people into a lot of traffic exchanges.

However I am concerened about one program in particular. Pro Builder Plus. Pro Builder Plus is a new powerline program. It seems to me to be a sort of Ponzi scheme. I’m not sure if it is legal or not?

Powerline’s are basically one person on the right, one on the left, in a straight line to infinity. There is no “matrix” where you have 3, 9, 27, etc. Instead you have 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, on each level one on the right one on the left.

You pay a monthly membership fee to the site. You then refer others to the site. They can signup for free and try it out. You can also upgrade to pro membership.

Every week on Wednesday they talk all the pro members and move them up to the top. So lets take an example.

I am a pro member. I refer several people who all become free memebers.
Level 1 . Sam
Level 2. Bill
Level 3. Dave

So Dave upgrades. If Sam and Bill don’t upgrade the system will automatically take Dave and move him up to level one and it moves Sam down to level 2. This way Paid members always go up to the top.

Doesn’t that sound a little bit like a Ponzi?

Whats the product here?

I’m going to have to be careful about promoting this one. It is a new company, just started in January so I want to see how it plays out. Of course I signed up as a pro member just in case it turns out to be legitimate. I didn’t want to miss my chance to get a good position in the powerline.

I’ll keep you updated.

If you want to check it out and see what it is about go to: http://bfitts.myperfectadvantage.com/ thats my lead generation page… or http://bfitts.probuilderplus.com to look at my site.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think about Pro Builder Plus.

- Ben

Popularity: 5% [?]

I no longer endorse Empowerism. After trying it out for 6 months myself and none of the leads panning out, I decided to pull my endorsement. This is just another crappy leads product.

I don’t know if any of you are following along with my Ultimate Rep progress or not.

Ultimate Rep is a marketing system created by Kevin Anderson the founder of Cognigen networks. The system is designed to utilize free traffic resources such as traffic exchanges to promote Cognigen, Empowerism, and GDI.

Many novices try traffic exchanges because they seem like promising sources of traffic. However most novices give up quickly when they find they aren’t having instant success.

Their lack of success is usually because they aren’t using a proven business system. What Kevin is doing with Ultimate Rep is he has made a bunch of lead generation pages that have special code for the traffic exchanges. For example when someone promotes the UltimateRep site using Traffic G the system reads in the person’s name and at the very top of the page it says something like: “Benjamin, this is a special offer for TrafficG members”. So it personalizes the page. This has proven to increase our results 10 fold.

Ultimate Rep so far has been a success for me. I’ve made $600 or so in the first month of business. However I’ve also invested a bunch of money into my business and promoting it.

I do want to caution people however. Ultimate Rep is a complicated system at first. It takes a little effort to get everything setup right. However once you have the systems in place you can pretty much put the program on autopilot.

Tomorrow I’ll give you a warning about one of the Ultimate Rep programs I’m not real confident in. I don’t want you guys to get burned.

Check back tomorrow for more info!
-Ben

Popularity: 3% [?]

Send Out Cards has officially announced PHASE 1 of our International Expansion

This includes CANADA, AUSTRALIA, UNITED KINGDOM, NEW ZEALAND, SINGAPORE and IRELAND.

All these countries can now sign-up as a distributor Online.

- Ben

Popularity: 7% [?]

My buddy Jack at the Search Engine Marketing firm MasterLink is reporting that his firm is seeing results coming from one Google Datacenter is not using the sandbox.

The sandbox for those of you that might be new to search engine marketing is a place many people believe Google pushes new sites into. The theory is that spammers often setup new sites so one easy way for Google to avoid spam is to limit the credibility of a new site. This would mean that a brand new site wouldn’t rank as well for popular terms until it has proven itself and has an established track record.

You can learn more about the Google Sandbox at SeoChat.

- Ben

Popularity: 3% [?]

Guys,

While I’m busy working on projects you can keep in touch with the latest news.

Check out Jack’s new blog covering MSN adCenter. My good friend recently got a bunch of press from sites like Search Engine Watch.

I gotta tell you Jack tells me about this new adCenter stuff and he is really excited. I guess adCenter is MSN’s answer to Google Adwords/Adsense. MSN adCenter is MSN’s new PPC service.

Read more about it at the MSN adCenter Code blog.

- Ben

Popularity: 3% [?]