The Right Mindset Just Isn’t There!

You have most likely heard the phrase, ‘He has an attitude!” This is usually a derogatory remark made about a person with a disagreeable attitude.

But the word ‘attitude’ is an important one when discussing internet marketing start-ups. A good attitude...a good mind set can’t insure success but a bad attitude and a bad mind set can certainly guarantee failure.

Here are some wrong attitudes that will absolutely guarantee failure:


1.    I can work when I want to. Wrong, wrong, wrong! You can’t just work when you feel like it. You have to expect to put in many long and very tedious hours of very hard work to make a new internet enterprise succeed.

2.    I can get rich quick! You couldn’t be more wrong and you are not only wrong but you are putting yourself in danger as well. There are bazillions of crooks out there on the internet who are waiting for their next easy mark and if you are looking for a quick way to get rich, you ARE the next mark.
It is possible to make a very comfortable living with internet marketing enterprises but if anybody ever tells you it is quick or easy, they are lying to you.

3.    I don’t need a business plan. There you are...wrong yet again. Internet business is still business. All of the same business principles apply to online business as apply to brick and mortar business. It is imperative that you have a plan for success that is based upon these sound business principles.

4.    When you have an internet business of your own, you don’t have a boss. Wrong again! You are your boss. If you aren’t a good boss who sees to it that work is accomplished on time and in full, you will doom yourself to certain failure. Unless you are a boss who sets up a working schedule and establishes goals that must be met, you will find yourself working at a job under a boss who does do those things and maybe for minimum wage.

Posted in 0 comments Posted by Mark at 10:03 AM  

No Business Background

All businesses have two things in common. They are BUSINESSES and they must be run like businesses! The people who are in charge of a business need to understand the accepted practices of business.

They need to understand simple and basic ideas like acceptable over-head expenses in relation to projected income. Internet entrepreneurs need to understand profit and loss and what constitutes each.

A college degree in business in not essential for an internet business entrepreneur go be successful but it sure wouldn’t hurt. Just some basic business knowledge is absolutely vital.

f you have a hard time balancing your personal check book, you probably should keep your day job and forget about starting an internet business

It is true that you can hire accounting firms that will tell you WHEN you must make tax deposits, for example, but these firms will not be able to tell you IF you need to make them.

Accounting firms can tell you whether or not you made a profit but not how to make it. If you have no business background you need to, at the very minimum, get some good business advice before you even consider opening an online business.

The fact is that all successful businesses operate on sound business principles. Successful businesses aren’t accidents. The proof is in the numbers....only 10% of new internet businesses are successful or are even still in existence after the first 120 days of operation.

It is not even reasonable to expect to make a profit from a new business enterprise for many, many months.

You must have sufficient resources available to not only launch your business but provide for your own personal needs for an extended period of time. It’s called ‘capital’ and there is no way around the need for enough of it.

Posted in 1 comments Posted by Mark at 10:01 AM  

Wrong Perceptions about the Internet

The 90% failure rate of new Internet businesses really isn’t all that surprising when you stop to think about the people who are starting internet businesses.

For some unknown reason most people think that running a successful internet business is as easy as getting a website built and hanging out an ‘open for business’ sign. They couldn’t be more wrong.

Running a successful internet business of any kind requires self-discipline. People will start an internet business and think that they can party all night, sleep until noon and then make a living in 3 or 4 hours sitting in front of a computer.

They some how think that the world is just going to line up on their website and hand over money. It isn’t going to happen.

Internet businesses do not run on auto-pilot. It is true that well established internet marketing gurus do not have to put in long, tedious hours on their businesses but it is a privilege that that has been earned by putting in a lot of long and tedious hours.

It didn’t happen overnight for them and it won’t happen over night for anybody. Most people are totally unprepared for the time investment that must be made in order for an internet business to become successful.

Posted in 0 comments Posted by Mark at 10:00 AM  

Everyday out there in the real brick and mortar world, millions and millions of people drag themselves from the warm, warm beds, take a shower, grab a cup of coffee, and head off to their jobs as they are thinking that there has got to be an easier way to make a living.

