by Sopan Greene, M.A.
It's always a good time to review what's been working or not
working for you in your marketing efforts. Take the time to
be honest with yourself about whether or not you're moving forward.
There is no such thing as failure. You have to take action to
do what people call "failing." If you take action you'll learn
something. If you apply what you learn then you didn't fail and
you learned a way to not get where you want to go. You learned
something you know to not do again.
What have your actions taught you? What's moving
you forward and what's holding you back?
There are different ways to build a profitable online business,
but a few rules apply to everyone. No matter how you're working
on your business always remember the basics:
1. The bigger your own personal opt-in e-mail list is, the more
money you'll make. The guru's say the magic number is 10,000
subscribers. I began seeing results after I passed 3,000.
Nothing is more important than building your list. All of your
efforts should be directed towards building your list.
2. If you sell your own product you'll make a lot more money
a lot faster.
3. The more you believe in what you're selling and how it will
help others, the more money you'll make.
4. If you're in it just for the money, you'll have a hard time.
It's no different than someone who works a commission sales job
trying to sell a product they don't care about.
5. A business is not a get rich overnight proposition. The longer
you stay in the game the more successful you'll become. Business
online or offline is business. It's a marathon race, not a sprint.
6. Don't re-invent the wheel. Find the biggest online successes
and copy what they're doing. Change what you need to in order to
make it fit what you're selling, but market exactly like the pros
if you want to get their results.
7. Know why you're doing this. If you don't have a big reason why
you're doing this you'll quit when you start to have a hard time.
The most successful network marketing leader I've known once told
me he would literally jump out a window if he had to work in an
office behind a desk all day. Knowing how bad he didn't want to do
that led him to doing whatever it took in his business to succeed.
He now makes over $10,000 a month in residuals from work he stopped
doing 4 years ago with a network marketing company.
8. Test, test, and test again. What do I mean? When you run an ad
track it to see if it's working. Ads with one word changed in the
headline have doubled responses. Try running your ad in the same
places with one or two words changed to see if it increases your
response rate.
9. Build relationships with other internet marketers. Get free advice
from other people who are doing what you want to do. Most successful
people charge for their advice, but if you build a relationship and
ask a question here and there in an e-mail, the answer may be the golden
nugget of wisdom that you need. Don't bug them, but internet marketers are
a pretty friendly and helpful bunch of people.
10. Invest in your self and in your business. You can run a business
online for under $100.00 a month. Even if you aren't making money
with it this won't keep you from paying your rent or mortgage. Invest
the extra money you have on products that teach you how to make the most
amount of money in the shortest period of time. Listen to tapes and CDs,
read books, get on free tele-seminars. Do everything you can to learn
how to do this right so you don't waste years trying to figure it out.
