The Online Business Person, Little Things

            Online Business, Those Little Things           

-“Paying attention to simple little things that most men neglect makes a few men rich.”- Henry Ford

    Let’s talk about the little thing that can become a big thing if you allow it. That thing is doubt. Do not allow doubt to grow into something that needs to be managed. It will always be in the room, this does not mean that you have to give it a seat at the table and offer it three square meals a day. Put doubt into its proper place.

    Yes you could fail. I will take it a step further. Yes you will fail from time to time. It is going to happen. You do not dwell on it. It is part of business. Only politicians can point backwards at a long career and find no fault or failure. You and I live in the real world and not one made of spin. We accept this fact and move on. It is a little thing. Do not allow it to become a big thing.

    Next up is money.

    “What? Did you say money? Money is not a little thing.”

    Yes I am calling money a little thing. If it becomes the begin all and end all of our daily lives I can promise you that you will be worrying about it for the rest of your life. Too many business people make money the target.

    “But money is my target.”

    If it is I would suggest finding a new dart board. Success should be your goal. Money will follow if you are successful at every other aspect of your business.  Picture for me a big pot on a stove top. There is steam rising from the pot. What does this steam tell you? That the water is hot? That it is bubbling and something may be cooking inside. Look at money in the same way that you look at that steam. That steam tells you that the pot is cooking. Money or cash flow tells you that your business is running and running well enough to produce it.

    Steam is a by product as is money. That steam is a little thing. Who ever is cooking sees the steam as an indicator that what is inside the pot is cooking. I repeat it is an indicator. Money is an indicator of the fact that what ever your business is doing it is doing it well. The better your business runs then the more money it will produce. A well made online business should produce money in a manor that seems almost automatic.  Morning, noon and in the middle of the night that business should be producing money. You need to focus on building a business in a way that it can not help but produce money even when you are not tending to it in the same way that pot can not help, but produce steam whether it is being tended to or not.

    The lesson for today is that if you concentrate on money your business will get neglected and it will not produce much if any money. While if you focus on building a really strong online business it can not help, but deliver money to you.

    Okay that is going to be it for today. I would like to remind you guys that it is my advertisers that keep this site going. Just by checking out what ever they are offering (no need to buy anything) we still make money. That is the business model of a blog. While if a visitor actually signs up for an offer or better still buys something from those advertisers we make even more money. If this Blog goes past a certain number of daily visitors it makes money. Pennies a day from number of visitors, but one of my favorite sayings is “No one has ever gone broke by always taking a profit.”

    That is all, please add us to your google plus and tell a friend about this site. Have a nice day and I think that it is time to get back to work.

Running an Online Business Part 1

        The Online Business Person, Sales Part 1
      
-“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.”-



    Running an online business is sometimes like running the hurdles. There will always be something in the way of your success. Are you willing to let it stand in your way or do you push forward anyway?

    Let’s look at these obstacles, these hurdles.

    Your customer has no money or not enough to make a sale possible. That is okay, this happens all the time. You should not allow a possible customer to walk away without making a connection that can be accessed at a later time when a sale can be achieved. Treat them as if they are just as valuable as the customer who is prepared to make a purchase today. In many way they are. They are part of your future customer base. Get to know as much about them as you can. Get their names and email addresses so that you can maintain contact. So that you can send them future offers. If people feel welcome. If they feel valued they will eventually do business with you or recommend you to others.

    Again being a successful business person is the art of establishing and maintaining relationships.

    “What if they do not need what my business offers?”

    Most people do not believe that they need insurance or will ever need insurance until the need has burned their home down. Human nature is to avoid acknowledging the need for anything. How hard is it to ask for directions even when you know that you are lost?

    Part of being a good business person is the art of convincing customers that they are human. That they are unaware of a need. That our product, goods or services are something that would make their lives easier or their businesses more profitable.

    Sounds tough?

    It is, but it is also part of the job we do. This is a skill that can be learned. It may take time, but if you focus on it day after day you will get better at it.

    This concludes part one.

    Remember to stumble us on stumble upon and add us to your google plus. Okay, time to get back to work.

A Online Business Needs To Grow

       

-You will miss one hundred percent of the shots that you never take,-Wayne Gretsky

        How many times during any given day or week that you are presented with a chance to try something new? To do something new? To learn a new way to do business or to grow your business? How often have to dismissed those opportunities?

    Not now.

    Not today.

    Maybe I will revisit later. Later has yet to arrive. The job of being an online business person is not just to hold on to what ever territory that you have carved out for yourself, but to grow and expand. You can always tell the difference between something that is living and something that is dead. The dead thing is laying still.

