In marketing circles it’s well known that the vast majority of people won’t buy from you on their first contact. It takes multiple touches or contact with them.

For this reason, your main focus should be to get them on your list.

So how do you get people on your list, and then convert them to paying customers? Here are two tips that work:

#1) Have a “squeeze page”

You can create a page that is devoted only to getting opt-ins. The squeeze page typically requires that people sign up first before they get to see any of your information.

These days you see more and more videos on these type of pages rather than just words making an offer. The video provides a more human connection and people are more likely to sign up after watching a video of you explaining why getting on your list is such a good idea.

Gathering opt-ins this way – I call it a “forced opt-in” means that nobody but your most serious prospects will see your sales page.

You may be losing a great number of potential subscribers if you make your opt-in available only on your sales page because that really doesn’t require anyone to sign up for your list.

Since most people won’t buy until you’ve contacted them multiple times, you are likely leaving money on the table if these potential buyers only see your sales message once.

The key here is to find out what works best for you. Test a number of formats, see what works the best and then decide which one to use.

You might try a format with a video, one with just audio, and one with just words for your offer. Whichever format pulls the best response is the one you want to keep. Then you can start focusing on driving traffic to your site and/or your sales page.

Another way to get people on your list (and the method I prefer) is to…

#2) Give good information

People are more likely to stay on your list and be more receptive to your offers if you give them something of high value right from the get-go.

The typical strategy is to offer a special report exchange for your prospect’s contact information, but you don’t want to stop there.

You must put into place an effective auto-responder series; one that will allow you to feed over time, special information to your list that will convert your prospects to paying customers.

How do you achieve that?

One tactic that often works is to give away a certain number of the steps involved in your process for free.

For instance, there might be six steps separating your prospect from the main result they want to achieve. You might give away two or three steps for free, and then leave the remainder for the paid product or service itself.

No matter what you are selling, if you focus on educating your customers, profits will be the inevitable result.

Be generous. Many entrepreneurs I know are afraid to give away any of their good information for free. They’re afraid that people won’t pay for their product.

However, it has been proven time and again, that the more free value you can create, the more you are going to whet the prospects appetite for your paid product.

If they take action on the first few steps and see good results, they are going to be chomping at the bit to get the whole story. However, if they get no positive results from your free information, they aren’t likely to be very motivated to buy you paid product.

There is probably nothing better that you can do for your business than to put into place an auto-responder system.

We’ll be discussing these two strategies – along with lots of other list building strategies AND how to implement them — in the Step-By-Easy-Steps to Building a Responsive Email Marketing List Teleclass Workshop series that begins this coming Tuesday, Sept. 21.

Early bird pricing ends tomorrow (Friday, Sept. 17th) so make sure you get signed up now before the price goes up.

I’m purposely keeping the class size small so that I can give my individual attention to each participant as they need it, but I’ve still got room for more folks.

Just be warned, this class series is only for people who are serious about doing the work necessary to put into place an effective email marketing program and growing their list.

I’ve done my best to make each step easy and will share with you the many blunders that I (and most email marketers) have made and what you can do to avoid those mistakes.

Even if you’ve been working at email marketing for a while, but not seeing the results you expected, this class will help you change the things you might be doing wrong into the things that are proven to get results.

You can get more information and register for the class series here: Grow Your List Teleclass Series but hurry, early bird pricing ends tomorrow (Friday Sept. 17th).

Others tell me that another word they won’t use is “competition.”

And most tell me that they are not in business “for the money.” (And get a little PO’d if I suggest otherwise.)

Because, well, yes we are.

And that’s our deep dark secret.

Each of us – whether in business or not – have this deep desire to make a lot of money, but we think that somehow we are more noble or more altruistic by going about trying to convince ourselves and the world that money really means nothing to us.

That kind of ruse creates a lot of stress. I’m going to suggest that you just admit to yourself right now that you, too, have a strong desire to make a lot of money in your business.

I’m not talking about greed here. We only have to look around the world today to see what unmitigated greed has done to the planet and to our fellow humans and it ain’t pretty.

But I dare say that you would not go to work every single day for someone else and not expect to be paid for your labors.

So I wonder, why do we suddenly feel differently about that paycheck when we become self-employed?

Let’s be clear: “Making money is not a career. It’s the result of good business,” says Scott Stratten, author of Unmarketing.

And that really says it all for all of us who really just want to be in the business of helping people and not in the business of making money. But you see, the natural byproduct of doing “good business” is money.

That’s why I tell people that if they dislike the idea of selling so much, they really don’t have to sell at all if they simply do good business. Of course, you’ve got to tell people about who you are and what you do or else those that need you may never find you. That’s what we call marketing. (And there is a difference between marketing and selling, although both are truly necessary to be successful in business.)

Do lots of marketing. Be a human being and remember that you are interacting with other human beings. Offer them the solution to their most pressing problems and you won’t have to do any selling at all, and those people will be eager to buy from you.

People expect to buy from you. They expect to pay you. They WANT to pay you because if they do, they know you will do well and that you’ll stick around for a long time to help them out.

