Make $1,000 Today With Little Or No Upfront Cost To You Part 6

This is the text from a report I wrote in my series, How To Pull Money Out Of Thin Air. It explores How I got the idea for the post that will follow this one. Believe me the next post will be much shorter.

WHAT AM I DOING HERE?

As I walked down the cool quiet halls of the office building, I must admit I was a little anxious. My heart was beating just a little faster than normal and my sweaty palms and reddened face gave away my apprehension.

My friend who I was with at the time was not nervous at all, he had a stride of confidence that showed the fact that he was use to being in these surroundings, in fact he was quite comfortable with the whole situation.

Noticing my discomfort he asked, “Why are you nervous?” I explained to him that I hadn't been in such surroundings for over 40 years and when I was here, a trip down these halls meant no good for me at all.

You see, we were visiting the administration offices of the Junior High School that I had attended many years ago. Although I was in my 50s at the time of this visit, the smells were the same, the echoes of footsteps were the same, the hushed silence shouted as loud as ever, “YOU ARE WHERE YOU SHOULD NOT BE, GET IN AND GET OUT AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU!”

“There is nothing at all to worry about” my friend said, “I'll do all the talking.” “You just listen.”

He just didn't understand. That was the problem, I love to talk, heck, talking is what got me into this office many times 40+ years ago.

I had been told almost those same words over 40 years ago. “George don't talk so much, you should spend more time listening.”

Deja Vu!

WHERE WERE WE AND WHY WERE WE THERE?

My friend is a photographer. He takes photos of school events, photos for the year books, and sports photos of the school teams. He was there to make sure everything was in order for the upcoming year's events, which he would photograph. Due to my web business I have a little knowledge of PhotoShop and my friend had temporarily employed me to PhotoShop enhance some of the photographs he had recently taken.

I was in his office when he was leaving to visit my old school and in passing he asked me “Wanna come along and see what I do at the schools?”

That is how I ended up going back to my old school. It soon became an enlightening day for both my friend and for for myself.

Although my friend is a great photographer, I learned that day that it is not always the great photographers that get the school jobs. It is often the photographer who “works out the best deal” with the school.

At this point you might be thinking that I mean whoever gives the lowest price for the student's photo packages gets the job.

Nope, that's not it at all. In very many cases it is not the lowest price that swings the deal, and as I said it is not always the best photographer, in this case as in many other cases it is the photographer who is willing to give more back to the school that gets the job.

This was proved to me loud and clear when the person in charge of hiring the photographer for the school told my friend that he would not be “shooting” the students this year.

The School had hired another photography service. The service they hired was not known for their great photographs, they were known for the “contributions” they made back to the schools.

If you are like most people you think of a school as an institution dedicated to the education of our children, and well it is. However ...

Switch gears for a minute. No matter how noble the ethics and morals of school personnel are, or however impressive the accreditation and credentials of their staff, for the purposes of this report you must open your mind to the fact that a school is a business.

A school is a business that has a corporate level, it has a management system, employees, and customers. However, instead of calling them corporate, upper management, middle management and lower management, employees and customers we call them, The State, The City, The School Board, Principals, Vice Principals, counselors, teachers, students and parents or guardians.

Take a moment to digest the above paragraph and you will have no problem dealing with a school as you deal with any other business.

Take your Internet marketing business, and come up with a proposition that is a win win situation for you and the school, you will have a JV (joint venture) that will over shadow most any other JV in which you could get involved.

In this report I'm going to tell you how my friend opened my eyes to a large potential email list and affiliate base and I'm going to tell you how I opened his eyes to Internet Marketing.

A short while after we visited my old Jr. High School, my friend took me to a High School with a student population of over three thousand. He was making his plans to do the Senior pictures for the upcoming graduation.

He began lamenting to me how difficult it was to deliver the thousands of pictures to all of the students. I was working for him during photo delivery time, his office was abuzz with activity as we stuffed the envelopes with pictures, put names and student ID numbers on them and delivered case after case after case of product (pictures) to the school.

That was only half the job. At the school he had to devise a plan to get the pictures into the hands of the customers (students).

I don't remember exactly when, but at some time during my temporary employment with the studio, I asked my friend, have you ever thought of delivering your photographs over the Internet?

He said he had thought of it but just had never taken the time to set it up. He gave me the assignment of finding a way to do this.

