Not Knowing This ONE Thing Will KILL Your Business

I get a real kick out of people looking for that “magic bullet” that’s going to bring them in tons of money right away.

What they don’t understand and realize is that there is one thing that will kill their business regardless of what method they use to create, promote, or whatever their way to riches.

Know what it is?

Communication.

That’s right. The inability to communicate with your prospects is going to be the one thing that, no matter what else you do, will kill your business.

Think I’m kidding?

Let’s take a look at ALL the things that rely on some form of communication.

1. Sales Pages – This is the one page that can single handedly destroy any chances you have of making a sale. Well guess what? Sales pages don’t write themselves.

What’s that you say?

You can get somebody to write one for you?

Great! I hope you have between $2,500 and $15,000 for that service…IF you can even find a decent copywriter who’s not booked solid for the next 6 months to a year.

2. Articles – One of the best ways of getting traffic to your web site is through writing articles and submitting them to directories and putting them on your own blog.

Think it’s easy to write an article?

Sure, but writing an article that will get people to your sales page (assuming you have one that’s worth a damn) is not so easy. There are methods that work and methods that don’t work.

3. Autoresponders – Building a list is critical to earning a good income. But in order to keep somebody on your list, you have to not only provide them interesting and helpful content but you also have to be able to write a decent ad when you do give them the occasional pitch. This is also an art that has to be learned.

4. Customer Support – Ever get an email from a prospect or a customer about your product or service? I sure do… tons of them.

Guess what?

If you can’t effectively communicate with these people, prospects won’t become customers and customers won’t stay that way very long.

Almost EVERYTHING you do online is one form of communication with prospects and customers. And I haven’t even touched on the subject of video, which is one of the most important forms of communication today.

You need to learn how to write decent sales copy and articles. Two skills that nobody should be without. Article marketing accounts for a large percentage of my monthly income.

By mastering these two forms of communication, you’ll also be able to more effectively communicate through your autoresponders and your customer service replies.

If I didn’t master these skills, I’d be broke right now.

Communication… It’s THAT important.

Okay… It’s Time To Get Your Act Together!

This post has been long overdue and I feel it needs to be said now.

There are people trying to earn a living online that are under the following misconceptions:

1. It’s easy.
2. It can be done without planning.
3. It can be done without any skills.
4. It can be done quickly.

Let me take all 4 of these, one at a time, and inject some reality into this subject. Otherwise, the massive failure rate is only going to get worse.

1. It’s NOT Easy – There is so much involved with running your own business that if you knew what you were in for before you began, it would make your head spin and most likely would have you going back to your 9 to 5. This may very well be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done in your life. With that being said, I wholeheartedly believe it is absolutely worth it in the end, as long as you are willing to sacrifice to get there.

2. It CAN’T Be Done Without Planning – At least not well. You can’t just throw up a site, put up a few ads, write a few articles, pull a product out of your backside and think you’re going to make money, or for that matter, that you even have a business. A business takes TONS of planning and if each step isn’t planned out with intent, your chances of success are slim to none.

3. It CAN’T Be Done Without Any Skills – A lot of people will disagree with this, and yes, if you have a boat load of money, I guess you can just outsource everything, but most people looking to earn a living online don’t have that luxury and have to do many things themselves. That is where having at least some skills is critical. If I couldn’t write, I’d probably be broke right now unless I could design software. Some things you will need to know at least the basics about would be web design, copywriting, ad creation, content writing, niche research, SEO, social media, and several other things. You can’t succeed in this business without some specific skills… the most important of which is a load of smarts. Trust me on that.

4. It CAN’T Be Done Quickly – Why is it that people expect to make a fortune overnight when in the brick and mortar world it can take up to 5 years, or longer, to see a profit? There are NO get rich quick schemes. Building a business takes time and effort, lots of it. Plan on many 12-15 hour days with little to show for it at the beginning. Yes, there are a very select few that get lucky and hit it big relatively quickly, but that is very rare.

Not a pretty picture I’ve painted, is it. Well, if you’re going to have any prayer of getting through the internet marketing jungle, it’s better you know the truth than to go in with blinders on. You definitely can succeed as an internet marketer and once you get there it can be very rewarding, but it will not be fast or easy for 99.9% of the people trying to do it.

The Importance Of Niche Research

I’m getting away from my normal “ramblings” message because I want to touch on a topic that may just be one of the most important topics when it comes to making a living online… niche research.

Why is this so important?

The reason is because the niche you choose, and how you go about choosing it, may very well mean the difference between success and failure with that niche EVEN BEFORE YOU START PROMOTING IT.

If that sounds like a strong statement for it, there is a reason why.

Let’s take an example, albeit a far fetched example. But it still applies.