    If you are not fine tuning or adding new things to the way you conduct business you are dying as a business.

    “But business has been good this year. I made more than last year.”

    Really?

    Do you know who your competition is?

    Do you know who is chasing you? Who is trying to cut into your territory? Who is trying to pick up your customers?

    Do you even know who your customers are?


    I am here today to suggest to you that you try something new each week. Try one new thing each week. Once a week. Four times a month is a good start. Not that difficult to do at all. My advice to you the online business person is if you do not know who your customers are you get to know them. It is one thing to sell to someone or to provide a service. It is another thing all together to know them. You do not have to become friends with them, but you should know more about them. Familiarity breeds loyalty. People are much for likely to loyal to a business where they are well know. Do you feel more comfortable at a restaurant where you are just a customer or where the own says hi and the servers know you favorites?

    Use social media to get to know them better. To make them feel comfortable as your customers and the best part is that if they grow to like you and appreciate the services you provide they will recommend you to others. Your customers will grow your customer base.

    Okay guys that is it for today. Remember to stumble us on stumble upon and to tell a friend about this site.

Your Great Enterprise

            Online Business Person, The Great Enterprise
“The entrepreneur builds an enterprise; the technician builds a job.” Michael Gerber

    What are you looking to do? Is this business of your’s nothing more than a job? If it is you can earn a living. You might even be able to put some money aside for a rainy day, but I doubt if it will every transport you to a new and better life. For that you need more than just a business that provides a job. For that you need a business that functions as an enterprise.

    The business model that you have selected will indicate what the over all goal is. This business of yours, was it designed to produces enough steady income to meet your day to day needs. To pay a few bills? To keep a roof over your head and nothing more?



    If that is what you have done then you have created a job for yourself. Do not feel bad. Millions of people would love to be able to do what you have done. To be their own boss and generate income for themselves.

    If what you have created is more than that. If it demands much more effort at times while offering greater rewards both financially and emotionally then you are engaged in an enterprise. Where will this enterprise take you? No one, not even you, knows for sure. But the one thing that you must understand is that you will not look back on this enterprise as a waste of time. You will not wake up ten years from now cursing yourself that you took a grand chance and maybe it did not turn out the way that you hoped. Soldiers talk as much about the battles that they lost and those that they won. They do this for an obvious reason. They tried to do something remarkable. Their enterprise may not have panned out, but it was am amazing run for how ever long it lasted.

   Your online business is either going to be a job or a great enterprise undertaken by an entrepreneur. Who are you? What are your goals in the end? Define those goals and pursue them with all that you have.

   Okay, that is it for today. Remember to add us to your google plus, tell a friend and stumble us on stumble upon. Thank you for checking in.

Have a great day and get back to work.

Love Your Online Business

              Love Your Online Business

“It is more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.”

    I believe that Steve Jobs said that. Who ever said it had it right. It is more fun to be the one who creates their own destiny rather than being the one who is controlled by it. As long as you run your online business your way you are in control of your fate. You will be the one to determine how your business is to be run.

    So what I am getting at is that since it is going to be run your way then you might as well love the business that you are running. I hope that you have picked a sector that you enjoy. A business sector that you are enthusiastic about. If you have not then it will show through in everything that you do. You will not give it your all.


    Think of it this way you are in a relationship with this business. If you love this business you will treat it better. You will want to spend more time with it. It will be more of a joy and less of a effort to conduct business each day.

    Ask yourself do you love the online business that you have selected.
    If you do then I have no real advice for you. If you do not love it then I would suggest that you do one of two things. Either learn to love it or find a new business model.

    “But I have been at this for years. I have so much time and effort already invested.”
    Sure you do, but can you see yourself spending the next ten or twenty years working on this business model. You may think that you are too old to change, but people have changed jobs and opening new businesses at all stages of their lives.

    To love what you do is the heart of being a successful online business person. That love will translate into more effort. That love will translate in to time spent. That love will translate into profit. If you are the number one cheerleader for your online business then it can not help, but make an impression on customers.  


    Love what you do and your customers may grow to love it to.

    Thank you for visiting. Please remember to add us to your google plus and to stumble us on stumbleupon.

Doing Business Online

            Doing Online Business, On a Budget

    Many of us decided to work online because we were not making enough money at our existing job or because we lost that job. Working online was meant to be a bridge while we sought another job.

    For some of us it became a full time gig. We earn our entire income from what every business that we are into. Some of us started out on Ebay or Amazon. We learned the basics of selling online and we took it to the next level. That would be websites and or web pages of our own.

