Archive for the ‘online business’ Category
How Long is this Gonna Take?
That depends on how fast you want to succeed. Some successful Internet marketers recommend that you spend at least 2 hours a day on building your online business for at least the next 6 months if you want to see any measurable results during that time. Obviously, in order to do that you are going to have to find time in your current schedule to allow for these 2 hours.
You may be thinking – “Oh sure, I’ll just snap my fingers and …where am I going to find 2 hours a day?” Especially if you have a full-time job, family and kids and don’t feel like you have 2 minutes to spare, let alone 2 hours! Its one thing for a full-time Internet marketer to spend 2 hours a day on their business, it may be quite another for you.
Don’t stress over this – it’s just a recommendation! But, you will have to find some time to work on your business.
The first thing to do is to sit down with pen and paper and list your daily and weekly schedule as it is now. Start with what time you wake up. Then, activity-by-activity, list everything you do each day until the time you go to (collapse into?) bed. If you really think hard, you will probably find some time in each day that can be utilized in a more constructive or efficient manner.
Remember, building your business is important to you! That might mean that you have to drop a favorite pastime for awhile or stop watching a favorite television show. (Maybe you can get it on Netflix and spend some time on the weekend to watch multiple episodes at one sitting and without the commercials.)
Maybe it means that you will have to get up a little earlier each day or stay up a little later every night. Whatever it is, you need to decide now and make a commitment that you are going to dedicate that time to growing your business
Efficient time management comes down to planning what you’re going to do, scheduling time to do it, and then sticking to your plan as much as possible. A good method for doing this is to map out your week ahead of time.
By looking at your week as a whole, it’s easier to spot opportunities where you could be doing something more productive. Once you identify these possibilities you can then plan to use those times for working on your business.
If you are not already doing so, you should seriously consider using some type of day planner system, such as Day-Timers. You can buy these at any office supply store. These systems are based around the principal of putting first things first.
Start putting things together by looking at your current schedule and planning ahead of time when you are going to accomplish certain tasks. Begin by blocking out the time required for tasks you have to perform (your job, running the kids around to their activities, eating, sleeping, etc.). Do this for as many weeks in advance as you feel comfortable doing.
Then look at the first week and block out those times you’ve identified as times you can be working on your online business. Try to allocate time each weekday. Schedule a little “review” time toward the end of each week. Use this time to review the week’s plan and schedule to see what worked and what didn’t work. Then make adjustments as you plan your schedule for the following week.
Lastly, each evening before you go to bed make a “to do” list of the things you want to do work on the next day. Doing this will help you dive right into your tasks instead of spending your “allocated” time figuring out what to do.
Whether it is 2 hours or 20 minutes, spend some time each day doing some business building task. Starting your own online business will require some sacrifices in the beginning. But, if you keep putting consistent effort into your business activities, you will succeed.
Like this post? Please feel free to comment below. I know you are busy and I very much appreciate your time!
Accomplish Online Marketing Tasks by Setting Deadlines
If you don’t set deadlines for accomplishing tasks you need to do in starting your new online business, you run the risk of…
o Expanded Scope: You’ll start looking at adding new features, strategies, tweaks, etc. If you don’t control this tendency, your time frames and budgets will quickly blow apart.
As you discover things you’d like to do that aren’t essential to your task, set them aside as “possibly”. Once all the important things are done and the blog is published and promoted, you can then go back and look at possibly adding some of these features.
o Procrastination: A task will always take as long to do as you allow for. Given an excuse to put it off until tomorrow, it will always be put off until tomorrow. Creating a sense of emergency, setting a strict time frame, and rewarding yourself when a task is accomplished can help. Avoiding procrastination takes self discipline, especially if the only one you answer to is yourself.
I personally don’t procrastinate – I’m just very good at re-scheduling!
o Analysis Paralysis: Without a set deadline you can easily find yourself wasting hour upon hour that, in the end, adds nothing to what you are trying to do. This is especially true for a task you have never done before.
Don’t try to find out how everyone and their bother have done the same task in an effort to get it “perfect”. Don’t misunderstand me, there are more and better information resources available today than EVER before. But that creates a dilemma in knowing which route to take, and how to get started.
What might be right for one person – may not suit another! Because of that not every solution will work for everyone. You need to find the one that works for you. Then, make a decision and act on it! Pick what you think is a good source of information and follow it.
To make progress in starting your own online business, set deadlines for each task you need to accomplish. Then allocate time to those tasks, use a timer and make sure you are spending time working on tasks that move your online business forward!
