Cold Hard Facts

FACT: At least 95% (some reports claim 97%) of new online businesses FAIL within the first year.

FACT: The Main reason for this failure rate is the lack of preparation, learning, training and unreasonable expectations.

FACT: Those who take the proper steps BEFORE starting up a business make a LOT of money!

           If you are reading this, I hope that means you are one of the smart people who see the potential of business on the Internet and are looking to continue building your business. When I saw (and lived) the facts listed above I felt like something should be done, but who am I to try and change the system? Then I thought, what do I have to lose? I might not be able to change things but at least I can say I gave it a shot, and sleep with a clear conscience at night. There are a great many Gurus out there who will steal your money and live off the outrageous failure rate. Maybe if a few people put the quick cash mentality aside we can all take advantage of the goldmine the Internet can really be.

          I am not foolish enough to think that one person posting a few free sites is going to make much difference as far as the problem goes, but if it makes even a few others take a look at the situation then it will be a start. I am not even a serious marketer, I am disabled and started doing this as a way to help in my recovery from a stroke. It was that distance that probably let me see the problems rather than just being another statistic. Looking at the economy today I honestly feel that there is a way for some people to make the transition of losing a "Real" job and finding a new career online. It did not take long for me to see how a handful of greedy people saw the opportunity to take advantage of people who were desperate to find a way out of a bad situation and kick them while they were down! All I really want to do is to get people to realize this is not a majic bullet or a 1 click wonder, but as "real" a job as anything else. Just like a good education is important in establishing a career on the outside, you have to take the time to learn and establish a solid plan to make it work online. I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I know a 95% failure rate is NOT acceptable in any field.
(To be continued...)

The Philosophy of Marketing

I was told once by a great marketer:

"There are 3 kinds of people in the world":

Those that MAKE THINGS HAPPEN..

Those that WATCH Things Happen...

and Those that SAY "What Happened?"

Setting up Communications

 The money is in the List. Almost from the day you start thinking about an online business you hear it. You can have the best products available, but if there are no customers then you are sunk. So, how do you tell all the people out there what you are all about? You could stand on a corner handing out fliers, or sit at a desk making phone calls, but either way you cannot generate enough traffic that way. You could send out letters or post cards, but that gets expensive really fast. There are actually many things you can, and should do...like posting on Craig's list and other FR'EE advertising sites but that is not reaching a really targeted crowd. That is where the list comes in. If you can get a list of people who have expressed an interest in the products you represent then you are on the right track, but how can you do that?

       The first thing you need to do is get and set up an Autoresponder. In order to get promotional materials like banners, all but one said you had to join their program first. There is only one banner displayed. AWeber is often referred too as the Guru's Choice because it is the most popular one in use, but there are a number of others (in no particular order) including but not limited to...GetResponse, Trafficwave, iContact, Experian, ConstantContact and one that is actually FR'EE, Listwire. These are the ones you come across the most but there are a few others I have come across from time to time.There are also a few programs that you come across that have an autoresponder included in the program.This is one of the areas I was talking about when I said that research was a big part of learning Marketing. Email campaigns are usually a big part of any program so once you have decided your game plan you will need to see which one fits your needs best. Sometimes as your programs grow you may even find that you need more than one. A separate email (Gmail is recommended) will help keep your email campaign information separate from your other communications.

       This is where your list comes into play, what good is an automated email system if you do not have anyone to send information too. No product, no matter how good, is worth anything if you do not have customers to sell too. One option is to buy a list, either from the company you get the autoresponder from of from an independant company. The good thing about these lists are that they are supposed to be qualified leads, which should help your clich through and capture rates. The bad news is, they can get expensive, especially if your conversion rate is not so good, which can lead to a disaster on you ROI.( I am not going to explain any of that, so if you do not know this is your homework. If I had to learn it on my own, you can too!)


This survey is from AutoresponderGeeks.com for the time period 2009 to 2010. Several recently released Autoresponders were not tested.

Since I was not able to copy/paste the names, or even type them in, I will list the ratings here. If you click on the place the name SHOULD be you will be able to read the reviews (Click in the MIDDLE of the area, you will see a RED LINE pop up)...modern technology!

1)   A Weber
2)   Constant Contact
3)   Get Response
4)   Infusion Soft
5)   iContact
6)   1 Shopping Cart
7)   Vertical Response
8)   Mail Chimp 
9)   Stream Send
10) Benchmark

	Autoresponder	Votes	Overall Rating
*Autoresponder Rankings are based from User Ratings (Top 10 Autoresponders 2009/2010). Setting up your own list comes later...
1	AWAWeber ReviewebeAA Weberr Review	77
2	Constant Contact Review	53
3	Getresponse Review	68
4	Infusionsoft Review	68
5	iContact Review	66
6	1ShoppingCart Review	61
7	VerticalResponse Review	54
8	MailChimp Review	58
9	StreamSend Review	53
10	Benchmark Email Review	53

NETworking

The Lone Ranger would never have made it as an online businessperson.
(PTI-Hurricane Irene stopped bye!)

