tell me why you still using internet?

There has never been a more accessible market in any other decade. Using the Internet correctly can popularize your name and produce more customers than was ever possible before. That means, potentially, there is more money available to you than ever before.

Business owners are done sitting around and hoping local customers patronize their stores. Geography can no longer limit the number of sales a small business owner can accrue.

But, like I said, you have to use the Internet
correctly. Just having a website is not sufficient.
You have to make the website work for
you!

What is amazing to me is even with all this information,
small businesses will choose to have a static website, or no website at all. Whether or not you
choose to use the Internet as a tool, you can guarantee your competition is…or will. Your supercharged
website is your gateway to a larger audience. You need this market, you want this
market, and if your website is set up properly, these consumers will be falling directly into your
hands.

Marketing coach Larry Chase said, “Like China, the Internet is a huge new market. It’s up to you
to figure out what to do with it. Use it as a prospecting tool, make connections with people, add
value for your existing customers.”

The Internet is the Tupperware party for the twenty-first century. It’s the new source for selling.
And guess what? If you don’t get in on it, you’ll be left sitting on the porch with your product.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

Turning your Website into a Lead Capturing, Lead Converting Machine

 Lead Converting Machine

Everybody knows one sided relationships (no matter what type of relationship it is) never work.
The same is true with websites. The website that is focused entirely upon the customer is the
one that will shine through the millions of others.

Visitors want to do something

Put a little kid in any room, and just wait. Within minutes they
will be running around, examining the furniture, picking things off the floor, getting into everything.
It would be nice to say we grow out of this. However, have you ever watched a father on Christmas morning? Once the kids have lost interest in their new toys, dad is going to try out
all the buttons.

Think about the marketing genius of “thebestwebsiteever.com.” First of all, what a great domain name. Secondly, they’re incredible. The home page allows customers to vote on their favorite
products: food, television shows, magazines, actors. An icon for each of the choices comes on the screen, and the visitor “votes” for the best choice in each category. However, clicking on the icon takes the voter straight to the icons home page. This website certainly understands that website visitors want to do something

Introducing your Internet viewers

1) People are egocentric. Subconsciously, they’re viewing your
webpage and thinking, “There are tons of companies just like you.
What are you going to do for me?”

2) People love being entertained. If they believe your website is
providing interesting information, you’ll have them hooked.

3) People want their opinions valued. This is why most companies
have incorporated a blog or forums--so that their customers can
put in their two cents.

4) And…this is the ticket to creating value for YOUR business...
visitors want to do something.

A few more suggestions of possible website content that
makes your site more customer-centric, and effective:

• Pictures and descriptions of your product

• Benefits of your product (directly
related to your buyer)

• Interesting facts, statistics,
• High interest stories

• Customer testimonials or responses

• Forums

Whatever you choose to include on your website, remember two important rules;

1) Make sure it’s interesting. Don’t bore your visitors and give them a reason to leave.
Engage their attention for as long as you can.

2) Capture your visitor’s information. Either through free downloads, exclusive information,
contests they have to sign up for, or some other method, you must acquire the
contact information for your leads.

Otherwise, you’re back to square one.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

would you like to Convert Supercharge to a Superstar!

Whatever your negative opinion of the Internet might be, I want you to suspend it and view the
Internet as a small business owner’s best friend. With this positive frame of mind, let’s dig into
the benefits of using the Internet…and not just using it, but supercharging your website to maximize its value.

Personally, I love Web 2.0. Infusionsoft has a great time posting blogs, creating and posting
videos, and hosting user communities. If I could, I would bring every customer into our office to
experience the enthusiasm and high energy of our work environment. The Internet is our second
best choice for displaying our “passion” for helping small businesses.

Now let me take a minute to expose my own embarrassment. Do you remember how I said Infusionsoft  also struggled when we were first getting started? Our original website was as inadequate as the static sites I’m harping about. Our first few concepts were not the powerhouse tool we’ve made them. In the first few years of Infusionsoft, our website generated little interest and few customers. Within the last year alone, our website has generated interest at an exponential rate. (And brought in packs of new customers.)