Where Did It Start to Go Wrong?
Not spending enough time working on your online business? Spending time but not accomplishing anything?
It seems easy for us to start things with the best of intentions, but sometimes we find ourselves veering off our original path. If you find yourself not dedicating enough time to your internet marketing business, or frustrated by your lack of progress, you’ll need to determine the cause in order to come up with a solution.
The following may be some things you should look at.
Could it be as simple as:
- You’re beginning to feel like you’re too busy to dedicate the time? Sometimes, other unexpected things will suddenly become a priority. That’s the nature of life. So don’t stress over it. At the same time, don’t let these other things always take priority over your business. In order to accomplish the goals you have set for yourself you know you will have to dedicate time to your business as well.
Solving this problem comes down to reviewing your original plan. Did you schedule realistic blocks of time to work on your business? Have you set goals and written to-do lists for each piece of getting your business started?
Get back to following your schedule, use your lists to know what you’re going to do when you’re in front of the computer and begin to get tasks done!
- You suddenly no longer have the support of your family? This may be simple to identify, but can be a tough one to work through. How you handle this depends on how close to you these family members are.
If it’s your spouse and/or your children who are concerned, you need to deal with their issues directly. Talk to them about how they’re feeling and what their concerns are. Remind them of the goals you want to accomplish for all of you. Openly discuss what’s not working. Maybe you need to revise your time frame or work schedule so that it works for the whole family. Involve them in the business plan and keep them up-to-date with your progress.
If it’s your extended family that doesn’t live in your household who isn’t supportive, you may have to be firmer in standing up for yourself. They might just be worried about you and believe it’s only a “real” job that can pay the bills. If easing their fears doesn’t work, don’t feel obligated to make them happy.
- You over-think everything and never get started? Paralysis by analysis is a common problem, especially when you are just starting out and don’t know what to do. Or how to do it.
There is a lot of information about online business and so many ways to do things that it’s easy to become so over-whelmed you don’t know where to start.
To overcome this inaction, you need to take a step and do SOMETHING. Find a source of information that you think you can trust and use that resource to get started with one project.
You may find the source isn’t as good as you thought it would be. Maybe it wasn’t as complete as you needed it to be and it led you into making some mistakes. But, you’re going to LEARN from those mistakes. You’ll be amazed at how much more confident you’ll become and how much you’ll learn simply by DOING, instead of thinking.
These may be a couple of stumbling blocks you didn’t expect to encounter as you started your online business. They certainly won’t be the only ones.
In the end, the success of your home business is entirely dependent upon you and the decisions that you make.
You had your reasons for deciding to start your own online business. Keep those reasons in the forefront of your mind and you’ll be able to work through anything.
Treat Your Own Online Business Like A Real Business
There are many different ways to set up your own online business to make money. However, no matter which method or methods you choose, you have to treat your internet business as a real business.
The people you are trying to connect with online are real people. They have the potential to become real customers where real cash changes hands.
Whether you are starting your own online business on a full-time or part-time basis, you must have the attitude that this is a serious business. Having this type of attitude alone will not guarantee you success, but not having it will almost certainly doom your efforts to failure.
A serious business is not something that you treat, or think of, as a hobby. A hobby is usually something that you do solely for pleasure and when you have the time for it. You cannot afford to approach your internet marketing business in the same manner.
If you recommend a product to a potential customer, and they have questions about that product, it’s vitally important that you answer them as soon as possible. To eventually getting around to contacting them in a week or two sends the message to them that maybe having this product isn’t all that important.
It is also important that you answer their questions accurately. Giving them a half-ass answer (because you don’t use the product yourself or haven’t properly researched it) will cause any reasonable person to wonder just how good a recommendation this is.
Either response from you will almost guarantee that a potential customer will go somewhere else for their answers and to make their purchase.
Remember, you’re working from the same essential principles of all businesses: to provide useful information, education, products and service. Potential customers will only do business with you if they can trust and rely on you.
This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t have any fun with your internet marketing activities. After all, if you enjoy what you are doing, then it is far easier to do it, and as a general rule you will do the activities far more efficiently and effectively. Your enthusiasm will also be evident to your followers.
Though having fun is an important part of the internet marketing experience, you must understand and appreciate that making money online is a serious business, and that it brings responsibilities with it.
If you are currently treating your online business as a hobby or just something you’re interested in, you’ll need to change your attitude if you really want to become an internet marketing success.
The more seriously you take your business, the more money you’ll make.
