Some years ago, on the recommendation of a friend, I visited Amazon.com for the first time. My friend was someone whose judgement I trusted - and I had also heard good things about Amazon from other friends and colleagues.

I was certainly impressed with what I saw when I got to the site, it was well laid out, information was clear, prices were good and there was a great range to choose from. But I didnt buy anything - not on that visit. Later on I went back to the site and I am now a regular customer.

So whats the moral of the story? I went to one of the best websites on the planet, I was already interested and I had plenty of first hand recommendations from people who I knew and trusted - but I didnt buy anything. Why not?

Simple - it's perfectly normal behaviour that's why, in fact had I bought anything on that first visit I would have been flying in the face of conventional behaviour - on the internet or in the real world.

It's the equivalent of window shopping, or you could consider it as research if you like. Just be aware that this is the way the vast majority of people surf and view websites - get used to it and plan accordingly.

The only way that you're going to make a sale is if the visitor returns, or if you have further contact by some other means. there are a number of ways to do this, two of the best methods are as follows:

• Make the content of the website so interesting and compelling that your visitor will want to return.

• You take the initiative and keep in touch by sending your visitor information by email.

Both of these methods work very well, and should be used together if possible.

Focusing on follow up: Use an autoresponder to follow up automatically for you. It will help you form a relationship with your customers and/or potential team members and increase your profits more than almost any other tool.

An autoresponder is simply a piece of software which stores pre-loaded email messages and then sends them out to people who have supplied their email address. The important thing is that the emails are going out only to people who have given their permission for emails to be sent to them. they are, to use the network marketing parlance, qualified prospects.

They have visited your website, read a short summary of your business opportunity and shown their interest by completing the form and supplying their email address.

Most autoresponders will allow you to automatically generate the code to produce a form for your interested prospects to enter their name and email address in order for them to receive your messages. Paste this code onto a very simple single page website, add a few bullet points explaining the benefits of your product/service/opportunity, drive traffic to your website and then let the autoresponder do the follow up for you.

The system works very well for the following reasons:

1. There is a high degree of automation.
   You do the hard work once - when you set up you messages and website. after that, it's just a matter of driving traffic to your site.

2. Subscribers have already indicated their interest by providing their email address.

3. The subscribers have given you permission to contact them so you will never be accused of "spamming".
   Hint: Always keep a record of their signup details, date, time, ISP etc. If they forget and do accuse you of spam then this information will help you refute their claim (politely of course).

4. The autoresponder messages do the hard sales work for you and helps form a relationship with your prospects.

5. You retain the email address of the prospects.
   Even if they aren't interested in your first offer you can update them on any new opportunities or products that you decide to promote at a later date. You have your very own list.

6. The system is ideal for use on the internet allowing a high number of prospects to be reached.

You can find plenty of autoresponders by doing a search on Google. GetResponse and Aweber are the two best known and will probably help you get past the spam filters more easily than some of the others available. There probably isn't a lot to choose between the big two but GetResponse does have a free version (text only) which you can try for an unlimited period. It also has very good tutorials. Aweber also has good tutorials but has a limited time period for its free version (30 days).

Don't worry about the website either. There are plenty of free HTML editors (check Google) and if you can use a word processor then you will be able to create a simple webpage with a few bullet points and a signup form.

You shouldn't use a free website host to advertise but, if you really don't want to spend money, you could use a free HTML editor and upload the product of your labour to the free web space provided by your ISP. This is likely to be no more than a temporary solution but isn't an unreasonable approach when you're starting out.