You received an email from a friend a few months ago with directions to an up-coming seminar. Now that email is buried under months of other email messages.

How do you find it?…

Well… You can scroll through all your previous emails looking for the message…

But there’s an easier way for You!

Email ‘clients’ as they’re called, or programs provide shortcuts to finding your important email. Each provides “Advanced Find” methods so you can search by subject, name, email address of the sender, or by any of your folders you’ve set up to store your important emails. (i.e. trash, sent, friends, family, keep, print ), or even by date.

“Wait a minute, while I count my email folders… OK, I’m back!… Right Now I have 62 file folders for emails I want to keep for future reference. With all these folders it’s hard to find any particular email.”

Have you ever had this problem?… If you have… Hold on… Because, Help for You is right on your computer!

While in your email files, go to Edit or Tools. In one of them, depending on your email program you’ll see one of the following:

Find Search Messages Find Messages Messages In This Folder Advanced search.

It varies whether you’re using Netscape, Eudora, or Outlook Express… and the version.

Click around until you find the “Search Window.” It will pop up. You can search different email folders with different search parameters. It’s a lot easier for you than looking through your hundreds or thousands of emails for something that’s important to you.

Here’s some examples of how to find previously sent or received email messages, using a variety of popular email software and platform configurations. Check Yours… It can be your ‘Big Time Saver.’ It’s worth spending a little time discovering how this works.

Outlook Express 5.02 - Macintosh: Under the “Edit” menu, drop down to “Find”, or “Advanced Find.” Set up your search parameters for the email you want to find.

Netscape 7.0 for Windows and Macintosh: Under “Tools” on the Messenger menu bar, drop down to “Search.” Pick “Search Messages” from the resulting submenu. A search window will open. Set up your search requirements for whatever you remember about the email you want to find.

Netscape 4.7 for Windows and Macintosh: Under “Edit” on the Messenger menu bar, drop down to and select “Search Messages.” You’ll see a search window open with pull down buttons so you can set the search parameters you want. You can keep adding more search buttons by clicking on ‘”More.” If you know several things about the email you’re looking for… You’ll save your time and frustration.

Eudora 5.1.1 for Windows: Under “Edit” on the Eudora menu bar, drop down to “Find” and select “Find Messages” from the resulting submenu. Enter your search information.

Eudora 5.1.1 for Macintosh OS 9 and OS X: Under the “Special” menu, drop down to “Find” and select “Search” from the resulting submenu.

Apple’s Mail program for Macintosh OS X: Under the “Edit” menu, drop down to “Find” and select “Find Messages” from the resulting submenu.

You may want to spend some time working with this… Because it can be Your Big Time Saver when you need to find your most important email.

You’ve got your web site online. You’re on top of the search engines. You have killer web site copy. Now all you have to do is wait for the sales to roll in right? Well … not exactly.

In the last five years of working with all types of businesses, the most common mistake companies make is believing that their web site will do all of the work for them. Sure, a web site will definitely help productivity but it can never replace the human element of your business. Potential customers are still looking for some type of bond that brings them into your company, something that still makes them feel important and like an individual - they are looking for real people with real knowledge. And the reason why people choose to buy from you is because of you.

One of the most overlooked aspects of web sites is online customer service and ultimately your email correspondences. Think about it: if a “sales prospect” called your business would you leave them waiting a day or more before replying? Now, unless you work for a bank or just don’t want the business, you would never do that. But as crazy as it sounds, this is what many companies are doing. Sabotaging their own success simply by putting off returning emails to clients.

Here are a few basic rules I personally go by and suggest you adopt:

1. Develop a sorting mechanism in your email program so that you can answer your “sales oriented” emails first and then others later.

2. Answer sales oriented emails in under ½ day if possible (even a simple return email “I am working on it” will suffice in some cases).

3. Answer non-essential emails within 1- 2 days.

4. When you respond to any email, make sure you include at least the following information 1) Your name + your company name, 2) your title, 3) address, 4) telephone (with area code), 5) your return email, 6) your web site and 7) lastly make sure your subject line makes sense!

