Tips for the frustrated Coastal Reps

Do you have a replicated website for your Coastal business? Many do and it has been a great buy for them. But in my opinion if you can you should create your own site. I know that this won't make everyone happy but im going to explain my thought process here.

Replicated sites are great as they are easy to set up and can present all the info for you. You don't have to do any work. But I do say with all of the tools on the net many of them being free that if you can create a site do so. For years I have been experimenting with various sites. I've learned web design (a benefit of the extra time I have) and have seen alot of great free website builders on the market. With many you can add video and other multimedia formats to spruce your site up. What's better is you can do this for free.

Another advantage of the replicated sites is that many include contact systems and auto-responders. Well ive tried a few different a/r's and have found a good free one as well as many great paid ones. Many can be found for about $20 a month. I think the cost is worth it. Many also have features like lead capture pages. These are huge in my business. I can advertise them for free on traffic exchanges, forums and signature lines in emails as well as links in any email I send. These make me stand out even more.

I guess what im saying is that while the benefits of replicated websites is the ease and simplicity of them is great I believe that standing out counts for alot. People and business need a brand. They talk about it all the time. We all know McDonald or Nike. Why not brand your business. Many know me and my wife as the A-Team and it works well for us. Maybe you need to stand out a bit yourself.

 

Are you struggling in your Coastal Vacations or your home based business? If so here are a few tips to work things out.

1- Generate your own leads

Leads are the lifeblood of any business. Generating your own can be easy, fun and lucrative. When we first started in Coastal we bought leads from various lead vendors. We had alot of success but found that there really wasn't a difference between the expensive and inexpensive ones. A lead is a lead is a lead. So we started a few campaigns.

First we started to post in forums. Leads began to pour in. Next we searched for ways to create lead capture pages and found free as well as inexpensive ways to create them. Traffic exchanges were a place we began to place our pages.

We also started advertising the travel aspect for prominently than the business opportunity. The pool for travelers is bigger than the pool for business builders. The leads poured in more.

We made some innovative ways to market our business. We offered tools that most paid a bunch for for free. The internet is a great tool and if you are savvy enough you can find tools that are useful for low cost or free. I found a free auto responder (freefollowup) as well as some low cost ones. We learned to find inexpensive and free contact managers. The tools are there. We even found free leads. I have 4 great sources that I pay $0 for and they get me over 100k leads a month.

These leads are great as we market travel and everyone loves travel. So it's easy to call someone up and ask them if they like vacations. We place the others in our A/R and let the good ones come thru our sales funnel.

You see it's not hard to find easy ways to run your business and not spend huge amounts. If you like some of the links for any of the tools I mentioned be sure to contact me so you can sign up. Good luck and best wishes.

 

One of the best tips I can give to anyone frustrated in their home based business whether it's Coastal or anything else is to delve into this forum. There are many great threads and bits of advice. In addition I click on the links in many of the signature lines t get ideas on what makes a good website and presentation. I might not want to be involved with a specific program but that's not to say they dont have something in terms of advertising their product for me to learn.

So use this forum to the fullest. Ask your questions , look for advise and share your story. What you put out will come back in bunches. Good luck in all your endeavors. My door is open to all with questions.

 

Is Coastal something anyone can do? I believe so. This is ultimately a business in a box. The internet has made this business even easier. With autoresponders, autodialers and social networking you can really take your business to the next level. I have found that many new internet marketers are better equipped to run their businesses as they are already internet savvy. They know how to network online already. It's an easy transition to get them to learn how to market their business.

I look for anyone that is internet savvy these days. By asking around ive come across a bunch of tools, tips and strategies on how to use the social networking aspect of the internet to make my business thrive. I hope to show many of you how to do exactly just that.

 

The absolute best thing you can do is have a marketing system that brings leads daily through a pipeline. If that marketing system is also a funded proposal then your leads actually also pay for that marketing.

That and of course you must follow up with all those leads. I heard from a lead vendor that 70% of all leads that are bought are never called.

Here are some Marketing techniques that I have used most successfully: Magazine ads, newspaper ads, voice broadcasting, article marketing, videosforprofit marketing, internet marketing.

Good Luck

 

I think anyone looking to get into a travel business opportunity should really consider strongly if that is the right business.

I just don't see how the travel biz opps are amongst the best appealing for those looking for a home business that can really make them money.