Every one of those millions and millions of people knows somebody who has quit the ‘get-up-and-go-to-work’ grind and is making a very good living by working on their personal computers from the comfort of their own homes.

Working from home sounds like an ideal solution to them. Many of these dissatisfied souls will quit their jobs and plunge head-first into internet marketing with no preparation, no knowledge of what they are doing, no education, and no hope of success. Failure is their only option and they don’t even suspect.

The fact is that according to many sources, more than 90% (Ninety percent) of all Internet business start-ups end in failure within the first 120 (one hundred twenty) days. Yes, you read that right. NINETY PERCENT!

This failure rate should be a warning to those who are considering trying their hand at making a go of working on the Internet rather than at a job in the brick and mortar world.

Of course, success is possible. There IS that other 10% (ten percent) that do succeed. The thing is success doesn’t happen by accident. And success isn’t just a crap shoot. Success happens because of some very important factors.

Success happens because people have the right ideas about internet marketing and how it works. They do not expect to get rich quick or be able to make a killing over night and retire to a tropical isle.

It is strange but some how the same people who wouldn’t dream of starting a real world business, think they can make a go of an internet business even though they have no business background.

People will go into an internet business with the idea that they no longer have to get up and go to work. They think they can simply work when the feel like it and still make a good living. They simply do not expect to have to work hard or work long hours.

Posted in 0 comments Posted by Mark at 9:58 AM  

Oh, the dreaded ‘B’ word! No, not THAT ‘B’ word I’m talking about the BUDGET ‘B’ word. The formula for determining profit is a really simple one and the one that all budgets are based upon. Income – Expenses = Profit.

It isn’t complicated and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that there are two ways to improve your profit; (1) increase income or (2) decrease expenses. If you can figure out how to both simultaneously, please let me know how.

It would be really nice if we could just crank up the burners and make more money, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately increasing income is much harder than decreasing expenses when it comes to improving your bottom line.

Fortunately, working at home comes with some built in savings right up front. You don’t have to buy that expensive gasoline to get to and from work. You don’t have to keep your working wardrobe up to date.

You can eat a PBJ sandwich for lunch in your own kitchen. And all of these are good money-saving things that just come with the territory when you work at home.

There are, however, some other measures that you can take to help decrease your work at home expenses. Here are some money saving ideas:

•    Idea #1: Don’t buy every piece of software that comes down the pike. Most of us who work at home are software junkies. We LOVE software….all kinds of software…and before we know it we have software on top of software and more software than we need or even can use.

•    Idea #2: Don’t buy bigger programs than you need. Often programs that help us accomplish the necessary tasks are offered in various sizes. You might be planning on having a hundred employees next year but you don’t need software to manage a hundred employees this year. You can always upgrade when the time comes. Today you need to save the bucks and go with only what you need today.

•    Idea #3: Don’t spend unnecessary advertising dollars. So many times new entrepreneurs will start out running PPC advertising with absolute abandon. They will choose every single key word and phrase possible and then let the PPC advertisements run 24/7. This is a huge waste of advertising dollars.

You need to learn to read the statistics that are provided to you by search engines and gear your advertisements to only appear in search results under very controlled circumstances and only during specific hours. It isn’t hard to run up a PPC bill of several thousand dollars in a very short period of time and not make a single sale in the process.

•    Idea #4: Take full advantage of free advertising to build your business and your credibility. There are free ways to advertise that are almost as effective as PPC advertising and paid-for advertising in E-zines and newsletters. Some of these free advertising methods are:

1.    Write E-books and articles and submit them to E-book repositories and article banks for others to use free of charge. (These articles and E-books are accompanied by your resource box and includes your name and your website address.)

2.    Post to blogs and forums that are related to the products and services that you sell. You post above a signature that includes your name and your website address.

3.    A banner exchange with another website owner who promotes products and services that are complimentary to the products and services you sell is yet another method of free advertising.

