If you’re in the IM niche, you probably get the same emails I do asking: “I need to make money YESTERDAY, what do you recommend?”
Or maybe you need some extra money for a project you’re working on right now, or you’ve got an unexpected bill.
Here’s a method I sometimes suggest for earning a quick $500 or $1,000, and what people seem to like about it is how simple and straightforward it is.
Ask yourself what skills and knowledge you possess right now. Maybe you can write really well, or you’re good at building WordPress sites. Maybe you’re a graphic artist, or a photographer or videographer. Maybe you’ve got great people skills and you can act as an affiliate manager or set up joint ventures. Perhaps you can coach people on how to do something specific, or teach them how to find the perfect virtual assistant. I guarantee you have at least one skill or piece of knowledge that others are willing to pay for.
“But I don’t have a skill!” Really? Then you need to find dynamite outsourcers who do have skills you can market. You must find something that others are willing to pay for, and that’s usually a skill and sometimes simply a piece of very valuable knowledge.
Once you’ve identified your skill, set up a web page offering that skill for hire. A simple blog site will do, preferably on your own domain. Check out other similar websites to get ideas on how to set yours up.
Find blogs that are relevant to your skill and allow guest bloggers. For example, if you’re really good at writing engaging blog posts, find blogs about blogging. If you can troubleshoot antique engines over the phone, then find blogs about old cars. These blogs should have a bare minimum of 5,000 readers a month, and be sure they already allow guest posting.
Now write articles that provide awesome content for these blogs. Study each blog and write an article just for them that solves a problem or tells how to do something that is totally relevant to your particular skill. For example, if your skill is article writing, you’re going to tell them how to write the perfect article. If your skill is photographing products, then that’s what you’ll teach. Don’t worry about giving away all your secrets – some people would much rather hire a professional than do the work themselves. Link back to your website in the author’s box.
Don’t know if you spotted it, but there is a flaw in the steps above and here it is…
It can sometimes take WEEKS to get your guest blog post published. How do you speed up the process? One way is to link whatever you are writing about with something that is current in the news, preferably in the last 12 to 48 hours. You might need to get a little creative here but if you can pull it off then blog owners will be racing to publish your post. For example, if you’re a sales letter copywriter and the FTC just handed down new rules for what you can and cannot say in your sales copy, you’re golden.
Another trick for getting published quickly is to provide dynamite graphics, pictures or even infographics to go with your article. In fact, your infographic could even BE your article. And don’t forget to politely make a good case to the blog owners on why they should consider publishing your article as quickly as possible.
Continue writing articles and getting them published until the orders start coming in or your phone starts ringing.
The entire process could take as little as 48 hours or as long as 10 days, depending on how fast you get those first blog posts published.
Added benefit – you’ll make more business connections which can continue to benefit you in the future.
You’ve either got a blog already, or you’re just about to start one. Congratulations! You are one of only 500 million. Now then, knowing that your blog is (statistically speaking) less than a needle in a haystack, how are you going to get it NOTICED and read?
In one word, the answer is BRANDING. You can either throw together a blog and hope it somehow gets found, or you can carefully craft a brand that captures readers’ attention and keeps them coming back for more.
To throw one together, just do what 99.9% of other bloggers do – wing it. Fly by the seat of your pants and hope for the best. In six months (or sooner) you’ll likely be so discouraged you’ll give up.
Building a brand is obviously the way to go. Think Google, Coke, Apple and Nike to understand the huge potential branding holds for your blog. Brands stand for something, mean something and create loyalty in their customers. They stand apart and often far, far above the competition. And best of all, really good brands get remembered and are sought out by consumers.
Here then are 10 tips for building your blogging brand:
Who are you writing to? Exactly who is your blog meant for? Create a clear picture of your ideal reader, including age, profession, family, worries, problems, hobbies, etc. You’ll be writing to this one person rather than trying to talk to everyone. Remember, when you target everyone, you interest no one. But when a certain segment of the population believes you’re writing just for them, you’ll build a loyal following.