A Successful Online Business – 5 Tips
Starting your own internet marketing business and making money online is not brain surgery. It involves using common sense, learning constantly and having realistic expectations. You’re probably not going to be making six figures in your first month. Take time to clearly outline what you want to do with your online marketing business, stick to your model and learn what works and what doesn’t.
Here are 5 tips for you keep in mind as you start your own online business. (They are in no particular order.)
1. Always be ethical and honest. You can offer information and market products without telling lies. Always write your marketing copy and sales pages so your grandmother would be proud to tell her friends that you wrote them. Being ethical and honest in all you do online makes it a lot easier to sleep at night.
2. Realize that your online business is going to take time to build and become
profitable. Build your business on a solid foundation so that it’s strong and sustainable over the long haul. Plan what you will be providing your audience – plan what products/resources/information, etc. your business will offer. Plan how to market your business. Stick to and follow your plans. Don’t be swayed by the next “Buy This!!!!” because “Here’s What Your Business Has Been Missing!!!!” offer.
3. Be realistic in how much time you have available to invest in your business.
You’re only going to have so many hours to devote to your effort. If you’re already working a full-time job, you’re probably not going to have another 40 hours a week to put into your business. (Nor would you even feel like it!) If you’re at home running a household and with young children you are not going to be able to put in a lot of hours either – at least not at the same times that your children will require your attention or household responsibilities crop up. Be aware of how much time you do have, plan that time and use it well.
4. Be prepared to invest at least some money in yourself and your business. There are lots of free resources available to help you learn (including the ones I provide) and free tools to help you run your business. But, there are some things that you will absolutely need to invest some money in to be able to run a successful online business. Don’t worry, we are talking about minimal amounts here – but you will have to spend some money.
5. Be Yourself – an original, not a copycat. You need to put your own slant on everything that you do in your business. You need to put your own personality, your own opinions, your own thoughts and beliefs into your blog content and into the products you offer. Don’t simply copy and repeat what somebody else has already said or done. You haven’t provided any real value to your audience if they can find the exact same information on the internet the same way you found it.
We all start an online business for different reasons, and what applies to one may not apply to another. But, for all who intend to develop an authoritative, professional-minded presence on the web, I hope this helps.
Like this post? Please feel free to comment below. I very much appreciate your time!
Building a Solid Business…or Chasing a Fad?
Are you building a solid online business, or chasing another fad? Are you interested in following a clear, concrete path to build an online business, or hoping to find the next craze to make millions almost overnight?
Wikipedia gives us the following definitions:
A fad is a practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal.
A craze is a product, idea, cultural movement, or model that gains popularity among a small section of the populace then quickly migrates to the mainstream. Crazes are characterized by their lightning fast adoption and swift departure from public awareness.
Crazes and fads are also characterized by their unusually high interest and sales figures relative to the time they are active in the marketplace, as compared with other similar products, ideas, cultural movements or models.
In other words, a fad or a craze is a temporary fashion, interest or activity that some people follow enthusiastically, but which lasts for a short period of time. They quickly arrive with a huge, but shallow, fanfare and just as quickly dissipate when the hype and fizz dissolves.
I’m pretty certain that you DON’T want to have to shell out hard earned dollars to have your income be great for a month or so and then have to repeat that process over and over again when those income streams begin to dwindle.
Wikipedia also states that a trend is a line of general direction of movement, a prevailing tendency of inclination, a style or preference, a line of development, or the general movement over time of a statistically detectable change. You want to build a sustainable business that provides an income that grows over time.
Losing weight by cutting off a leg is a fad. Making money online with cookie cutter push-button sites is a fad. The “Lose Weight While You Sleep” diet is a fad. The work required toward making your internet business successful and healthy for years to come is a long-term process.
Ever since children around the world starting asking “Are We THERE Yet?” our society has spiraled into a continuous state of conflict between instant gratification and the notion that slow and steady wins the race.
This conflict can pose a problem when starting your own online business.
You may be tempted to purchase and dive into those products with their promises of huge, “push-button” profits delivered almost overnight. And there is a boat-load of them out there to tempt you. The best advice you can receive at this time is to resist the temptation.
“But, what about those that offer an ‘Iron Clad’ online money-making guarantee?” you may ask. Remember this – a marketer’s job is to make something so incredibly appealing you’d spend any amount of money to buy it. They are selling you the Dream. But are often short on the details of what or how you will accomplish what they promise. Your responsibility as a consumer is to research their claims and see just what REALLY is true…and what isn’t. Period, end of
discussion.
