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Should You Even be in This Business?What you need to know about marketing ANY product online!Nearly all marketers will tell you that it is easy to market online and takes little time at all. Well, sure, after you have been in it for a few years, have found your way around and decided what you want to specialize in. I think many of the professional marketers forget about, or "under-emphasize" all the work that they put in to get there, especially if they had to do it on their own. Some got lucky, and had a close friend or relative that helped them to get started by showing them the quickest way to do it to get cash coming in, but that doesn't happen to everybody else. The rest of us have had to wade our way through everything by ourselves, even with some seminars behind us, and being in the loop of newsletters, it can take quite a while to get started. It takes a sense of direction. Besides the usual stuff that everyone says you need, like a business plan and mission statement, you first need to get familiar with all the different ways of making a living on the web (or in things associated with it), and determine exactly what it is you want to do. Before you can do that, you need to figure out where you want to go from where you are. Normally, in the real world, that would mean having a map. In the internet world, you need to create your own. Here are some things that could determine your direction:
There are so many choices of how to make money on the web, that if you are not aware of all of them, maybe you should do more research before deciding. It will make a big difference in how you go about learning how to market your product, and determining how you can avoid getting into the "information overload" trap. For instance, if you don't want to stock products and have to ship them, then listening to advice on how to buy products in bulk from China is not what you want. Ignore it. If you hate to write (anything) then obviously you don't need to worry about learning to write sales letters. You can hire someone to do that. If the technical end of things leaves you scratching your head, then learning html and website building is a waste of time. Hire someone to do it for you. If you want to travel and have as little to do with maintenance of a web site as possible, then obviously gathering email addresses to build lists with, or managing any kind of membership site is out of the question, so why bother listening to advice about it? This is what you need to know before you get too heavily involved with internet marketing. If you try to do too much right out of the gate, you'll spread yourself too thin and won't get anything off the ground before some new interest grabs your attention. You need to find out what you want your lifestyle to be first. Then set your goals to attain that lifestyle. Break them down into goals that are daily, weekly, monthly, six months out, a year out, three years out and five years out. We'll get more into it in the lessons, but this will give you a start. It takes concentration. Make no mistake about it, that the learning curve for beginners is a very long one. If you are not one to focus on one thing at a time, you might be better off in some other profession. Every new web site you go to has many other links to yet more and more new stuff, and if you haven't got the stamina to just say "No" to yourself, you're going to get lost in the jungle of information! You have to know when to stop and go back to the beginning and then stay there for awhile! If your are going to be in business for yourself, then the main objective is to make money...first and foremost!! You haven't got time to be web surfing, or looking at every new link that pops up. If you don't have the ability to focus on one thing at a time, this is not the place for you. If that is a problem, then go one step further than I mentioned above and set some hourly goals. Write down what you want to do in the next hour, write it on a sticky note on the face of your monitor as a reminder, and then do it! When you learn to control the hourly goals, the daily goals will become easier, and so on down the road. Remember, some of the monthly goals, such as taking in so much money for the month, can be broken down into daily goals as well. Once you can handle them on a daily basis, the monthly goals might take care of themselves along the way! It's really easier than you think, when you break it down into bite-size pieces! It does take some "tech" ability. If you have spent your life going after every new gadget that hit the market, and reveled in being the first on the block with every new toy, you may have a shot at internet work. There is just something about the computer that fascinates some people, and they can spend hours at it. Others are afraid that if they touch it something might break. If you are the latter, then this job isn't for you. Many marketers will tell you that you don't need to learn how to build web sites, or to learn (at least) how to correct or add some minor html, but if you can't learn to do some of that stuff, you will continually be behind the eight ball. You will constantly have to call someone else to do it, which can delay your ideas as well as cost you in profits. You'd be surprised at how many people still think that a computer has to be programmed, by the user, before they can do anything, and that's why they have never taken the time to get interested in them! Obviously they haven't taken the time (in the last twenty years!) to get a full and correct demonstration