Now, I’m not saying that a supercharged website requires videos, user communities, and every
other form of social networking interaction. I’m just pointing out that they work, they’re effective,
and they’re drawing the attention of millions of viewers a day. The more involved you are in providing your viewers with Web 2.0 technology, the more likely you are to grab and keep
their attention.

There’s some tough competition out there. I’m certain you haven’t forgotten about the 400 million
websites you’ll be fighting against. But what a great competition! And what an unbelievable
opportunity to demonstrate why you are a true entrepreneur!

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

do you fall in Drowning in the Sea of Similarity…and Boredom?

There are over 400 million active websites on the Internet right now. That’s 400 million chances
Internet viewers are overlooking you for someone else. For the small business owner, the odds
don’t seem to be in your favor. In the minds of many small business owners, making your site stand out is about as realistic as winning the lottery.

Actually, lottery odds are slightly better. Unless you have the knowledge of
how to make your website work for you.

Think back to the days before the Internet. (Don’t worry. We’ll only reminisce about the dark
ages for a moment.) When consumers needed a product or service, they picked up the phone
book. Then, they’d spend an hour on the phone looking for the cheapest, most convenient business to meet their needs. With a static website, you are offering the consumer little more value than an ad in the yellow pages. You’re still forcing them to resort to time consuming, out-dated practices.

Now, let’s slip back into the present. Guess what? Most people are unwilling to exert the energy
of calling business after business to get the information they need. Today’s consumers, especially those using the Internet, are searching for a whole lot more. If you’ve got a static site, what sort of value are you offering your prospects? I guarantee the vast majority of
consumers are going to go looking for something a little more updated.

So now the question is…what should your website look
like? And what should your website be able to do for
you?

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

how to Harness the Power of the Internet in my site?

Because you’re an entrepreneur, I’d be willing to bet you already have a website
up and running. And that’s great. But have you taken that website to the next
level? I speak with far too many companies that throw a couple webpages together,
put them online and call it good.

What is a random visitor supposed to do with a website like that? Most viewers will give you
about 10 seconds to decide if your site is worth viewing. If you have really interesting content,
they might give you 30 seconds. If you haven’t used your space on the Internet to capture and
retain their attention, the next thing you know, the person is gone.

Now, call me old fashioned, but I believe that when I invest my own time, or pay for someone to
create something for me, it should do what I need it to do. In the case of small businesses, they
need customers. So this chapter discusses the need to get your website working for you.

Your website should attract viewers, provide an interactive experience for them, and ultimately,
provide you with additional leads. But too many websites fail to do all three (or even just one) of
these things.

Harness the Power of the Internet

The average adult spends up to 3 hours a day more on the Internet than they spend watching television. About 70% of the U.S. population regularly use the Internet. Over 1 billion people in the world are online. And this is a vast chunk of your market! These are your customers! But only if you have a website that draws them in.

Unfortunately, not everyone understands the power of the Internet. In fact, an Arthur Anderson study (Survey of Small and Mid- Sized Businesses: Trends for 2000) showed that 16% of small business owners viewed the Internet as a threat. I sincerely hope that 8 years later, that number has decreased to 0% percent. The Internet is not a hindrance or a threat to small businesses. In actuality, not using the Internet, or not maximizing your web presence can have devastating consequences.

It’s as if some unspoken fear of the Internet keeps small businesses from capitalizing on Internet
possibilities. They have a website because they were told to get one. But, they don’t truly understand that their web presence might mean the difference between a small market, and an enormous market.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

What Does Master of the Moment Mean?

This idea came from one basic marketing principle: People buy when THEY are ready to buy, not when you are ready to sell.

