Just starting out – You have a passion to make money and perhaps some ideas, but need direction and some information on how to proceed.
Before you get stuck in to what market you’re going to dominate and what product or service to sell, there’s something else you should do.
Adopt a positive mindset!
Now, I’m not talking about affirmations or self hypnosis (although that might work too), what you need to adopt is a can-do attitude.
Sometimes the people around you might doubt your impending success and even say negative things about your online potential.
They’re not doing it to put you down, but you’ll have to get used to the fact that most people live a life of mediocrity and when you start your online business, others just won’t realise the potential that there is and what is actually a realistic full-time revenue avenue.
The answer, is just to get focused and make sure that your confidence doesn’t get dragged down by negative comments.
Making great money means having systems in place to scale your business to be effective beyond your natural one-person ability.
No-one really gets rich from selling just one cheap ebook.
You need a funnel.
You need automated systems.
You need to leverage other peoples abilities.
You might need some extra resources.
Your product itself is just a small part of the puzzle and depending on how you decided to create it, you may have a lot of work still to do.
Before putting a lot more effort in – you should confirm that your product is really hot and has a hungry market.
Here are some things you should consider taking a look at:
1 – Is there a market big enough and hungry enough market for you to be making money/competing?
Hopefully you’re aware of how to check to find this answer (from watching my videos), but here’s few things to check:
a) Are people searching for your product or the problem it solves?
b) Can you see how YOU can access that market and get your product in front of it?
c) Is the competition present but at low enough levels that you can compete?
d) Considering the competition – is the market big enough for you to make enough money for it to be viable/worthwhile?
e) Are there obvious JV partners, affiliate, promotional avenues?
2 – Is your product what the market needs/wants?
This is really important as you can create an amazing product but if your intended market don’t see the need for it – you won’t sell any.
Your product only has the value that your prospective customers assign it. Think like them, understand their need/problem and make ask them what they need. Then make sure that’s what you’re offering them.
This can include Keyword Research, Surveys, checking forums and discussion groups, and asking your existing prospects and customers.
3 – Do you have a funnel in place, so that once someone buys from you they have an opportunity to buy more?
Is your funnel fully in place and effective?
Are there audio and video versions of the product which could be made?
Do you have a OTO, upsell, downsell, relate sale as part of your sales process?
Does your funnel have an end? What happens when someone buys your highest priced product? is there anything else left for them to do?
Do you have related/affiliate products being offered as part of your list relationship building?
4 – Do you have an autoresponder configured to take them through a relationship building system?
Does that A/R have sales opportunities continually included?
5- Do you know how to convert traffic effectively?
There classic reference conversion rates of around 1-3%, so you should at least be converting 1% Of any targeted traffic to your landing pages, but if your personal promotions and JVs are not converting any better, then you should definitely be split testing various aspects of your traffic generation and sales page conversion.
It’s not unusual to get conversion rates of up to 8% or more with personal promotions, so testing and tracking is something you should continue to do.
6 – Is your product doing as good a job as it could be?
The first product a prospect gets from you will set their future expectations. If that product is not as good as it should be, they may stop buying before they reach your higher price items – this can be a costly problem, so make sure it’s not happening to you.
If you’re not already collecting feedback from your customers soon after they buy, consider adding an autoresponder message for about 1 week or so after any initial purchase asking for feedback and testimonials, so that people get a chance to tell you whether they’re happy or not – you need to know either way.
7 – Is the relationship with your prospects fresh?
You know that most people don’t buy something the first time they hear about it, so you appreciate that the relationship you build with people and how ‘fresh’ that relationship is – can make or break your businesses long term success.
Is your relationship fresh? (How often do you contact them? when was the last time?)
Is that relationship good? (do people regularly leave your list?)
Having a 100,000 list of people who don’t want to hear from you is worse than a list of 100 people who wait for your emails with interest.
8 – Have you recently run a JV promotion?
Joint ventures are possible THE best way to get surges of sales for your business.
A JV is not just something you do to launch your product/service (although that’s a good time)
Consider getting a JV manager.
Run an affiliate/JV email list where you provide them with training material in order for them to be more effective.
If you’re not currently working on your next JV – Get started.
Ideally, you should have a fairly regular stream of JVs.
9 – Are you in other peoples systems?
If you own your own product (which you should), have you made sure that the people who are your affiliates and JV partners have included you in their email autoresponder systems?
This can be a goldmine with the right partners. Once you’re a built-in part of their system, you can get a constant stream of new customers just from their promotional activities.
10 – Are you promoting effectively?
Are you making use of Web2.0 sites to get traffic and spread your marketing messages?
This includes distributing videos to all the major video sites, perhaps having small viral programs (games, tools etc) available from ‘download’ sites.
Flash videos, screensavers and whatever else fits.
Article marketing has always been a useful supplementary activity.