So if you think you’re doing yourself and anybody else a big favor by refusing to sell, then you are doing a tremendous disservice to those who need what you offer.

Try this: When you get out of bed tomorrow, ask yourself, “who can I help today?” You’ll be surprised at who shows up and there really won’t be any selling involved at all.

So what do you think? Love to sell? Hate it? How do you manage the selling part of your business? Please comment in the space below.

It can be tough sometimes, I must admit.

When I chose to live on the road full-time four years ago, I did it with the express intent that I would still operate my business just as I always had. It has been great fun but frankly I was not prepared for all the challenges.

I remember when we first got on the road we encountered a few problems with our RV itself — very frustrating things — and I was telling a group I belonged to about it, and someone said, “Well, it just goes to show that even when you’re living your dream that problems and challenges will still come up.”

I’ve had to remind myself of that many, many times in the last few years because I still encounter problems and challenges from time to time.

And I’m the kind of guy who likes things to run smoothly. I’m perfectly happy if I never have problems. So sometimes challenges are especially – well — challenging for me.

Probably the biggest hassle we have on the road while trying to manage my business is lousy – or complete lack of – cell service. I don’t care what those phone company advertisements lead you to believe, they do not provide coverage everywhere.

Surprisingly, the worst coverage of all for us has been in the northeast. Go figure. One of the most populous parts of the country and we keep running into crummy cell service. And if the cell isn’t working, then likely neither is our WiFi service since that is also cell-based.

For me, my business is totally online. I can’t have a store someplace since I’m constantly on the move. So I’m quite dependent on having the internet available to me when I need it.

I’m much better, however, at handling that kind of stress these days than I was four years ago. Back in the early days I’d get myself tied into a righteous knot when things didn’t go as planned. Now, I just go with the flow, and hope that everyone else involved with me will understand until I get back into an acceptable range.

The most common question I get asked is this: “What do you do about your mail?”

Thank goodness for the internet because it allows us to do everything important – like banking and bill paying – online. So actually getting our physical mail is not such a necessary thing.

In our case, though, we have it easy. Our mail goes to our son’s address in Seattle. When he gets a whole bunch of it, he bundles it all up and ships it off to us when we are in a place long enough to receive it.

Depending on where we are and what we’re doing, we get mail usually about every two weeks or so but have gone as long as six weeks without it.

For other folks living this way, they usually get their mail from a forwarding service or mailbox place, and then it gets forwarded to them when they get someplace long enough, too.

Another big challenge is figuring out time zones. I like my life best when in the Pacific time zone. So even though I was born and raised in Florida – and every single one of my family – from the youngest to the oldest – live only about a mile apart from each other in Florida – I really prefer west coast living.

I do spend a lot of time in Florida, however. I like to be with my mom and dad as much as possible especially as they age. (And I have some nieces and great nieces and great nephews that I’m pretty crazy about as well.)

I suppose my time zone challenge is probably no different than yours, really. If you have an online business, we all face that challenge. Personally, I just like getting things done early in the morning and when I’m in the west, everyone else in the country is usually already up and at it and I can deal with them early. I like that.

Most people seem to think too, that it must be expensive living on the road this way, but it really is not. We don’t spend any more on living expenses now than we did when we lived in a house. Our expenses now are just different, but not any more costly.

And I love that we “lightened our load.” Getting rid of our “stuff” was such a great thing to do. Now we are not tempted to buy souvenirs and stuff that takes up space. Except for books. Books are still a big challenge for us. The Kindle and iPad help, but we still love to read real, hold-in-your-hands books.

People will say to us that they would love to be living the life we are living and whenever I hear someone say that, I know there is a “but” coming in there somewhere.

And surprisingly (or not), the “but” is usually this: But… I can’t get rid of all my stuff. Not, I can’t afford it. Not, I have a job that prevents me from doing it. Nope. “I can’t get rid of my stuff.”

For us, that’s just about the best part!

We love not having a house to maintain somewhere – or that we have to depend on someone else to take of – and we don’t have stuff to manage, so it makes life easy-peasy, and we really love that.

We’ve had a fabulously fun summer – this summer of 2010 – and it will be one to remember for sure. It has been a bit stressful – okay, I admit it, a LOT stressful at times – trying to be a tourist, see all the sights, AND most importantly, be present at every moment – and still try to run a business.

I finally just had to put a number of projects on hold until the fall when I’ll get back to them with renewed purpose and vigor.

Or not.

I don’t know what will happen. I do know that after this week at Burning Man I’m just looking forward to slowing way down, getting back to Seattle, and regrouping. I have much in the works and I’m looking forward to sharing all of it with you.

We’re not sure what this next year will look like on the road. I do know that it is our intention to spend more time in the places we visit rather than be on the go all the time like we have been the last four years, but you know what?

It’s fun just making life up as we go along.

I’ve shared a bit of my life with you, now maybe you’ll share a bit of yours with me. I love hearing about what you’re doing. I’d be delighted with comments below or a private email to me. (Just remember, you won’t hear back from me until after I get back from Burning Man.)