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 that hires 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, and ideas online. Now that I know most every trick and tip there is, I can literally
take almost any business online and make it turn a very healthy profit in 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 a
lot of the concepts and ideas I got from the very expensive seminars I used to attend and
material I bought (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 of income so you can move 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 successes. 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, 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 (but from everyone I learned something very
important). But that is the "price of education" as I say.
[Marty]: What major mistakes do you see other Internet
entrepreneurs make?
[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.
-
Having an ineffective web site that does not turn visitors into sales.
This is a very tricky thing to do (that most people do not understand), and I devote a lot
of time in my course in how to make a web site profitable.
-
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.
-
Having a poor "sales process" in the marketing campaign. That
is the manner in which you interest the client into coming to your site, then lead him
into a good rapport with yourself, and then - and only then - 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 on 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) and don't make 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 your success!
[Marty]: I agree, Corey. Too many 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.
