-You can’t do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow.-
We must change and constantly alter the way that we do business to stay ahead of the competition. While always being aware that the competition is not just those who we are aware of, but those who are just starting out. They have probably looked at business such as yours and have entered the marketplace with new ideas and a willingness to exploit all the new business technologies that are available.
The problem with running a business that has been around for a while is that the greatest obstacle to change is success. If you have enjoyed a little success then you will be the one most reluctant to change.
I understand, why change something that is working for something that may or may not work better? Why employ the use of new marketing tools?
The answer to this is obvious. They work. Marketing techniques like social marketing and email marketing work. Email marketing returns over twenty-five to one on every dollar invested. Social marketing is a fantastic way of growing your business and building a brand name. Getting to know a customer on a one to one basis can really help your business over the long-term. When you really know a customer and stay in constant contact with a customer they become yours. Your customer, a customer who will advertise your business by telling others about your business. Telling about the qualities of your goods and services.
If this is not happening with your business then you need to make some changes. Go back to the beginning. Look at the business that you wanted to run and then examine how close you have come to building that business. What changed? Where did your go off course and why?
What good choices did you make and what wrong turns did you take?
Business, where it is brick and mortar or an online business, is about growth and change. Look at your business as a living thing and if a living thing is not constantly growing and changing then it is dying.
“I never fail. It’s just that the people around me succeed more than I.” – Carroll Bryant
You only have to live up to your standards of success. Others will spend time comparing you and your business to those around you, but this does not mean that you have to. Yes you are competing with other businesses, but you do not have to measure up to their standards. This is your business. You started it for a reason. You had a goal in mind for how much you wanted it to grow and how quickly. You had financial goals. You had targets in the area of sales and traffic. Your online business is your baby and no one else should be allowed to dictate how you are going to raise this baby.
I am not telling you to have no standards. I am telling you to have your own standards. I was once in a relationship with someone who constantly compared my progress as a businessman to others. I was pleased with my slow, but steady progress. My business was growing at the rate that I had expected. There were good days and bad days. I had expected this, but they had not. They had expected my business to be booming. For it to be a finish product in a matter of a few weeks when I knew when I started my online business was going to take more than a year to reach the level that I had envisioned. That relationship ended because of expectations. The good news is that I was right and now am very pleased with the level at which my online business has reached.
Do not allow others or the world at large to put undo pressure on you. Business is difficult enough without the added voices constantly whispering you are not moving fast enough. You are not making enough money. Block out these voices and keep moving forward. No matter what you have to keep your eye on your prize and not theirs.
Good luck with your business and please take a moment to share this post with others. I have a traffic goal for this month and I can not reach it without you guys telling others about my site.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”-Seneca, Roman Philosopher
Maybe you have heard it said or even thought it yourself, If I get lucky my business will make more money.
Luck is what we make for ourselves. Luck is not magic. Luck is being prepared for that moment when hard work and planning meets with opportunity. We do not stumble over new business. We do not have new and loyal customers fall into our laps. Those new customers to our online businesses are something that we have planned for. We found ways to reach them and better yet got our existing customers to bring them in for us. We have provided great services which the existing customer has told others about. We have supplied world-class goods which the existing customer has told others about. When the new customer arrived to our store front we were ready to greet them. Ready to provide what they needed and sometimes what they did not know that they needed. You held onto their basic information after the first transaction and then found ways to market to them over time and by doing this you created a repeat customer.
What I am telling you is not something new. It is something that the experience of others have taught us all over time. You are going to have to work hard, but before this you are going to have to learn how to work smart. Wasted effort is worst than no effort at all. Wasted efforts kills time and time is the one thing that can never be replaced.
To grow your online business you are going to have to learn new methods. You are going to do some trial and error testing and then you are going to put into action what you have learned. The hardest part of this is just making up your mind to do it. Every great achievement in life usually begins with a simple choice made.
-“Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise” – Ted Turner
Who knows about your business?
Are you getting the word out?
Do the right people know that you exist?
The right people meaning those who could be potential customers. Unless you are independently wealthy your business will not be able to exist long without them. Sure there are those customers who find you and the best thing that you can do is to treat them so well that they will tell others about your business and how it was to deal with. In other words the best way to advertise your business is to get others to do it for you.