Why are you writing to your specific readers? What is your goal? It might be to educate, to persuade, to motivate, etc. Keep your goal in mind at all times.
What are you writing about? This is your topic. It might be physical fitness, marketing, dating, etc. Decide in advance what your message is going to be.
Choose a brandable name. If you’re creating a fitness blog, for example, then you might choose a one or two word brand name that people are likely to remember, rather than a keyword laden name.
HowToGetHealthyAndLoseWeight.com isn’t really brandable – it’s too generic and too keyword rich. Think in terms of “Google” – now that’s a brand. You might try things like FitMonkey.com or SkinnyCakes.com – those are brandable and memorable.
Create a snappy tagline. A name generally isn’t enough – you also want a tagline to help brand yourself, to clarify what you do and to make your blog more memorable. If your blog is on bacon recipes, your url might be DeadPiggy.com and your tagline might be “Bacon lover’s recipes for the non-chef.” See how the tagline not only defines that the site is about bacon recipes, but also narrows the niche to those who don’t consider themselves to be good cooks? This is a prime example of using a tagline to define what you do and WHO you do it for.
Get a logo. Can you picture the Apple logo? Nike? Coke? A logo is an integral part of your brand. Make it clean, simple, eye-catching and unique. It’s worth the extra money to get your logo just right.
Adapt your logo into a favicon. Again, this is an important part of branding your blog.
Use a website design that matches your topic. A header full of balloons and clowns on a website about grieving generally isn’t going to work. Dull colors on a children’s website or a lack of photos of gardens on a gardening website won’t work. Make sure all of the visual elements of your site correspond with your topic.
Choose a writing style and stick with it. Take a lesson from McDonald’s here and give your readers what they’ve come to expect from you. Maybe you’re writing to a technical crowd – then you might write like an engineer. Or perhaps you’re taking on a persona, like the Rich Jerk. Odds are you’re going to write like yourself, which is perhaps best of all because you won’t have any trouble maintaining that style. Consistency is key because if one day you’re writing like the guy next door and the next day you’re writing like an English professor, your readers are going to get confused and likely won’t return.
Promote your blog’s name through social media. Consistently use your blog’s name everywhere. Don’t use “Law Enforcement Weight Loss” on Twitter and “Muscle Cops” on Facebook – no one will realize it’s the same blog you’re referring to. Again, this is another reason to choose a unique, short, brandable name that no one else is using anywhere.
If your blog is going to stand apart from the crowd, then you’ve got to do a little extra work, but that work will likely pay off handsomely in the end.
Not only will you stand apart from the crowd, you’ll also discover that if you ever decide to sell your blog, you’ll be able to charge a great deal more because you took the time to brand it.
No matter how hard you try to prevent it, sooner or later you’ll have prospects land on your 404 error page. When they do, they have a choice – try to find what they were looking for or give up. Care to guess what happens more often? They leave in frustration.
So instead of the usual “Whoops! We’re sorry but what you’re looking for has moved” page, consider customizing your error pages to get these people to do something.
For example, you could give them an option to opt into your list with an offer that is different than your landing page. This can be highly effective. For example…
“Congrats! You just found our secret page where we give away ___. Just tell us where to send it and it’s yours.”
Or you might make them an offer they can’t refuse, such as a great deal on one of your most popular products, or a combination offer for a super low price. Like this…
“Oops! You just landed on our error page, but we’re going to make it up to you. Here’s $xx.xx off of our super hot selling ___.”
For one reason or another, if you have your own website online long enough, you’re going to start getting a stream of people who land on a page of your website that does not exist, and leads them to a 404 error. Plan in advance for this hidden opportunity and you can turn some of the strayed visitors into subscribers and customers.
I’ve seen three different marketers doing a variation of this business, all with the same result – they earn a bare minimum of $5,000/month and usually 2 to 3 times that much.
Two of them are completely unknown marketers who are quietly doing this in their spare time. The third marketer is a fairly big name, and odds are you’ve heard of him. He doesn’t do any of this work himself. He simply outsources the whole thing and brings in over $10,000 a month in profit doing it.