of what they can do with one right out of the box. If it has taken you this long to figure that out, then I doubt if this medium is something that you want to play with for making a living! People that really enjoy the technology would have had one a long time ago, and had it figured out by now! If you are one of those people that still uses someone else's email because you are too lazy or hard-headed to go to one of the free providers and spend two minutes getting your own, then this business probably isn't for you! Sure I could lie to you and tell you that "anyone" can learn to do this, but I have been involved with teaching long enough to know who is capable of learning and who isn't. I can lead a horse to water, but if he won't put his head down to drink, then I guess he'll have to die of thirst! I'm not going to sit there and pour water down his throat until he chokes on it. I've got better things to do. I'm sure the horse would rather be somewhere else, too! It takes lots of time. I know several people who have daytime jobs requiring heavy use of a computer. When they get home, the last thing they want to do is sit down at another one. I guess that's why some people go for a week or more at a time between answering emails! People who literally love computers are on them from morning until night! You've heard the term "computer widow" (or widower, as the case may be). If you aren't one yet, you need to be when starting out in this business! Later on, you can kick back and thank yourself for sticking with it until you got to where you are! Those are exactly the kind of people who are persistent enough to learn what they need to know and aren't afraid to push a button to see what it does! If the thought of pushing a button and having the computer go up in smoke scares you to death, then slowly back away from the desk, carefully unplug it and put the dust cover over the computer you are looking at, and never touch it again! You might hurt yourself! If the thought of spending countless hours learning what you have to do to be able to operate a computer the way you need to for ecommerce is more than you are willing to put in, then go back to a J-O-B, because obviously you don't have the dedication it takes to do this. It takes (at least) "some" money to get started. Oh sure, I can show you ways to get started with absolutely nothing. I can show you several places to get a free web site, free hosting, use a sub-domain (which is a domain name behind the dot leading into someone else's), but the search engines aren't as friendly to those types for some unknown reason. I guess they figure if you don't take your business seriously enough to get your own domain, why should they? I can show you numerous ways to get products that you can sell without buying them first, or how to create your own products. In fact, nearly everything you can use or that you would need is available free on the web. All you have to do is look. On the other hand, some of the free stuff, or open-source stuff, lacks something in quality, and many times control. For instance, nearly all of the free web builders are limited in function, and many times you can't get to certain parts (like the html code) to modify it. The type styles may be limited, and overall function of the site may not work like it should. Other times there are products which haven't been tested fully, and since they are free, there is no incentive to work the bugs out....until someone gets around to it....which may be never! I have always found that it really does pay, in time saved and frustrations, let alone money, to buy name brand products, and pay to get things done the right way. In other words, you get what you pay for. It may cost you a little bit, but certainly a WHOLE lot less than it would cost to acquire a building, set up and start a business in the real world. First, you have to have equipment, starting with a computer. It doesn't matter whether you get a laptop or desk unit. It depends on how much you are going to be working with it away from your desk. If you are going to get a new one, then get the fastest processor with the biggest hard drive, and as much RAM as you can get. Look for one that says it's "media ready", which usually means that it already has a disk drive capable of writing and reading both CDs and DVDs, and should have all kinds of writing and playback software already in it. The advent of video being used for almost everything you can think of these days makes that necessary. Video eats up a LOT of memory, and if you get one too slow, the videos will be jumpy and take forever to download! You'll be deleting the temporary internet files every other day, even on the better ones. Also, it wouldn't hurt to spend a hundred bucks on an external hard drive, preferably about 320 gigs. It will be useful for storing all that marketing information that you want to save, as well as serving as a back-up for your main hard drive. Computers slow down as their memories start to fill up, which will also slow down your working with them, the videos, and other things. The external hard drive isn't accessed as part of the everyday workings, so it won't interfere with speed. Limit your internal hard drive to the things that you absolutely need, and your computer will run better and faster. A decent speaker system would be useful, as we have seen many audios that vary greatly in sound quality and volume. Make sure you have something that you can hear them with. The next item would be a printer. As long as it prints in color, the choice is yours. Since most of your work will