This site is a business and the best way to grow it is to have you as a visitor to share my post and to tell others about this site. Then have that process repeat itself until this site is getting a flood of visitors. Those visitors sign up for the services that I promote or click on the google ads at google displays here and in my idea world I am a millionaire in no time. It sounds too easy, but it has actually worked that way for some who have started information based websites. What every your online business is you need to first do a great job at it so that your customers will advertise it.
Next you must advertise to these customers. I know that it seems strange to advertise to people who have already purchased something from you. Just look at it this way, imagine that you are running a restaurant instead the online business. The best customer for any restaurant is someone who has already eaten there. They know the quality of the food, drink and service provided. This customer will welcome hearing about something new that their favorite restaurant has to offer. A new menu item or a great upcoming sale.
The same holds true for your online business. Advertise to the existing customer first. Tell them about something new that your online business has to offer. Go out there and make them a returning customer through deals and email marketing.
Then after you have perfected this you will go out and get more customers through things such as social marketing. In the new world of online business social marketing is a great way to introduce yourself to new customers.
I know that you have a number of questions about what I have suggested. The most important one is why should you do this.
The answer is the only one that matters in the world of business whether it is brick and mortar or online business. You will do this things because you want to make more money. Because money matters. We want to grow our online businesses because we want to increase our cash flow. The only reason to increase our work load is to increase our bottom line.
I encourage you to do what it takes to generate more money. It is not being greedy and even if it was I believe that a great man named Gordon said that Greed is good. Let them call you greedy as long as they end that sentence with millionaire.
Let’s advertise and grow that customer base. Okay, could you take a moment to stumble us on Stumbleupon and to share this post with a friend.
Most of us never recognize opportunity until it goes to work in our competitor’s business.–P.L. Andarr
How many times during the life of your business have you looked back at an opportunity that you considered taking and did not only to see that they were taken by someone else and turned out to be a big success?
We normally kick ourselves for these mistakes and move on promising at the time that you will never make that mistake again. The next time a good business opportunity comes along you will jump at it.
The truth is usually the opposite. We make the same mistakes over and over again. If we are risk takers we take risk while if we are risk averse we find or create excuses to not do what in our guts we know is the best thing for our businesses.
I interact constantly with people who visit this site. I am often thanked by those who have taken advice found here or signed up for a service suggested here. I have yet to be told by someone who tried email marketing or social marketing that it did not work for them. I have yet to be told by those who tried some of the supply channels that I have suggested that it was not worth the effort.
-The sure way to miss success is to miss the opportunity. –Victor Chasles
Your goal as a business person should be to take advantage of every opportunity. Look at an opportunity that comes your way in the same way that you would look at a turnover in a football game. You have been given an extra possession of the ball. You have basically been given a free shot to score. When you decide to do nothing it is the same as deciding to kneel down on the ball when you are in the red zone. Why do you do this and then wonder later why is it that your business is not growing?
I can tell you that email marketing always results in turning a profit when done correctly. The only reasons not to try it is either you are too scared to do it or you believe that you are not intelligent enough to do it.
If you are scared I can not solve that problem for you. If you doubt your intelligence I can tell you that it is mostly point and click. The services do most of the heavy lifting. You started a business. You pay your own bills. You understand how online business works. If you were able to find this site and read this post you are easily capable of understanding email marketing and many of the other services I will suggest to you over the months and years to come.
Here is a basic tutorial on Email marketing. After it I will include a video about a service that I really like. They offer a free trial so you do not have to invest any money. If it works for you then and only then will you spend anything on the service and the average return on investment in the email marketing arena is over twenty to one.
Okay thank you for visiting. Could you take a moment to bookmark this post and maybe share it with a friend?
-A lot of people quit looking for work as soon as they find a job. – Zig Ziglar
The economy has hit all of us hard and some of you very hard. Getting a job has become what seems like an endless journey. The more that you have looked the more discouraging it becomes.
For some, hope has turned to prayers and prayers to despair. It is a cycle that has repeated itself all over the country. No matter what the talking heads on cable news say about a great recovery taking place and things getting better you know that is not the case in the world that you live in.
The job hunt has to come to an end. You know what you are worth. You know what you are capable of. You beyond anyone else in the universe know what you have to offer a future employer.