All three of them do this business in the online marketing niche. Essentially, they are helping new marketers to quickly have a money generating business of their own by building it for them. No doubt you’ve seen these ‘business in a box’ packages you can purchase that contain a product, a sales page and so forth, right? You put your own name on them, upload them to your site and start promoting.
There’s nothing wrong with these, and if you have your own list, you can often make good money with them. But these marketers have taken things a step further by creating a unique business in a box for each customer. These are genuinely one of a kind and even include a list.
Here’s how it works:
They start by creating a unique funnel complete with a squeeze page, high-value free gift and unique upsell product. The free gift is usually a plugin, because they have a higher perceived value than a report. You can find plugins with giveaway rights available all over the internet. Buying the rights is usually about $37-47 and then you are free to give it away to your heart’s content.
You can get a coder to rebrand, tweak and/or rename the plugin, usually for $100 or less. This is optional but again, it makes your package unique from anything else out there.
The upsell product is made from good PLR that’s then reworked and rebranded, complete with a new name, new graphics and so forth. It’s important here to use truly quality PLR – don’t skimp on this.
The cost of the content will be perhaps $150 if you rework it yourself, and twice that if you hire someone to do it for you. Since you’re going to price the upsell at around $47, you want the product to look and feel like it is worth at least that much if not more. In other words, make sure it doesn’t look like PLR.
Once the squeeze page and upsell are set up on a domain, it’s time to spend about $250 to purchase 1,000 solo ad clicks. Send them to your squeeze page.
Your goal here is three-fold:
→ Start building a list → Establish that the squeeze page and upsell convert → Make some money on the upsell
From 1,000 solo ad clicks you should hopefully get about 300 new subscribers. Maybe 10 of those will buy the upsell, bringing you about $470. That’s covered some of your costs right there.
Once you’ve done this, it’s time to cash in. You’re going to flip the entire funnel to one buyer. You can use Flippa, Warrior Forum or any of the site flipping websites out there.
You’re offering a proven funnel with a list, a proven squeeze page and a proven upsell page complete with the lead magnet and the product. This is VALUABLE because it’s proven and because it’s unique. Bonus points if you’ve chosen a great name for the URL, lead magnet and upsell.
Once you master how to do these things (and they’re not difficult) you can probably build 3 of these a month all by yourself and still have plenty of time to do other things, too.
And you can flip these packages for $2,500 to $7,500 each. Not bad for a part time business!
There’s a common theory that you’ve got to warm up your list for a few days, or even a few weeks before you try to sell them anything. But if someone came to your website looking for answers and opted into your list – then they are a hot prospect right NOW.
That’s why you should go ahead and make them an offer within the first 7 days. In fact, make them 2 or 3 offers.
Yes, you still need to provide some great content, whether it’s telling captivating stories or giving them hot tips. But at the end of each email be sure to make them an offer they can’t refuse. You may be surprised how many of your prospects become customers in that first week. And as you know, once they buy from you they are far more likely to buy again and again, as long as you continue to make them happy.
But we’re not done yet. In addition to making them offers via email in the first week, you also want to make them an offer IMMEDIATELY.
Let’s say they sign up to get your free report on 10 ways to banish acne. If you’re using single opt-in, they’re now on your list. So instead of sending them to a page that tells them to check their email for their free report, send them to a sales page that tells them the free report will be sent to their email shortly, and in the meantime to check out the one time fantastic offer you have for them.
Depending on your offer, there’s no reason why you can’t convert 10% or far more of these prospects into IMMEDIATE buyers with this simple technique. And best of all, it’s something you set up once and then you can forget about it, earning yourself a nice little additional income while you continue to grow your list.
I get a lot of questions about how to build a business online. Here’s some of the top questions and answers to help you get your own online business started and profitable.
Q. I keep hearing that I’ve got to get people to know me, like me and trust me before they’ll buy from me, but how do I do that?
