I was sitting around today thinking back to years ago when I was involved in a multilevel marketing business. You know the business where you invite your friends over for dinner and then bring out the old white board in the hopes that you can get them, and then their friends, to join too?

Trust me. It's a hard business in which to succeed. It takes the long-term dedication that most cannot survive. I was a distributor for Nu-Skin International for about four years and never made more than a couple thousand dollars per month on my best months.

One day, I was out on the town "prospecting" (walking up to complete strangers asking them if they would come to a meeting to learn how they can make a fortune). I truly believed I could help these people make money. I was convinced if I could get them to do what I was doing, they would be rich and so would I!

(I know this message is long but stay with me here...you will see how this can make your eBay business skyrocket in just a few short days.)

Back to what I was saying.

One day, I was prospecting with a friend and we were talking about our sponsors and how much money they were making doing the same thing we were. I was trained by Mark Yarnell on how to market and sponsor people. Mark was a brilliant man, one I could see myself modeling. He was making about $300,000 per month doing the exact same thing he taught me to do. I know he was doing exactly what I was from working with him and talking with him on an almost daily basis.

My friend and I could not resolve the problem as to why he was making so much money and we were making so little. So we decided to sit down and put all the numbers together in the hopes we could figure out the reasoning.

There were a couple of factors that were the same when I compared my numbers with Marks. I was talking to (prospecting) almost as many people as he was per day. I was having almost as many people show up to our meetings. So, what was the difference?

This is when I figured out the missing element that made him rich and me poor. It was 1%!

He was doing about 1% better at getting people to the meeting and 1% better at getting them to sign up and duplicate what he was doing.

It doesn't seem like a lot, does it? I mean it's only 1%...

It's not a lot on a day-to-day basis, but over time it's HUGE!

Look at it this way. Every day he was doing 1% better at getting people there and 1% better at signing people up. When you add that up over one year, it comes out that he was doing 730% better than I was!

That, in turn, means he would be making hundreds of thousands of dollars over and above what I was making simply by being 1% better.

The 1% factor applies in many areas of life, besides business.

Let's look at baseball: Did you know that the average baseball player only gets a hit once every four at bats (a 0.250 batting average)? The batting champion each year has an average slightly better than one hit per three time at bats (0.333). A career average of more than 0.300 will likely get you in the Hall of Fame. Finally, only one player in the last 60 years has hit more than 0.400 (4 hits per 10 at bats) in a single season (Ted Williams, who died this summer).

As you can see--even in baseball--if you're only a tiny percent better, it will get you into the Hall of Fame and literally make you millions of dollars more per year. It's really a simple concept to understand and, once you understand it and work to improve your business 1%, you will change your life.

Now, let's look at how this applies to your eBay business:

Think for a minute how much more you would make if you could...

Sell your items for 1% more

Get 1% more people to buy from you again

Get 1% more people to buy more than one product from you at a time

Cut down your operating expenses associated with running your eBay business by 1%

I could go on and on, but I think you're starting to get the idea.

I would love to take the time to give you dozens of examples for each of the bullet points above but, if I did, this email would be HUGE! So let's try and keep it simple. Let's look at one idea for each. This will at least get your brain working and make you start thinking.

Number 1: Sell your item for 1% more

A great way to achieve this goal is to do a little research on your product market. An easy way to do this is to research past auctions of the same exact product using the software located at www.auctionmarketwatch.com (this same research can be done without the software, it just takes a little longer). Look for the listings that sold for more than yours did. Study what the seller did differently than you.

Did they start the auction at a different price?

Did they list different benefits?

Did they make the perceived value of the product appear to be more than yours, even though it was exactly the same?

How did the overall look of their auction differ from yours?

Get out a pen and paper and go through each auction that sold for a higher price than yours did. I know sometimes its just luck of the draw, but don't be so sure of that. Many times, it's the little things that make a big difference. Write down EVERY difference you can find. The key to using this research to increase your sale price is to test the changes. You don't want to go and change your entire auction. Because what you're already doing is working (and you're just trying to improve), you can make small changes each time and see the difference.