My question for you is why don’t you become that employer. Hire yourself on a commission basis. In a way this is the way that most online businesses pay the bills and salaries. Most of the money I earn comes indirectly from Google and its Adsense program. People visit this or one of my other sites and they click on one of the Google ads that are placed on the site. Google gets paid for this and then they pay me.
In a direct way I place ads for companies on my sites. I offer information about the company’s product and if someone purchases that product I get a direct commission. This commission can be as low as fifty cents and as much as two hundred dollars.
Who hired me to do this job?
I did. I hired me. I was earning a solid living and still do as an online retail seller. I sell at online marketplaces like Ebay and Amazon. That experience is why I created this site. I wanted to make it easier for people who do that to earn a living. I wanted to make it easier for them to get the things that they need to grow their business and their profits.
I have been told by some of you that I have done a fair job at that. In the process, thanks to some of you, I have grown this new business that I am into. This business where I earn commissions. Where I work on a commission basis.
How do you hire yourself?
First you will need an idea for what type of online business you wish to run. If it is online retail you will need to find a steady source of supply. That will cost you something to begin with. Just like stocking any store you will have to pay for inventory.
Or you could create a business that sells things that you do not have to pay for. You could sell digital items. They come in many forms such as ebooks, courses, music and software. Below is a video about one company that provides these types of products for your business. You job will be to market their products online. Many people earn a living doing this. A site like payloadz can help you find these products.
Next is a site that provides links for your site. You market these links and earn a commission. It is a good job to have and millions of people earn a living by working with Linkshare and other such commission sites.
You will need a place to set up shop. You can construct a free page to market from by putting together a Blog and Blogger.com. You can sell merchandise from your blog. You can put up links and banner ads on your blog and collect Adsense their as well. It is a great place to begin to learn to build a money-making site.
You could buy hosting for your very own website. There is a full instructional page on this site. I would suggest that you visit it if you want to learn how to DIY your own website. The reason that you want to own your own website is that you get to create a name that you own. You will market this name and grow a following for a site that you have complete control over. You can add what ever you wish to the site. You can sell space on the site to paid advertisers. Paid ads can earn you a steady income if your site generates enough traffic.
Creating a job for yourself should be a consideration and if you already have a job does it hurt to have a second job online. If all you do is sell retail online would it hurt to add second income stream. Linkshare is free to sign up at and to use. They get paid when you get paid. This is mostly the case as well with Snagasale.
Okay that is it for today. Take a moment to bookmark this site and if you like this post please share it with a friend.
-Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.-Mark Cuban
The design of your site is important. It is like the entrance to a store. When a customer arrives they need to be able to find what they are looking for as quickly as possible. If they cannot they will quickly jump over on to another site.
Think about how often you have done this. You arrive at a web store looking to purchase something and you can not find what you are looking for or if you can you have to jump through countless hops to find a cart and to purchase the item.
Most online business people would suggest that you do not handle this aspect of your business yourself. They would suggest that you spend some money and have another service provide this for you. Yes I know that we live in a diy world. I am a huge fan of do it yourself, but in this case you should have others do it for you. When you are a small store you can do business out of a shoe box or a chase drawer, but as you expand you will purchase a register and then computerize multiple checkouts. That is the progression from store, to big store to department store to franchises.
You need to progress from simple buy it now button to professional checkout.
You also need to update the look and feel of your site as often as possible. If you run a WordPress site take the time to do the updates. It does not hurt and it can only improve the look and accessibility of your site.
If you have not built your first website then I would suggest that you do your research well. That you investigate what has worked for others. Spend time on Youtube and watch some tutorials from the professionals. Take advantage of all the free information you can obtain. Take advantage of all the deals that come your way during any given year. Always look to grow your online presence. Improve your hosting packages. Do keywords and domain name research so that SEO becomes easier. A good name for a website can generate a great deal of organic traffic.
-Every day, you’ll have opportunities to take chances and to work outside your safety net. Sure, it’s a lot easier to stay in your comfort zone.. in my case, business suits and real estate.. but sometimes you have to take risks. When the risks pay off, that’s when you reap the biggest rewards. Donald Trump –
Nothing is ever achieved by standing still except falling behind. You have started a business. The business is going well, but you have reached to point where you believe that if you tinker with it you many mess something up.
My question to you is this. Are you a business person or are you playing at being a business person?