Also consider the following:

1. The web is now used more than the yellow pages when people are looking to buy a product.

2. It is very probable that your potential customer also contacted your competition.

3. Like your first sales meeting with a prospect, make your email stand out. Tell them what makes you different.

4. Your prospect probably gets SPAM emails on a regular basis..

Make sure that the subject line is not confused with SPAM or your email may never even get read!

5. Make your subject line short and don’t come across as a used sales car person. A simple subject such as: As per your request at ABC.Com is usually sufficient.

6. Do not send files larger than 500k (1/2 a mb) - as a lot of people are still on dial-up.

Following these simple steps will maximize the benefits of your web site. In today’s fast moving economy, the old cliché “you snooze you lose” is more real than ever. And remember the web is no different than any other medium when it comes to building rapport/relationships with your clients. Have fun, stand out from the crowd and you will be surprised by the results.

You may not realize that there is a technique to failure.  For those of you who can not fail properly, just follow these simple steps and I personally guarantee you to be a total wash-out.

1. Know hype as your friend:  Earn $10,000 per hour while drinking lemonade and getting a massage.  Gotta go for that one.  It’s a real bargain at $29.95.

2. Never research a program: For those who simply cannot accept hype as their buddy, fear not.  Having no reliable information about a company works almost as well.

3. Never spend money:  Hey, this is all free.  If I wanted to make an investment, I’d open a store on Main Street with a $6,000 lease payment every month, $50,000 in inventory, and shell out $10,000 every two weeks in payroll.  Yep, that’s how I’d do it.  But I sure won’t spend $200 on an effective lead generator.

4. Do not take your business seriously: Who cares?  I’d rather be playing free cell.

5. Get as many site hits as humanly possible: Use every advertising source available.  So what if BuckHunter103 visits my site on banning all firearms in the world.  My hit counter is spinning!

6. Have no plan: Flailing blindly in the dark is sure to waste lots of time and leave you discouraged.  A must for failing.

7. Work as little as possible:  Work is the ultimate enemy of failure.   Where’s that darn free cell bookmark?

8. Quit: If you’ve followed my plan so far, and it still seems you’re on the verge of success, there’s only one thing left to do.  QUIT! 

Over 90% of internet business owners have followed this plan and failed miserably in just a few short days or weeks.  Are you next?

Site Design…Or Site Disaster…What Do Your Visitors See????

So you got your own website now. Exciting isn’t it? You’re ready to start putting your website to work for you. What will you do first? So many ideas going through your head…you want to make it the best website on the internet. You want to make it unique and different from anyone else’s.

So many ideas popping in and out of your head you want to do so much. After all besides things in our home, when do we really get to design anything? Before we know it we have added a little of this and a little of that and maybe some more of this. It’s almost like waving a magic wand over everything giving it color and making it pretty. To us, our web site looks great we have color and we have animated graphics we also have a lot of content, after all that is what gets website recognition, isn‘t it?

But wait, take a closer look, is all that content really necessary? We know google likes content but maybe some of us are confused as to which kind of content google is looking for. I admit, I once thought content is content. But I was very wrong, not all content is created equal. If your website is a business related site then your content should be business related as well. Your content should be interesting and helpful. Something you know your visitors would enjoy. Color and graphics is not useful content.

Many websites have articles on their site. This is probably one of the best contents to have on your site. Most articles are interesting and provide useful information. What makes articles on your site even better? If they are your articles. Articles are not hard to write just pick a subject you are familiar with and write an article about it. Just remember to keep your article topics related to the type of site you have.

Let’s talk color, is all that bright color really what our visitors want to see? Some colors are way too bright and can be sensitive to peoples’ eyes. If you need to have color make them more down to earth colors not something that is going to make your visitors want to run from your site. Not having any color is also good . Color is optional, just choose it wisely.

Animated graphics, who is guilty of those? I know I am, and it’s understandable as they are cute and neat to look at. Or are they? Too many things flashing on your site is not appealing. Also, too many graphics will draw the attention away from what is really important - and that is your text. Your text is your message to your visitors. If you insist on having them on your site then I suggest just having maybe one. Make sure your visitor focuses more on your text, not the graphics.