You already have the Dream. It’s why you are researching ways to accomplish your goal of creating a successful online business. You will continually be faced with the choice between “instant” or “slow brewed.” And while there may be overnight success stories, just as many of these one-shot wonders disappear as fast as they emerge. Your business should be built so that you do NOT become one of them.
Starting and building an internet marketing business is a long-term process. It’s NOT something that you slap together or set-it-and-forget-it. (Although, certain types of semi-automatic sites can be a part of your overall business strategy).
The strength and long-term success of your internet business will not come from you jumping from one project to the next. That is NOT a business – it‘s a shotgun approach that, although it may generate some cash for you, is not sustainable over the long term. You will constantly have to spend the time, effort and money chasing the next “best way”. That method will not provide you the long-term security that your hard work entitles you to.
Some Tips On Goal Setting
There are times when goal-setting can appear like trying to find your way to a destination you have never been to without a map. Accomplishing your goals for your online business is a matter of getting from ‘here’ to ‘there’. In order to achieve any goal, you have to first know exactly what you’re trying to achieve.
Most large and long-term goals are made up of smaller, short-term goals or objectives. After you have written down your long-term goals and broken them into smaller components, it’s time to identify the action steps that will move you toward accomplishing them.
Identify Clear Action Steps for Each Goal
Start with one long-term goal and its corresponding short-term goals. Try to think of which key activities would create the results you want and begin listing these steps below each goal. Action steps generally fall into two categories. The first involves planning and preparation, such as discovering the “how to” do something by researching and educating yourself. The second category involves taking action to implement a step.
As you begin to execute your action plans, don’t let yourself become consumed by your planning and preparation steps. To be able to achieve anything in life you need to take action. Reading a book, studying a course, and searching the Internet for information – these quests for education and knowledge by themselves will do nothing to help you achieve anything. In order to get results you must put that knowledge into action.
Obviously, as you move forward and begin to gain more knowledge you may discover that you have to add additional steps to your plan in order to accomplish a goal. What is important to focus and push forward on are productive action steps; the actions taken that will yield the greatest results.
You will want to identify action steps to be taken daily, weekly, and monthly.
Your Daily actions will be those actions you will do every day. Some examples would be posting to your blog; commenting on other people’s blogs and in forums; doing keyword/niche/market research; working on the article you publish each week, etc.
Weekly actions are usually a bit larger in scope and take a little longer to complete. You may also have to take daily action to complete each of your weekly steps.
Monthly actions are those steps you will do to keep yourself on track. You might take a day and review all of your actions from the previous month in detail. How well did what you do lead toward accomplishing your goal? Did you find yourself doing things that should be added to your steps, or, eliminated as wasteful time?
Did you accomplish your daily, weekly and monthly goals for this month? Are there any steps or goals the need to be changed or updated?
After you have done this, review the steps for each goal and place them into the order in which they need to be accomplished. Some steps will need to be done before others. Add steps if you realize you need to, eliminate or combine steps if you can. Ask yourself if your steps appear to flow naturally.
When you feel comfortable with you plans as they are laid out, set a general timeline for completing each of your steps. At this point you need to be very, very careful and realistic about what you can achieve and what you want to achieve versus what you have time and resources to achieve.
Not accomplishing the results we wanted by a certain date, even if due to circumstances beyond our control, might cause us to lose hope. Do the timelines you set for each step, when added together, allow you to accomplish your goal by the date you originally thought? If not, revise those dates until they make sense.
Remember, working toward the achievement of your online business goals is a process. To accomplish most goals is going to require consistent and persistent effort. Achievement will also involve specific action steps taken day after day, week after week, and month after month!
Build an Online Business – Start with Your Dreams
Before you begin to develop your own online business, you should have decided why you want to do so. It will be much easier for you to accomplish your objectives if you have clearly defined goals and dreams to motivate you. You will discover that one of the hardest things you’ll have to do as a new online marketer is maintaining your focus. This will be easier to accomplish if you have set clearly defined goals.
Your long-term goals are represented by your dreams. Short-term goals are the steps you will take to get there.
Dare to Have Big Dreams
When you dream of the future you want, nothing is impossible. Don’t limit yourself in deciding what you want, because the most vital thing that will keep you driving toward success will be your dreams.
What are your dreams that you want to accomplish as you start and build an online business? Are they retiring from the workforce as soon as possible, or just having some additional income each month to meet current obligations? Being able to put your kids through college, or just pay their pre-school tuition? Buying a new car whenever you want, or having the money to repair the one you own now? Buying that dream house, or just knowing the rent/mortgage is paid each month? Do you want to travel around the world, or simply be able to put gas in the car to get to the grocery store?
