By Peter Parks
One of the biggest obstacles in Internet marketing is of course the ability to make sales.
I won’t sit here and tell you its easy.
The average websurfer is now getting extremely jaded when it comes to IM products and all the hype with the product pushes, but I will tell you that making sales everyday is not hard.
Instead of trying to make sales, look at what you’ve been doing for the last few months and ask yourself…
“how big is your list?”
or more importantly “how responsive is your list?”
You see if after all your attempts of trying to make sales and trying to figure out this IM stuff, you have to stop and say “what have you been doing with your list?”
Have you been in constant contact with your list?
have you developed a great repore with them?
Have you surveyed your list at least twice a week to get to the “nut” of
their problems? or have you just left them behind and tried to slam them
with promo after promo?
If you stop and look at what your doing, the first thing in your foundation
would be to build, cultivate, and have a responsive list to promote to.
If after all these months you should now be at the point of making steady
money, and if not then you have to say…
Your list sucks, so get rid of it or,
Your list doesn’t suck its just that you never took the time to cultivate it
and make it responsive to you.
By that I don’t mean you have to get them to buy right away, but you should have the ability to get them to respond to you and send you feedback.
I’m not talking about having 1 or 3 people send you emails because they
can’t order something or their not sure about how to get started making
money.
I’m taking about having hundreds of your subscribers flood your
inbox asking for help or asking you for your recommendations on a daily
or weekly basis on whats hot and what experience you had with product
xyz and whether its worth buying.
Thats a responsive list. 
When you get to that point in the process, then you know you have a list
that…
1.Actually opens and reads your emails
2. More importantly takes some form of action and is responsive.
Honestly take time to rethink your game plan. Everything starts with
building your list, if you can get them converted on the first sale then
great.
If not then continue to work on them and interact with them.
The more time you spend cultivating your list and being interactive the
more your list will warm up to you and soon you start to get the feedback
you look for, and when you get the feedback then you get the sales.
One of my mentors world class Internet Marketer Ewen Chia said to me
one time when I asked him about building my list…
“If you don’t provide great content and value to your list while at the same
time actually reviewing the products your recommending and give them
a two sided picture of the product… your toast”
Meaning that your list will see through your marketing and not only will
they not respond to you, but worse they simply won’t open your emails.
If your going to promote or recommend the product to your list, you better buy the product first and see for yourself firsthand that it works.
If it makes you money and your estactic then how easy is it for you to send your passion with your proof to your list and watch the money flow in like honey.
thats one of the real keys to Internet marketing the “Big Boys” don’t tell you about when it comes to list building.
As a successful affiliate marketer going on with 6+ years experience
I’ve taking my lumps and lost major money, I’ve made major money as
well but it came at the price of testing and rolling up my sleeves.
My biggest advice to anyone reading…
1)Build your list by cultivating and interacting with them
2) use surveys to get your list responsive, constantly ask for feedback
3) Before you promote to them, buy the damn product or try out the
service first, make some money with it then report back with your
recommendations to your list good and bad.
4)Follow a path like that and watch the money roll in because your real
and your list will respond.
Even if you don’t make a ton of cash with a product or service, if your
real with your list and tell them everything, you’d be surprised to know
how many buy with your next recommendation.
I hope anyone doesn’t take offense to the tone of this post. I truly
do want everyone to succeed.
I just get tired of seeing all the hype out there on how to make money online from people that haven’t even generated $100 themselves nevermind $1,000 and giving out poor advice.
Again no offense to anyone out here and I’m not talking about anyone
in particular in this blog just making a general statement with what
I find in many blogs.
I’m in a few mastermind groups and one of the groups I’m in collectively
between the 5 of us have made millions of dollars online and offline
and we do it in some of the silliest of niches. but more importantly we have multiple responsive list and sublist.
So believe me when I tell you, your list comes first.
If your promoting a bunch of clickbank links and not focusing on your list then your in for a long rough ride.
and by the way You don’t need big list.
Heck you can build a quick list of 600 subscribers within 2 weeks by using extremely slow methods, take the next 3 weeks to build value and ask for their feedback, survey your list at least 3 times over the period and give them great gifts for answering your survey.
Then after figuring out what they want and how much they will spend. pre sell them for another week with great content, great value and simply send them the offer that they want without even a sales page and they will buy.
Now how long did it take you to make your first $1000.00 online
Your probably wondering how I came at $1000.00 for your first offering?
NO problems you build your list of 600 double optin targeted subscribers
- you cultivated and provided great value and your list is sending you
great feedback as to what they’re having problems with.
you presell them and get them prepared for the solution you just found
that actually solves their problems, because you yourself have tested it
out and it works.
You send out your recommendation to your list giving them the full skinny
with 600 subscribers you should get at least 20% - 30% open rate on the
high end as some of my marketing partners get that with some of their
list. Some are higher so are lower.
with low end 20% open rate you should get… with a responsive list at least out of the 120 that opened the email you should get at least 45 clicking through to the offer and if you did a half decent job preselling and positioning the offer have at least 20 sales on a $97 product of which you get at least 50% commish you just made just under $1,000
Now how hard was that for just under 6 weeks work you just about made
your first $1,000 and you finally “cracked the code” to making your first
grand.
Want more money?
Now that you understand what your doing turn around and build a bigger
responsive list and/or build a new list in a new niche and/or backend your already converted buyers into purchasing bigger packages
repeat process.
I know I know, this post was a bit repetitive but I needed to drill it into
your head.
*Responsive List = Sales
*Responsive List = Sales
*Responsive List = Sales 
Good luck and keep plugging you’ll “crack the code for $2,500, $5,000, and $10,000+” soon
Its a rush when you get that $10K+ affiliate check 
By the way I’m not looking for anyone to respond to this post. Its just a little advice hope it helps.
As I’m a bit busy and not here that often please don’t take offense if I can’t get back to your comments
To your continued online success
Pete.
P.S. Sorry about the spelling and grammer I just had to get this post out 
Peter Parks is a successful entrepreneur who has helped many clients and students learn the art of affiliate marketing. Make-Money-Online-Affiliate-Marketing
[Keywords: affiliate marketing, sales, Internet marketing, making money online, opt-in email, email marketing, affiliate marketing online, website sales, $1, 000, niches, niche marketing, list building ]