Bill Hebden’s latest é-Wealth Daily’ article is titled “How I (Almost) Made Another Million”. [‘e-Wealth Daily’Article]

Bill Hebden’s latest ‘e-Wealth Daily’ article:

How I (Almost) Made Another Million

Man. Had I known then what I know now, I’d be among the information-marketing masters of the world by now. But, back then, who knew?

It was 2001, I think. Everyone who was in the market to buy a car started turning to the Internet for selections, options, prices…all the stuff that gave everyone anxiety and anger in showrooms. Then web sites like cars.com and a bunch of others came on the scene.

It was great. No salesperson breathing down your neck. No salesperson trying to open your wallet wider than you want. You simply click on what you want. Then you’d always be asked for your zip or postal code.

You enter the information requested and — zap — you’re what they call an “electronic lead.” Car dealers with the vehicle you want in or near your area get your contact information from the web site. Car dealers pay for this information, mind you.

And then what happened? Well, most every car dealer in the land subscribed to these web sites, but very few of the dealers were able to close the sale from these sales leads. My friend, who happens to be a new car dealer, figured it all out.

He’s a smart guy, but all it took was common sense to see what was going wrong. The real challenge was to see what could go right. Hold that thought. We’ll come back to it, I promise.

By now, I hope you’re begging me to tell you what went wrong with all those electronic car leads. Many blame the showroom salespeople, but the real blame falls on the shoulders of the dealers. They failed to see that this newfangled Internet-information-armed car customer was a different kind of buyer.

Internet car shoppers expected a hassle-free car-buying experience, probably for the first time in their lives. But, when the rubber hit the road (actually even before the test drive), showroom salespeople gave these new “sophisticated” buyers the same old song. They wouldn’t reveal prices over the phone. They continued to hold out that final number, as they continued to sell you options you had never checked off.

It’s no wonder those electronic leads were considered worthless back then.

I told you that a friend of mine is a car dealer. Naturally, that’s where I buy my cars. And I guess it was back in 2001 that I found myself in his office at his showroom. He’s telling me the whole Internet story and how he’s actually closing sales off electronic leads like crazy.

He told me the how’s and why’s and showed me the separate operation he set up to handle the electronic leads exclusively. I don’t know what he was thinking. I know he was proud. I was thinking marketing.

I asked my friend if it would matter to him if other car dealers in other parts of the country learned his secrets. At first, he minded. Then I told him, “What do you care? Besides, we can make money marketing all this information you have.” Then he listened more carefully.

Without even realizing it, I was entering the information marketing business. I had never heard of such a business. All I knew was marketing — and I saw a product I thought could be marketed at a high price. Who knew this was called “information marketing?”

I wish I had. Now that I know about information marketing, I look back to 2001 and see the mountains of mistakes I made…the piles of opportunities I failed to recognize…and what really kills me is when I envision what could have been.

What I did was create a company called C.A.R.S. This stood for Cyber Auto Retailers Success. Anyway, I took what my friend knew and we wrote this giant, fat book and sold it to car dealers for $695.00 each. Then we put on one-day seminars in major cities up and down the East Coast. Again, $695.00 per dealer for the day.

We did all right. We had lots of fun. We had lots of partners, too. One of the partners owned his own plane, so that was cool. I actually had the controls flying from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.

But, today, I’d have structured that whole business much differently. Today, I understand information marketing. You should, too. In my new book, Getting Your First Million, I explain the million-dollar secrets of information marketing. Check it out here:

http://www.lombardipublishing.com/ads/ym/index.html

e-Wealth Daily

About e-Wealth Daily

The e-Wealth Daily Bulletin brings you daily tips, advice and breaking news related to home businesses, small businesses and internet marketing. Our team of experts gives you the information you need to take your business pursuits to the most profitable level. Founded by Adrian Newman in 2003, the e-Wealth Daily Bulletin and www.ewealthdaily.com are a division of Lombardi Publishing with online newsletters reaching over 100,000 subscribers each month.

* IMNewsWatch would like to thank e-Wealth Daily for granting permission to reprint this article.

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