Can you remember some of the dreams for your future that you had as a child? It seems that as we aged we started to get comfortable with, and little by little, began to settle for what we have; or, life got in the way; or, unforeseen circumstances struck; or any number of things happened and gradually we began to stop believing that the dreams we had as a child would ever actually come true.
It’s time to start dreaming again.
Without dreams, you’ll have nothing to work toward and no reason to continue to push yourself through the tough times you will encounter in your business. A dream will provide you with the drive to achieve what you really want in life. Keeping your dreams alive and in front of you will help fuel your eventual success.
Whatever your dream, just make sure that you have one.
Responsibilities of the Online Marketing Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the practice of lending your creative talents and ideals to new business ventures. This could involve the starting of a brand new online business, or, finding new opportunities for your existing internet business. Running an online marketing business has elements of both.
Initially, when you start an online business you are making all of the decisions and laying the groundwork for what that business will eventually become. Once your online business is established, you will be looking for new opportunities to expand and deciding the best way to incorporate these opportunities into your business.
Some of the areas you will find yourself responsible for include planning, organizing, controlling, and communicating.
These four activities, when done properly, will provide a solid foundation that will serve you well in the future.
To start with, planning is probably the most important responsibility of any entrepreneur. A great idea, by itself, will be nothing more than a great idea without planning how to make it a reality. Research needs to be done to determine if your business idea is feasible.
After gathering information, you need to decide if you will pursue the idea now or if you will file it away for the future. If you decide to pursue the idea, what’s the next step? And the step after that? And after that?
You must plan ahead so that you know what to expect as you move forward. Not only will a plan provide you with a ‘how to’, you can periodically compare your current actions and results to the plan. This will serve in helping you keep on track. It will also let you know if the plan needs to be revised to meet changing circumstances.
Once a solid plan of action is in place, the next responsibility is organizing. This involves gathering the resources you will need to accomplish each step in your plan. Do you need materials, software, education, other people’s expertise? Do you know how you will utilize these resources? In order to reach your specific targets, you must know how to organize especially if you’re trying to coordinate several things going on at once.
Another responsibility of the internet entrepreneur is controlling the process to insure that you stay on track. A huge issue facing every online marketer these days is focus and the lack thereof. Because of the pull of family obligations, emails, online offers and opportunities, online videos, the television, our friends, the news, weather, sports…the list goes on and on – maintaining a focus on your business and goals is a real challenge. It is easy to get involved with too many activities which lead the vast majority of people to simply get overwhelmed and explode!
Although you may spend the majority of your online time working alone, you must still be an excellent communicator. Good communication skills are needed to deal with your clients who may represent different age groups, backgrounds and levels of experience with their own online business. If you are good at communicating, all of your messages will come across correctly, completely, and clearly. This is essential so that everyone understands the message you are trying to convey. Most of your communication will involve writing, but at times it may be verbal. You will also need to utilize reading, and sometimes, listening skills to understand your customer’s needs and wants.
If you can master and be comfortable controlling these responsibilities you will be well on your way to becoming a successful online marketing entrepreneur.
Starting Your Own Online Business
A dream for many people is the idea of owning their own business and being their own boss. They can picture in their mind the ability to set their own hours, flexibility to take time off when they decide to, the freedom to choose to work on what they want, and, perhaps most importantly, the financial freedom they can see themselves having when their business succeeds.
However, owning your own business is not for the faint of heart. It will require an investment of time, hard work, money and some sacrifice to get any business from startup to a level of success. At least initially, owning and operating your own business can be more time consuming, frustrating and difficult than working for an employer.
Starting and running a business can be one of the best, or one of the worst, decisions that a person will ever make. The old saying that “Nothing ventured…nothing gained” is certainly true, but when applied to being an entrepreneur, you would be wise to look carefully before you take the leap into business ownership.
Your dream can quickly turn into a nightmare by simply plunging ahead into the great unknown with your venture. Doing so may sound like a romantic notion or an adventurous “poor boy makes good” journey, but the harsh reality is that not being prepared for what you will encounter can easily lead to your business failing and you losing money.
Before making the decision to start their own business, a smart person will do their best to know the risks, as well as the rewards. That means doing some homework and a great deal of soul searching.
To help clarify the decision as to whether you should start a small business, you should look at and seriously consider some of the pros and cons of business ownership. Experts stress that this is a critical step and will help make the decision as to whether or not a small business is right for you easier to make.
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