My first idea was to set up a site with a payment method and protected directories with the pictures in the pass code protected folders. Of course if you know about such things you are saying at this point, George, that is the hard way, why didn't you just find a service that already offers this and “hook up” with them.

Well of course that is what my friend eventually looked into. I DON'T WANT TO BE A PHOTOGRAPHER YOU SAY You may be thinking that this report is about photography, believe me, the purpose of this report is not to get you to run out and buy a camera and start contacting schools to be their new photographer. Not at all. The purpose of this is to inform you of what I learned from this experience with my photographer friend.

I learned about the potential marketing power of doing business with just a few schools in any given area. You might eventually, by way of the telephone or Internet, find a way to apply these methods to schools far out of your geographic area.

Google the term “school fund raiser” and you will find companies already doing this. However, in talking to schools in my area, I found that selling digital products either for schools in general or for individual school club fund raisers was an unknown concept to them.

I CAN'T GO OUT SELLING TO SCHOOLS!

First of all. If you tend to be nervous like I was the first time I went “back to school,” don't be. I shortly found that by “growing up” I was no longer an underling facing the big people, but I was a person, speaking eye to eye, (it's amazing how big the school principals used to be, they sure are short now) to men and women just like you and me.

What really astounded me is that these big people, who were so mistake free 40 years ago are sometimes late to work, they sometimes come to work after staying up too late or even partying all night and can barely keep awake, they sometimes don't have their paperwork turned in on time (remember when the dog ate your homework?) and they even have to go to the rest room during an interview sometimes (but you had to hold it until the bell rang).

Imagine that! In other words, they are only human. WHY WOULD A SCHOOL WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH ME? YOU ASK Getting back to the photographer. Like I said, it is not always the best photographer that gets the school job. It is often the one who offers the best contribution back to the school.

What do I mean “contribution?” Please don't think I'm talking about a kick back to fatten the pocket of the person in charge of hiring you. The “contribution” that I'm talking about is much more respectable than an under the table kickback. It is the percentage of the sale the photographer gives back to whatever cause the school is backing at the time.

And there are plenty of good causes. The football team might need new equipment and uniforms. The band might need new instruments. Homecoming is approaching, there are expenses involved. Many times there is a general fund that is divided among all of the worthy causes the school backs. It does not really matter where the money goes, the fact is the school needs money and the way they raise money is by receiving part of the profit of the photo sale.

OF COURSE SELLING PHOTOS IS NOT THE ONLY WAY

Although my experience with the photographer enlightened me to the fact that there is a profitable relationship to be had with a school, selling pictures is by no means the only one.

There is the Chocolate candy bar sales, the cake and cookie sales, the price of admission to events, the contributions other companies, like uniform companies, and school supply companies make to the school. The list goes on.

BACK TO THE PHOTOGRAPHER and CHOCOLATE CANDY.

Think about it, in the case of the photographer and the chocolate candy, they both have a phenomenal sales/affiliate force. Hundreds if not thousands of students not only buying the product but also selling the product.

Pictures are “sold” to parents, to grown brothers and sisters, Grand Ma needs a package, So does uncle Joe, after all he watched us grow up. and many wallet size pictures are bought by the student's to be traded amongst themselves and given away to anyone who wants one.

With the advent of the Internet, many times phone conversations go something like this, “hey grandma,” “My senior pictures are on the Internet if you want to see them.” Of course when Grandma (yes, grandmothers and grandfathers do use computers these days) gets to the site to see the low quality pictures, she is offered the option to have high quality prints sent to her, for a price of course.

Millions of dollars worth of pictures are sold this way. When the sale is made, the site makes money and the photographer makes money and the school makes money.

Again I say, please don't think of this as a report on becoming a photographer. But, just look at the Internet marketing that is going on here. Look at all of the students giving out the URL of the Photo site. In the case of the photos there is a two fold event taking place. Loved one's get photos and the school raises funds, and the major affiliate force is the students.

I mentioned Chocolate candy bars. The school and the candy bar company has a large army of students out selling for them.

SO HOW CAN I APPLY THIS TO MY INTERNET BUSINESS?

Without getting into a lot of detail, lets just bottom line this. If you could find a reason for hundreds and even thousands of school kids to give your URL to their parents, neighbors, friends, and relatives, and in turn the parents, neighbors friends and relatives had a good reason to give your URL to their, parents, neighbors, friends and relatives and in turn they all had reason to give...

