Are you focused on making money in your business? I mean really lasered in on maximizing your potential profits?

It may seem like a silly question. After all, ALL businesses concentrate on making money, that’s their purpose, right?

Unfortunately too many business owners get bogged down in trying to figure out how to increase the money pile on the bottom line. You know- leaning up their six sigmas, maximizing the people they’ve got working for them, increasing margins wherever and however they can.

If you really want to increase the money you’re making, though, you should be focused on one thing: the customer.

Think about how the last time you, as a customer of someone else’s business, had a great customer experience. One where maybe the person on the other end that you were dealing with went the extra mile for you or did something extraordinary in order to make sure that not only were you a customer, but a very SATISFIED customer.

Now think about how it made you feel.

It felt pretty darn good, didn’t it? It may have made you so appreciative that you told several friends or people that you know about it.

Now think about the opposite encounter, a bad customer experience that you have recently had. 

When was the last time you as the customer were given extremely poor service, or even mistreated, and how did that make you feel? Horrible I bet. It may have put you in a bad mood for the rest of the day, and according to statistics you may have told even MORE people you know about how you were mistreated than you did when you were given great service.

It’s been said that the typical person tells about 10 other people when they have a bad customer experience. That’s 10 other people you will most likely never get as future customers, so minimizing those experiences for your customers is essential. I say “minimizing” because the old adage that “you can’t please all of the people all of the time” is true. However even when a customer asks for a refund you should do so promptly and courteously. You may make an inquiry to see if their problem can be resolved, but if not then simply accept it and move on.

By learning to give great customer service, even to unsatisfied customers, you will really separate your business from your competitors, and you will see far greater returns while building up the all important elements of trust and honesty with your existing clients.

In short, take care of your customers, create a fantastic customer experience, and the business will take care of itself.

Do you have a story where you received either outstandingly good or outstandingly bad customer service? Please leave a comment below!

Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We all have heard the saying that the “money is in the list”. It follows that in order to run an effective email campaign you must have your list actually READ your emails. Without a good title someone that is busy may simply glance at your subject and either immediately trash it, or save it for another day and never get back to it, which is just as bad for us as marketers.

So how DO you craft an email that compels someone to spend some of their time actually reading what you’ve worked so hard to bring to their attention?

I recently came across an interesting read at Copyblogger referencing research at Aweber which shows that the single best subject line that practically guarantees your email will be opened is, “You Are Not Alone”.

You Are Not Alone.

Think about it. These 4 words have an average open rate of greater than 90%. Pretty powerful!

Why would this be, and what can we learn from it?

Humans are social creatures. We want to feel like we’re part of a group and not left out. This feeling can be traced back to early childhood, if not earlier. Remember forming groups on the playground to play a game? No one wanted to be the last kid picked for a team. We also like to know that if we have a problem or condition that there are others in the same situation, and hopefully those that have come before have the solution that will help us in our current dilemma or condition. So “You Are Not Alone” appeals to one of the most primal human needs, that of belonging and acceptance.

Now that we have a better understanding of why it works how can we use this information to generate other emails which stand a similar chance of higher open rates?

The first thing you want to do is put yourself in your readers shoes as you write your titles. Create a feeling of empathy for their situation. If you can come across as someone who understands what your list’s problems are then you stand a much better chance of having your recipients want to open your email in order to see what you are going to say next.

Next, provide a hint of a solution. “You Are Not Alone” implies that there is a glimmer of hope, a possible cure for the reader’s ills inside. Reassure your recipients that you have the answer they are seeking. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it is a very powerful motivator for humans as well.

Finally, make sure you are delivering on your promise of help. The more times you provide solid, reliable information to your list the more you will reinforce yourself in your readers minds as a messenger of hope, and the better your chance that your next message will be opened as well.

Image: Felixco, Inc. Used with permission

Fortunately (at least for me!), creating a thriving online business is not really rocket science. While some people can struggle online for sometimes years or more, there are really only three things you need to do to be able to have a profitable business on the Internet.

Those three things are:

1. Create a product
2. Drive traffic
3. Convert sales

That’s it! It sounds pretty simple, right? It is really. And in that regard doing business online is no different than doing business in the offline world.

Think about any business, even a bricks-and-mortar shop on your street corner, and they are still only doing those three things. Let’s take one of the biggest companies in the world that everyone is familiar with, McDonald’s. They obviously have several products on their menu, and are creating more all the time. They then advertise in print and media, and the goal of that advertising is to drive traffic into their stores where hopefully they will convert those potential customers into sales of their food products.

As with most things in life, however, the actual doing of those three processes, even online, is more complicated than it seems. The devil’s in the details, as they say. Gone are the days where you could just put up a storefront on the Internet and have people come find you. The Internet has become way too big to rely on chance!

To do business online you must have some sort of product. It can be something you create yourself, or you can become an affiliate for someone else and market THEIR product, but you have to have something to sell. Even if you simply build niche websites and rely on Google adSense you are in effect selling people the information in the ads, consummating the business transaction when they click on them.

