The Self Funded Proposal: Genius or What???

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Effective marketing strategy is tough for many business owners to understand. There are so many different methods and trying all of them can quickly deplete your advertising budget. What if you could spend your money on a promotion that not only works, but actually pays for itself? A funded proposal is exactly that- effective advertising that pays for itself and leads to more sales.

If you think that a self funded proposal sounds complicated, you are in for a pleasant surprise. A funded proposal is not only simple, but it will work. The key is in knowing how to use them. It will work for any type of business- whether online or a traditional brick and mortar establishment.

A self funded proposal is basically a promotion that requires you to create and sell a simple, but valuable, inexpensive product designed to hook the customer into buying more. Many marketers use informational products, such as eBooks, for a funded proposal. The benefits are that it generates sales leads from people who are interested in what you are selling and the revenue that it generates pays for the advertising.

How to create a self funded proposal:

Step 1: Identify who would be interested in buying what you are selling.
Step 2: Identify what critical problem these people are facing.
Step 3: Create a simple self-help or how-two solution to this problem. It can be an eBook, a training manual, or a step by step video course.
Step 4: Create an upgraded version of this product. It must be good enough that someone will be willing to pay a small price for it.
Step 5: Create a sales page that offers an upgrade offer at a low price.

Once you have this completed, here is how you use a self funded proposal to market and make money:

• Offer your product online for free in exchange for the person’s contact information.
• Once they enter their information, they are directed to the sales page that you created. Although you may only get a small percentage of sales, it will earn money. This is the meat and potatoes of a funded proposal.
• Use your list of new contacts to draw them to your main product that you want them to buy.

So what’s the overall goal of a self funded proposal? You don’t want to just make a sale- you want the self funded proposal to generate repeat sales of more expensive products. The technical term for this is backend sales.

The first rule of marketing is that acquiring new customers costs a lot more than promoting to the ones you already have. This is because it takes a lot to convince someone you don’t know to buy something that costs a lot.

On the other hand, a self funded proposal makes it easier to sell to someone if your product is cheap because there is less risk. Once someone buys from you, you have built a relationship with them. You use this credibility to convert them into loyal customers.

With a self funded proposal, it becomes much cheaper and easier to convince them to spend more. When you send them marketing, they know who you are and they believe what you are saying. A funded proposal separates you from all of the other guys who are pitching their product to strangers.

Put it to Work Now and EMPOWER YOURSELF