Do What The Experts Say You Can't
Remember the days of yore - the ones before there was the Internet? No, you're not dating yourself - it really wasn't that long ago. But the advent of the 'net has changed how business is done pretty drastically in that short space of time, and if you want to squeeze a living from that massive online marketplace, you need to know something about how the rules have changed.
Pre-web, you could crack open a newspaper, check the business opportunities section and find ads galore, all promising to teach you how to make money from home. You'd pony up with a $10 check, they'd mail you back a package teaching you how to sell their package. That self-serving formula hasn't changed much; you'll still find plenty of those online, but they aren't charging you $10 for it anymore, that's for sure.
But there's another kind of teacher that you can find online that isn't trying to sell you on selling them. They really want to teach you how to make money and aren't trying to fleece you out of what money you have. But they often have one problem: they promote their way of making a success on the Internet as the only true, genuine, workable way to succeed, and proclaim everybody else's methods to be useless at best, and a scam at worst. They take what worked for them as a universal truth, and really they're not wrong, exactly. They just suffer from tunnel vision. You've probably heard the parable about the blind men and the elephant - each one felt a different part of the beast and made their separate (and incorrect) conclusions about it based only on the part they came into contact with . That's what a lot of these online gurus are doing.
If you're trying to learn what "really works" when it comes to making money on the Internet, you are no doubt completely confused by what your research has brought up so far. Let's dispel some of these myths.
Theory One
In these days of blogs and social media, you need to prove your authority for your site to succeed. build your traffic and your authority first, then monetize later.
Theory One Shot Down
While this method can certainly work, it doesn't take into account what your personal style of blogging might be. Perhaps you don't feel yourself to be an authority on a topic you want to turn into a business. If you prefer to write posts that come across like an online diary - if you have your smiling picture up on your "About" page - then the relationships you're forming with the visitors to your blog is a friendly, cozy, interactive one. Once you have a lot of traffic and want to monetize your blog, you'll find yourself in the uncomfortable position of trying to solicit money from people who have become your "friends." You can either establish yourself from Day One as an authoritative source of information, or you can be a blogging buddy. You can't really do both.
Theory Two
You can't be anonymous. People don't respond to a gravatar...they need to see a face.
Theory Two Shot Down
Have you ever heard of lolcats? The icanhascheezburger.com site launched in January 2007. By June, they were getting half a million hits per day. Nobody knew who ran the site. In July, the two founders were interviewed by Time Magazine and told their interviewer that they preferred to remain anonymous. It wasn't until they sold their little hobby site for 2 million dollars that we learned their names: Kari Unebasami and Eric Nakagawa. Anonymity didn't seem to hurt them any, eh?
Theory Three
If you have a blog, you must post often or you'll lose traffic.
Theory Three Shot Down
Ask Frank Warren. His postsecret.com blog gets updated once on Sundays, and he landed a multi-book contract with a major publisher not long after it swept the web. It's also in the top 100 sites online.
Theory Four
The fastest way to build a list is to give away freebies.
Theory Four Shot Down
Well, this can work, but you could also be labouring to build a list of freebie hounds that never, ever end up buying anything from you. It's a crapshoot.
Theory Five
Your website, blog posts or mailing list should be about whatever you're selling.
Theory Five Shot Down
On the surface of it, this makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Problem is, it doesn't necessarily reflect reality. You have a brand of socks that you think are the bee's knees, but do you really want to read a newsletter about them? You want to join a mailing list and hang out in forums and get updated blog posts about your favourite nose hair trimmer?
Ask a few gurus what they'd do about trying to sell a product that nobody really wants to read about, and most of them will tell you not to bother trying to sell it. But people do sell these things online, and make a very nice living for themselves doing it.
How do you manage that when you can't stay "topical" or "targeted"? Well, find a way to promote an idea that's related to what you're selling. If you're trying to sell socks, consider talking about the fashion industry in your posts. If you're selling nose hair trimmers, you could write about hygiene or personal grooming in general. If you are selling your services, for instance, home renovation, roofing, decks, etc., how about creating a site with barbeque recipes and kids crafts, with testimonials from your clients telling about how they loved entertaining on their new deck and that the kids are crazy about their new playroom.
People will love your cool articles and fun stuff, and return to your site to buy what you're selling them. Just talk about what people want to hear and they'll remember the connection.
Theory Six
Do what you love, and the money will follow. It won't even seem like work.
Theory Six Shot Down
Again, another idea that makes sense on first viewing. What better way to spend your life than getting paid for doing something you love? But think about it. What was a leisure pursuit, a way to relax, a way to express yourself, will soon become a full-time job, with pressures, deadlines, expectations, and endless compromise as you cater to each new "boss" that pays you to give them what they want. How long do you think it will take before you have no desire to look another doll, or sewing machine, or kit car, or a pile of PC parts in the face again? There's nothing wrong with making your hobby into a business if that's what you really want. But considering the downside, it's also perfectly possible and often desirable to go into something else altogether, keeping your hobbies and business completely unrelated.