be on the web, it will mostly be used for off-line business correspondence, and your own personal printing, and an 8-1/2 x 11 platform is fine. Secondly, you have to have some kind of internet service. If you think you can run a business from a dial-up connection while it ties up your phone line, think again. The very minimum you will need is DSL. If there is something faster available, upgrade to it as soon as your profits can justify it. In this age of video, a dial up connection is a dinosaur. We are running a constant 3.6 to 4.1 megabyte download speed (that's faster than a T1 line, but all we can get in this location) and even it leaves a lot to be desired. Don't cheat yourself on speed! If you are really serious about running a business based on computers, examine where you are located, and where you "should" be located. Internet speed on telephone and cable lines are dependant upon how far you are from the servers. The farther away you are, the more the speed slows down. If you are thinking of relocating, check with your phone company or cable company to see what kind of speeds they can provide. Not all systems and providers are equal. The alternative is to get satellite internet, but then, it can lose signal every time there are storms in the area, same as TV signals. It pays to do your homework on this issue. Here in rural Arkansas, we signed up for a 10 mega-byte line, but when we had problems with it and spent nearly two months trying to solve the problem, it came down to the fact that we are about three miles from the closest servers, and all they can get us is 3.6 to 4.1 mega-byte speed without it getting erratic. So in effect we are paying for something that they can't deliver, due to line loss. So, we take what we can get.....for now. A fax machine is an option. I wouldn't put it on the same line with the phone, though, especially of you have voice mail. Either get a second line or sign up with an internet fax service, where they send your faxes to you by email. (That's what we use.) That has the added advantage of your being able to receive faxes no matter where you are, and if you move, you don't have to change your fax number, because it goes to them, not YOUR phone. Most computers have fax sending capability built in, and all you have to do is hook up a phone line to it to use it. Otherwise the internet fax company has that available for a slightly higher fee, and then you can send over the internet to them, and they will forward it to a land line for you. A scanner is handy, but I recommend a flat bed scanner, not a feed-through type. You can't copy from books or magazines with a feed-through. Besides being able to copy prints to use on the web, it can also be used as a copy machine (directly to the printer), although it usually takes a little longer to run the process. However, if money is tight, it will get you started. It takes some software. Although some types of internet businesses can be run straight from your computer, there will probably be some software that you will want, to make things quicker and easier. The very first thing I would recommend is a good "suite" of virus, spam, firewall, and security programs. Most companies will have packages (called suites"), to save you some money. The next thing you need is some kind of office software. I have tried some of the free stuff, but it has bugs that may not be noticeable to novice users. However, as you get into more advanced use, you'll find them, and they will slow down your work. I would suggest a paid version of an "office suite" from a major software company. It will pay for itself with more functionality and less headaches. You will also need various "playback" software. Most of it today handles audio as well as video, and it is nearly all available for free on the web. If you buy a media ready computer, most of what you need will be there already, but for some file types, you may need more. You should have some kind of "unzipping" software to unzip files that are sent to you. Later on, it might be helpful to also create "zipped" files to send out. There are both free and paid versions available. You will also need some kind of software to open as well as create .pdf files. Again, there are both free and paid versions available. Some software is available on the web for free, but usually is limited in function. To get the most out of it, they usually want to you upgrade to the paid version. That's OK, if it works. Prices can run from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars depending on the application, and how exclusive it is (basically that means what it cost to develop it against how much of it is sold). Most software for small business runs much less than $500, with the median price range under $200, unless you get into really specialized stuff. (I know of one graphics program used to print those "full wrap" packages that you see on buses, vans, and special promotional vehicles that cost upwards of $1800, not to mention the oversized printer used to make the actual "wrap" sheets.) Sometimes downloading files, opening them, and then installing the software can be tricky, but you need to be able to tackle those kinds of jobs. Get over your fears of blowing up the computer, get your head on straight, and make up your mind to learn it. It's necessary, if you expect to be in this business! We will update this article as we think of other things that your should know. (It is NOT permissible to copy or redistribute this article!) Author: John W. Abert 2009 All Rights Reserved
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