Another point to keep in mind is “keyword rich text”. You want to mention your keywords throughout your website. Every chance you get mention your keywords. Work them into your sentences. When writing articles make sure you add some of your keywords to your article title. This also helps your website get noticed by the SE (search engines).

I write this article because I want everyone to learn from my mistakes. I am guilty of all of the above. It took a new computer to realize how loud my color was (old computer color looked dull) . After realizing how bright it was I panicked. It was like a slap in the face because I thought what an awful color and if I thought that of my own site what were my visitors thinking? I asked the advice of a good friend and thank god this friend is open and honest in her opinions. She helped me to take a step back and really look at my site. My only thoughts were, “What have I been thinking?”

I don’t even remember when or how my site got the point it did. I felt like I had this whole other life I knew nothing about and that person was taking over the designing of my site. But thanks to the new computer and my good friend, I have taken the control back of my site and since I have done so the visitors to my site have actually doubled and the length of the visit has also increased. I am back on the road to success.

You may use this article for reprint if it remains unaltered and includes the author information and resource box. - Isaiah Hull

Harvesting Leads from Yahoo Groups

If you own an internet business or you’re involved in an affliate program and you’re having trouble getting traffic to your website or gateway, consider Yahoo Groups as an option to expand your visibility. You can sign up for dozens of these groups tonight–some which have subscriber bases of over 10,000 people–and then submit your ad to them immediately.

Before you begin, you’ll need to determine what approach you’re going to take for this. There are two ways to generate traffic through Yahoo Groups: 1) by submitting your ad to groups that are specifically looking for ADS; or 2) by providing a free service, such as a business advice article, a free ebook, or anything else you can think of that might help someone in you shoes - and then adding your resource box at the bottom, giving a link to your website or product. I personally would suggest doing both if you want to get the best results. There aren’t that many groups that allow shameless promotions - and the ones that do are generally saturated with them.

Your next step is to get a text-editor/writing program that allows you to format your documents by characters-per-line (I would suggest getting the free trial version of textpad- http://www.textpad.com). Once you have this text-editor setup, type or copy-and- paste your ad, article, or whatever else you’re going to use into the text-editor and then format it for 55 characters-per-line (most submission forms require you to use 55-60 characters-per-line; if you do not, they’ll reject your submission out-right).

Once you have done this, you’ll want to sign up for a Yahoo email account if you do not have one already. This is free and you can do it easily by going to Yahoo.com and filling in your information.

Next you’ll want to head to http://groups.yahoo.com , where you’ll find a directory of Yahoo Groups. You will want to find groups that coincide with whatever product or service you are selling. For instance, I sell marketing and business-building tools. When I go to Yahoo Groups, I go to Business & Finance and then to Marketing.

You should have a pretty good selection for whatever you plan to market. There are hundreds of groups and–as I mentioned earlier–some of them have over 10,000 members currently. Sign up for as many of these groups as possible.

Just click on the group. Click to sign up - and then fill in your information. Make sure you have all of the boxes filled in and then submit the form. For most of the groups, you will receive an email in your inbox immediately. Others will take a few days.

Your next step is to read all of the new emails in your inbox. Check out the rules list for all of the new groups you just signed up for. Make sure your article, service, or whatever you’re posting conforms to all of the rules. Now go back to your groups. You should see a list of groups you’re in with “Post” next to the group name. Begin posting it to each individual group, making sure you follow the rules. Also make sure it includes your resource box.

Now you wait. The submission process can take a while. Most posts have to be manually reviewed by group editors/moderators, while others will go up immediately. Sometimes you’ll receive a letter from the editor, saying whether it was posted or rejected and sometimes you wont. Once you start receving the submission responses, that means people can now read your article or ad.

Congratulations - you just advertised to an ENORMOUS group of targeted potential leads for no cost whatsoever.

Now sit back, relax, and watch the hits accumulate on your website.

Google AdWords
Unlike many search engines Google, to its credit, clearly denotes search listings that are paid placement. In fact, Google AdWords appear in a separate section down the left side of the screen.