    I have found that the biggest obstacle to starting an online business is financial. Many people are scared off by the cost involved. This advice is for the begins out there. You do not need money to start out. Money helps, it always helps, but you do not need it in the beginning. The truth about money is that until you learn the basics of what works and what does not work you will waste money hand over fist.

    If you are on a zero budget I would suggest starting at a site like Squidoo or Blogger (Blogspot). At Squidoo I learned how to write articles. How to add media to them. I learned how to add links to Amazon and Ebay so that I could earn money from items mentioned in the articles that I wrote. It was a very important learning experience. I still try to do a article or as they call them a lens a month just to touch base.

    From there I moved over here to Blogger. I have many blogs and there are many ways to monetize them. Many free ways to do this. One way is with Adsense. This is where Google puts up ads on your blog and if someone clicks on them you get anywhere between a penny to a few dollars depending on the ad. The second way is with Affiliate links. You put up your own affiliate ads. If people click on those ads and purchases something you get a commission. There are many sites that provide these services. There is Linkshare and Commision Junction and Share a Sale. They are all great to work with.

    Next there is Clickbank. Many consider this the best money maker of all because it is free to sign up for. You are marketing digital products be they course or ebooks and you get to keep a huge share of each sale.
There are people out there who earn six figure incomes from clickbank.



    “I don’t see any Clickbank items on your Blog.”

    Yeah, I know. I just have not found the right ebook or course yet. If I am going to market something then I have to review it myself and believe in it. When I push a book I will have read it and believe that it is worth the money.

    The other side of the Clickbank coin is that if you have fifty dollars to invest you can become a publisher and others will be the ones who market your book. You get to kick back and wait for the royalties to roll in. I would suggest that it is not the easy. If you wish to make real money as a publisher you will have to help market the product.

    If fifty dollars is too much then you could always get a free ebook program or sign up with some of the pay as you go Ebook publishers.

    There are sites that over thousands of digital products. Some have free trial if you can not afford the first months premium.

    The bottom line is that there are many ways to get started if you have little or no money to work with. Being an online business person does not come with a price tag. There is not shame to starting with nothing. Some of the wealthiest people on earth started that way.

    Anyone can spend a great deal of money. It is the ones who work hard and refuse to give up who succeed in the end.



    I am going to do something for those of you who wish to start on a zero budget. Get yourself a Blogger blog and then sign up with Linkshare. You sign up for free. It is free for life. You picture your advertisers and get the ads for free. You put them up at your sites and get paid a commission when someone buys something from one of those ads. There are some advertiser who will pay you customers just sign up for a free trial.

   



    Okay that is it for now. Try to add us to your google plus and or please stumble us on stumbleupon. Thank you for visiting, have a nice day.

Handling Failure

                You Are going to Fail

“Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners.”-Robert T. Kiyosaki

    Guys you are going to fail.

    Look to your heroes.

    Pick any sport.

    Failure is part of the territory.

    No one is perfect. No one hits the mark every single time. Only politicians and their delusional cults of personality believe that perfection can be achieved by a person.

    The funny thing about failure is that there will be times when you make the right choice and it still does not work out. You had a good idea. You worked hard on it and for what ever reason it did not produce what you believed that it would. Worst than this is when someone else comes along a few weeks or months later with your same business concept and it works perfectly for them. Sometimes failure is just a matter of timing.

    For what ever reason their will be attempts that do not make it. The public is funny sometimes they just don’t get it or it takes them too long to get it. Someone had the idea for a chain of coffee shops before Starbucks came along. Someone probably imagined a world populated with smart phones before Apple broke through.


    Do you know the story of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. The public did not take well to it during its first release. It took being shown time and time again on tv before it caught on. It was released during the summer (talk about bad timing). The scary thing is that there may be movies just as good that have never caught on, that never will catch on.

There are products that may change the world, but are gathering dust on a shelve somewhere because the one’s who created them gave in to failure.

    Just because your business model did not work this time around does not mean that it or you are a failure. You are a failure when you give up. You are a failure when you stop trying.

    “How many more times will I have to come up with a business model? How many more times will I have to find a new idea or take a new path?”

    I do not know, but the one thing I know beyond any doubt is that if you accept failure then you will never succeed as a business person. Failure is a day in your life, failure is a page in your book and all you have to do is turn the page.

    My final advice is that if you have failed recently take a breath. Go out and find some inspiration. Watch a movie or a sporting event. Get a book that will encourage you. Go find a magazine and read about people who are succeeding. It will help to remind you of a simple fact.

    What one man can do another man can do.   

    Okay that is it for now. Try to remember us on stumble upon and add us to your google plus.