DO YOU GET IT?

Have you seen this done on a small scale. Have you seen the box of candy bars on your work mate's desk and when you ask her about them she says, “I'm selling these for my kids band at school.” Or better yet what about the guy who brings a case of candy to work and gives out boxes for his workmates to sell for him.

It happens all the time. Why? People get a benefit (they love chocolate) and it is for a good cause (raising money for the school)

It's as simple as that. So when you come up with something like chocolate (make people feel good) and attach it to a good cause (school band uniforms, a new computer, whatever) you can have hundreds even thousands of affiliates (students, parents and teachers) selling for you.

WHAT COULD YOU SELL?

In How to pull money out of thin air Volume I, I talk about a great service that would work well with this. I'll explain it fully in the bonus report that I'm sending to all buyers of Volume I who have also bought this report, Volume II.

Other than the service in Volume I, there are eBooks and other digital products you could sell. Set up a site, sell your eBook on that site and give half of all the money back to the school.

This MUST be a very valuable eBook and the parents and neighbors and relatives of the students who buy it must see it's value, otherwise they will be thinking “I might as well just give the money straight to the school, although they rarely do that.

Think of this, schools often have sales of cookbooks as fund raisers. Make the best cook book possible in pdf format. Give back a large percentage of the sales to the school and watch your relationship with the community and the school grow BIG time.

Can you imagine setting up something like this and in just a few days visiting the school and presenting them with a check for $1,000 or more for their current fund raiser.

I don't have to guess how the school officials would react because I have seen how they react with the photographers when they pay back to the school.

Let's consider other things you could sell for the mutual benefit of you and the school.

The arsenal you have in your ebook collection could prove to be very valuable to you all over again. MOST people do not buy reports on line. All of the sales you have already made online have come from a very very small percentage of Internet users from all over the world, not your city or even your state.

Provide a great informational ebook, connect it to a fund raiser at your local school, have hundreds of students promoting (passing out fliers, cards, word of mouth,) your product or service and how it will get the school a NEW ?????? and you have found a whole new market for your report, software and membership sites, right in your own back yard.

Be sure your product has links in it to your website and give people a reason to visit you. Can you say, back end sales? Instead of only one virtual cookbook eBook or piece of software, the flier could send the community to your web page where you are offering any number of digital download items with all sales benefiting the school.

ARE YOU A LITTLE NERVOUS ABOUT TALKING TO THE PRINCIPAL?

If you are still a little apprehensive about going back to school, let me present another way to do this.

I have another friend who deals only with preschools and other smaller institutions. She is a great insperation to me when it comes to scaleing down a bit. Even though she does not go to the BIG schools she still earns a nice income

Smaller institutions can provide you with a very nice “affiliate” army just as willing to spread the news about your product as the students at larger schools. If you work it right, doing business with these smaller groups might even work as well or even better for you as the High school, Jr. High school, Middle and Elementary schools. What am I talking about? Read on!

DON'T FORGET ABOUT PRESCHOOLS AND DAYCARE CENTERS.

You may or may not know it but most preschools and daycare centers are in need of extra income also. There is always new toys and new playground equipment needed.

When a fund raiser is carried out by a preschool or day care center it's not usually the students (hey, they are just little kids) but it is the parents who become the sales force for the project.

Imagine going to the owner of a preschool, I know several people who run preschools and daycare centers and they are very nice, they have to be to deal with the parents, (notice I didn't say the kids) OK back on track. Imagine going to a preschool and asking them if you could help them raise some money for the preschool or day care center. You tell them you will handle the product, and that a third party well known Internet Bank will collect the money and send them a check every two weeks.

You offer the Worlds greatest cook book or Dog Training book or whatever you are selling. You put your product on ClickBank and the school hands out fifty fliers about the “fund raiser” to each parent to pass out all over the neighborhood and at work. The daycare/preschool also puts a banner on the building, (have you noticed most preschools and daycare centers have a banner?) The banner could say something like, HELP THE KIDS, HELP THE COMMUNITY, HELP OUR LITTLE SCHOOL. BUY THE WORLDS GREATEST COOKBOOK, www . Littlekiddyschool. Com (spaces on purpose here so no live link)

Of course their site is an affiliate site for your report and ClickBank sends them a check for the fund raiser every two weeks. You should contact ClickBank early on and explain to them that you are working with a local school and many in the community will be purchasing your report so there will be a lot of sales coming from the same general geographical area.

