Basic Business Attributes, Do You Have Them?

How many times have we heard the saying “we learn from our mistakes”. I have to agree with this saying, and also that the lessons we learn hardest we learn best! I have learned a lot from my mistakes, sadly (for me) most of them were made before the Internet existed as the fantastic networking tool it is today. Today it is possible to read articles or join a forum and get great advice (and not so great advice) from forums.

While it is great to learn from our mistakes, it is better to learn from the mistakes of others, or by ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ as Newton said.

These are my 'business mistakes' I have learned from.

1) Keep your monthly fixed costs as low as possible, and make your number one priority to arrange an equal amount of regular income on a regular monthly basis to cover this amount.

If there was one piece of advice I would give it would be the above, as more businesses go bust due to poor cash flow than anything else!

2) Thoroughly research and work in your mind and bounced off other trusted people, your idea. Market test it as much as possible while keeping the idea as quiet as possible.

3) Get a business plan on paper (not the sort the bank or enterprise agencies use as they are by and large a load of rubbish (although you will need this for the bean counters). Go to (1) above, and set in stone a solid plan for achieving this. After you hit break even continue it on to the next target, and so on.

I just used the magic word there, 'target'. you MUST be sales orientated in business as the owner, if you are not then you are failing in your main duty which is to ensure the continued existence of the business.

4) Do NOT care what others think about you, i.e. what car you drive etc. ALL of this will change if you stick to the plan and keep your focus on short term targets and longer term goals.

I just tripped another magic word in business ' Focus' .

5) Keep your focus, decide what the targets are, work out how to get them, and focus on doing that. If you need ฃ1000 a month to pay the bills, then this is what you MUST do. If you lose focus of your core objective, you are going to lose out big time, and end up failing.

If you doubt the power of focus, then try this test:-
Get a friend to hold 3 tennis balls in their hand
Get the friend to throw all three at you in one go
Try to catch the balls
Repeat three times. I bet you will not catch many, if any at all.

Now get them to throw them again, and this time focus on catching one ball.
Repeat three times
Now you will have caught one ball three times.

It is true in business that you must focus on the core objective, just as with the balls once you catch one, you move onto the next, until you have achieved all your goals, or at least your most important ones.

Of all the skills needed to succeed, I would say focus is up there with the top 3 along with enthusiasm and determination.

Poverty to Riches: Myth or Reality?

You CAN start with empty pockets and piles of bills and build a steady income, even wealth, via the internet. It's a long, hard road though, so it's best to prepare and take along a good map.

First, a comparison to building an offline, bricks-and-mortar business, just for perspective. If you're young, you might educate yourself in your field, go to work for someone else, and build your experience, reputation and equity. Then you could take out a business start-up loan, rent a storefront, buy all the necessary equipment, tools, furniture and merchandise, buy advertising -- and wait years to work your way out of debt and make a profit.

If you aren't young, have a family and all the expenses and debts that go with that,and are not making enough money working for someone else to get ahead, you don't have the same options. Night school, years of part-time education and training, with your creditors hounding you every step of the way...sound familiar?

So you turn on your computer and wonder...wish...that one of those promises of quick riches could be true for you. I wouldn't go there if I were you.

Here are some first steps to getting started as an internet entrepreneur:

1. Honest self-assessment: There are certain qualities necessary to being self-employed. If you can honestly say that you are self-disciplined, self-motivated, determined, self-confident, patient, persevering and maybe even a bit stubborn, you have what it takes.

2. Research: You need to spend some time researching the company, the products, and the people already working the business. Is the company solid and dependable, are the company executives accessible and responsive, are the products of high desirability and quality, and maybe most importantly, is there experienced, successful, and friendly team support?

3. Support: Surround yourself with cheerleaders, mentors, knowledge, and inspiration, both on- and offline. Your family, the company, and others who have succeeded where you are treading for the first time, should all be available to you. You should never feel that you're all alone.

4. Infrastructure: Decide what you need: computer,printer, fax, phone; whatever your chosen business requires. Create an office space that suits your lifestyle and work needs. A corner of the living room can function well if you can work while the kids are at school or if their noise doesn't bother you, but evening work may require a separate room. Don't put your office in the bedroom if you work evenings and your spouse goes to bed early. You need your family's support, not their animosity!

5. Realism: It's tempting to try a business that makes promises it can't keep. Many tell you that one person or a few make thousands of dollars a week and so can you. None of them will point out that maybe you will be one of thousands who quit before they make a cent. "Put money in your pocket today!" Yes, but will any go in tomorrow?

Accept the fact that any business worth its salt can take time. Maybe you can begin making money in a couple months, or maybe a year. You have to be able to maintain life as you know it for however long it takes. Understand that it won't be a steady climb to the top from where you are today; the path will go up and down.