A. You’ve got two choices, and I recommend you do both. First, position yourself as an expert in your field. If you’re not an expert, surround yourself with experts by interviewing them, letting them guest post to your blog and working with them. Second, be generous. Give away great content that instills confidence in your abilities and expertise that builds your reputation. Offer free tele-classes or podcasts, guest post on popular blogs with info-packed posts, and author a book or report.
The better your free content is, the more people will trust you and your content. As an added bonus they’ll also be more likely to share your content with others, thereby helping you to build your reputation and your following.
Q. Is there a way to reach a wider audience while simultaneously delivering more value to my current customers?
A. You might consider lining up some partnerships or joint ventures in your niche. First, make a list of the areas your customers are interested in. You’re not looking for direct competition here, but rather complimentary sub-niches. For example, if you teach how to do Forex with a certain method, your customers will likely be interested in how to trade on Forex with other methods, and even how to invest in other areas besides the Forex market.
Once you make your list of areas, choose an expert in each that you’d like to partner with. Go online to get their contact information and then approach them with a win-win-win reason of why they should partner with you. They should benefit, you should benefit and of course your customers need to benefit as well.
Do something together that you can offer to both your customers and your partner’s customers, whether it’s a free webinar with an offer at the end, or creating a series of videos together, or even creating a new membership with a free introductory period. This will add value to your customers and theirs, as well as expanding your reach to a wider audience.
Q. I’m just a newbie in my niche – how do I approach the “big dogs” and get their attention so they’ll partner with me?
A. Two words – help them. Comment on their posts, share their stuff through social media, ask if you can re-post their work to your blog, etc. Find a way to be of service to them so that you can get on their radar and start building a relationship for the long haul.
Note that the bigger the person you’re targeting (IE: The larger their following and the greater their influence in your market) the longer it’s going to take to attract their attention as someone they might want to work with. It’s recommended that you begin by targeting more accessible people and work your way up to the giants of your industry.
Also, consider writing a book, devoting one chapter to each “big dog” you are targeting. In this manner you can make friends with these players, and some of them will actually end up promoting your book to their audience.
Q. I keep hearing that I need to “have a story” to share with prospects. What does this mean?
A. In a marketing context, ‘your story’ is what led to you doing what you do today. For example, someone who teaches basketball techniques may have been a lousy basketball player themselves until they learned and mastered certain fundamentals and techniques that caused them to become an all star player. In a nutshell, that’s their story. Of course they’re going to want to embellish with details, such as how rotten they felt when they got laughed at for missing the easiest of shots.
The purpose of having your own story and sharing it with your readers is to make a connection. Someone having trouble making the junior varsity basketball team wants to know you went through some of the same trials and tribulations they are experiencing. This bonds them to you and causes them to be far more receptive to your message. Remember, “birds of a feather flock together.” Once they realize you’ve been through the same struggles they’re currently going through, and that you not only persevered but overcame, they’ll want to know exactly how you did it.
Q. But isn’t that manipulating them?
A. Not at all. You are showing that you have indeed walked in their shoes, experienced their problems and found a solution that works.
I heard a story once that illustrates this beautifully. Imagine you’re in a foreign country and you don’t speak the language. For days you’ve been struggling to understand and be understood. Then all of a sudden someone says hello to you in your language, and asks how you are. How would you react? No doubt you’d rush up to that person and start talking, feeling that you finally are making a connection with someone. Imagine the relief you would feel, finally being able to communicate, to understand and most of all to be understood.
Telling your story does the same thing – it creates a bonding connection that lets the prospect know that you understand what they’re going through because you’ve experienced the same problems they have.
Q. If I want to create a product or success system based upon my own personal experiences, how do I go about that?
A. If you’ve become really successful at something, you have a ready-made product you can sell to others who want to master that same skill. Here’s how to get it into product form: Recall where you were at the beginning of your success. What was the first thing you did? The second? Write down everything that you did and put it into step-by-step form.
Now you’ve got the ___ number of steps to accomplishing ___. Name it something appropriate, get the domain for that name and start marketing it. You could do it as an ebook or audio/video course, or you could offer it as a series of webinars or even one-on-one coaching. Each step will represent one chapter in your book, or one webinar, or one coaching session.