Google AdWords provide an inexpensive advertising venue for businesses to advertise products or services to a targeted audience. Advertisers have the ability to control their budget, target their advertising based on keywords. Advertisers are also free to determine the ad contents.

Google AdWords allow for nearly instant traffic, which can be turned on and off. Traffic results can be measured, providing information on what is successful, what isn’t and what needs to be changed. AdWords can be found that work by running a test campaign.

Benefits to AdWords
Advertisers bid on keywords, the more an advertiser is willing to pay the higher the likelihood the ad will appear higher in position in the list of ads served. Google, invariably wanting to make the most from advertisers, determines placement based on a combination of click through rate, bid amount and budget. Of course, in order to maximize revenue and please searchers Google does have guidelines for ads served and all ads must receive a minimum percentage click through or they are removed.

AdWord Guidelines
Clearly and accurately describe the website, this is to the advertiser and searchers benefit. Ultimately, the more qualified the visitor who clicks the ad, the higher the likelihood the clicker will convert into a sale. By providing clear and accurate information, searchers who click the ad are qualified leads, which tend to convert more consistently than unqualified leads. The most effective advertising communicates a clear message to a targeted audience.

Avoid excessive capitalization, superlatives and lavish exclamation marks in the ad. By doing this you are not only serving the visitor you are filtering unwanted clicks from non-buyers. Due to space limitations your ad message will need to be concise. Select keywords that are relevant to your product, service or content. Call to action phrases are not allowed (i.e. you cannot use phrases like “click here” in your ad copy.) There are also no pop-ups.

Steps for AdWord Campaign

1.) Open an account

2.) Target language and country - This is very important because if your product or service can not be exported you do not want to pay to advertise in those countries for which your product or service can not be sold.

3.) Create Ad Group - design an ad, select keywords, determine maximum cost per click that you are willing to spend and define bid amounts.

Title
The title tag is generally the most important part of the ad be sure to use a short phrase that gets the attention of your target audience. An underutilized feature at Google allows you to put a question mark in the title, the term searched on automatically replaces the question mark in the title of your ad.

Define max click - Google will suggest a cost per click, but the recommendation does not need to be adhered to. Arguments have been heard that #1 position does not always mean increased sales; sometimes a second position will filter useless clicks and provide targeted traffic with a higher conversion ration. The rule of thumb is positions 1-3 garner the most traffic and best results. Increasing either your maximum cost-per-click or the ads click through rate will generally improve the ad’s position.

Use keyword variations to reach more prospects. A variety or spellings and derivatives of keywords will increase the chances of your ads being served. Be sure to use common misspellings and plurals in your keyword list.

Broad match - is targeting keywords in a loosely defined manner. Ads appear based on keywords that have been queried by search users. For instance, if the keywords you are planning on broad matching are “mountain bikes” and users search for the terms “bikes that can climb a mountain”, your ad will appear; as opposed to exact match, which requires that the keywords selections must exactly match the query.

Phrase match - is indicated when quotations are used in the phrase. A keyword phrase set to phrase match will only appear when the exact phrase is searched on. For example “mountain bikes” will appear when searchers search for “brand name mountain bikes”.

Exact match - is when the keyword or phrase is entered with brackets. The phrase will only serve ads when the entered search phrase is identical to the keyword phrase. “Mountain bikes” will only appear when searchers search for “mountain bikes”

Negative keyword - is helpful in filtering unrelated phrases. A dash is entered before the filtering phrase. “Mountain bike -races will not appear if mountain bike races are searched on.

Landing Page - is important because this not only helps with tracking, but also provides a focused and specific landing page for searchers. Information can be related to the actual search, while also increasing the conversion ratios for sales. A focused landing page with content related and using the same terminology as the actual search, will show the searcher that your solution is relevant to their needs.

3.) Define budget - in order to maximize exposure Google recommends a daily budget for each campaign.

Google’s suggested budget is helpful in receiving consistent traffic throughout the advertising campaign. Keep in mind this is only Google’s recommendation; ultimately it is up to you to determine a budget that is affordable and suitable.