4.    Build a long and impressive opt-in list. Email advertising is free but you need the recipient’s permission to send advertising emails.

5.    Learn to make your email advertisements viral. There are a great many techniques that can be used to encourage the recipients of your advertising emails to share them with friends and family.

•    Idea #5: Sign up with a good flat-rate long distance telephone service. The internet is a worldwide place of business and it isn’t hard to run up a long distance bill of several thousand dollars pretty quickly. A flat-rate long distance telephone service can save you a lot of money over time.

The bottom line here is to remember the formula for determining profit; Income – Expenses = Profit.

It’s great to increase income when you can but you can always find ways to decrease expenses if you look for them. When you spend less, you make more and that will blow your competitors away!

Posted in 0 comments Posted by Mark at 9:45 AM  

Time for work-at-home entrepreneurs is their single most valuable asset. Nothing can replace time…valuable, precious time!

No matter how rich or poor you are, no matter how many things are on your ‘to-do’ list, you still just get the regulation twenty-four hours each day. Sometimes I could use another twenty-four but that isn’t going to happen. I’ll bet that you could use more hours in your work day, as well.

The thing about those twenty-four allotted hours per day is that we can’t spend all of them working. We have to sleep some of them. We have to take time to eat and there is the occasional shower, too. 

Our families and our friends require some of our time. Relationships must be nurtured. So…we can allow ourselves just so many work hours each day. Since our working time is limited that means that we must make the very most of the hours that we work. We can’t waste time on unimportant details or on tasks that others can do.

When you shave a few minutes here and a few minutes there, you will make more efficient use of your allotted work hours. Here are a few suggestions and in the interest of saving your time (and mine), I’ll keep this brief and to the point.

•    Email account efficiency: We all have various email accounts. We use one account for this and another account for that. Checking each and every email account more than once a day can be a time consuming task that you very easily make less time consuming by having all of the email that comes to all of your various email account to come into one gmail account. One email account takes a lot less time than several and you can still maintain all of your various email addresses.

Additionally, you don’t need to spend a lot of time reading and answering emails that are not going to add to your bottom line.

Email comes in several varieties. There are emails that are business related, emails that are important but not business related and emails that are simply frivolous and time wasting. If an email has been forwarded several times, don’t waste your time.

If an email is addressed to a great many people, don’t waste any time on it either. Email can consume a lot of time. You need to filter the important from the irrelevant and only spend time on those emails that are related to your business.

•    Set up time tables to help you prioritize your work day: A scheduled work day is an efficient work day. You will get a lot more done in a lot less time if you know in advance and can see at a glance what task is next on your list. I like visual aids. A time table is a visual aid. It can help you allot your time efficiently and productively!

•    Focus on result producing activities: When you make your work day schedule, you need to be certain that the tasks that you schedule are the ones that will in fact make your business grow and thrive. Don’t waste your time, effort and energy on tasks that can be done by others.

Take time to investigate outsourcing. You can add hours to your day each and every day when you outsource the mundane business tasks to others.

You can outsource such tasks as bookkeeping and accounting, article/E-book writing and submission, travel and event planning and ad writing. Others can do these tasks better and more efficiently than you can and your time is better spent on growing your business, making those contacts and closing those deals!

•    Shave time off of counter-productive activities: Like I said, your friends and families do required some of your time but you can also waste a whole ton of time on such unproductive activities as watching TV.

You will be really surprised at how much of your day that you waste if you keep a record of your time expenditures over the course of several days’ time.

Now don’t misunderstand me. We all need down time. We all must relax our minds as well as our bodies. We can’t be all business all the time but we can limit our unproductive or counterproductive activities.

Time is precious and time is limited. We need to make the very best use of every minute of every day that we possibly can.

Posted in 0 comments Posted by Mark at 9:43 AM  

Endorsements and testimonials are effective ways to dramatize facts and back up the benefits of your product, but don't use ones that look or feel transparent- bad juju.