HOT TIP: You can use this exact same process to partner with anyone who’s mastered a skill others want to learn. Interview them extensively to discover exactly how they reached their success and then create the product based on the interviews. Split the profits with the expert and rinse and repeat with more experts or the same expert and different topics.
Q. I have a friend and fellow marketer who’s continually writing posts for other people’s blogs. I think she’s foolish because she’s giving away her valuable info on other blogs instead of using it on her own to boost her standing in the search engines. She says it’s worth it because she’s getting new prospects through her guest posts. Who’s right?
A. You both are correct, to a degree. While it’s true that placing her best content on her own blog may help to get her site ranking in the search engines, SEO is always a gamble. On the other hand, guest posting on popular blogs practically guarantees exposure to new prospects as well as new alliances with the blog owners.
When your friend guest posts, she’s hopefully targeting blogs that already receive plenty of traffic interested in her particular niche. This will help her to gain exposure to new audiences and get her endorsed by leaders in her field (the blog owners).
Q. I’ve contacted blog owners about being a guest blogger for them, but because I’m new in the niche I don’t get much response. What can I do?
A. Begin by posting repeatedly in their comments section. Join in the conversation, add relevant comments, ask good questions and answer other people’s questions. Hyperlink your name to your website to get new visitors (this is automatic when you fill out the comment form – just be sure to fill out the website URL box as well as your name, and your name will become a hyperlink to your URL.)
Use a catchy, memorable photo on all of your posts. Register your email address along with your photo at: en.gravatar.com
By taking part in the community, the blog owner will likely notice you and will be far more receptive next time you offer to do a blog post. In addition, visitors to the blog will also begin to recognize you and visit your blog as well.
Q. I write a newsletter, but lately I get the feeling that no one is reading it. What am I doing wrong?
A. You may need to get back in touch with your market to find out what it is they want to know. Go to forums and watch social media to find out what they’re talking about and especially what they’re asking. Ideally you should be answering their questions and helping to solve their problems, because when you do that they will read every word of your newsletter.
Q. I HATE writing headlines and subject lines, and I don’t like using headline templates. Any ideas?
A. Interestingly enough, your best headline is often buried inside your copy or your email. You already know all the best selling points about your product, how best to present it, who your target market is, and how to craft the best call to action. So forget the headline, write your copy or email, and then go back and reread what you just wrote. Oftentimes you’ll find your jewel of a headline right there inside your copy, just waiting for you to pluck it out and place it at the top.
You already know that a buyer is generally worth ten times more than a prospect who signs up for a free product. Here’s the best way to continually build a list of buyers without having to buy solo ads or place advertising.
Create a simple product that solves one pressing problem in your niche. This might be a video, audio or ebook – it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that it delivers on exactly what it promises.
Create a simple sales page for the product and price it in the $7 to $12 range, depending on prices in your market. This should be an impulse buy for customers, not something they have to think long and hard about.
Use a program such as Rapid Action Profits or JVZoo to manage affiliates and pay 100% commissions. That’s right, you’re going to pay 100% instant commissions to affiliates because you want to give them maximum incentive to send you traffic. Right now you’re looking to build a list of buyers, and by offering 100% commissions your affiliates are going to be happy to send them to you.
Advertise your affiliate program to your list and via social media.
If you like, add an upsell to the offer that pays you. This way you’ll not only be building a list of buyers – you’ll also be making profit from the start.
Market products to your list to make money, and market your affiliate program to your list to continue to bring in more affiliates. Also, advertise your affiliate program inside the product itself. Some of your best affiliates will first be your customers.
Rinse and repeat. Optimally you want 5 to 10 fairly new products that pay 100% instant commissions to affiliates so that your affiliates always have something they can promote.
Continue to build and nurture your list of affiliates – these are equally important as your customers. Give your affiliates your products for free as you create each one, so they can see what they’ll be offering their customers and continue to use social media to find new affiliates.
This strategy can be launched easily and scaled consistently to develop a 6 or 7 figure business online. You wouldn’t be the first and you won’t be the last to follow this model to build a thriving online business.