No matter how great your product or service is, some people are simply not ready for it. Even if
they’ve purchased from you before, they may not be ready to do so again. They might not be in
a financial position to buy. Perhaps they don’t realize how wonderful your product or service is.
Or, maybe they have too many other things on their mind to pay attention to you. Whatever the
reason, a large portion of your target market isn’t going to purchase from you right now.

 That doesn’t mean, however, that they won’t buy (or buy again) eventually. Most of them will. And your job as the “master of the moment” is to be standing there when they do!

Consumers act according to their own, incalculable reasoning. For example, Dave, our Vice President of Marketing received a call from a guy that was recovering in the hospital from serious abdominal surgery. The man said he appreciated all our follow-up work and the information we had sent him over the past year. He was now ready to buy. After checking to make sure the man wasn’t heavily medicated,
Dave went ahead and told him he’d need a credit card to place his order. The man had to get out of bed to reach his wallet. A few moans and grunts later, he was reading off his billing information and we had a new customer!

Timing is everything...Once again, you never know when a prospect or customer is going to be ready to buy! If you’re not following up with your prospects and customers on a regular basis,
someone else is going to land that business. And guess what? That “someone else” who lands
the business will be your competitor, who either:

1) Followed up relentlessly; or (more likely)
2) Got lucky enough to cross paths with your prospects and customers at the right
time.

You don’t want to leave new or repeat business up to chance, not unless you like being poor
or losing to your competitor. No one does! But staying in front of your contacts is probably the
single greatest challenge in your business.

And that is why you must learn to “master the moment.” You need to be standing there for
every possible selling opportunity.

You need to be there when your prospects decide to give your product a
try. But you also need to be there when your customers make a second or
third purchase. You should be there to promote up-sells and cross-sells.
You should be providing your customers and prospects with continual opportunities
to build a relationship with you.

Basically, it all boils down to this: as a small business owner, it is your responsibility to create
moments of interaction with your prospects and customers. But you must also learn to maximize
those moments in order to close more sales, gain more customers, and grow your business.

Which is exactly where the building blocks come in.

They are the tools for creating and making the
most of your contact moments with your prospects and customers.

“Mastering the moment” is your ultimate key to crossing the edge into unbelievable small business success and quickly doubling your sales!

The Building Blocks are tools for making the most
of contact moments with:

Prospects
Customers
Partners

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

How the “I Have Pain” Story Taught Me the Secret of Small Business Success

Generally, when people write a book like this one, they save the “secret” for the last chapter. In an attempt to get you to read the entire book, they’ll share their strategies (in my case building blocks) with you and leave you on a high note with some amazing secret. I’m not going to do that.

You see, this book is so full of information that I have no doubt you will want to read every single chapter. But, more than that, the 9 building blocks do not hold their value nearly as well if you don’t know and adopt the power of the “secret.”

How the “I Have Pain” Story Taught Me the Secret of Small Business
Success

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 I need to readdress the story at the beginning of this book. You see, the story didn’t end with
the phone call. Quite the contrary! It was only that moment when I realized how we were going
to pull out of our stressful situation and start profitably growing our company. But I’m getting
ahead of myself. Let me explain.

After our “pain” conversation, Reed Hoisington ended up hiring us to write a software program
that would help him automatically follow up with prospects and customers, track communications, organize prospects and customers into groups, and run the whole “follow-up” function of his business. Reed was thrilled with what we created for him and he went away very happy.

But then he came back. Turns out, he had a bunch of mortgage broker clients who realized what
his software was doing for his business…and they wanted it for their businesses. So we “productized” the software program and provided it to a few dozen mortgage brokers, who began to ave about the product.

Things were going so well with our mortgage broker clients that we moved away from the custom software business and began selling our “follow-up machine” exclusively to mortgage brokers.

I was doing the selling, talking to prospects, following up with leads, educating people on
the benefits of our software…

…and then something amazing happened 
We began to use the follow-up features of the software in our own sales and marketing efforts. Suddenly, prospects I had never talked to were calling me up saying they were ready to buy. I was having conversations with people who had heard from me several months earlier and had
been receiving my follow-ups.

