One of the prime motivations for Internet marketing is that you don’t want to be in the same place you are right now - in 12 months.
In every business the predominant idea is to set goals that help you conduct business smarter, learn lessons faster and bring more business to your site.
The problem is many entrepreneurs tend to stay focused on their bottom line and to product fulfillment issues. By doing so they may indeed find themselves in the same place 12 months from now. They may also find their business has declined in total sales revenue.
How is that possible?
This is an interesting question especially when, from all appearances, the business owner IS paying attention to their business and that the sales are brisk. It can also seem baffling when it appears that the business owner is busier than they have ever been.
The problem may be that some of the details of business should be delegated to other employees, especially if the business is of significant size.
The sad truth is some business owners are spending too much time in the mailroom and not enough time in long-term strategic planning. Online business grows as new ideas are developed and implemented.
It is not unlike an architect spending all his or her time developing the entryway of a new luxury hotel while failing to draw up plans for the rest of the building. It looks nice from the outside, but the inside is in disarray.
What this means, in the broadest terms, is that you need to pay attention to all aspects of your online business. If you don’t feel adequate to manage certain aspects of the business then find someone who can. When you neglect certain aspects of your business you will almost always run the risk of a loss of long-term business. You will also be subjected to feast or famine cycles where you may have more work than you can handle for a period of time and not enough work for an equal or greater length of time.
It’s a given that you find your business to be an important part of your life. You have invested a lot in the success of your business and that investment is too great to simply allow glaring marketing omissions to go unchallenged.
Sometimes business owners adopt an out of sight - out of mind mentality. They avoid those things that are not on their immediate radar. They push back all those things that are not fires to attend only the tyranny of the urgent.
Internet marketing is one of the very first things to be cast from view for many businesses. The reason this is true is because the role of marketing seems to have little intrinsic value for those online shops that are currently doing a brisk business. It appears to be a sign that they did everything right and can move on to the role of bean counter.
Learn the art of balancing your business interests and include marketing as a prime component for achieving future goals.
By Scott Lindsay
About The Author
Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. Make your own website in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites at: http://www.highpowersites.com or Build A Website at: http://www.buildagreatsite.com. Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: http://www.bookswealth.com
Did you know that selling your ebooks online is not the only way to make money from your creations? Let me share with you the 3 ways on how you can convert your ebooks to cash-generating machines.
1. Use them as advertising tools. Don’t have the money to spare for your advertising cost? Then, create compelling ebooks and talk about your products and services. Highlight their features, benefits, and major selling points that will make your readers want to make a purchase. You can then send your ebooks to your opt-in list, give them away to people who are interested on subscribing to your list, and have them forwarded to their friends and family members. Through this, you’ll be able to promote product awareness to your target market without shelling out a single dime for your advertising cost.
2. Drive traffic to your website. You can also use your ebooks as traffic-generating tools. How? You can create an ebook about issues that are closely related to your web content. For instance, if you are selling diet supplements, you can write about issues on weight gain, obesity, etc. so you can easily pitch in your site’s URL on each page of your ebook. Again, you will need to distribute your ebook to those people who are most likely to buy from you. When these people see that you are really knowledgeable on your chosen niche and that you can offer them with great information, they are most likely to consider you as the best answer to their problems. This will entice your recipients to check out your website.
3. Earn the trust of your potential clients. As you might already know, building customer trust and loyalty is one of the most important elements of internet marketing. Remember, people who trust you are most likely to do business with you. You can easily earn the trust of these people by proving to them that you are really good on what you do and that you are extremely knowledgeable about your chosen niche. There is no better way to do that than sharing your knowledge through your ebooks. Offer these people information that have direct impact on your chosen niche and help them resolve their pressing issues by giving effective solutions. You can also compile their most frequent questions that you can answer through your content.
By Sean R. Mize
Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article writing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide’
Download it free here: Secrets of Article Writing
Do you want to learn how to build a big online subscriber list fast? Click here: Secrets of List Building
Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 9034 articles in print and 14 published ebooks.
There are basically two types of bloggers in the world - reporters and experts - and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it’s hard for reporters to become experts, but it’s easy for experts to report).
If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.
I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert.
Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise. Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, people are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc… experts in most cases simply make more money and attract more attention.
Most Bloggers Are Reporters
The thing with expertise is that it requires something - experience. No person becomes an expert without doing things and learning. Bloggers usually start out without expertise and as a result begin their blogging journey by talking about everything going on in their niche (reporting) and by interviewing and talking about other experts (reporting again).
