Start Your Online Business the Right Way!
What does car washing have to do with and Internet Marketing Business? Well, it is easy to see the errors of your ways once you are past the event and wise to them! For me I realized what one of my biggest mistakes was as I drove past a local car wash. This mistake is probably the one that had held me back the longest…and so I felt I would share this with you.
As I drove past the car wash, for some reason, I had a flashback to when I first saw the premises. At that time it was a closed down petrol garage… a bit run down and derelict. I am sure this will be a familiar story to you if you live in the UK. Some bright business mind took ownership and started a car washing business.
This business started on a shoe string. Every day one or two people would be there to wash cars. Needless to say that this must have been a success, as the business grew from strength to strength. The car washing team grew – now about ten strong. The advertising improved with professional branding and advertising signs spring up around the town. The place was improved with first temporary gazebos, which gave way to permanent awning.
Then came the diversification. First car washing, then changing tires, followed by car services and MOTs (assessments for road-worthiness). Now the place is a fully fledged garage. There is a fully kitted out service center with two four-poster hydraulic car ramps. Every possible service is now offered – even an air conditioning re-charge!
So, how does this relate to me and my mistake? Well this business started small and grew. The most important thing is to start. My mistake was taking on too much information from all the guru’s… you must do this, you must do that. Well actually, when I tried to do all of these things… which all take time, I spent so long trying to set up my business “the right way”…. literally months and months (about 5 if you must know) that I didn’t actually ever start!
What I should have done, is start. Get a small, simple model of a business and start. I was so worried that a “simple” model wouldn’t work and would not be optimized and would not make me any money, that I over complicated everything trying to get it “perfect” before I started. So, with hind sight… don’t do this. The most important thing is to just start. And then build up from there…just like the car wash company. Start with something small that works – then improve upon it!
I heard a great phrase to capture this exact learning point on the “Internet Business Mastery” podcast….they said “PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION“… and I think that is spot on… having found out for myself the hard way!
There are many other things we can learn from my simple example of the car wash company, but that will have to wait for another day. So I hope that you have found this article thought provoking… I know it won’t apply to everybody –as we are all different – but if you have recognized any of these thoughts, or these situations, then please give serious consideration to whether you are making the same mistake that I made?
Are you costing yourself undue time and money by trying to start with a completely kitted out garage, when a bucket, a bar of soap and a cloth would do? The most important thing is to start building your list and to send out emails to your subscribers.
What I eventually realized… is that every day that goes by before you “start”….every day whilst you try to set up your perfect “garage” is a day that you are not building your list of subscribers and that you are not sending emails and making money by helping connect your subscribers to great products. The most important thing is to build your list and send emails.
Please let me know your thoughts, I would love to know if this sounds familiar to anybody else…and I hope that if you have been over completing things, that this has helped. Now it is time for me to take my car to the car wash!
If you liked this info, and you think it is time for you to start your own online business… you might like to check out the IMC Quickstart Video Guide Series… where the challenge is to get your online business tool up and running in less than two days!
Cheers for now
Chris.
Rob Cornish Interview – Online Business
- Online business basics
- List building basics
- Outsourcing for product creation
- Traffic generation methods (free and paid)
- All links mentioned are included below… scroll down
How to get going with your online business: Rob is a very successful full time Internet Marketer and is well known in IM Circles, often speaking at events in the UK. He specializes in product creation and list building…and does it very successfully.
I have many of Rob’s products so I was fascinated to know more about the “behind the scenes” efforts within his business. Rob offers some really great tips about what is working now and this interview could be titled “the fundamentals of getting started the right way” – so well worth your time… all the links mentioned by Rob during the interview are provided below.
For more information I would highly recommend that you check out more of Rob’s story in his product Newbie to $350K. I would also recommend two of Rob’s other products – Spybar and ViralPayments (closed at current – but if it re-opens grab it, quickly!). They are both really great and I use them both every day… they save time and make money – so I recommend that you at least take a look.
I hope you find this interview helpful… cheers for now!
Links mentioned in Rob’s interview | outsourcing sites:
Links to London Lunch: Internet Marketing Networking Meeting:-
Dot Com Secrets Review
I hope you find this quick peek at Dot Com Secrets helpful… I have learnt a lot from this program and I think this is suitable for anybody just starting online… check it out. Let me know what you think…. please leave me a comment.
Links: Dot Com Secrets – Internet Affiliate Marketing Tuition Videos
10 things that will stop you making money online
These are all based on my personal experience… so I hope this can help you avoid some of the pitfalls I fell into…
Shiny Object Syndrome. Don’t jump from one thing to another, learning is good, but don’t jump from following one guru to following another. Find a method that you believe in and stick with it.