Streams of prospects were literally coming out of the wood work, calling me, emailing me. They
were hot and ready to buy.


And our business has never been the same since. Today, thousands of people use our software
every day to follow up, educate their prospects and customers, cultivate lasting relationships and
maximize the value of their prospect and customer lists.

What I want to share with you is not just my personal experience. Although my own experience
with follow-up techniques has been life-changing, I have seen this secret work for thousands of
entrepreneurs who have found a better way to sell and market their products and services.

I promise you that when you put this secret into play, it will change the way you do business. It
will increase your marketing and sales in ways you never believed possible.

So now that you know where I’m coming from, I want to tell you the secret. The same secret
that energizes the building blocks, helps you double your sales, and propels you toward success.
The secret is:

YOU MUST BECOME THE
MASTER OF THE MOMENT 

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

What Does Doubling Your Sales Have to do with Small Business Pains?

Perhaps you’re thinking, “Clate, I would really like to double my sales, but I’m too tired and too
stressed to think about that right now.” Good point. Let me put it this way, the same strategies
you will use to double your sales--automatically ease the typical small business pains: lack of
time, lack of energy, financial obligations, and the inability to break free from the chains of small
business ownership.

I know, it might sound too good to be true. These building blocks are going to double your sales
and make small business ownership easier? Yes. Without beating around the bush, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You can accomplish more in less time and with less effort. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “Work Smarter, Not Harder.” It’s a great phrase, but now it’s time to put that phrase into action!

I’m going to show you how. But first let me demonstrate how quickly incorporating
these building blocks can make a diference.

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A Few Short Months to Success
Chet Womach - birdtricks.com

A couple years ago, Infusionsoft received a call from a man who taught parrots how to be properly behaved. This man, like many others, was frustrated with his small business and was searching for solutions. He had a great, unique company. However, managing his overhead was too much. He failed to fulfill orders on time, had no way of following up with his customers and contacts, and was otherwise buried in his business. Sounds like a common story. 
What we gave him is the basis of the same nine
building blocks I am offering you. Within two
months, the man doubled his sales and turned his
company around. Now, his business is thriving and
he couldn’t be happier.

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I had another customer call up and say, “My dream is to run my business while sitting on the
beach in front of my home.” One of our salespeople, Larry, chatted with this gentleman for a
while and discovered…he didn’t own a home on a beach. He does now!

The 9 building blocks may not work in exactly the same way for every company,
but they do work. I’m going to show you how. But first, let me tell you
the must know secret to success. 

 

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

Is Doubling Your Sales the Best Goal to Achieve?

I’ve had a lot of people come to me and say, “Clate, the information you’re providing small businesses
is priceless. But why would you want to make ‘doubling your sales’ the goal for small
businesses following your building blocks?”

There’s three parts to that answer. First, in all honesty, who doesn’t want to double their sales?
If one dollar is good, isn’t two better? Would it be more pleasing to grow by the same base
amount every year, or to increase your sales exponentially?

Secondly,
study the growth rates of major corporations, and a typical pattern occurs. Small
business do not evolve from “doing okay” one day, to making millions the next. It comes a piece
at a time. If a company repeatedly doubles their sales in the first few years of development,
they will be mimicking the results of large, profitable companies. I would love to see everyone
that uses the building blocks turn their small businesses into big businesses.

Finally,
you’ve got to start somewhere. Doubling your sales is not only possible, it’s measurable.
Two is an easy number to measure.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

But Why Should I Follow These Nine Building Blocks?

Before I get any further, I’d like to introduce the nine building blocks. An adequate description of
each building block will be provided in individual chapters. However, as you’ll want to think about
how they relate to each other, here they are:

The building blocks are interrelated strategies which, when collectively implemented, produce phenomenal results. Understand that the building blocks do not follow a particular order.
One does not necessarily build upon the other. 