There’s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many people it’s a necessity at first until you build up some expertise. Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts - there are a lot more reporters than there are experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain attention and when they do, they often just enhance the reputation of the expert they are reporting on.
Don’t Replicate Your Teacher
If you have ever spent some time browsing products in the learn Internet marketing niche you will notice a pattern. Many people first study Internet marketing from a “guru” (for lack of a better term). The guru teaches how he or she is able to make money online, and very often the view that the student gleams is that in order to make money online you have to teach others how to make money online.
The end result of this process is a huge army of amateurs attempting to replicate what their teacher does in the same industry - the Internet marketing industry - not realizing that without expert status based on a proven record and all the perks that come with it, it’s next to impossible to succeed.
Even people, who enjoy marginal success, say for example growing an email list of 1,000 people, then go out and launch a product about how to grow an email list of 1,000 people. Now I have no problems with that, I think it’s fine to teach beginners and leverage whatever achievements you have, the problem is that people gravitate to the same niche - Internet marketing - and rarely have any key points of differentiation.
How many products out there do you know of that all claim to teach the same things - email marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing, and all the sub-niches that fall under the category of Internet marketing. It’s a saturated market, yet when you see your teachers and other gurus making money teaching others how to make money (and let’s face it - making money as a subject is one of the most compelling) - your natural inclination is to follow in their footsteps.
If the key is to become an expert and you haven’t spent the last 5-10 years making money online, I suggest you look for another niche to establish expertise in.
Report on Your Process, Not Others
The secret to progress from reporter to expert is not to focus on other experts and instead report on your own journey. When you are learning how to do something and implementing things day by day, or studying other people’s work, you need to take your process and what you do as a result of what you learn, and use it as content for your blog.
It’s okay to talk about experts when you learn something from them, but always relate it to what you are doing. If you learn a technique from an expert it’s fine to state you learned it from them (and affiliate link to their product too!) but you should then take that technique, apply it to what you are doing and then report back YOUR results, not there’s. Frame things using your opinion - your stories - and don’t regurgitate what the expert said. The key is differentiation and personality, not replication.
Expertise comes from doing things most people don’t do and then talking about it. If you do this often enough you wake up one day as an expert, possibly without even realizing how it happened, simply because you were so good at reporting what you did.
You Are Already An Expert
Most people fail to become experts (or perceived as experts) because they don’t leverage what they already know. Every person who lives a life learns things as they go, takes action every day and knows something about something. The reason why they never become an expert is because they choose not to (which is fine for some, not everyone wants to be an expert), but if your goal is to blog your way to expertise and leave the world of reporting behind you have to start teaching and doing so by leveraging real experience.
Experience can come from what you do today and what you have done previously; you just need to take enough steps to demonstrate what you already know and what you are presently learning along your journey. I know so many people in my life, who are experts simply by virtue of the life they have lived, yet they are so insecure about what they know, they never commit their knowledge to words for fear of…well fear.
Blogs and the Web in general, are amazing resources when you leverage them as a communication tool to spread your expertise because of the sheer scope of people they can reach. If all you ever do is talk to people in person and share your experience using limited communication mediums, you haven’t much hope of becoming an expert. Take what you know and show other people through blogging, and you might be surprised how people change their perception of you in time.
Reporting Is A Stepping Stone
If your previous experience and expertise is from an area you want to leave behind or you are starting from “scratch”, then reporting is the path you must walk, at least for the short term.
Reporting is a lot of fun. Interviewing experts, talking about what other people are doing and just being part of a community is not a bad way to blog. In many cases people make a career of reporting (journalism is about just that), but if you truly want success and exponential results, at some point you will have to stand up and proclaim yourself as someone unusually good at something and then proceed to demonstrate it over and over again.
Have patience and focus on what you do to learn and then translate that experience into lessons for others, and remember, it’s okay to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s all most experts really are.
This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.
To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:
www.BlogMastermind.com
Are you tired of waking up in the morning because you have to be to work? Are you ready to spend more time with your family?
Don’t you think it is time to fire your boss? Let him know that you do not need his services anymore. You can make money on your own. Your not the only one who feels this way. The entire working class feels the exact same way you do.
It is now possible for you to fire your boss within the next three months if you are willing to learn something new and commit yourself to becoming great at it.
Anyone who is making money online has made the same decision. They decided to learn something new and commit themselves to becoming great at it.
All to their surprise they not only made enough money to fire their boss, they also are making enough money to live very comfortably. All within three months by making a commitment to themselves.