The next time you run an auction for the same product, or a different product, make sure to include the points that you wrote down in the description. There is a very good chance you will uncover your problem and you will make more money on your next item.

Number 2: Get 1% more people to buy from you again

If you're not contacting past customers on a regular basis, now is a good time to start. If you choose to do nothing else with your eBay business, make sure that this is the one that you do.

You will always have much more success getting your past customers to buy from you than you will have trying to sell to a new customer.

Why? They trust you. They know how you do business.

You have removed the skepticism factor that lives in all of us. It's true; we are all very skeptical and we choose wisely on who we will trust and spend our hard earned dollars with. After you remove the skepticism and someone knows how easy it is to do business with you, they will come back.

Contacting past customers can be as easy as sending them an email once a month to notify them of new items you have listed. If it's someone that has proven to buy more than the average customer, you might want to step it up a little. Contact them on a weekly basis, but always offer them something in return. You will be surprised at how happy people are when you email them letting them know you have new items listed for sale and that you're giving them a special discount for being such a loyal customer.

People email me every day thanking me for emailing and keeping in touch. Many times I won't hear from someone for a couple of months and I starting thinking maybe I'm wasting my time. Then, out of the blue, they will email to thank me for all of the emails and for keeping them informed.

It is difficult to understand why someone will come out of the dark and purchase from you, but I can guarantee they will if you just take a few minutes a week to email your customers. This will take you very little time and definitely increase your return business by 1% (if not more).

(In a later issue, we will talk about the lifetime value of a customer and why it is so important to keep a customer once you've earned one.)

Number 3: Get 1% more people to buy more than one product from you at a time

It's called an upsell. You see it everyday. Have you ever been to the movies and they ask you if you would like a large coke for only a quarter more? Consider McDonalds--they ask you if you would like a hot apple pie with your meal. They do this because a huge percentage of people will purchase something extra if you try to upsell.

An easy way to upsell with your eBay business is to do so in the auction text. It is best to include some sort of upsell text at the end of your item description.

For example, you're selling a pair of Nike shoes and include the following text:

"Winning bidder on these Nike shoes can receive FREE shipping on any other Nike item in my other running auctions."

There are several ways you can upsell a customer and they will be happy you did. People buy from their emotions and, if you can make them feel like they are getting a good deal on an upsell product, they will be happy to buy.

Number 4: Cut down your operating expenses associated with running your eBay business by 1%

Most eBay sellers think they are backed into a corner with many of the associated eBay fees. However, this isn't the case! There are several ways you can save money on your listing fees, such as adjusting the list price, cutting down on extra features, and choosing the right auction management software for your volume. A lot of these factors will depend on each seller individually. But, as an example, I'm going to use someone who is selling lower-end fishing poles.

Someone purchases their fishing poles using my techniques for $6.00 per pole. His goal is to make a $4.00 gross profit per pole. So, he lists the pole at $10.00 and, of course, hopes it gets bid higher. The pole gets bid up to $13.50 and the auction ends successfully. Now, the seller made more of a profit than he had hoped for with the eBay list fee being $0.60, the final value fee being $0.71, and the cost of the product $6.00, his profit on the sale was $6.19.

Let's take the same scenario, but, this time, the seller takes a little more time evaluating the costs for listing and realizes something significant. The cost for listing an item at $10.00 is $0.60, and the cost for listing an item at $9.99 is only $0.35. So, if he lists the pole at a $0.01 decrease from his goal gross profit, he will actually be making an extra $0.25 per pole.

Now, $0.25 may not seem like a lot to most people. However, if your business is selling on eBay and you're doing high volumes of listings to generate a significant income, this would seem like a lot. If you take these same poles and say he lists 500 of them per month, this is an extra $125.00 per month, for absolutely NO extra work.

Please keep in mind this is only one example of how you can cut auction costs with eBay. You should evaluate every aspect of your business for small changes such as this. If you could find just four areas of your business in which you could make a small change to, such as the one in this example

, you would make an additional $500.00 per month. Now, that's big deal!