Google supplies tracking tools that assist webmasters in determining their return on investment based on keyword searches and phrases. While the technology is not perfect and cannot track phone and purchase orders, it should give advertisers a sense of what phrases and keywords are converting well in their advertising campaign.

Hello, I am getting married.  Want to pay me $798 dollars to
come?  Yes, this is the theme in the latest marketing campaign
from the infamous Corey Rudl.  Now before I give you the wrong
idea here it really doesn’t cost $798 dollars to attend.  In
reality it will cost you only $97 dollars and Corey has
promised to give everyone that attends a $97 dollar credit
towards any of his products.  So really Corey is only going to
make $97 dollars per person that attends his wedding.  Pretty
Good Deal, huh?

The $798 dollars is for the one day finally.  What someone
could actually learn in a seminar environment in one day that
is worth $798 dollars is beyond me.  But, I am sure even some
of you have bought into it.  If you are thinking about it but,
have not committed to it, I would consider spending the money
on some one-on-one time with a consultant if you feel you must
pay someone to learn about your business.

This really is not what this article is about though.  It
surely made me think about writing this but, would make for a
pretty bland article unless I was promoting Corey’s Wedding
wouldn’t it? No, you see Corey is in the Internet Marketing
Information business which in my opinion is getting way out of
hand lately.  And that is the basis of this article.

So I give you “How To Fail… Faster Then a Speeding Bullet!”

As all of you know one of my favorite past times and really the
whole “Niche” of my online business is testing new marketing
tools, and resources and then sharing those reviews with my
subscribers and customers.

Through all of the years of doing this I have gained some
serious in site on what makes the online entrepreneur tick.
Most of the “initial successes” these marketer have, as well
as most of the failures are attributed to many different
things.

This list of reasons people fail is enormous but here are the
five most common and how to avoid them:

#5 Bad Guidance

Through out life people are used to being taught how to do
things.  Their parents teach them how to tie their shoes, and
talk.  In school they learn how to read, write, and perform
arithmetic.  In college or trade school they learn how to
perform the tasks they are going to use at their job for the
rest of their lives.

Then one day they decide to start a business on the Internet.
Most of the time that is exactly what happens.  They decide to
start “A BUSINESS”.  Not just any business mind you.  But,
“A BUSINESS”.  These would be entrepreneurs want to make money
that all the SPAM mail promises can be had on the Internet.
But, there are now a few road blocks.  They don’t have a
product sell.  They don’t have a web site to promote.
They don’t have any friends that are successful making money
on the Internet to help them.  So in pure haste they go to the
nearest search engine and type in “How to Make Money” or
something a long them lines.

A lot of them won’t be to picky when it comes to choosing.
They jump onboard every free to join program out there.  Some
are “smarter”.  They know that if every body is selling this
or that product it must be the one people want and therefore
they need to sell it to.  Luckily for them they will inevitably
end up on the mailing list of a very successful online marketer
who will provide them with all the guidance they need.

Generally this will consist of them telling their prospect that
to succeed they need to buy and follow the strategies in a
particular book they wrote.  Once they spend their money and
read the hype in the book they find out to make money with these
strategies they will need to utilize a particular software
program, or service that luckily for them is provided by the
same person that sold them the book!  And then thankfully that
same marketer is throwing a seminar that you can pay an arm and
a leg to attend so that you can actually figure out these
strategies that so far you haven’t had any luck with.  All the
while nobody is working on your business because you are to
busy reading, learning new software programs, and attending
seminars to build your own business.

Avoidance Strategy:

When looking for guidance find a professional with a telephone
that they answer when you call.  If at all possible find
someone near your location that you can work with face to
face.  Demand a free consultation to see if this person truly
knows what they are talking about.  Demand a money back
guarantee.  If this Guru is flashing sales copy that you can
make Millions selling this or that surely they can guarantee
that you will be profitable with your business following their
strategies in X amount of time.