All you need to do is find the right home business that is fitted to your needs. Research the product and the creator. When they turn out to be reputable and legit, spend the little bit of money that is required to get started. Then the most important part.
Take action and get started. It is not enough just to purchase a program. You have to work at it daily. It will not be hard work, but granted it will be considered work.
The four to five hours you put in each day will bring you thousands of dollars over time.
Learn to leverage your time properly and you will simply automate your income streams over time.
Leverage your time wisely everyday and soon you will be very wealthy and successful.
Tell your boss “sorry, it has been fun, but it is time to let you go.”
By Nicholas Breen
Looking for the Internet’s top work from home systems? Click Here to check them out before you waste another second!
I found this great article by Joe LeKostaj! Great ideas for making money with Ebay! Pascale
I’ve been an eBay member and advocate since almost the beginning. My user id goes all the way back to the dark ages of the internet (1998). In that time, I’ve used eBay in a billion different ways. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort trying to find things I could buy cheaply enough to survive the perfect free market economy that is eBay.
I realized a few months ago that it doesn’t have to be that way. eBay’s use is so prevalent that you needn’t actually sell anything to take advantage of it. Here’s a list of things you can do to make eBay work for you.
- Become a trading assistant: Have you run out of your own things to sell on eBay? You can make an extra buck just asking around the neighborhood, or family and friends to see if they need to sell anything. You’d be amazed at the junk some people accrue, just because they don’t know how to get rid of it. Stress the fact that you have great feedback, and if they were to try and sell their items on eBay, with little or no feedback, they won’t get nearly as much. Also let them know that if they take their stuff to one of the infamous “We-help-you-sell-all-your-crap-on-eBay” drop-off stores, they’re going to pay a fee up to 36%. Just charge more like 15-25% and you’re set.
- Refer a friend: I wrote about this last week but it bears repeating. eBay is once again paying bonuses if you can refer new users. The payouts are pretty meager, but it’s easy money if you know people who were probably going to join anyway.
- AuctionAds: Have a blog or website that already has decent traffic? AuctionAds provides a super easy way to monetize your traffic. Basically, you type in a few keywords relevant to what you’re writing about, and AuctionAds displays related items on eBay. If someone clicks through, a cookie is saved on their browser. If they’re not an eBay member, and they sign up and become active (read buy something) within 30 days, you get $25. If they were already a member, and buy something on eBay within 7 days, you get half of eBay’s revenue. I’ve had people buy items completely unrelated to what I was talking about that payout $50 in commission. Pretty sweet for doing no work. UPDATE: AuctionAds has just announced a $25 sign-up bonus. You get $25 in free money, just for signing up.
- AuctionAds affiliate program: As though the normal program weren’t a good enough deal, AuctionAds also pays handsomely for you to refer new advertisers to their program. It’s built into the ads, so you don’t even have to do anything to be eligible. If someone clicks on “Ads by AuctionAds” at the bottom of the ad banner, your referral link is built in. If they sign up for the service you get $25, plus 5% of their revenue for the first 6 months they use the program. You can build a large network of people working for you, and just sit back and let the passive income roll in.
- Commission Junction: Much like AuctionAds, CJ offers similar payouts on eBay referrals. The benefit is that CJ is directly supported within eBay’s Affiliate Portal, and you can build on the API to customize the heck out of your site and have things like dynamically updated item listings.
- Build a Niche Store: Once you’ve signed up to Commission Junction’s eBay program, you have near infinite ways to market products. But what happens if you’re not savvy enough to write a dynamic site that works as a store front? That’s where BANS comes in. This is a script that will enable you to set up a niche store that searches for specific items on eBay. This is especially handy if eBay’s categories aren’t descriptive enough. eBayer’s spend a lot of time searching for exactly what they want. With a BANS storefront, it’s right there in front of them. I set up a BANS store in about 15 minutes and setup an Adwords campaign to drive traffic to the site in another 15 minutes. With no extra work, the site has paid for itself many times over in just a few weeks.
- BANS affiliate program: Got your BANS store all set up? Write about it on your blog, and tell everyone how much extra cash you’re making. BANS pays out 50% commissions on affiliate sales. They’re affiliated through Clickbank, so just sign up there, and start promoting.