ANOTHER TYPE OF SCHOOL YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT In many areas there are private schools. I'm not talking about the affluent neighborhoods where the rich kids go to private school and there is never a need for fund raisers. I'm talking about hundreds of little private schools tucked away in store fronts and office buildings. Most people hardly notice them but they are there. They are usually operated by parents who are disgruntled for one reason or another with the public school system and so these people opened the school to keep their kids out of public school.

These schools do not make a lot of money from the tuition that the parents pay because for the most part the operators of the schools cut the tuition down as low as possible. It's been my experience that even when a parent can not pay the tuition the small private school lets the student “ride free” for a while until the parent can start paying again. In other cases parents work at the school in one capacity or another to work off their children's tuition.

You can see there is a great need for fund raisers for this type of private school. How do you find them? Find one of these little independently owned private schools and you can find them all. Many times they don't advertise. They usually start out very small and gain students by word of mouth spread by parents of current students. Like I said, find one and you can find them all. Look In the phone book for private school. Visit it and ask where other private schools are located. Post your flier for your fund raising in small school supply stores. Private school owners frequent these stores to find deals on educational material and other school supplies. You can even pay the owner of these school supply stores to “hook you up” with private school owners.

I know you have learned some valuable ideas from this report as it is not just a what if “theory” report. A very small group of people make money from schools because of the fact that schools need to make money.

Remember the best Photographer does not always get the job. The one who gives back the most to the school often does.

Find a way to pay the school from the profit of your online products and services and you will benefit greatly.

Kids are not selling chocolate candy bars just because people love chocolate. They are selling chocolate candy bars because the cheerleaders need new pom poms.

There is no reason that if you present a money making fund raising idea to your local schools that you can not have hundreds or thousands of energetic enthusiastic kids legally promoting your report or software.

I could not possibly explore all of the possibilities working with schools and preschools and day care centers could bring. But I know this report has given you some solid ideas and more importantly helped you to think of some more yourself.

WHO DO I TALK TO?

If you want to get your feet wet in the business of helping schools raise money then start small. Start with private schools, preschools or day care centers. If you have children in a private school a preschool or a day care center, you already have a shoe in the door.

Simply go to the school and talk to the person who you pay each month for your child's care. It's amazing how easy it is to sell something to someone when you are handing them money on a regular basis.

Present to the administrator of the school the concept that you can run a fund raiser for the school by setting them up on the Internet to receive checks from ClickBank. This will be free of charge. Then set them up with a web page with your product or products for sale.

Give them a sales letter that they can copy or give them a thousand or so fliers for the parents to distribute. Enthusiastically talk about the fact that this is a quality cookbook or Internet marketing book, health food book, or nifty time saving software will pay for that new swing set so desperately needed.

The product possibilities are limitless. If you don't own your own product use a great report or time/money saving piece of soft ware that you have resell rights too. Sell the product in your ClickBank Account and create a sales page for your school. It's really that simple.

If you have experience with PayPal you can use it instead for faster income both to you and the school. PayPal pays instantly to both you and the school.

You could also create or have created (by scriptlance.com or rentacoder.com) a handy little piece of software that has the school logo on it. This could be a virtual phone/address book of some kind or another handy little device that promotes school spirit and serves a useful purpose at the same time.

When you are ready to approach your local high school or Jr. High or Elementary school, walk in to the administration office and ask who is in charge of school fund raisers.

Some schools will send you to the district office. Don't let this scare you or throw you off course. Go see the “procurement officer” or what ever his/her title is at the district office and tell him how you can earn some money for the school with no up front costs to the school whatsoever.

The chances are that there will be someone at the school who can help you and you won't even get sent to the district office.

There are many different titles for the people and offices that are in charge of fund raisers. Some of those titles are. Procurement officer/office, Student affairs office and Activities director. It's OK to ask the receptionist at the school who you should talk to regarding fund raisers. I've been sent to and interviewed by the principle, the vice principle, and the finance dept. I've seen all of the above at various times and at different schools.

Well, there you have it. Another way to earn a good income with your Internet Marketing Business.