Do not buy any products at all dealing with Internet Marketing
until you know what your business is going to be.  Don’t spend
hundreds of dollars trying to figure this out.  You will find
your own Niche without the help of a $137 dollar digital book.
#4 Playing the FREE Game

Why should I pay to advertise on Google when I can join that
FREE Safelist and mail my ads to millions?  Why should I for
advertising on ClickBank when I can join CBClicks for FREE?
Why should I pay for ads on Google when I can use this free
click exchange program to generate traffic?

There are an endless amount of free programs on the Internet
that promise to make you successful.  This game started years
ago with a service called a Free For All Links Page.  Here is
how they all work and why you can get them for FREE.  When you
signup for a FREE service you will need to provide some
information to the provider.  This can range from just your
Name and Email to a more extensive survey that includes
questions about your monthly income level, your physical
mailing address, your phone number, etc.  A small price to pay
for using these services for FREE right?

WRONG!

If you didn’t catch on yet these services can guarantee you
what ever they want.  But, the truth is they rarely work
because they were not designed to!  These services are for the
provider to obtain your contact information and your
permission to contact you with advertising anytime they want.
Many times your contact information is sold via a leads service.
In the end you find out that you wasted your time joining the
program and all you gained out of the FREE deal was in inbox
full of junk!

Avoidance Strategy:

Do not utilize FREE Traffic or Lead Generation Strategies with
very few exceptions (like submitting your URL to Google for
FREE for example).  Find a service that is pay to play by a
known provider of successful strategies.  Like Google Adwords
for example.  Use the service that you can afford to and when
you can afford to utilize another move into it.  Don’t make
any exceptions to this no matter what anybody tells you!
#3 No Focus

This one is closely related to all of the other causes for
failure.  The normal scenario goes something like this.  You
are selling a book you wrote about cross stitching.  You have
made a few sales and things are going nicely for you as your
business is starting to grow.  Someone that you respect sends
you an email.  It says, “Hey my Google PR just shot through
the roof because I am using X product”.  You quickly move
into action and purchase the product.  You follow the
directions and spend hours, sometimes days applying the
strategy.

When you are finished you decide to stop by one of your
favorite marketing forums and find everyone talking about this
out standing new book by X marketer where he reveals all his
top secret marketing strategies.  You move into action and
purchase the book.  You spend days reading it and then weeks
applying the strategies.

This is a never ending chain for some people.  They never spend
one day completely devoted to working on their business
because, they are to busy being distracted by the next big
thing.

Well I got news for your folks.  There is always going to be a
next big thing.  Some things do not change and will provide you
with much more success.

Avoidance Strategy:

FOCUS your time on YOUR Business.  The Top of you To-do list
should always be Provide Outstanding Customer Service, Market
Your Product Continuously, Build Strong Relationships with your
customers, Improve the Content of Your Web site, etc.

Don’t start another business if the current one is not
successful!  Why put yourself through the mental challenges of
failing at two businesses?  When you have made one business
successful you will have the know how and the resources to
successfully expand it to include another.

If you do this you will laugh as you watch your competitors
chase their Internet Marketing Dreams in Circles.
#2 No Creativity

You decide for your business that you are going to market X
product as part of their affiliate program.  This one has to be
the easiest business to start in the world!  They provide a web
site template, pre-written ads, banners, articles, and graphics!
All I have to do is use these items and I will make Millions!

WRONG!

Having no creativity is a killer.  Especially, in the affiliate
sales world.  Think about it if everyone of the affiliates in X
program are using the exact same sales materials for every aspect
of their marketing program who do you think a prospect is going
to buy from?

If you answered “I have no idea”, you are correct.  And a lot of
the times the prospective customer has no idea either.  If you
don’t successfully close the deal on the first visit from this
customer you are probably not going to.  Your prospect wakes up
the next morning and decides to buy the product.  They forgot to
book mark your site so they type the name of the product into a
search engine and come to a page that looks exactly like yours
and they buy.

The scenarios for not having creativity are endless.  They go
from something simple like using canned sales materials from an
affiliate program to creating a software product that is exactly
the same as 12 others on the market.

If you do not put some creativity into your business.  You will
fail.