Furthermore, there are a myriad of ways to drive traffic to your website, some of which didn’t even exist a short while ago. The rise of social networking sites like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter makes driving traffic a constantly changing game. Add in article marketing, SEO, online forums, newsgroups, online directories, E-zines, etc, etc, etc and there are many, many ways to get those coveted eyeballs on your content.

Finally, once you have your prospect sitting in front of your business proposal, it can be a daunting task to actually convince them that they need your product. You must make an irrefutable case for why someone cannot live without your product before they will part ways with their hard-earned money!

So remember: fail at any of the three tenets and your business will be doomed as well. And the next time you are analyzing your online business, ask yourself which of the three tenets is the weakest. Put your focus there, and you will get the biggest bang for your online buck!

And here it is, the new look of the blog!

In the last couple of days I have installed the new theme. This one is called Flexibility, and true to its name there are a TON of things you can change with it, much more than the old Prosense theme. I’m still getting used to it but I have to admit I like it much better, and I hope you do too.

You may have noticed that I also have a spiffy new header at the top, courtesy of Steve at GFX-1. It was great working with Steve to come up with it–he was very accommodating, and didn’t bat an eye when I asked for several revisions. A true pro all the way, thanks Steve! If you need some graphics done for your website, or a product launch, or any other kind of design I’d recommend them for sure.

By the way, I’m sure you may have caught the blog’s new tagline: “Create. Believe. Achieve.” I feel those three words are very powerful, and are at the core of making money online.

CREATE. Whether it’s a new product, or a website, or even a blog, you must CREATE something first as a basis for everything else.

BELIEVE. Naturally you must not doubt for a second that you will be successful. There will be stumbles along the way, but you must not let that stop you. At the same time, there are many people trying to make it online that flit around from shiny object to shiny object, like a butterfly, trying one thing after another without really putting all of their effort fully into one proposition before moving on to another. You must BELIEVE in what you are doing, completely and without reservation.

ACHIEVE. This is where all of the hard work is going to pay off. This is where you start to see money coming in, and although it may take a bit of time, once you ACHIEVE it you will find yourself pushing harder and doing more because of the results!

So, all in all it’s been a very good couple of days. In just a bit I will be adding a little Adsense, and I know niche selection is coming up shortly too. I can’t wait!

As you may remember from this post, I have been taking part in John Thornhill’s One Month Mentoring course in order to learn how to create and manage online businesses. This blog, you may recall, is one step in that process. You may also remember in that short review that I gave the course very high marks so far.

Well, I’m very excited and happy to say that I have been so impressed with John and his mentoring that I have now signed up for a full year’s worth of coaching from him! Woohoo! I’m really looking forward to following his lessons, learning new skills, and making new friends and future business partners through his forum. I really feel that having a mentor is one of the best investments you can make in learning something new, and John is a class act all the way!

One of the differences in the more detailed coaching is that by the end of it I will have completed several products of my own, and they will be fully ready to go to market. I’m excited, and at the same time a bit nervous about what niche or area I should go into, but I also have learned to trust that when the time comes the right ideas will present themselves!

I also feel like I should be setting weekly goals for you to follow along with, but the structure of John’s program is such that the only real goal I can set is to do each task as he sets it out before me, because I don’t really know what I’ll be doing specifically each week until I get the lesson.

As far as progress on the blog goes, I have ordered my header and footer graphics which I hope to have green lighted and installed in the next several days. And beyond that I know there are several changes to the look here that John is going to have me make, so check back shortly and you should start to see some real differences!

There are many things that can help a person achieve their goals, but there is one thing in particular that a person must have if they want to truly achieve what they dream of.

Do you know what that is?

Could it be some kind of special training or knowledge? Well, Albert Einstein had no special training, and  he went on to become the greatest physicist of the 20th century.

Is it having a mentor or knowing someone on the “inside” of the industry you want to be in, perhaps someone successful that you’d like to model? If so then how did Bill Gates achieve his success, since the personal computer industry did not exist when he started out?

Is it simply having money to start a business, so that you can leverage that money into something much greater? Well, plenty of people have started out with nothing except an idea.

Is it something less tangible, like determination?

Determination is close, but actually the most important thing you need in order to be successful is…

PERSERVERANCE!

[pur-suh-veer-uhns]

noun

So obstacles are simply a natural part of the learning process. We all face them at certain times, but it’s how we react to them that makes all the difference between achieving our goals or giving up.

One thing I know quite a bit about due to one of my offline businesses is home improvement.

This weekend I found myself laying floor tile. I don’t know if you have ever laid down floor tile, but it’s important to make sure that each piece is lined up just right with every other piece. As you can imagine, a small error on one side of the room can really throw off the other tiles when you get to the opposite end of the room.

What does this have to do with Internet Marketing, you may be asking?

Well, have you ever had a project or some other goal that you wanted to achieve but felt that you lacked knowledge to get started? Or maybe you felt overwhelmed by some massive undertaking, not really knowing how you were going to get from the beginning to the end. Or perhaps you know someone who can never quite take action, and gets endlessly caught up  in researching or planning.