Believing the Hype. Making money online is not as quick as everybody makes out (after all you probably wouldn’t buy their products if they said…. it will take years to build up a business). Believing the get rich quick merchants will only lead to disappointment. Once despondent with one guaranteed instant riches scheme, you will move on to the next and the next, until total disillusionment sets in, and you give up! Great things are possible with the internet – but they are not instant, and it will take effort.
“If you hype something and it succeeds, you’re a genius – it wasn’t a hype. If you hype it and it fails, then it was just a hype.” – Neil Bogart
Trying to do everything for Free. Yes it is true that great amounts of money can be made for “free”, but there is always a cost, and that is usually “time”. So if you have oodles of spare time, then working the free tools and traffic can be a good way to get started. But, don’t get stuck there! As soon as you start making some money, reinvest that in better tools and paid traffic. You generally get what you pay for, so pay the money and get good stuff; tools, training, traffic and your business will take-off.
Being influenced by doubters. Don’t let those around you that have no faith and who think that every internet marketer is an online scammer talk you out of continuing on your quest, or even from getting started. Where would we be if folk like “Columbus” and “Cook” listened to the naysayers? You become who you spend time with. Find successful folk who will support you and help you along.
Not networking and meeting other people who are doing the same thing as you. Once you get out there and get some real advice from some fellow practitioners, you will progress much more rapidly. I started out in a computer cupboard under the stairs and spent most of my time watching 5 minute YouTube clips. You learn ten times as much from a chat over a meal at a networking meeting. Get out there! Meet some people!
Suffering from Perfectionism. Now this is a killer. You can easily spend all you time making sure something is just right before it “goes live”. In some cases I have hear about people developing websites for years without ever making them live. What a waste. In online marketing “perfect” is the enemy of “progress” and initially or “profit”. Don’t get me wrong – I am not saying through up any old website and gash together your products. No. Ensure the content quality is high, but don’t make every piece your life’s work. Good enough is good enough.
Overwhelm. Ever felt overwhelmed by the amount on information available on the web? I would suggest that if the answer is no, then you haven’t yet tried to implement something new and complicated. Or if you have, and you haven’t felt overwhelm, then you need to make a product about that! For most people, there is too much choice, on everything. Too much information and it is easy to get stuck in a rut and get bogged down. I have repeatedly heard, “it doesn’t matter – just get started”. This is my new motto. I have spent so much time trying to make sure I set off on the right foot, that I never set off. Don’t be a victim of information overload. Find someone you trust, go with their recommendations – you’ll progress much quicker, and when you are hugely successful, then change the systems if you need to.
Not treating it like a business. No matter what line of online business you are in, it is still a business. And businesses revolve around numbers. Not knowing your numbers is another key reason that people fail online, because they don’t treat it like a real business. Know your costs, revenues and profits. How much does it cost to acquire a new prospect, a new customer? How much profit do you make per lead, per customer? Which is your most effective marketing channel? How are your sales funnels converting? Which is the weakest link? What would happen if you strengthened it? There is a saying “what isn’t measured can not be managed” and it is so true!
You wouldn’t see an Olympic athlete training without being timed would you?
Trying to do everything you self. This will hold you back. I struggled with this for a long time. Yes it is nice to get to know every aspect of your business and you should – up to a point. Do you think that the Managing Director of every company knows how to do the accounts? No of course not, and this is how you should think about your business. You are the leader, the manager, the mover and the shaker. Outsource the things you don’t like doing or that you cannot do. I know that this is tough when you don’t have the money coming in to just “pay” someone else to do it, but it is a smart business strategy to ramp up your outsourcing as soon as you can.
Ok – last one. Not sticking with it. This is slightly linked to the first “shiny object syndrome”, in that if you jump around you’ll never get to the detail you need to succeed. But this is more than that. When you decide what it is that you are going to do, you need to stick at it. The margins between success and failure are often very thin… so for example, if you decide that article marketing is the way to go, you need to hammer it until you feel that you have made it work, or exhausted all possibilities. For example you might try 10 ezine article submission website. You might try 60, 70, or even 100 different categories to see which is most successful. You could monitor the best keywords for driving traffic, or you could identify the best type of article – is it a “how to” or a “surprise” article, or is it a “social, fun” type that drives most traffic for you. Plus, you can only get these results if you monitor everything that you are doing – “know your numbers”. It might drive you nutty – hardly the internet lifestyle at the start is it? But if you stick at it you will be successful and when you are, then the internet lifestyle follows.
Bonus item. Not having a mentor. Most people find it difficult to see the way forward when they are stuck working out the day to day stuff. It is much easier to see what needs to be done when looking from the outside! Getting a mentor and work with them to define a solid path through the prickly thorns of the daily grind.
“Without a mentor your very best thinking has got you exactly where you are today” – Raymond Aaron.
Nine reasons why you should consider starting an internet business
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started” – Mark Twain
Work from anywhere… right now I’m enjoying the beautiful English country side as I sit on the top of a hill, waiting for a rain shower to pass so that I can continue hang gliding. But seriously, it is a great way to work your way around the world, or simply to spend more time with family abroad. The internet is a wonderful place – and it really is what you make of it, so don’t delay – get started!
