Marty Foley, publisher of ProfitInfo Email Newsletter, interviews Internet Marketing
guru Corey Rudl. For
many savvy online entrepreneurs, Corey needs no introduction.
[Marty]: Corey, as one who has been extremely successful as an online marketer, please
tell us how you
got started using the Internet as a marketing tool.
[Corey]: I started marketing online in the fall of 1994. It was quite a fluke. In my
course, I explain that we
published my book, "Car Secrets Revealed", and started selling it offline. The
results were pathetic. We
thought we had a winning formula and it was barely breaking even. I spent about $20,000
offline trying to
promote it... and it flopped.
I took the advice of a friend that was setting up an automotive site on the net and he
helped me get a very
simple web page online. I saw a few sales trickle in and then took more interest in it,
promoting the book
online in my spare time.
[Marty]: What are some of the online ventures you are involved in?
[Corey]: I own four different businesses that now generate over $2,600,000 in online sales
every year. I
have interests in many other online projects, as I have done work for clients for a
portion of the profits I
generate. I also have a clientele base who hire me for online business advice at $320 per
hour.
[Marty]: Your book "Car Secrets Revealed" has done very well for you online. Can
you give some details
on it?
[Corey]: Car Secrets Revealed was my first success on the net. Within 9 months of truly
starting to
promote it heavily, it became the #1 best selling car book online (using the unique
promotional techniques I
teach). It generated over $140,000 in net profit in those months. To this day (almost 3
years later), it is still
the #1 best selling car book on the Internet.
The site is at http://www.igs.net/carsecrets/ if you want to check it out. Everything I
put on the page and
everything I say is there for a reason... We have tried many different web page designs
and concepts, and
this one works the best (I explain why in my Internet Marketing course at: http://www.marketingtips.com . I
can't explain it here, as it would fill up about 20 pages to cover just the details on
that topic alone).
[Marty]: You were recently on the Maury Povich TV show in connection with your businesses.
Can you
recap for those of us that missed it?
[Corey]: There is not much to say. Basically, because of my exposure on the Internet and
having the #1
best selling car book online, they found me through the net and invited me to appear on
the show as their
"car expert" to explain a few tips and secrets to their viewing audience on car
buying and the shams and
scams with car repairs. It was a good interview, but what a long flight back... 10 hours
on a plane. Whew!
[Marty]: How long did it take your first online venture to start making a profit?
[Corey]: The first month the sales trickled in, so I technically made a profit within 30
days... but nothing to
live off of. Since I was one of the first group of commercial businesses online... there
was a lot of "trying
everything", so it took me almost 18 months before I started to see a full-time
income. I spent literally
12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week trying different techniques, copy writing, and ideas
online. Now that I
know most tricks and tips out there, I can literally take almost any business online and
make it turn a very
healthy profit in just a few months.
As more and more people got online, many of the standard marketing techniques were getting
overused
and becoming ineffective... so I developed "twists" to most of them to ensure
they still made a profit when
everyone was using the "regular" approaches to online marketing. The results:
the techniques I use to
market online are very unique.
[Marty]: How did you learn about what it takes to succeed?
[Corey]: At first a lot of trial and error. I took many of the concepts and ideas I got
from very expensive
seminars I used to attend and the material I bought there (I was a Jay Abraham, Gary
Halbert, Mike Enlow
and Ted Nicholas fan, and most of their seminars were $7000 and up). I took those ideas -
and with a little
ingenuity and creativity - adapted them to the net (while in the midst of developing my
own winning
formulas for online success). I came up with formulas that work like wildfire online.
[Marty]: I recognize the names of those other well-known direct marketers that you have
learned from. It's
apparent that your formulas work. Which avenues are paying off the best for you?
[Corey]: I have never had an online business that *has not* made a very healthy profit. As
I mentioned, my
four online businesses combined now generate over $2,600,000 in sales online per year! And
the beauty of
it is that I started it myself as a one-man operation. I now have had to hire five
employees to take care of
the paper work and customer service... but have you ever heard of a retail business that
has 2.6 million
dollars in sales with only a few employees? No! They have at least 15-20 employees. That
is the beauty of
the net: you can automate everything so your overhead is incredibly low.