Theory Seven
You can succeed in a field you know nothing about.
Theory Seven Shot Down
It's not tough to see how having a lot of knowledge in a particular field can help you achieve great success in it. And sometimes it's even a prerequisite: you probably wouldn't take flying lessons from someone who'd never flown a plane.
But do you suppose that every successful marketer, website designer or ghostwriter is an expert in every field they're asked to apply their expertise to? Of course not. So what did they do? They found out What They Needed To Know. If you know how to properly research an industry, you can sell anything to anyone in any field and make a success of it.
So don't take what someone trying to sell you their "Make Millions Online" program says as gospel truth. They may not be trying to mislead you, but they may have a fatally narrow focus and a "can't do" attitude that won't reassure you that there really is an infinite number of ways to make money online. If you keep an open mind about the possibilities, you really can make the dream work for you.
Network marketing training success is more about self-education that you can share with others when asked. Below are a few tips to keep you knowledgeable about network marketing training concepts:
1) Use a detailed and well-written business plan to help you with your network marketing career. You should review key points in accomplishing your targets and objectives. Keep data on each aspect of your business, that is from customers up to sales.
2) Set up a tutorial and other network marketing tools on your website. Provide free resources that teach people how to do things the best way they can. You will then have the Internet visitors stay longer on your website and there will be a greater chance that they will sign up with you in your company as well. Providing value is the key.
3) Keep people as your priority and not your products. You should show people the benefits they will obtain from the products and services that you offer them.
4) Be enthusiastic about the products and services you are interested in. Being enthusiastic about a product or service will be beneficial to your success as clients share the same interest as you do. Although not everyone will have the same interests you do, you only need a few to have the same passion for creating a great team.
5) Maintain a list of email contacts that are essential for your business. Keep your contact list up to date on not only what is happening in your business but generic useful information to the industry. Visit forums and other industry news sites to obtain this information if your company does not provide it.
6) Assure yourself and people around you that you keep on striving towards achieving new heights. Whether you are just a beginner with network marketing or a seasoned professional, it is always important to set goals you have to achieve yourself. This way, you are always actively engaged motivating everyone to succeed as part of your own regular network marketing training.
7) Keep learning new approaches, techniques, and strategies to maintain the robustness of your network marketing company. Spend some time daily reading materials on topics like social media and home business. Attend webinars and teleseminars of highly successful or top earning marketers.
8) Be willing to get help from others when you are experiencing some problems. Look for helpful internet resources or contact your company with whom you are connected when you need to reach out.
9) As much as you can, try to learn from the experts and emulate their best practices. This way, you can avoid committing mistakes that they have previously experienced.
10) Avoid taking shortcuts when applying network marketing techniques. Much of network marketing success is through perseverance and determination. Although it will take more time to set up your marketing at the start, it will definitely pay off in the long run because you will be giving more importance to quality over quantity to get more results.
11) Be patient and persistent because results do not happen overnight. Start up businesses have many things in common and consider yourself like them. With a positive outlook and action, your business will gradually start to grow bigger each day.
12) Sit back, relax, and let your contacts lead the conversation. Use social media, auto-responders, and other internet tools to become more successful in your communication.
As mentioned earlier, network marketing training is more about training yourself continuously to apply consistently effective approaches, methods, and strategies to get quality and long turn results, and then teaching your team to do the same. By applying these tactics, you and your team will know exactly how to train for success.
OK2B1.COM
Internet Marketing is all about matching the right products up with the right customers through effective marketing practices. However, the amount of income you earn can be limited by the number of prospects you can reach with your marketing methods and materials.
If you are an experienced salesperson and selling is your passion, this may not be a problem. You can pick your market and pick your products and you will enjoy a high lifestyle.
If direct selling and direct marketing is not your area of expertise, you may want to find an online marketing opportunity that allows you to sponsor new affiliates into the business and rewards you when you guide or train them to duplicate the success strategies outlined in the company training.
When you apply the process of duplication in this way you can expand your market reach and far exceed any results you might achieve working on your own. It may take some time and effort to successfully sponsor a team of enthusiastic affiliates, but the thing is the group sales generated by the affiliates you sponsor will add to your own sales volume, so you will increase your success exponentially with each active member you add to your team. That is what makes it well worth the effort.
The first step is finding a reputable supplier or affiliate marketing company that offers a compensation plan centred on team building and group sales volume. You can do some Internet research to find a suitable company. Be sure to select a company that has a compensation plan and the kinds of products you are comfortable promoting.