Let’s say you had a strong interest in underwater pole vaulting and decided that you want to try to make money online selling books or a course on how to underwater pole vault.

Now, if you didn’t do any research, you’d just go and create the book and start to market it. Eventually, you’d see that you weren’t making any sales. Now, if you had done your research beforehand, you would have found that NOBODY was even looking for information on underwater pole vaulting. Had you done this research, and had any sense at all, you’d decide that this wasn’t a good niche to get into and you should not bother with it.

That’s one side of the coin.

The other side of the coin is getting into a niche that has so much competition that there is just no way that you could possibly break into it without a monster advertising budget and some big time marketing skills. And even then, you might not make a dent.

This is why niche research is incredibly important!

Don’t overlook it because you don’t want to take the time, or you THINK your idea is great, or you assume that because you are interested in it then everyone else is too. This can be a huge mistake! A lot of marketers have wasted untold amounts of time and money creating or promoting products that nobody wants.

Give to Receive – My Theory of Profiting Online

I know plenty of Internet Marketers who are banging their heads against a brick wall due to lack of sales, or lack of traffic to their sites, or a myriad of other “lacks” that are halting their money making efforts in their tracks. A lot of the time, these so-called lacks can be turned around by some simple alterations in the way we think and act.

Much is made of the ethos that you first have to give in order to receive, and with very good reason…

It’s true!

I’ve noticed that on a personal level, for that’s really the only way to be sure of anything, that my own mode of working online is to give away every idea, method, technique and theory that finds its way into my head by writing about it on my blogs or talking about it in my videos. I don’t keep anything to myself because I truly believe that to be successful and make money online, you have to be honest and free with your knowledge.

When someone asks me if I know how to do a certain thing that they don’t (assuming I do, of course!) I quite happily tell them! I truly believe that for every snippet of knowledge I give away, more will come right back to me to help me make more money for myself.

Its fairly logical when you sit down and ponder over it.

Take all the “keep it to close to my heart” types that have probably already made their fortune online and are now just continuing to milk their lists for whatever they can get. But they’re the dinosaurs of the internet and they are running themselves into extinction by hoarding what they know to themselves.

Let’s take the logic behind what I’m saying…

When you give your knowledge freely and it helps several people to make some money online, especially if they’re just starting out, they’ll remember where that information originally came from and how it helped them.

At some point in the future, one or more of then are going to run across a great new way of making money that will eclipse all the old and probably defunct methods as the internet evolves. Well, they might need a JV partner they can trust to help them turn their idea into a money making reality. Well, the guy that helped them get started was an honest, trusting guy – maybe he’ll be willing to join forces…

The rest is history, as they say.

Generosity will never shackle your efforts to make money online. On the contrary, it will be the making of your success.

Ramblings Of An IM Junkie – Make A Million Dollars Tomorrow!

Yes, you read the title right. Make a million dollars tomorrow. Are you ready?

Would you like that in 10’s and 20’s, or should I sent it to you in food stamps?

Okay, I’m obviously kidding. However, I have to tell you… there are many people online who actually get into the Home Business Biz and expect to get rich overnight. How do I know that?

Get a load of this section from an email that I received just the other day…

“Look, I know that this make money thing can’t be all that hard. I mean I see people raking in a fortune all over the place. So just give me a couple of things I can do that’ll bring me in $20k this month.”

I almost fell to the floor with laughter. Sure buddy, when hell freezes over!

The truth is, this is the mentality I run into ALL over the place and it never ends. New people get into the world of making money online and think it’s going to be a cakewalk.

News Flash… It is NO cakewalk!

This year marks the 5th anniversary of me running my own home business and making money online. My first year I think I made about $10,000 total and it took a couple years before I was able to make an income that would allow me to live off it, and even then it was tight. And this was working my ass off every spare minute I had day and night.

Last year, for the first time, I broke 6 figures profit for the year. And no… it was NOT easy!

Running your own business is a hell of a lot of hard work and more of it than you can possibly imagine. There are things you need to learn when you’re first starting out that would boggle your mind if you knew. The truth is, if most people knew what it took BEFORE they dove in, they’d never go through with it from the beginning.

Well, I don’t know where you are in your journey, but here is a link to a product that literally has every bit of information you will need to become an internet marketing success story.

Do I guarantee it will make you a million dollars?

Hell no, I don’t! Actually, I don’t guarantee it will make you a single cent. There are FAR too many variables for me to say that. But I do know that if you are driven and follow the system, you absolutely stand a fighting chance of succeeding in this world of making money online. You just might make a million bucks by this time next year, or the year after.

Make a million dollars tomorrow?… Yeah, right. That’s not gonna happen. Sorry!