[Marty]: What specific types of online tools are you using successfully?
[Corey]: That is a very difficult question to answer, because there is no one tool that is
responsible for
making me a fortune online.
My techniques show you how to generate multiple small streams of income, and then automate
those
streams so you can move on to the next. Let me explain...
I would teach you a marketing technique that will make you $1000 a month in net profit.
You then
automate that so it generates that $1000 whether you are there or not. You then move on to
the next
marketing technique, and it makes you $1500 a month. And once that is in place (which
takes you about
2-3 weeks), you automated it and move on the next week, and so on.
The concept here is that you are making small streams of income from many different
directions (all of
which are automated)... but if you add up those streams of income you are looking at
$10,000 to $15,000
a month in net profit, which is over $100,000 a year. The best part is that if one
technique fails because
something on the net changes, you don't have to worry; you still have other streams of
income that are
making you money every month.
[Marty]: Do you do all of your business online, or do your online marketing efforts
supplement your off-line
business efforts?
[Corey]: 100% online. I am a specialist at online sales and marketing. I have become one
of the most
respected online marketers on the Internet... and for good reason: I can prove my success.
If someone
asks me to help them with their magazine advertising, I simply tell them that there are
better people than me
out there for offline marketing and they should see them instead. I do what I do best...
and that is online
marketing, so I concentrate *all* my efforts on that!
[Marty]: What mistakes have you made?
[Corey]: There are so many, that I would fill up your entire newsletter listing them. Let
me just say that I
have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars trying techniques that did not work, yet I
was still able to
learn something very important from each and every one. That is the "price of
education", as I say.
[Marty]: What major mistakes do you see other Internet entrepreneurs making?
[Corey]: There are a lot of them and I discuss them in great detail in the course, but I
will briefly mention a
few here.
1.Having an ineffective web site that does not turn visitors into sales. This is a very tricky thing to do
(something most people do not understand), and I devote a lot of time in my course on how to make
a web site profitable.
2.Putting all your eggs in one basket. Trying one technique and thinking it will make you a fortune. You
need to diversify your marketing efforts into different promotions to see which ones pull the most net
profit, and then concentrate on those.
3.Having a poor "sales process" in the marketing campaign. That is the manner with which you create
interest in the client to visit your site, then building a good rapport, and finally, and not before, asking
for the order. Most people break the link at some point and lose the sale. That is why most sites only
see one sale out of every 200-400 visitors (and some even worse).
[Marty]: Are there any other tips or suggestions you would like to give others that
want to profit from the
Internet?
[Corey]: Research, research, research.... Read/study everything you can regarding online
marketing and
learn about it before you jump in. For example, I hear stories every day about people that
"heard" bulk
emailing was very profitable. They may spend $1000 on the different software, only to find
out they were
doing it very ineffectively (for example, indiscriminately spamming, rather than ethically
using bulk opt-in
email), never making a single cent.
Then there are other stories of online success with MLM... people spend months using the
wrong
techniques and end up not making a penny. The list just goes on and on.
Make sure you understand what you are getting into with any business online so that your
first attempt will
be a success!
[Marty]: I agree, Corey. Too many people are trying to "reinvent the wheel"
instead of learning how others
before them have achieved success. I like how Benjamin Franklin put it, when he said:
"An investment in
knowledge always pays the best interest." Thanks for letting me interview you, Corey.
Corey Rudl gets over 2 million visitors to his websites yearly, does 2.6 million
dollars in sales online each
year (yes, that is $2,600,000), and personally makes hundreds of thousands of dollars from
his online
businesses... all from his one small office. So listen to what he has to say as he knows
what he is talking
about when it comes to starting and promoting a business on the Internet. Visit his site
at Internet Marketing
Center where he reveals all his unconventional tips, tricks and techniques with
examples so you can learn
the most efficient and fastest way to make money on the Internet.