Consider the quality and thoroughness of their affiliate training program, their marketing materials and their support system. Since you will be committing your time and attention to the company, you will want to feel completely confident in their support and dependability.
Once these criteria have been met, the next step is to immerse yourself in the company materials to become totally familiar with the products, the training program and the marketing materials. Remember, your aim is to become a team leader, not just another marketer or salesperson.
The more familiar you are with everything, the more confident you will feel when you begin to assemble your marketing team. The interesting thing is that most people are followers and are looking for leadership. When you demonstrate confidence and leadership, people will follow.
Spend some time doing the business and working with the marketing materials to learn how to use them effectively. As a leader, your followers will look to you for answers and for help in solving issues they may have when using the materials and prospecting for customers themselves. Get some experience so you know how best to respond to help them.
When you are ready to begin building your marketing team, the next step is to focus on duplication.
With each new member you sponsor onto your team, point them to the company training, recommend the best marketing resources to begin with and how to use them effectively, encourage them to schedule a specific amount of time every day to work on building their business, counsel them to set personal sales goals, and be readily available to answer questions or provide any necessary information or encouragement they may require.
Sponsoring and duplication can be your keys to Internet Marketing success. Your commitment to becoming a confident and effective leader will be the foundation of your achievement. Make that your highest priority and you will succeed in grand style.
OK2B1.COM
Two Schools of Thought on Prospecting for Customers
There are two schools of thought on prospecting for customers. It may not matter so much which school you subscribe to. What matters is that you choose one and learn to apply your lessons effectively.
Some marketers go for quantity. They believe that the way to prospect for customers is simply to fill their marketing funnel with anybody and everybody and hope that something they are selling appeals to some of those people.
Other marketers go for quality. They believe that it is more productive to target and pre-qualify their prospective customers before they enter the sales funnel.
Whichever school you choose, it is advisable to market to those prospects in a respectable, responsible manner because your image and reputation as a marketer and business person are on the line. If you deluge your prospects with unwanted marketing messages, you risk upsetting them even before they've had a proper chance to check out your offers.
An image is important because selling another item to an existing customer is usually easier than persuading a new prospect to buy something.
When going for quantity, your aim is to reach as many people as you can as quick and economically as possible. This marketing method typically uses the direct approach.
Offline marketers use the traditional mail system to send flyers and other direct mail pieces to every residence in a particular location. In a similar way, online marketers use email and other message delivery systems that may be available on Social Media sites and membership sites.
The risk in marketing this way is that your message may be going to disinterested parties or worse yet, to people who are offended by unsolicited messages. Even so, some marketers believe that the risk is worth the promise of attracting a percentage of paying customers. They say that it is a "numbers game" and if you reach more people, you will make more sales.
When going for quality, on the other hand, your aim is to attract only those prospects who have a keen interest in the item or category of the item being promoted.
Offline marketers may also use the traditional mail system and/or email marketing to send promotional materials and messages to prospects. The difference is that they pre-qualify the recipients in some way. This may involve purchasing a categorised mailing list or using a service or a method that pre-qualifies the interests of the prospective recipients.
The benefit of targeting customers in this way is that first, you know they will be interested, and second, chances are they will not be offended by the message: just as long as you do not flood them with messages and offers.
One other method of pre-qualifying your prospects is to do so through advertising. This can be used online or offline. You would post or print advertisements that appeal to your targeted prospects in a way that encourages or motivates them to visit your website or your sales page or email or call you by telephone for more information. This is effective because when a potential customer comes to you, you have a much better chance of making a sale.
When prospecting for customers, some marketers prefer quantity while others prefer quality. The choice is yours and whatever method you choose, aim to be a respectful marketer. It pays dividends in the long run.
OK2B1.COM
Amazon and your list
They say, (who is they anyway) that the money is in the list.
What is a list?
Well, this is the people that you know. Or the people that subscribe to your site,or the people that follow you on Facebook, or the people that follow you on G+, even the people that follow your pinboards.
Be creative, you know lots of people.
In my case, I took a chance and collected a bunch of the people in my personal address book.
My thought was that around Christmas, many of my family might use Amazon to buy presents. Those people also have friends and connections that also use Amazon. I wanted to get my Amazon link out to people so that they might use my link to buy when they use Amazon.
So I wrote an e-mail and addressed it to all of the people that I knew that might help me with my goal of upping my sales. I attached my affiliate link about 6 times and explained to them what I needed and how they could help me out. The response was incredible.
Not only did my family and friends embrace the concept but the click rate on Amazon has gone through the roof. My nephew, who is in College and a pretty popular guy has forwarded my e-mail to all of his friends, My Cousin has done the same with all of her friends.
You may be a SAHM (stay at home mum) but I bet your network is out there and active.
The bonus is you get to reconnect with all of the people you know in this world and build your network at the same time.
Hope this helps
OK2B1.COM.