Reduced working hours…the potential is there, certainly. I have met a guy who has made $1.8M from eBooks… and most of that was on autopilot! If you think about it, once the eBook is set up, the benefits of internet automation kick in. Yes I know it is not that easy at first, but there are plenty of examples of people applying this business model successfully, why should you not be one of them? The philosophy is to “do the work once, get paid many times”, and once you have set up the system you can either sit back and relax or just move on to the next project.
Only to the fun bits…Hate graphics? Or coding? Hate copywriting? No problem. The modern world affords an unprecedented level of outsourcing. So once you get a bit of money coming in you can ditch the bits of the job you don’t like. How good is that?
Easily Scalable… Boom! Here we have it. With the internet if you can achieve a business model that works, with sales processes that convert, you can scale up more easily than any other business I know. If you are using paid advertising… and you are making money. Then 10x the advertising makes 10x the profit. It is not quite that perfect because there are a few factors that increase cost with increased traffic, such as the need for dedicated hosting servers instead of shared, but these are really minimal. So, Boom! Make a small profit, optimize that, then scale up and automate.
Low start-up costs and low overhead costs… Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pintrest, Clickbank…. The list goes on and on. All Free services that let you get a web presence and start making money online with zero start-up cost. As always there is a trade of time vs. money, but even if you just have a small budget, you can get web hosting and an email auto-responder for about $10/month. Internet income beats bricks-and-mortar businesses hands down for low risk, low cost start-ups. So, take up the challenge, get out there and try something.
“The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow” – Bill Gates
Making your Hobby pay the bills… It has never been so easy to turn your hobby into you income source. It doesn’t matter if you are into making wine, or laying paving slabs. The internet has an unrivalled ability to bring people together. So if you happen to enjoy rearing lazy-eyed-frogs, then I’m sure you’ll find some like-minded people to form a community, and then a customer base. What better way to generate an income than be doing immersing yourself in the subjects you love.
Become part of a global community… this will helps you stay young! If you haven’t already, isn’t it time you got a grip on IT developments? When I started I couldn’t set up a website, I couldn’t fathom one end of an email system from the other – but now I’m quite conversant with all this “techy” stuff – and I’m learning faster all the time. However, if the “techy” stuff is not for you – that is not an issue, some of the most successful people online are non-techies… and they outsource all the techy stuff, which eventually will be your aim as-well. Beach? Html code a webpage? Beach? Not difficult is it?
Think outside the box… This making money online-thing offers the perfect opportunity for those of us, myself included, who have been conditioned to think that you earn money by working for someone else to break free. You’ll start to see the world in a different light, you’ll start to see value and opportunity. This will enhance your business skills and you will, as I have, get huge personal satisfaction from testing things and seeing if they have worked. I remember staying with my grandparents when I was young and every morning waking eager to see if the chicken had laid another egg. Well internet marketing is the same for an adult. Not always, but usually there is a golden egg waiting.
Ever growing income streams…. Once you have set up one income stream simply move on to set up another. Initiate, Moderate and Automate! This is the beauty of the internet. It might seem like a pipe dream – but many people are achieving it. And on the plus side, it gets easier and easier. As the learning curve flattens off… your pace and output ramps up. You can pay more outsourcers and really accelerate your progress.
Why I started Internet Marketing
I started Internet Marketing to generate more free time for me to go on more adventures! This is me in the Arctic.
About a year ago I was working for a company and I was struggling to manage a project which had it’s problems, but by far the biggest problem was that there weren’t enough people on the team. So we had far too much work for the number of people available to do it… it was a nightmare.
I loved the work I was doing and I didn’t want to let the customer or the team down and so I was drawn deeper and deeper into working harder and harder. This continued until the point that I was working 70 hour weeks routinely, plus I had a 1 hour commute each way to get to work and back home.
I didn’t mind the commute, in fact I had been riding a motorbike for 10 years, and actually loved the commute through the wide open countryside. But, because I was often returning home, late at night, exhausted and sometimes running low on sleep reserves… I felt that it was only a matter of time until I had an accident and did myself some damage. So I sold the bike and switched to using a car. Now those that know me… will tell you that this was a very hard thing for me to do (although secretly I do quite like having a radio and a heater… but don’t tell anyone else that!).
So, I got to the point of realizing that I had no life. All I did was work! I had a whole heap of adventures planned (to see my previous adventures please visit www.chrisgtodd.com) that I was just not able to plan for or undertake because I spent all my time working….
I needed a change, and in the airport returning from a family visit, I picked up a book about making money using the internet. I read it cover to cover on the flight home and decided to make a change. So this is it, I have been engrossed in the world of internet marketing (online business) ever since.
The possibilities are endless….