For example, I know one guy that has been proclaiming every year that THIS is the year he’s going to upgrade his ancient PC. He plans out exactly what he’s going to buy–the latest CPU, with the fastest memory, a new graphics card with a shiny new high-definition monitor, the works! Then he hears about Intel or some other company that has plans to release some new whiz-bang computer technology, but the technology is not coming until NEXT year, so he delays his purchase. And sure enough, next year when he proclaims that he’s finally going to upgrade his computer he finds out about some OTHER new feature that is coming, and so on and so forth.

My point is that when taking on a goal or project, it is not necessary for “all of the tiles to line up” perfectly. Like my friend who is endlessly waiting for the perfect moment to upgrade his PC, there will never, ever be a time when the whole universe aligns perfectly in sync with our wishes. Or perhaps I should say that we will never realize such a moment has occurred until it’s long past.

Have you ever heard the saying “when the student is ready the teacher will appear”?

The one thing we CAN do to ensure our progress and eventual success in something, whether it’s with Internet Marketing or any other endeavor we want to tackle in life, is to TAKE ACTION. We may be unsure of our processes, and not quite sure how things will work out, but in taking steps toward our goals we often find that the universe provides us with exactly what we need, at the exact moment we need it.

Carpe Diem!

This week I started a month long mentoring training program by John Thornhill on internet marketing and creating online businesses.

If you haven’t heard of John Thornhill before, he’s an incredibly likeable and personable chap from the UK who is very successful in IM. I came across him on the Warrior forum and his course was so silly cheap for what he was offering that I thought he was either full of rubbish or the most insane person on the planet. But after doing some research he seemed genuinely to be one of the good guys in the field, the kind that sincerely just wants to help his students succeed, so I took him up on his offer. And even though I’m only in the first week of his course, I have to say that I definitely see why he’s so highly regarded!

His instructions are very detailed, and he breaks down lessons into very easy to follow and manageable steps. His service and support has also been exemplary when I’ve had questions, which I’m sure is no small effort since over 1000 people signed up to take it.

This blog itself is a result of his class so hopefully as I get further along you’ll be able to see the changes take shape that I learn.

If you’d like to check him out his blog is http://www.johnthornhill.com.

Thanks John!!

I’m not ENTIRELY new to making money on the internet.

Several months ago, on some random back-alley of the information superhighway, I learned about “niche” websites. If you’re not familiar with them, they are smaller websites usually devoted to some specific search-term that people consistently look up on the big search engine sites, aka Google.  Once you create one of these “niche” websites the idea is to put ads on them, so if people are looking for more information than your website has then they end up clicking on the ads, and you receive a little bit of money each time someone does that.

When I learned about this business, I thought “Wow! I can make a website and bring in passive income from it for years without doing anything else, sounds great! I’m in!!”

So I learned all I could about building such a site–researching the right topics and keywords, laying out articles and images, how big to make each article, how to get ranked in Google so people would actually visit your niche site, and on and on. It was a great learning experience, and I actually got a few sites up and running. Did I make any money? Not exactly. But then something happened on the way to building my niche website empire.

I started losing what I perceived to be the value of them. Let me explain.

A lot of these smaller niche sites are simply designed, many with regurgitated information from the internet, with the sole purpose being, however cleverly concealed, to get people to click one of the ads. I had to ask myself, did I really want to spend my time and energy creating a site in the hopes that some unknown visitor would end up clicking one of my ads, so I could make $.10?

And the answer when I really thought about it, was no. I want to HELP people. And although there are a great many niche websites that have helpful information, I think my time and energy can be better spent with a different business and monetization strategy while at the same time providing a much more valuable service to people. In short, provide more VALUE.

So while I don’t yet have the clear-cut road map with all of the answers to where I want to be, my hope is that this blog will be the jumping off point for providing more value to you. And hopefully a bit of income.

Oh, and would you like to know how much I made from those niche websites I built?

$.01… which Google has yet to send me, I might add…

I’d like to thank whichever one of you was the one who clicked one of my ads- gracias amigo!

Hello everyone!

Well, here we go! This blog is going to chronicle my journey into making money online.

As I begin this blog with these first baby steps, I imagine I’m probably like most of you. I have a full-time job and several other commitments and obligations but at the same time I’m totally intrigued (and psyched!) about learning how to make extra money through the internet. Let’s be honest-who wouldn’t like the freedom to work anywhere they want, with no limits on how much you can make, and no boss to answer to, right? Right!!!

So I’m committing to documenting this whole process. Everything, right from the beginning. My hope (other than what I’ve mentioned above, of course) is that other people starting out will be able to follow me and the progress I make. I know it’s been said before that “if I can do it, anyone can do it!” and I aim to prove that point. Believe me, if I can do it, there will be no excuses why anyone else can’t!  Wait, make that WHEN I do it!

So thank you for reading and following along. I expect a grand adventure in the days and weeks to come, filled with plenty of ups and downs, education, mishaps, and stories to tell, but yes at the end (or at least somewhere along the way) a success or two!

Off and running indeed.