Out there in the vast ocean called the Internet is a sea of people you want to become your customers. How will that happen for you?

—> Facets of Customer Development:

1. Ability to find a hot pocket of interested people, fast (most easily done via other peoples’ email lists)*
2. Ability to find a “passing parade” of qualified prospects every day (most easily done via search engines)
3. The customer’s ability to spend money
4. One Time Buyers vs. 5. Repeat Offenders*
6. How fast can you cultivate a prospect into a customer?*
7. Hunting vs. 8. Farming*
9. Growing your customers’ knowledge of what you do and how you do it*
10. Physical location
11. High interest in a very specific topic
12. Establishing and building trust*

This is a check list of things that play a crucial role in your ability to sell. The more of these things you have control of, the more options you have, the better your chances are of turning that click into a sale.

There are 12 things on this list and SIX OF THEM – the ones with a * next to them – have more to do with YOUR SKILL WITH EMAIL than anything else.

I believe that any deficiency in your ability to bond with your prospects and customers via email is equivalent to walking into a knife fight with one hand tied behind your back.

I mince no words: The email box is THE most competitive real estate in modern business.

Your customer’s email box is more competitive than Times Square in New York City. More competitive than Google AdWords. More competitive than the floor of the New York Stock Exchange or downtown Tokyo or manufacturing in Shanghai or hotels in Paris.

Email is free, so along with the spammers you have to compete with everyone who’s ever collected that person’s email address.

Yes, earning a trusted position in that stack is a tall order.

But… once you secure your place in that fray, you have an ENORMOUS economic advantage over your competitors.

If emails are good enough, your very most responsive customers will literally grant you permission – and even REQUEST – that you email them not once but multiple times per day. Free, unrestricted access. Some of your customers will say, “I wish I heard from you more often!”

This is equivalent to a sales professional who is able to able to walk right in the front door of his customer’s business with no appointment, say hello was he walks right past the receptionist and freely roam anywhere in the building that he wants to go. Everyone he sees is eager to converse with him.

That’s the power of email.

A little over a week ago I sent an email about my young buddy Alex Smiley who is 13 years old and has Leukemia (perrymarshall.com/solidarity); I made a special offer and invited my customers to donate. Over $5,000 came in in less than 48 hours.

I wish to extend a hearty thank-you to everyone who gave.

And I invite you to consider that if you have a trusting bond with thousands of people and ready access to their email box, you can do that too. Whenever you want to or need to.

(It’s not magic. It just appears that way.)

At 8am Tuesday July 21 I’m commencing my Email & Autoresponder Boot Camp. In both group and small group teleclass format I’ll reveal my most effective strategies for using this powerful tool so you too hold that coveted place in your customers’ email box.

If you have any kind of real business on the Internet and email is an important strategy for you, then this class is for you.

You don’t have to leave your home or office; you also get the DVD’s of my now-famous Autoresponder Seminar that I held in Chicago last September; and you can opt to have one of my hand-picked professional copywriters write 10 emails and/or Autoresponder messages FOR you.

Register here:
http://www.perrymarshall.com/autoresponder-bootcamp

One last thought:

–> The best customer list is the one you cultivate yourself. <–

Yes, you can go to other marketers, you can have affiliates and do Joint Ventures, and that can work very well sometimes.

But compared to cultivating your own list, tapping all those other sources is like hiring a substitute teacher or a babysitter.

You want your customers to know and trust the sound of YOUR voice. You want a relationship that stands on its own.

The real power is in email.

Perry Marshall

About the Author

Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.

He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.