Avoidance Strategy:

Only join and market an affiliate program if you have purchased
the product and used it yourself?  Why?  Because, if you don’t
you will have no choice but, to used the canned sales materials.
You cannot extend any creativity into it and write your own sales
copy, give a testimonial to your prospects or anything of that
sort because, you will have no idea on what you are talking about.

Always, write your own sales copy, advertisements, web pages, etc.
Even if you only change a few graphics, and include a few of your
own paragraphs into a canned version you are way above the heap.
When modifying web pages include testimonials (if you don’t have
any when you sell some ask the customer for one).  Always include
your contact information including a phone number that you answer.
Always change the headline.  If the headline is just to good to
change then change the sub headline.  Do what ever you can to make
your sales materials unique.

When creating your own product research the hell out of it.  Don’t
create something that can be had elsewhere.  And definitely don’t
create something that people can pick up at the local Wal-Mart.
If you can’t come up with your won idea hold a survey with your
ezine or mailing list subscribers asking them what they wish they
had to improve any aspect of their life or business.

Apply creativity throughout your business from product creation,
to sales, to good customer service at all time.
#1 No Determination

What am I doing wrong?  I have created a unique product.  I have
an awesome sales page.  I am getting tons of hits from my Overture
PPC Campaign.  But, nobody is buying!  The heck with this.

I have a ton of ads inserted for my Google Campaign but nobody is
clicking on them.  The heck with this.

I just can’t get people to buy my product.  I guess I will just
give it away.

I see this all of the time.  People try everything that they
can to make their business work but, nothing seems too.  They
give up and never really tried.  Folks, the Internet is not a get
rich quick environment no matter what you may think.  Yes, it is
easier to target your customer base and actually make contact
with them.  But, it is no different then selling off line.  If
you don’t provide a compelling reason to buy then no one will.
And just because you think it is compelling and all your
marketing friends said the same thing does not mean it is going
to work.

The failure rate of online business due to No Determination is
astronomical.  People actually believe that whatever they do is
going to work and when it doesn’t they give up without a fight.

Avoidance Strategy:

Expect failure and LEARN from it.  Write the underlying cause
for each failure down and refer to it when ever you can so you
don’t make the same mistake twice.  Research and analyze your
marketing methods.  Write at least two versions of a sales page
for a particular product and run a split-test on it.  Always ask
your current customers why they bought a particular product.
Make them be specific.  Apply copy cat strategies with your
products.  If it worked once it might work again.  Just don’t
go word for word.  Ask for help from an Internet Marketer that
you respect by offering them a cut on sales.  If you can’t make
it sell maybe they can provide you with a way it can.  Above
all DON’T GIVE UP, DON’T GIVE UP, and DON’T GIVE UP.
If you are the average everyday Internet Marketer you probably
found at least one failure strategy that you are following right
now.  This does not mean your business will fail.  If just means
you got a head start in start in that direction.

Keep in mind that I could not possibly list all the scenarios,
or avoidance strategies for each of these as it would have
created a volume of information and this article is already
long as it is.

You must learn to identify failure strategies and cut them off
before they have an adverse effect on your business.  I have
provided you with a good start it is up to you from here on out.

So I challenge you from here on out to remain determined, be
creative, stay focused, avoid free things with big promises,
and seek out and find good guidance if you need it.

Viral Marketing is the hot topic at the moment, but many don’t really understand what the term means. As this is an internet based business, and therefore Internet Marketing, we need to look at it in internet terms.

You know when someone sends you a joke on email and it’s a good one you want to pass it on. From your mailbox you open your list of friends names and post the joke on to everyone you know, or everyone on your “joke list”, a list of people you pass jokes on to.

Next time you do this, have a scroll down the email to see the list of people it has come from at the head of each mailing. Each person who sent the joke on will have sent it to everyone on their “joke list”. You’ll see quite a few names you’ll recognize, some of who will be on your own list.

This is “Viral” – the joke has been passed on like a virus – from person to person. Everyone they come in contact with has passed it on to everyone else they know.

The trick with viral marketing is to duplicate that process with your products and the business opportunity itself – pass your store’s website URL on to everyone who cleans their house or takes nutritional supplements, or who might, and get them to do the same with everyone they know.