A good online business person takes calculated risk from time to time. A person who has no clue what they are doing or how they got there in the first place sits on what has been done already and trust to luck that things will magically continue to work out.
Is that any way to run a business?
Is that what you have been doing?
Does that sound like a winning business plan?
If it does not then you need to investigate the options available to you and take the safest ones first. Learn through trial and error or better yet free trials and errors. There are so many services out there that can help you grow your business and add dynamic elements to your business. Many of them offer you free trials to see what their services can do for you. Why not take advantage of these services. Check them out and see if they improve your bottom line.
Allow me to introduce you to two services that offer free trials and can help to grow your businesses.
Both services are well-known and are used by thousands of businesses, maybe your direct competition uses some of them.
Okay I know that list building and email list sounds a bit complicated, but the truth is that most of us have vast email list to tap already and we are usually unaware of it. For every online sale you have made whether it is with Google checkout or PayPal or many of the other online payment services used, a record of the buyer’s email is kept. You can get those records from Google checkout or PayPal by clicking a few buttons.
Try a few services out and let me know how it has grown your businesses.
Good luck and please take a moment to stumble this site on stumbleupon, share this post with a friend and to add us to your google plus.
-There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.-John F. Kennedy
You will always find yourself faced with the simple fact that to move forward you must adapt and change. Take a few moments and list all the great and wonderful things that have happened during your life time from sitting around and waiting for things to happens.
It this a short list or a non-existent one?
Most, if not all great movements during your life time have happened do to the fact that you made bold moves. You took grand chances. What I recommend for you is that you find a risk worth taking and go for it. There will be a thousand possible moves that will come up during the life of your business. Should you go it alone? Should you hire help? Should you market in a different way? Should you reinvent your business? Should you stick with that supplier? Should you go out and find new suppliers? Should you try new things to expand your business or stand still?
So many questions will come up. Some many great opportunities will be presented to you. I cannot tell you what to do. No one can tell you what to do. You will have to make your own choices and yes each choice will be a chance that can represent success and or failure. That is the funny part about life. Nothing we do that is worth doing comes with a promises of success. Politicians promise you that if you vote for them they will make everything all right and of course the other guy will make everything all wrong. They are professional liars. I am just a professional business man and the only promise that I can make you is that if you do not take chances with your online business then you will not grow it. It will never become that business that supports your life style, that supports you family and allows you to live a better a richer life.
This is the part where I am supposed to ask you to go out a buy my book and or sign up for my course. I have a book, but I am not here to sell it. I will only suggest that you review all the good ideas that you have been sitting on. Find the one that is the lowest risk and try it. If it involves free trials and the chance to opt out all the better. Just try something new and take the time to pat yourself on the back for how far you have come.
Sometimes we forget to be thankful for the small improvements that we have made along the way. Be thankful for the small growth in our businesses.
Catch your breath. See a movie. Read a book. Spend time with a friend or a family member that you have not seen in a while. To quote Charles Dickens at this time of year “Mankind should be our business.”
Over the coming days, weeks, months and years you will make choices and even if you choose to do nothing you will be taking a chance. Be always aware of this and good luck with your business. Please take a moment to stumble us on stumbleupon and to add us to your google plus.
Perhaps up until now you have only sold inventory on Amazon and Ebay. Those markets are getting tighter and with more and more rules and performance numbers to reach each quarter these market places are making it harder and harder on the seller.
Some would say that means that it is time to look for a few new marketplaces to move your inventory. The first marketplace you should investigate is one created and owned by you. Having your own website is a good business move. Even if you sell at other sites having a site that you can send customers to is good for your long-term survival. There have been many top sellers at Amazon and or Ebay that woke up and found that through no fault of their own that their accounts had been restricted or suspended. A problem that could be worked through and overcome, but the loss of business can not easily be made up for. The one thing that can never be replaced is time. Having your own site means that you can go one no matter what may happen with the sites that you normally work at.
Next thing you should do is look into expanding to other sites. There are many sites out there where you can list items. Sites such as Ioffer, Sell.com, Etsy, Ecrater and Ebid.
Most sites are free to join and list. Some like Sell.com and Webstore require a small fee to join, but usually it is worth it. Research them and visit them.
Okay that is it for today. Good luck with your business.