As an online marketer, there are 3 kinds of speed you need to focus on to be successful.
The speed of your customer service. If a customer emails you today, you need to answer today. If you can’t, hire a virtual assistant. If you can’t do that, then at least set up a help desk that lets customers know what hours you work, so they know when you will be getting back to them.
Your website speed. How long does it take for your website to load? For every second added to a website’s load time, the conversions decrease by a shocking 2% to 7%, and page views are reduced by 1% to 2%. That’s per SECOND. In addition, Google factors in loading speed when determining the ranking it’s going to give your website. I’m not going into a technical tutorial here, so I suggest you Google how to make your site load faster and take it from there – or suffer the consequences.
That sounded dire. Sorry. I’m eager to get to my third point, and that is:
Your own speed. When you have a great new idea, how long does it take you to act upon it? When your customer gives you a brilliant new product request, do you begin today? Tomorrow? Or do you put it off until never? When you’re in the shower and you have a brilliant thought on how to increase subscribers, do you put it into action now? Or will you “get around to it?”
I’ve found that if I don’t act within 24 hours on a new idea, I will almost certainly never act on it. In addition, if I do act but I wait until I get it perfect before rolling it out – it gathers dust and becomes a total waste of my time and resources, along with an almost imperceptible blow to my confidence and self esteem.
I have a theory, and it’s this: Each time you have a brilliant idea but don’t act upon it, you’re one step closer to dying the death of a thousand cuts. Sure, one or two is no big deal, but they add up. Pretty soon you’ve got a long list of brilliant ideas that never saw the light of day, and your business is stalling.
Speed to paramount to success. You almost can’t have one without the other. I encourage you; take something you’ve learned or thought of today, and begin work on it RIGHT NOW. Outline what you need to do to get this idea off the ground, and then do the first thing on the list. When that’s done, cross it off and do the second. Have it done by tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow.
I guarantee; you’ll become addicted to speed and your business, your confidence and your income will thank you.
Is the Internet easy money? A lot of people seem to think so, which might be why we see Internet businesses come and go faster than feathers in the wind. And sadly, while it takes a lot to succeed in business, it really takes very little effort to fail.
But you can turn the tables and give yourself a head start by NOT doing the following:
1. Bringing nothing new. You see what someone else is doing and you copy it. FAIL. Unless you do it faster, better, cheaper, stronger, more effectively, etc.; you won’t make a dent in the market. You’ve got to differentiate your business by either offering something new or something vastly improved.
2. Not prioritizing. If you’re obsessed with trivial things like getting your latest article perfected – rather than focusing on the big things like making sales – you’re going to fail. Decide what’s most important to making your business a success (aka: getting new customers and taking care of your current customers) and spend your time and resources on those activities.
3. Doing everything yourself. Sure, you’re lousy at building websites, but who wants to pay a pro, right? So you spend 4 weeks building a website that frankly looks like it was made by a junior high student doing just enough to get a barely passing “D” grade. Forget about it. Hire outsourcers to do the things you stink at, and focus your efforts on what you do well.
4. Pleasing everybody. You’ve got a product that everybody needs and wants, and you’re going to sell billions of them, right? Probably not. First of all, how do you reach a market of “everybody?” Second, when you try to appeal to everyone, you generally wind up appealing to no one. By targeting your product or service to a specific group of people you vastly increase your odds of success.
5. Not being obsessed. If you’re laid back, working now and then when you ‘feel’ like it, and wondering where the truck full of cash is hiding, then guess what: It’s not coming. You’ve got to put in long hours in the beginning of your business to make it succeed, and if you don’t then you’ll never have a business – only a money sucking hobby that annoys your spouse and wastes what time you do spend on it.
6. Changing course repeatedly. Hey, you were going to write great content about fishing and promote fishing related affiliate products, but you just bought this great course on how to sell backlinks, so you’re going to do that instead, except there’s this other course on how to make a killing servicing the Forex community… STOP! Choose your business model and then strap on a pair of blinders so thick you can’t tell if it’s daytime or nighttime.