6. Selling someone else's product or your own: Obviously, the big money is in selling your own product. Selling for another company is a great way to get your feet wet in internet commerce, however. At first you may feel like you're floundering in an unfathomable sea of information, but at some point will come the knowledge that you're "getting it." Working for a good company will leave you knowing that you have what it takes to do it on your own, if you choose.

7. Business plan: This keeps you focused, helps you develop goals, strategies and work plans; and aids in evaluating your results. It can include contingency plans, and is never written in stone. As you learn and your business develops, the plan will evolve too.

Now that you've got the road map...take that first step! Your future begins today!

Highlights Of My First Seminar Presentation

I have really enjoyed helping other entrepreneurs, and I
will continue to teach people how to succeed online -- which
is why I started MarketingSecrets.com.

Here are a few things that I recently shared in my first
ever formal seminar presentation:

1. All of your marketing online must be designed for
IDIOTS.

A lot of people laughed when I showed them a slide saying
how the "secret" demographic for Internet Marketing success
was that 98% of people online were idiots. But it's the truth.

In order to achive maximum RESULTS you must design
your marketing so a complete idiot will know EXACTLY what
you want them to do.

Don't create pages with a bunch of OPTIONS for people
to take. Give people 1 or 2 options. Period. The more
options, links, buttons, etc. you give people, the more
likely you are to not have prospects take the desired
actions you want them to take.

Internet Marketing success (just like Direct Marketing)
is all about one thing -- RESULTS. Nothing else matters.

So your task is to get your prospects to do what you
want them to -- click a certain link, download a particular
file, or get them to submit a form -- like an optin form,
or an order form, or a survey.

But in order to get the MAXIMUM number of prospects
to take that "call to action" that you want them to take,
you must make it BRAIN DEAD SIMPLE. If you do,
you'll get more people opt-ing in. And, oh yeah, you'll
also get more orders.

Now I know what you're thinking...

"John, this is common sense."

Yes, it is. But you know what? 99% of marketers
online are currently using marketing that's too complicated.

They are also trying to use too much GUESSWORK
to run their businesses. Which leads me to something
else I shared...

2. The *Real* Internet Profit Formula is this:

Part 1: YES or NO
Part 2: MORE or LESS

That's it. Game. Set. Match. That's the entire formula
for Internet Marketing success.

I know you probably want to be told it's some other "magical"
formula that's more complicated, but it's not. That's *THE*
actual formula to make as much money online as you want.

Here's how it works...

Every "call to action" you want a prospect to take
(such as clicking a link, downloading a file, or submitting
a form) must be tracked. The result of that tracking
everytime will be YES or NO. "X" number of people
did take that call to action, and the rest did not.

If you take the total number of unique "YES" calls to action,
and you divide them by the total number of unique visitors
to the web page where the call to action was you get
a CONVERSION RATIO.

For example, if 100 people visit a web page where
you have an opt-in form, and 10 people opt-in,
your "conversion ratio" for that opt-in form is
10% (10/100).

Got it?

Then here's Part 2 of the process...

Now you create a slightly modified version
of the web page where that opt-in form is
(maybe you giveaway a different bonus if
people opt-in, or call your ezine something
else as a test, or use different colors on
the page, etc.) and you run a SPLIT-TEST.

A split-test is simply where you will take your
web site traffic and equally distribute them
to two different web pages -- like the two
opt-in pages, in this example. One is
your original page, the second is the
slightly modified version. It's basically
like sending "every other" visitor to the
other page. (I'll explain HOW to do all
of this in a moment.)

You will track the results on each of these
pages separately. When the results are
in, and you calculate the "conversion ratio"
for each, you will have a WINNER.

One of the pages will create MORE results ("YES"s)
and the other page will create LESS.

You simply now start using the page that
created MORE and you'll want to now test
another version in a split-test against that
version. You want to constantly try to improve
upon your results.

The more you improve, the more money you
make. It's just that simple.

I will teach you about some other testing methods
in the near future, but for now you should have
at least a basic grasp on why it's so important.

Ok, so HOW do you implement this?

Well, to be perfectly honest with you, there isn't a
100% "perfect" service that I can "highly" recommend
you use -- because the existing ones have
some problems that keep them from being 100%
accurate.

But for now, using "something" is better than nothing.
I recommend checking out "Clickalyzer" at:
http://www.clickalyzer.com

You can use this service to start tracking the results
of calls to action. You simply paste a little bit of
code on the page where the call to action is, and
then some other code on the "thank you"
page of that call to action (or whatever page you
serve next to people after they take the action).

This code simply creates a hidden "counter"
that you can then take those numbers and do
the math on to figure out your conversion ratios --
as I described above.

I'm not sure if Clickalyzer will allow you to
run split tests or not -- I haven't used their
service in ages. It didn't when I had tried it.

