Maintain a Success Circle in Direct Sales & Relationship Marketing

Posts Tagged ‘online business’

Mindset has to do with the way you think, and the way you think has a direct bearing on the type of results you will realize from starting your online business.

When you made the decision to start a business online, you did so based on research that what you had to offer could be marketed online.  You will be marketing something you already know something about, or recently took the time to learn about; and it may be something that you are passionate about.

If you’d decided to for a corporation and purchase a franchise offline, you would have to give yourself a specific designation on the Articles of Corporation.  Your title would probably be CEO or President.  You have instead started an online business!  You do not need to set up a corporation to start an online business, but it it very important to keep in mind that because you’ve started a business, your mindset must be the same.  You are the CEO/President/Owner of your own company, and as such, you are responsible for the planning, goal-setting, and other activities associated with running a business. 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.

Today marks the end of week 1 of the 30-day blog challenge by Dr. Jeanette Cates although it’s actually just 5 days since the challenge began.  It has been challenging for me to write everyday, not because I don’t know what to write about, but because of the number of projects on and offline I’m involved in as well as other  activities unrelated to business.  This is nothing unique to me as I’m sure if we did a survey of most of the participants we’d find that very few people have a lot of  ’spare’ time.

The recommendation was made to write two or three posts each day and schedule them for different days and I believe that is an excellent suggestion.  Unfortunately I’ve only been able to write one each day.  My goal for next week is to select a day on which I will write at least three posts.  In this way if unforeseen circumstances arise I wont fall behind.

Here is a recap of the articles I wrote this week.  My objective for the 1st two weeks is to help persons who want to, or have recently started an online business to recognize that before they start to worry about the technology aspect of their online business, they need to get their mind and inner person ready in order to succeed.

Day 1:  Starting Your Internet Business – Knowing Your Why

Day 2:  Starting Your Online Business – What Is Your Purpose?

Day 3: What Motivates You?  Is Your Motivation From Within?

Day 4:  7 Questions to Self-Check Your Motivation In Your Business

Thanks to all who read and commented on my posts this week.

It is so easy to get accustomed to going with the flow so that it becomes harder to stop and ask yourself searching questions.  To assist you in determining what motivates you in your online business, here are seven questions I will encourage you to ask yourself.  I tried to be honest with myself when I did my check-up and was a little surprised at my own answers to some of these questions.

1)  Are you channeling an interest, a hobby, or area of expertise into an online business?

2)  What skills, training and strengths do you have professionally that may give you a headstart in starting your online business?

3) Do you believe that to succeed in your online  business it will take hard work? Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve often heard people say that “So-and-So did not motivate me” or that the presentation did not motivate them to take action.  These expressions would suggest that someone or something external is responsible for their motivation.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

Effective motivation comes from within!  You can be encouraged by others; you can be moved to take action; you may even become excited by a dynamic speaker or presentation, but in the long run these are only temporary.  How does this affect your online business? What motivated you to start your online business?  What motivates you to stay in business? You have to be your own motivator; you must be convinced that what you are doing harmonizes with your deep-seated reason for being in business and will fulfill your goals or your purpose for your business. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday we talked about the importance of knowing your “Why.”  On the surface it may seem that your Why and your Purpose are the same, but they are really two separate and distinct things.

The simplest way to look at it is to understand that your Why is the conscious effort you make to determine the reasons, the real motivation for what you do; for starting your online business.  Your purpose is your objective, your goal; what you would like to achieve in your online business – the end result.

Without a clear purpose (objective or goal) you will have no direction and your efforts may at best be hit or miss. You may find that although you are working hard, you’re not achieving proportionate results resulting in frustration.  One of the reasons why so many who start an online business give up after a few months.

My experience convinced me that this is a very essential step that many entrepreneurs ignore, as I did.  When I started my online business in late 2008, I knew I wanted to do ’something’ on line, but it never occurred to me that I needed to identify my purpose.  As a consequence I tried to incorporate all my offline businesses into one.  The result was that there was no focus, hence no growth for some time and I actually thought of quitting.

If you are new to the internet and just getting started, stop and take this step now!  It will save you months of frustration.  If you have been online for a while and find that you are not where you hoped to be, take some time to get out a writing pad and pen or pencil and start writing down your purpose.  What is your objective for having an online business?  What are your short-, medium-, and long-term goals for your online business?

Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.  We learn from each other!

Are you already in business for yourself? Do you currently have a home-based business? Are you working a full-time job while launching your internet business? Why do you want to start an internet business?

Identifying your “Why” will be one of the most fundamental steps you will take on the road to building a successful internet business. The importance of this cannot be over-emphasized because it is knowing your “Why” that will help you to deal with the challenges that will come your way as you embark on creating an online presence.

Your initial response may be, “my why is to make money,” and that’s generally the response from the majority of people. However, I’d like to encourage you to dig deeper and find the real reason why you are willing to do what it takes to succeed. Money does provide you with options, money allows for choices, money allows you to do more for others, but identifying specifically what you’d like to achieve by making money will give you a greater reason to stay focused. Just ‘making money’ will not be enough of a motivator. You need to have such a deep-seated reason that will cause you to go over, under or around any obstacles that come your way. Tied in with that is what you short-, medium, and long-term goals will be.

Do you believe it’s important to determine ‘Your Why’? If so, why? If not, why do you say so? If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me and I will reply to you directly.

A customer is anyone for whom you provide a service or sell a product and the names or terms customers are referred to may differ depending on your market.  A customer may be called a client, a purchaser, a buyer, or even a student. A customer who has not yet made a purchase or exchange of service or product may be referred to as a prospect.  Regardless of the terminology unique to your business the bottom-line remains the same: your customer if the lifeline of your business.  The service that you as the business owner provides will have a direct impact on the success or failure of your online business and so it becomes critical to be sure that you always provide superior customer service. This is a part of building your personal brand.

In building your brand online your goal should be to be recognized as someone who goes over and beyond what is normally required to take care of their customers.  I happen to like the term ‘over-deliver.’  No one usually complains if you over-deliver.  This is the kind of reputation that will set you apart from the pack and make you stand out.  On the other hand using underhand tactics and not keeping your promises is the way to go to experience the death of your business.  Pete Blackshaw says it very well in the title of his book, Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today’s Consumer-Driven World. Read the rest of this entry »