Once you’ve got those blinders on, the ONLY things that get through are methods and tools that help you on your present course. Anything that could divert you off course is totally, completely irrelevant and will be shunned and ignored to the full extent of your laser focused abilities.
7. Thinking the universe will do it for you. Yes, you’ve watched The Secret a dozen times and read all the latest books on manifesting your destiny. Now all you need to do is sit back and visualize your success 24/7, and it’ll happen because you’re just that kind of guy (or gal.) Get a grip. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to be because you MAKE it happen, not because the Universe owes you a debt of gratitude for you being, well, you.
8. Being a cautious genius. You’ve got a good idea of what to do, but there’s just a few more things you need to learn before you take that first real step because you’ve got to get it just right. After all, in school it was all the studying that got you the good grades, right?
Well guess what, this isn’t school and studying won’t even get you out the door. Yes, you need to know what you’re doing, but no, you don’t need to write your doctorate before you take action. There are times when you need to throw caution to the wind. If you’re procrastinating, if you’re scared, if you’re “not quite ready,” then it’s time to stop preparing and start DOING.
9. Clutching pennies so tightly they scream. You go with the $1 a month hosting because it saves you $9 a month. Then your website crashes the day of your first launch, and there’s no phone number or online chat to get a hold of anyone.
In fact, reading the fine print on your web hosting site, you discover that they only accept correspondence via carrier pigeon, and then only on the third Tuesday of the month. Yes, you need to watch expenses. No, you do not need to cut corners so badly you ruin your own business.
There is an exception and it’s this: If you happen to have a lot of money sitting around gathering dust, you can hire people to perform most of your online marketing tasks for you. You’ll still need to determine the course of your business and guide it in the right direction, but what you spend in money can save you in time.
Then again, having a lot of money to throw at a new venture is often its own recipe for failure, so beware and be careful if you plan to employ this method.
10. Screwing your customers. What’s important is making the sale, not making the customer happy, right? Wrong. Refunds, bad reviews and disastrous customer service will ruin your business faster than termites will eat tree houses in the tropics. Take care of your customers, give them more than they expect, thank them and then ask what else you can do for them. Remember: No customers = no business.
11. Failing terrifies the stuffing out of you. Maybe you shouldn’t do ____ because you might fail. (You fill in the blank.) Guess what – failure is GOOD. Without failure there is no success. The only person who has never failed is the person who has never attempted anything in their life. Do you want to be that person? No. Then expect that you will fail now and then, and when you do, you’re going to pick yourself right back up and keep going.
There you have it – 11 ways to fail or succeed. The choice, my friends, is up to you.
Think you don’t have anything to share? Think again. Your life experiences along with what you’re learning can make great content. All you need to do is take notice of it, seize it before you lose it, and transform it into an article, blog post or video.
For example, what mistake did you, one of your clients or one of your colleagues recently make that others can learn from? Everyone likes to hear about other people’s boo-boos, and it’s always cheaper and less painful to learn from others’ mistakes rather than our own. So keep your eyes and ears open and you’ll find a ton of content with this idea alone.
While you’re looking for mistakes, keep your eyes open for success stories. What did they accomplish and how did they do it? By learning from the success of others we can find vital clues on how to create our own successes.
Sometimes the real story isn’t in the success but in the challenge they overcame to reach that success. If you or someone else discovered a new way to break through an obstacle, it’s guaranteed that other people will want to hear about it, too.
Has someone given you a terrific piece of advice? How did you use it and what happened? Or have you discovered a new tool with a benefit too good not to share with others? Then you’ve got great content in the making.
Maybe you’ve got a unique solution to a problem others are having. This kind of content is so good you can sell it. Or perhaps you’ve got a story about something that didn’t work at all – others will want to know to steer clear of it.
The real trick to creating great content is simple – look for it. As you read, work, interact with others and go about your day, always keep a lookout for things to share on social media. Keep a notebook in your pocket and jot the ideas down and you’ll find they rapidly multiply into more than you can even use. You’ll never be stuck for great content again because you’ll see it truly is all around you.
