Maintain a Success Circle in Direct Sales & Relationship Marketing

People chose to work from home for different reasons.  Many persons who work from home do not have an online business even though they use their computer extensively.  In order to be efficient and productive and thereby contribute to your success, it’s important to have systems in place. Systems are defined as a set of detailed methods, procedures, and routines established or formulated to carry out a specific activity.

Here are three systems in your home office that could be great time savers, but at the same time can rob you of your time if not used wisely.

1.Your Computer As a Time Saver: I cannot imagine running a business from home without a computer.  Your computer allows you to store huge amounts of information and retrieve them with a few clicks of your mouse.  The volume of software on the market allows you to be creative, and of course, access to the internet allows you to communicate quickly and effectively, as well as do research quickly.

If you’re in Direct Sales, for example, you can use your computer to send your customers an e-card.  I like to send an actual greeting card through the US mail and my customers invariably call to thank me.  Just for reading my post, go ahead and click the greeting card link and send a card to yourself or someone you care about.  I’ll pay for your card and your postage. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a post I wrote in March 2009, and today my thoughts are running in the same direction, so I thought I’d share it today rather than write another post. The event that has me unsettled is not malfunctioning machines as it was then, but the loss of another young friend in her 30’s.

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As I sat in my office this morning and thought about what I wanted to write, I realized that for my thoughts to flow, I would need to take a moment to pray, think and then write. You might wonder what was so special about that?

On my ‘Things to Do List’ this post should have been completed by 6:30 a.m. and it’s now almost 8:30 a.m. Instead of being able to start writing at 6:15 a.m. I had to deal with issues with my Internet connection and while waiting for that to be resolved, worked on faxes and mail. The flow of thoughts I had were disturbed and it seems that while outwardly calm, negative emotions were creeping in. It was time to pray and ask for God’s direction and peace…and I received it. Read the rest of this entry »

You have heard that the money is in the list; however, successful marketers will tell you that this is only partially true.  If you are new to Internet Marketing one of your first goals is to build a responsive list.  There are many important reasons for that, which we will discuss in another post.

It’s important to note that the level of responsiveness that you will receive from your list of subscribers is in large part due to your efforts.  I firmly believe that communication is the lifeblood of any relationship, and building a relationship with your subscribers, your readers, even other online marketers, is cemented by communicating with them. Read the rest of this entry »

A short while ago someone made the comment to me that she could never work from home as she would find it boring.  Asking questions made me realize that what she would find boring is not being able to interact with people of a regular basis.

Many people love working alone. Others hate it! They miss the rapport with co-workers, the watercooler chit-chats and jokes, and face-to-face interactions with people. Depending on the type of business you’re pursuing, you may not necessarily have regular interaction with people face-to-face and on a one-on-one basis.

If you work with clients/customers mainly on the telephone, why not arrange to meet them in person from time to time? If there are networking events in your area, why not make arrangements so you can attend one or two each month?

Online forums in your niche are great places to interact with like-minded people.  Over the past 16 days over 200 people have become part of a 30-day blog challenge (#blog30 on Twitter) and it has been interesting to see the level of interaction and support among participants as we visit each others blogs, leave comments, and promote each other on the social networks.

Perhaps like me, your spiritual activities also allow you to interact with another level of like-minded people.  When it’s all added together I never have time to be bored and feel isolated, but this is not the case with some persons.

How about you? If you work from home, do you feel isolated, and how do you deal with isolation?  Please share your thoughts in the Comments.

In my last post we highlighted how easy it is to allow ourselves to become distracted from our focus.  Here are 5 recommended action steps to help you to maintain your focus:

1.  Be specific in your objective. This makes a huge difference in reducing the level of distractions as your objective can be as broad as the ocean, which leaves you with a lot of room to flounder and get lost; or it can be narrow or focused as a little pond in your backyard that allows you limited freedom, but provides a place for growth.

For example: If your objective is “to make money online as an internet marketer” that is way to vague and you will lose focus by becoming bedazzled by all the information on the internet.  On the other hand make your objective more specific; perhaps, “I am going to be the best Affiliate Marketer I can learn to be in the next 6 months.” That will be your focus for the next six months so you will ignore all the other ‘opportunities’ that are offered to you. Read the rest of this entry »

For someone new to marketing on the internet it can be like taking a four-year old into a huge specialty candy store.  There is so much to see and so many appealing and delicious type of  candies for that child to choose from that she becomes overwhelmed! Imagine that the parent said, “Remember, you are only allowed to choose one.” A typical reaction in a whiny voice could be, “I don’t know which one to choose!”

