Taking The Time To Learn Craigslist...

You said you tried to hire others. I know there are VAs who will post CL ads for you.
How did this not work out?

looks like there are people actually wanting a step by step breakdown of your process and results, if you don't want to lay it out maybe you should do a step by step $7.00 WSO tutorial of how you are able to do everything

(everytime I see a CL thread I tend to go on tangents like this, so forgive me)

I have no idea why you people get flagged or ghosted that hasn't happened one time in the last 3 months I've been using CL. It has to be the type of service/product you're selling.

This was one of my older CL threads:

http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...-cl-leads.html

I also had another thread where I gave a bunch of CL leads away for free. I wasn't doing this at the time to promote anything, it was more an accident and me being an idiot. I wound up with so many web design leads I couldn't sell (I was new and had no idea how to outsource), so I got the idea of selling them on WF (by giving away free ones to attract buyers).

However, after I made that thread, I started testing ads for small businesses instead. Specifically home improvement. For instance, just a couple of weeks ago a lead I gave this business sold for $24,000. I collected 10% from that job and guess how long it took me to get ads up on CL? About 15 minutes. They all came right from my swipe file. And needless to say I've stopped doing webdesign. There is so much more money in lead generation for home improvement jobs.

The avg job usually costs between $6,000-$14,000 (bigger jobs tend to come in once or twice a month). From only 6 accounts, I am able to generate a solid 15-20 leads a week. A few of those always convert to sold jobs, and I get my commissions. You can easily get a system like this started working only a couple hours a day. I plan on scaling this up as much as possible not just with CL but using PPC and facebook too.

The key imo is to NOT sell the leads individually. Leave that crap for service magic. They need to do that because their leads suck. They are not exclusive, they are not qualified, and when you actually have qualified/exclusive leads, they SELL. So SET THE ESTIMATES UP FOR THEM, but have them sign a contract to give you 10% commission. Most businesses have no problem doing this.

I was 50/50 about releasing a WSO for a while but I think its inevitable at this point. I have no idea what other Craigslist WSO's look like, but there is no magic or rocket science involved in something like this. I even posted some of my ads yesterday in offline forum just to show people.

You get 5-10 accounts. You build up a swipe file over the course of 2-3 months. You will have your first responsive ads in 2 weeks easy if you follow the advice I'm writing in this book. Split half of your accounts for testing and the other half is where all your converting ads go.

The "hardest" part about CL is merely posting every day. That was the hardest thing for me to do at first. Untill I got my first commission, then OCD took over X1000. The way I look at it now, CL is just like fishing. You keep your bait in the water, and if you have enough bait, you WILL catch fish. The more appealing your bait is, the bigger the fish you catch. If your bait sits in the water and nothing happens, your targeting the wrong service imo. Like trying to sell waterproofing on CL I noticed was very difficult, so I stay away from it. Bathrooms, kitchens, basements, roofing and flooring you can find endless work for.

Everyday I sit down for 1-2 hours with my cashvertising book out, and then I write ads. One after another after another. Then I post about 4-6 new ads in my split test accounts. When I identify a responsive ad, it gets stored in my other 3 accounts. Once those ads are in all I really do is press the "renew" button.

You have to realize how many small businesses right now are dying for home improvement type leads. I've spoken to several who are nearly going bankrupt. One guy I know took out a loan for $10,000 to dump into valpak. He hit *100,000* homes, got 2 calls and didn't sell one job. I posted *1* ad on CL and got him 3 calls and an email. He only sold one (which is terrible imo but this is a new company I'm working with), it was for $7,800, I collected 10% on it. When he asked where I was getting his leads, I told him CL and he didn't believe me. Stuff like roofing, siding, windows, basements, bathrooms, kitchens, porches, decks, masonry, foundation repair, etc etc you can sell all these things on craigslist. Most of these jobs you can get paid a very generous commission on.

Its all about how well the businesses can close. And I've already developed a way to find the best businesses to work with. The thing is, your commissions need to change according to their closing rate. So its not always 10%. If they aren't closing jobs, my commission goes up, if they are selling jobs, it goes down. This puts pressure on the owner to get rid of bad salesmen. Its evil but needs to be done. Plus you wind up making more money when your commissions are lower, because they're selling more jobs.

If I do a WSO it will be highly specific. No abstract garbage in it. Half of the wso will be a swipe file of tested ads, then the other half exactly how I generate my leads. People have no idea how simple this really is. Generating 5 leads a week can easily be done from 1 account. If 1 or 2 of those jobs sell, you're getting a fat paycheck in your bank that week. Just really consider that for a moment. This can be done on such a small scale and still be profitable for you. Theres been times I've even rushed ads just to get them up, and still gotten my commissions.

Any doubters or nonbelievers, send your hate mail directly to my inbox. Do not sit there in your own thoughts thinking of reasons why this won't work for you. Send all those reasons straight to me. Then what I will do for you is ignore them. =] (consider it free therapy)

Afterwards I'll show you for free how to get your first commission. I won't charge you a dime either. Thats how cocky I am about this method. Test me, I dare you.

-Red

@RedShifted

Thanks for the info! I'll tried some classified ads in the past, but didn't like it much.

Craigslist is easy if you're selling tangible items like cell phones, furniture.... computers, etc... and women lol.

Craigslist has always been useful to everyone. But yes, they usually screw up users. Also true, that it is worth it once you know how to play the game already. I just don't see that all people will really give the effort and time to do all these since there's a lot of other things to be concerned with. lol

thanks for sharing though