- Drop Shipping: Although this is technically “selling” on eBay, it’s significantly less work than traditional selling. Basically you find a manufacturer or wholesaler who offers drop-shipping service, and list their products on eBay at a substantial markup. When someone buys the product, you get their money, send the the wholesale price to the distributor, and they ship it. Most drop-shippers even take care of RA’s and broken products, so you don’t have to. If you’re wondering where to go to find these dropshippers, I’ve done the work for you. I found the biggest, most up-to-date list of dropshippers on the web. Worldwide Brands has a pretty large staff who research these wholesalers and find the ones who are actually honest and reliable. They also offer some great tools for market research, so you can find out what’s hot on eBay, and whether you can make money before you dive in. They offer a free eBook that gives you a primer for the dropshipping business.
Every single option here can be profitable, and many require very little time or initial investment. Get going now, and in no time you’ll be able to tell your boss exactly what you really think of him.
By Joe LeKostaj
Joe LeKostaj is an internet marketer by trade, and a blogger by hobby. His blog, Escape Job Hell, chronicles his escape from the rat race.
My taughts are at the bottom of this article… Pascale
If you are a total scrapbook aficionado and can consider yourself an expert to all things concerning scrapbooking, then why not try to earn some extra cash from your hobby? From selling scrapbook design templates, scrapbook art materials, to teaching people how to create great scrapbooks, there are surely a lot of ways for you to make a profit out of scrapbooking, you just have to learn to be more resourceful and open to trying out new things.
Here are a few suggestions that you can try:
· Scrapbooking expert: you can set up small classes for those who are interested in getting into scrapbooking but are still trying to learn the ropes. Create a fun and easy learning atmosphere wherein your students will even turn out to be friends, charge them for your tutoring - you might even want to add a few extra arts and crafts projects that they can also use for their scrapbook projects; while for the materials that your students are going to use, just charge them a bit since you would not be able to make a decent profit if you give them away free. Although it might be a cute idea for you to serve them with free juice and cookies during break time.
· Design diva: if you are pretty good with graphic design, sketching or painting, then you can easily create cool scrapbook templates for other people. Make your home a mini studio wherein you will create design requests for your clients or offer your services as a freelance designer for arts and crafts companies who may want to start reproducing your designs for the mass market.
By Lisa Sutherland
Lisa is the owner of Modzy.com, the #1 online scrapbooking supplies store. Find thousands of scrapbook products and low prices everyday at http://www.modzy.com
You can also read the scrapbooking blog for the latest tips, tricks, ideas and articles at http://blog.modzy.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lisa_Sutherland
Theses are great ideas by Lisa Sutherland, but if you are an expert at Scrapbooking you can also have your own blog and teach people all your tricks and tips with online courses, create ebooks or any ideas that could make your blog interesting to scrapbooking newbie!
Enjoy!
Pascale
Learn how to make money not by increasing the income, but by reducing the related cash expenses. Sometimes people don’t realize how much they spend just to get to the work site each day. There are the costs of driving an automobile, including fuel, vehicle replacement, insurance, tires and batteries and all the related costs for transportation. In addition there can be costs for child care, eat out lunches. If you can reduce these expenses, you will have more disposable income, no matter what the source of your income is.
Why it works
Learn how to make money by understanding the concept of cash expenditure reduction to have more disposable income from each pay check. If you are not required to spend money in order to garner an income, you will be able to survive on a smaller income and not even feel the pinch of insufficient income. Keeping track of your cash expenditures for a month will help you to see where reductions could be made, but a very easy way to increase your income significantly is to reduce the expenses instead.
Reduce Transportation
How to make money is the subject of many people’s search of the internet. Often, they will try to find a way to bring in a few dollars here and there with work at home, or online work. This is a step in the right direction, because working from your home office means you are not required to travel to an office site elsewhere with all the related costs and cash expenditures involved in commuting. Transportation costs are in most instances the largest single cost of holding down an outside job. By drastically reducing or even eliminating the majority of transportation expenses, you make those dollars available to spend for other things.
Higher Efficiency
You can learn how to make money by studying ways to make your work time more efficient. Usually working from your home means that you don’t waste time in traveling to and from the job site. Instead, you can spend the hour or two that you previously spent on the road or on the commuter train working at home. This allows you to effectively earn hundreds more each month, depending upon how long your daily commute was. You can schedule your work time in shorter bursts so that you get more done in the same amount of time. When you are not tired and stale from long hours doing the same task, you are likely to be much more efficient.
Reduce work related expenses
Find how to make money by reducing other work related cash expenses. In addition to cutting transportation expenses when you choose to earn your income at home, other expenditures are reduced when you switch your work site to your home office and home computer. For example, many people who work at an office also buy lunch out. If you are not buying lunch each day, you will be saving a significant amount of money over the course of a month. Other work related expenses include parking fees, clothing cleaning and maintenance and office gift collections.