 

Freecashman we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I for one think any opportunity can work for anyone with the right timing, system and plan. Travel in my opinion works because it is something that everyone loves. Coastal Vacations gives us that opportunity at incredibly discounted prices. For example many people go on vacation to Disney in Florida. It has and always be a hotspot for travel. Most people that go will pay a good deal of money to stay in a hotel. Well imagine having a 5 bedroom luxury pool home for $735 for the week. I took my friends and family ( 9 of us total ). That amounted to less than $85 a person for the entire week. That's less than the cost of a hotel for a night. In addition we had a full kitchen so we saved ton's on food as we were able to fill the pantry and refrigerator and not have to eat out. Not to mention the luxury of the home. This home markets for $3500 a week and sometimes more in peak seasons. That was a saving of almost $2800 more than twice the price of buy the lifetime membership. This lifetime membership saves us on just about anything you can think of that deals with travel. That ranges from buying clothes to even eating out.

Now to be successful in running a Coastal business there are numerous ways to get a steady stream of customers as well as finding people looking to invest in becoming business partners. Imagine doing a fundraiser for a local charity or church and raising $3000 in less than 20 minutes. Not to mention having 100's of interested potential clients looking to see how they can travel for pennies on the dollar. Another easy way to generate customers is to run a customer appreciation day for a business. In this difficult economy businesses need an edge to bring customers to their stores. We did a program for a nation chain pizza retailer where for everyone that spent $20 entered a drawing to win a Carnival Cruise. In addition we gave everyone that entered a voucher (their cost $7.95) for a 3 day 2 night hotel stay ( no time share presentation necessary). Our business generated over 1000 fresh leads that day and when all was said and done we profited over 10k from sales to those leads. All of this took us about 3 hours of time. Cost us nothing to advertise as the pizza chain took on that expense. His bottom line on that day increased by over 500%. We also had free pizza as the owners took good care of us as we had brought them tons of business.

I could go on for paragraphs on the various free or inexpensive ways that we have used our travel business to generate income and endless leads to continue the cycle but for time and space I will just say that any opportunity that is marketed the correct way can fulfill all your dreams and when that opportunity is something that people are already spending money on and love the business runs itself. I encourage everyone to take a look at Coastal Vacations and contact myself or other directors to get your questions answered and see if it is the opportuni8ty for you. I wish everyone the best of success in whatever opportunity they decide to get started in. I just encourage them to get started.

 

I hear what you saying, and congrates on your success. However, after 21 years as an entrepreneur and many many years of multiple network opportunities I've learned that soo many are failing in home business because one primary thing the marketing strategy isn't suitable for the majority that join.

Additionally, all business aren't for all times. Cd's were once the hot thing and then shortly came USB's.

Make it work if you are able to work, but travel clearly isn't the order of the day. Heard on the news today how airline travel was down big time, and the airlines were actually making their millions on baggage fees, reservation change fees, and all the other fees they could suck out of people to stay afloat, cause travel is not on the top of consumer's list.

And my friend, I've got to be real. The deals in Florida are readily abundant with any internet search. Don't think you get anything special there. I once bought a timeshare or 2, then I learned If I wanted to buy one, retail would never be the way to go, but I also learned that I could rent a top notch place to anywhere pretty much anytime for the same type of deal that many of these travel companies promote.

Not saying that costal doesn't offer something truly unique, never explored it to any large degree, but I am well aware of the deals that are out there without being in a special club. Been there done, that.

So the business may be for some, but I don't know how in truth it is a viable industry for long term prospects as a business opportunity.

 

Well I wish you the best in your endeavors and congratulate you for having over 20 years of service. I would also encourage anyone looking at this thread to do your own research and make a decision that works for you. While some of us will think Coastal is right for us and some wont it's really up to you to get the facts , ask questions and then make an informed decision.

For me the decision was an easy on. My wife is an avid cruiser so I know the cost involved in booking cruises. As she is a frugal shopper as well we have learned the game of how to get the best rates. Well when I looked at the level 2 package in Coastal also known as the Premier Package I saw the ability to get an unlimited amount of cruises for the port charges and taxes only. For those not understanding what that means here is the skinny. On any cruise you pay port charges and taxes regardless and then also pay for your cabin or room. With this package you never pay for your room. This is a huge savings. If you dont believe me then call a travel agent and get the details on any cruise from them and have them break down the cost and what everything is for.

So again do your homework and I look forward to hearing from you all soon.