Also, a lot of people who start using the products are going to want to get the products at wholesale. So they want their own store. So they sign up under you! And you get the commission not only on what they buy, but on anything people they know buy from them, and for anyone who signs up under them, who will be in your second line!

So, just as you send a joke you get to your “joke list”, you need to get the biz opp to anyone who has a biz opp list. Congratulations, you have just been introduced to Listbuilding!

Marketing tools

Why use marketing tools? A lot of people on the Net aren’t looking to join a program, they are already in one. It doesn’t matter that ours is better than theirs, if they never look at the opp and consider it, they ain’t gonna signup.

What we can give them however is a way to market what they are already selling. So we offer them our marketing tools. In doing so, they join our downline for that program, and so does anyone else they sign up. This gives us marketing methods to get our biz opp out to people who DO want to see it!

Listbuilding

Remember the analogy earlier about the joke list? What you have there is a list of people you send jokes to. How did you build that list? Your list of friends who you send jokes to. How did you get on the list of someone else, the person who sent you the joke?

What you need to build for your biz opp is what is known as an “opt in” list. This is a list of people who have chosen to join your list to receive information from you.

Building a list is vital for many reasons.

SPAM is the first and foremost – it is illegal to send spam – unsolicited email to people who haven’t asked for it and didn’t want it. Junk mail.

Despite the legal ramifications, look at the basic logic. Why send your biz opp to someone who doesn’t want to see it? Why send a letter to someone who will just bin it without even opening it? Why send an email with a link to your site if the person receiving it doesn’t want to know so won’t even go look at it?

You may have the best biz in the world and sell the hottest products but if you can’t get people to it, you aren’t going to make a sale!

So we use listbuilding tools so that you have people to send your biz opp to! These are known as VLBs – Viral List Builders.

And a great way to advertise your VLB is on a Traffic Exchange program – a TE, Surf Exchange, Surf 4 Hits, etc. (What’s in a name?)

Once you have a list of people who opted in to hear from you, and you have made initial contact and built up a relationship, then you can show them a biz opp that works for you, and then help them build their own business.
Congratulations - you’ve just become a mentor!

The voice you heard by the majority of people in the Net is true, the real true money generating machine is to offer your own product or service where you can keep 100% of the profits.

Before you even start creating or introduce your own product or service, you should do some research to check the target market size, competitors and the available pricing methods available for the type of product or service that you intend to offer.

The most common product that people develop are ebook or what is commonly known as info product. It is based on the experience that you have accumulated over the years either through your jobs or hobbies and convert them into writings.

Everyone of us have a special skills and things that we do better than the rest. You can further expand your knowledge database via further education or self-education in order to create the business.

Many new business are created not by developing new products or services but by improving something that already exists. The initial innovators of products might received lots of recognition for their innovation might not know how to make the product appeal to the mass consumers and sell like hot cakes. Subsequent bright businessmen or women succeeded in relaunching the same product after some improvement as they are able to saw the mistakes that have been made and was able to capitalized on it.

The movies industry is the best example, many movies are just about repackaging to appeal to the movies consumers. Why develop new super heroes when you can make good money from old familiar heroes like Spiderman. Many movies goers grows up watching Spiderman cartoon and although they maybe adults now, they still enjoy it like when they was young. It is so familiar with them.

Therefore, time spend trying to find brand new idea should instead be spend on improving existing idea. The most important criteria is to try and find a NEED which you can filled.

For improving your business success rate, try not to go into a hot industries that are already overcrowded with suppliers unless you can offer something cheaper and better than them and still make a profit. Finding a niche market is a better strategy as an unique product or service will increase your chances of success.

Starting a Work At Home Online Business means that you should look for product or service that can be sold online and delivered to people living around the world. It should be cheaper or more convenience to order online rather than offline.

The most famous successful niche finder is Amazon.com. The books they sold already exist offline and by bringing it online and pricing its books competitively, they slowly build up their niche market and have now become the world largest online books sellers.

Therefore, open your eyes wide and start looking at things around you and think of ways to improve them.