One of the things I struggled with and am still working on is to avoid clicking on emails with a really good subject line. Sometimes it’s nothing new, perhaps an e-book with a catchy title.  I know I’ve heard the topic before, probably have something similar in a binder on my shelf or on my hard-drive, or may even be in a class on the topic, but natural curiosity impels me to take a look to see someone else’s take on a topic.  I may open the document and just scan it.  Five or 10 minutes later I’ve learned nothing new, but that’s five or 10 minutes lost.  That’s time I could have spent doing something in and for my business.  One solution I’ve implemented is to unsubscribe from a number of lists. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone will agree that it is important to have  a Mentor in order to succeed in your online business.  This is so because regardless of your education level, your field of learning, or whatever businesses you may be in or have had offline for many years, internet marketing is a whole new world with its own rules and parameters.

You may wonder why I speak of having a “responsive” mentor?  In general, a mentor is one who seeks to give guidance to his or her students.  There are many hundreds of persons online who seek to to just this…and they may have really valuable information to share.  They may also have proven that they know what they are talking about by the fact that they are making a 6-figure income online.  However, what about when you take one of their classes?  Are you able to contact them directly by e-mail?  Do they respond? Unless you are in an Inner Circle or a specific type of Mastermind it would be impractical to expect that you can have direct phone contact on a regular basis.

Do they promote you their student?  Turning that question around: Coaches, teachers, and leaders – do you promote your students or team members online?  Remember, everyone wears an invisible sign that says, “Make me feel important.”  Being others-focused encourages and builds loyalty.  It’s a win-win situation for success in your online business to have a responsive mentor and to be a responsive mentor.

Your mindset is your mental attitude or disposition which affects the way you handle  situations that arise in your business.  Whether you market online on a full-time or part-time basis, you must have the correct mental attitude in order to experience success.  And the key to the correct
attitude is to treat what you’re doing as a  business rather than a hobby.  A hobby is something that you indulge in from time to time when the whim takes you, and you cannot afford to approach your internet marketing business in that way.

It’s important for us as entrepreneurs to recognize that if we provide products or services, there are thousands more entrepreneurs providing the same types of products or services, so our mental attitude or disposition is what will determine how we handle a customer inquiry, a customer concern, any type of customer service issue.  Think about this for a moment:  by having an online business your market will be global.  Therefore, it means you could be dealing with persons in different time zones.  Would you be prepared to take a customer call at 2:00 a.m. your time zone?  Have you mentally prepared yourself for such an eventuality?  It would be interesting to hear how other online marketers have handled this situation when they had to take a customer service call at an ‘odd’ time.

Keeping a positive mindset or mental attitude will allow you to deal with ‘inconveniences’ when you are just getting started, knowing that how you handle these so-called inconveniences is the foundation that could lead to exponential growth in your business.  It seems to take a long time to build a good reputation online, one that allows people to know, like and trust you.  On the other hand that reputation could be lost in a flash if we fail to display a position mental attitude that supports growth in our online business.

If you are fairly new to internet marketing and consider yourself a newbie, there are certain things you can do to determine for yourself how well you are progressing in your internet marketing career.  I use the word career, because this is how you should view it so that it has a place of integrity in your mind.  This post is not intended for the person who is just toying with the idea of having an online business, but for the person who is serious about providing products of services for their market and is interested in creating the right mindset and building their brand.

You must have a framework in which you are able to identify where you currently are, and where you would like to be in three to six months, and even in a year’s time.  Within this framework here are five of the many questions you can ask yourself:

• How much money are you currently earning, and how much would you like to be earning in six months?  It’s important to be realistic.  Set achievable but realistic goals.
• How do you currently make your  money online? Are you using Affiliate Marketing?  If so , are you using effective strategies? Is this something that you will continue to do in the next six months? Read the rest of this entry »

One of the challenges beginner online marketers and even many seasoned online marketers have is to develop a product so they can monetize their website in a short time.  Of course, there are many other methods, including Affiliate Marketing, that allow you to provide a service to your website visitors.  However, experienced marketers agree that your goal should be to create your own product as soon as possible.

It took me several months to understand the value of PLR products and since then I’ve come to appreciate their role in my online business.    Some people will download a PLR e-book and just add their name to it and offer it to their visitors.  Others use it as a supplementary resource.  But there is more… Read the rest of this entry »