And, although the building blocks tend to be closely related, by the end of each chapter, I feel certain you will understand the singular importance of each one.

But Why Should I Follow These Nine Building Blocks?

In actuality, I could have picked a different number, 8 or 10. It really came down to a matter of
choice. However, the number 9 along with “one secret” (which I will reveal in a moment) happily
encompasses the most important techniques, or secrets to doubling sales. With 9 building
blocks, I am able to clearly define the pains small businesses are struggling through and clearly identify specific, changeable behaviors that increase revenue, liberate the small business owner, and lead to unbelievable success.

The more building blocks a small business owner chooses to incorporate,
the more growth they will witness. That being said, simply having this
knowledge is not going to propel your company forward. After reading this
book, it is up to you to decide whether or not you’ll benefit from it.

It’s amazing to me how many small business owners, imprisoned in their own offices, refuse to
do anything about it. They become so bogged down with their daily dance to stay alive that they
become short-sighted and are unwilling to look beyond the day-to-day grind.
True, this short-sightedness might never hinder a company--just as long as the business owner
never gets sick, or the economy doesn’t dip. But “the only predictable thing in life is that
life is unpredictable.”

One of our sales guys received a call from a mortgage broker several months ago. The broker
was living the high life. He’d made extraordinary amounts of money when the housing market
boomed. But, as the market slowed, his business naturally began to taper off. He was curious
about Infusionsoft and what we could do to help grow his business. However, he wasn’t really
motivated to do anything…yet. He’d saved up enough money from the housing explosion to keep him flying high for a while. This man hung up the phone promising to think about the things he’d been told, but he felt confident the market would stabilize and his business would continue to prosper on its own.

Well, a recent follow-up call with this same mortgage broker didn’t end on such a happy note.
The money was gone. The company had accrued massive debts. And the man was willing to try
ANYTHING to keep his business alive. He’d already given himself a three month timeline before
he lost it all.

Now, not every small business is bordering on the edge of complete devastation. But the picture
being painted is not uncommon. Nearly all of today’s small businesses will come across a
moment when they wish they could do things differently. And when they hit that moment, they
might throw more money, time, and effort into their company in the desperate hope that things
will improve.

That is why I’m revealing the power of these 9 building blocks to you. So the next “moment” you
have is a moment of regret that you weren’t able to implement these ideas sooner. So that you
can quickly achieve the type of success you always dreamed of.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask

What I Learned About Managing and Growing Small Businesses

Years of interacting with small business owners brought me to some simple but significant conclusions.

I watched the same mistakes being made over and over again. I saw seemingly popular

companies close their doors for the last time. And I observed other companies skyrocket for

no apparent reason.

What I learned…is that the strategies for success were not unique to one industry, company, or business owner. Success was determined by the use of predictable, repeatable, simple actions. But not just any actions--the right actions.

The great news, and the reason I felt it necessary to
complete this book is that once small business owners
learned what they could do with their companies,
they began writing a completely different story for themselves. Gone was the “pain” of small
business ownership, and in its place was the “pleasure.” No longer was it a question of “will
I succeed?” but “how much success will I have?” I’ve watched desperate business owners
turn back into excited entrepreneurs when they found out what their small business could easily
and repeatedly accomplish.

Ultimately, these strategies morphed into the focal point for our company.
They were the driving force, the culmination of everything I had dreamed of doing for the small business owner and their employees. For years I’ve developed and refined these strategies so they would provide the most and best value for the small business owner.

And after all the refinement, I am finally able to introduce:

The Nine Building Blocks to
Doubling Your Sales
...Plus One Incredible Secret!

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 I can’t even begin to express my excitement at finally
being able to reveal the building blocks. With the release
of these strategies, my goal, my drive, my need
to provide small business owners with valuable, lifechanging
information has been realized.

 © 2008 By Clate Mask