If you use an endorsement from a famous or popular person, that person should use the product. Any testimonials you use must be true. Always aim for satisfaction. Self-respect, accomplishment and security are human aspects everyone strives for.

Never talk down to the readers as though you know something they don't or you're better than they are. To you, the potential customer is POTENTIAL GOLD.

* You've caught the reader's attention with a catchy headline.

* You've followed through with good copy that demonstrates benefits and appeals to the reader.

Now- before you lose that interest -command an action in their baser interests [greed, sloth, etc...

You can to close the gap between reading your sales copy and acting upon impulse. The purpose of your eBay ad is to make people buy. You have to tighten the desire to buy.

An iron-clad money-back guarantee is the most useful tool in pressing action-
The more generous, the better! It goes for the bottom line: What do I have to lose?

And it affirms the quality of the product. If you are willing to back the claims you make with a full refund, you can get a hook into those borderline buyers.

Absolutely STAND BEHIND your word. Be cheerful and expedient in returning a refund. Let them know that you sincerely appreciate their business and not to hesitate in contacting you, if there is any way you can be of further assistance.

If you give a time limit the product will be offered for sale, or mention a limited supply, or have a reduced price for a certain time, you'll increase the impulse to act.

Again, STAND BEHIND your word; do not make a “time sensitive” or limited quantity offer that- in fact- is not; illegal and unethical- better to be a flaming spammer!

What you're after...

* Appeal to the reader's urgency;

* Make the product totally irresistible to have- now;

* Extend a generous guarantee;

* Whole-heartedly stand behind the above!

What is your competition doing? When testing new ads; start with the tried and true. Don't try to be different. It is the sound and worthwhile that brings in the customers- time and time again.

The best way to write your ad is to disregard size at first, writing everything on paper that might attract readers.

Tell it all. Stress the need for what you have to offer, what it will do for readers, how they will benefit, benefit and benefit, what they can expect by using your product, how easy or more pleasant life will be for them...

When you have finished writing, you might have a long paragraph or a dozen pages. Now is the time to think of clarity, not cost. Unlike a 'zine classified, you do not pay by the word.

So you won't have to be nearly as selective in your choice of words in the final ad.

To build sales, this advertising must be seen or heard by potential buyers, and cause them to react to the advertising in some way. The credit for the success, or the blame for the failure of almost all ads, reverts back to the ad itself.

The bottom line in any ad is quite simple: To make the reader buy the product or service.
Any ad that causes the reader to only pause in this thinking, to just admire the product, or to simply believe what's written about the product -is not doing its job completely.

The "ad writer" must know exactly what he wants his reader to do, and any that does not elicit the desired action is an absolute waste of time and money.

Never forget the basic rule of advertising copy writing:

“If the ad is not read, it won't stimulate any sale; if it is not seen, it cannot be read; and if it does not command or grab the attention of the reader, it will not be seen!”

Most successful advertising copywriters know these fundamentals backwards and forwards.

Whether you know them already or you're just now being exposed to them...

Your knowledge and practice of these fundamentals will determine the extent of your success as an advertising copywriter.

All Web copy, sales copy and ads are written according to all the same rules. What is said in a 'zine classified ad must have the same [if not more] impact that's delivered in a larger, more elaborate type of Web site, in ultra-condensed form.

Posted in 0 comments Posted by Mark at 6:49 AM  

The more money you invest in yourself, the less time that you'll be shackled to your venture. The less money you are willing to you invest in yourself, the more time you will spend [exponentially] to overcome lack of funds.

In a nutshell, you can actually become quite successful on the Internet- generating a modest four figures a month- with virtually no out-of-pocket expenses.

However...

Do plan on exercising Due Diligence and spending thousands of hours. 

Hence, why it is critically important to choose something that you are 100% *absolutely* passionate about- as the end-consumer hobbyist! 

I apologize if the blunt truth of the matter 'takes the wind out of your sails'...but, again- I wish someone was this brutally honest with me years ago!

“This will increase your profitability substantially, while cutting down your work load!”

Posted in 0 comments Posted by Mark at 6:45 AM