If that's the case, you should check out
Marty Foley's "Split Test Gold" script at:
http://profitinfo.com/catalog/v4/

Marty is a great marketer. I have known Marty
for years. He has some other great stuff you might
want to check out on his main site:
http://www.profitinfo.com

I, personally, use my own proprietary technology
(that I had programmed for my own use) to do my
testing and tracking. What I use is quite a bit more
powerful than what's currently available for marketers
to use.

However, I *will* be allowing others to use my testing and
tracking "system" very soon! I've had many of my
Internet marketing friends BEG ME to come out
with a service with it, so I am *finally* going to
do it.

I will be launching this new service very soon. It will allow
you to EASILY track, test, and improve on all of your
marketing results automatically.

I will email you as soon as it's ready to go.

I honestly believe that "Testing and Tracking" is
90% of the equation for making money online. I can't
stress how important it is.

And on another note about testing and tracking,
here's a BOMBSHELL I dropped during my presentation...

3. Header graphics almost always HURT conversion rates!

This was a big shocker to the crowd.

I discovered this myself after testing some different things.
(I test stuff like mad.)

I finally decided to run a true split test with one of my sites
to see how a version WITHOUT the header graphic would do
against the original version. Almost all marketers online
are using pretty header graphics across the top of their
direct marketing "mini sites" -- myself included! I just
"assumed" someone had originally TESTED it and found
it to produce more sales than just having a sales letter
with no graphic.

I was wrong -- and so are thousands of other people that are
using header graphics on their sites right now.

RESULT: The version without the header graphic produced
37% MORE SALES!

Yes, 37% more sales. That's a HUGE difference. In fact,
I was kicking myself for not having tested this before. I can't
imagine (I don't want to think about it) how much money I
lost because I had a site designed like other people's mini sites.

But maybe this was a FLUKE? Maybe this was just the
case with *MY* site. Maybe my header graphic was too ugly,
or too distracting, or the filesize was too big? Maybe it only
made a difference in MY case.

So I picked up the phone and gave my close friend
Stephen Pierce a call. I ask Stephen to do me a favor and
run a test for about a week -- I knew that he was getting tons
of traffic to his "Whole Truth" site everyday and would be able to
get conclusive results of a test very quickly.

Stephen agreed and began running a test of the same version
of his site but without a header graphic.

RESULT: The version without the header graphic produced
50% MORE SALES!

50 PERCENT!

Do you think Stephen was HAPPY about this? :-)

This one simple change is going to produce THOUSANDS of
dollars in sales (each month) that he would not have been making.

You can see his current site at:
http://www.the-whole-truth.com

This is the POWER of testing and tracking.

BUT I STILL WASN'T TOTALLY CONVINCED...

I still wasn't 100% sure that the "No Header" test was conclusive.
I wanted MORE PROOF.

So I called my buddy Armand Morin on the phone. As you may
know, Armand actually sells a popular product called,
"Header Generator"! This great product produces beautiful
graphic headers for people to use on their sites.

As you can imagine, Armand wasn't totally excited to hear
the news I shared with him about my test and Stephen's
test. But you know what? Armand's response was the
same response of any great marketer...

"I need to test it right now!"

Even Armand understands that it's not about ego and
that it's all about RESULTS. He just wants to use whatever
will make him the most money!

So Armand ran a split-test with a header version against
a no header version. He had just released a new product,
"FlashPal Generator" (www.flashpalgenerator.com) and
decided to test it on this site.

RESULT: The version without the header graphic produced...

Are you ready for this?

400% MORE SALES.

Yep, FOUR HUNDRED PERCENT!

Now, this "No Header" vs. "Header" design issue may not be
the same for all sites. There might be some sites that look
more professional with a header and that allows them to sell
more than maybe a version without a graphic header. Our
tests consistently showed the version with no header graphic
produced more sales, but as with anything TEST IT YOURSELF
and go by YOUR RESULTS.

Don't just take my word for it. Test it and see what works
best with your site. It's just possible that your site may
sell better WITH a graphic header.

The "reason" behind why the no header version outproduces
the header version is probably because the HEADLINE
(showing the primary BENEFITS) is pushed farther down
on the page and people may not even get a chance to read
it before they decided to leave.

Some people will only spend 10 seconds on your site before
leaving and if they see that header first, that may be all
they check out before making the decision to leave.

If people read the headline and get sucked into the copy,
they are more likely to continue reading the sales letter --
and thus more likely to BUY.

You know, there's a reason that sales letters that sold MILLIONS
of dollars worth or products and services for YEARS in direct
mail didn't have a big graphic "strip" across the top like
a graphic header. I'm sure with the millions of sales letters
that were tested someone tried it and it didn't work as well.

There's a lot we can learn from Direct Marketing masters.
Even, though, the Internet is INTERACTIVE, many of the
50 year old + techniques still work today online.