After taking some Rest and Relaxation I find myself more eager than ever to push ahead on some of our projects for the second half this year.
What projects do you have in the work?
I have always found that if you plan 1-year out, split the year into two 6-month periods you can plan a major project or two in each half this works out quite well from a progress point of view.
More on that in one of this week’s Online Marketing Tips
1. List Building – AGAIN!
Sometimes I feel like a broken record, and admittedly we have even launched businesses in the past where our list strategy and sales funnel has not been properly thought out.
Earlier this week I published a blog post with a video sharing some powerful tips and examples of “squeeze pages” as well as proper, high conversion, high profit sales funnel tactics to bring in more hot leads and more sales for your online business.
It’s so easy to ignore list building…to focus all of your energy on finding/creating products and then setting up your main sales pages – setting up landing pages and a sales funnel seems like a lot of work for most people.
The fact is though that 75% of our profit comes from customers who are on our list…the question is then, are you willing to put a day’s worth of work into creating a landing page and sales funnel if you know it could boost your business by at least 300%?
After I wrote the blog post earlier this week, sure enough long-time online marketer John Reese came out with a new launch sequence that started with a very good example of a squeeze page…here is a snapshot so you can see what it looks like (PS. a simple squeeze page like this with a hard-hitting, short report can easily get you 40%+ conversion rate and quickly build you a list from nothing)
Many people believe creating a squeeze page like this takes huge effort, the fact is this page itself can be created in minutes using a tool like Optimize Press 2.0 (which comes with several squeeze page templates and works with a WordPress Blog) and an Autoresponder like this one for list management and to kick out (deliver) the actual download whether that be a special report like this one or another deliverable such as a web page, video, etc…
2. What Do You Do Next?
How many of us have been stuck at first base wanting to start a serious, full-time online business but can’t quite figure out what to do next?
Here is a list that we use when helping people put together a solid operational plan to take their desire to start an online business to reality in 6-weeks or less
a) Choose a business – select a market and business model that fits your strengths and desires as well as meets strict commercial viability criteria. Every truly successful business person I know is successful because they have aligned their passion (in some way) with a viable business idea and model
b) Pick or create your product. If you know your market and know roughly what business you would like to be in, then you need to develop ideas around products, then test those ideas and eventually offer them to your customers for profit. You can start with offering someone else’s products (by being an affiliate) and eventually move to having your own products in your market to maximize your profit
c) Develop a go-to-market plan. How will you reach your market. The options are: written content (ex blogs, articles, magazine content, syndicated content, etc…), video (your own video blog, YouTube videos, cable TV, etc…), paid advertising (Facebook, Google, Ad Networks, solo ads, etc…), Affiliate Partners (you go out an build a partner network). Over time you may incorporate two or more of these into your business, but to start, you want to focus on one and get good at it early
d) Create initial websites, landing pages/squeeze pages, sales funnel (list leading to your sales pages) and sales pages themselves
e) Daily action plan – your daily plan needs to highlight the critical tasks that matter to generating leads and sales in your business and each day there needs to be action against that plan
What you do next depends on where you are starting.
If you are at Step “A” and haven’t even decided on the market or business you want to be in, then dig in, learn about the various online business models and types out there. You can even jump in and begin testing some markets with initial blogs or intro products to see if you can make it work.
If you are further along and identify traffic or perhaps sales conversions as the issue, then you want to focus instead on your sites, your “message to market match” and your sales funnel – that is what will impact your success the most.
If you want step-by-step help, templates, shortcuts, processes and mentorship then Information Marketer’sZone is the place you will get it…this site will truly fast-track your desire to build your own full-time online business.
3. Mental Conditioning
When I first started my online businesses I had an advantage that many others did not (and do not) have.
I was mentally conditioned for success.
The 5-years prior to launching my first online business was spent preparing myself, growing and developing to improve my beliefs (in myself and in what I wanted to achieve), in my own abilities and in my skills to achieve beyond what I had achieved to that point in my life.
Things like —
- Learning to recognize the passion and strengths inside of me to know what I really wanted (not always what I had previously thought I had wanted)
- Building confidence to overcome fear and reach for my goals despite anxiety and frustration along the way
- Figuring out that I did not have to settle for where I was and that I could expect more of myself and that doing so would help those around me as well as myself
- Discovering techniques to control fear and anxiety like meditation, affirmations, visualizations, etc…that helped put “scary” situations into perspective allowing me to move beyond where I had been to date
- Becoming better at networking, social situations, leveraging and respecting those around me and all of the skills required to collectively allow others to help me as I helped them
- Understand basic psychology and persuasion, empathy and communication – the skills most important to understanding how to reach others in meaningful, effective ways
To me, these are all essential personal growth elements that entrepreneurs must possess as they start, and then grow, their enterprises.
Commit to at least 30-minutes of personal growth each day, there is no better investment in my mind than turning yourself into a happier, better, more effective human being.
This Week’s Message
Let me leave you with this thought before you get ready to start your next week of progress and development…
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other” – Abraham Lincoln
Ensure that you truly believe in your own success and that you are not just following someone else’s dreams or expectations for you.
Create your own dreams, tap into your own passion and realize your own limitless potential – that is how you will realize success.
Have a terrific week…if you have any questions or like what you learned, leave us a comment.
Jeff