Marketing as well as any Home Business involves marketing your product or service as well as yourself. It is called Branding, or making yourself visible so that you are associated as being a pert of your business and a recognized expert on all that is involved. Your first step should be to decide WHAT you are going to represent in your business and do research on as many aspects as you can. The second step is to begin networking, to put yourself and your business out where you can begin making and promoting a name for yourself.

Step 1) Let's start with basics, e-mail. It does not matter what you are using personally...AOL, MSN, Hotmail or especially Yahoo, many professionals as well as the people running the listbuilders and mailers will not send to anything but a Gmail account. This is due to the filters that many other email companies use to reduce SPAM, a lot of mail from vendors and email programs is ending up in the spam box or totally lost. Gmail has less restrictive filters but the main thing is that you can actually "tune" your Gmail to send mail to specific folders or to be flagged. The bottom line is that you should start with setting up SEVERAL GMail accounts for your business (I have 4 myself besides my personal accounts). Always set up your personal email in a totally separate account.

Step 2) Make sure you have accounts on the following: Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and YouTube.
In todays Socially oriented society these are the "Major" players and at the very minimum you need to become familiar with how they work and how you might be affected through using them. That is not to say you will be tied to them all day (you will be tied to to many other things) but escpecially Facebook and Twitter may be major players in your marketing stratagies.

Step 3) Linkedin, Stumbleupon, Home Based Business Program and APSense plus a few others make up the "Free" business social networks. These are actually hybrids that cover both the social stratus as well as business connection which are sometime even sanctioned by employers for their people to keep in touch. These are less crucial to join (at first) until you find what if any influence they might carry with your customer base.

Step 4)
            SWOM (Society for the Word Of Mouth)
http://swom.com/?r=173687
            Bizzoppers (Sister of SWOM)
http://bizoppers.com/?r=329098

            Sokule (They speak their own language, seriously!)
http://www.sokule.com/bargainguy

            Kule.com (Sister of SOKULE)
COMING SUMMER 2012

Mentoring Programs

 I wanted to make one important clarification to my banner posts. Most are FR"EE or very low cost products for people who are either new or trying to start up a program on a limited budget. As a disclosure MOST of them I have an affiliate contract with, not so much to make money or get paid to promote a specific product, but as you get more involved you will often find the best way to get promotional items is to join an affiliate program. Since most of the products are FR'EE you can get an idea how much money I make  :~) . Also, since I am NOT placing my $$$ Affiliate items on this page a few dollars I can get help out with putting this together. If you do come across something you find questionable just let me know and I will review the AD and my affiliation.

     There is  ONE notable exception: The Mentoring Ad for Chris Farrell. This is NOT a FR'EE program, and the reason is that in some areas you get what you pay for. Mentoring about Internet Programs is too important for someone who is serious about their efforts to fool around with. The reason I chose this particular program is in doing research over time I find that Chris provides the best training for you investment. This particular program is NEW, not being officially released until Sept 1, 2011 so it is the most up to date program available. If you have any questions just contact me and I will provide some of his past programs (FR"EE) so you can see what I mean. I am posting this so there are NO misunderstandings. My intention with this page is not to make money, but to provide tools and advise to best help YOU, and sometimes FR'EE will just not cut it! Some things are just too important!

Jeff

Is it possible to make money online?

The short answer is Yes.     However, there are NO get rich quick plans or super secret software that will make you a millionaire in 2 weeks. Trying to make a living online is as possible as finding a decent job offline, and they both require hard work and patience PLUS some knowledge. Unfortunately I see too many people jump online and have no clue what they intend to do once they get here. Starting a Home Business or any other online venture takes a good deal of research if you intend to make it work. There is no one size fits all program that will work for everyone, and if you do not have a clue when you start you may find yourself spending months (or more) jumping from one type of program to another and never really getting an idea of what your end results will be. If you are here then I will take a guess that online marketing of some sort is what you have been considering, and if it is not then you might as well stop right now and rethink how you ended up here.

Marketing covers quite a large chunk of Internet programs, so even at this point you should be thinking of a more specific idea to work on and start your background work now. If you look in the right places there is quite a bit of FREE information available in the form of PDF and videos that will help answer any questions you might have. If you came here for advise then again you might want to think about why you are here. I do not claim to be a GURU or mentor, but I have made my share of mistakes along the way and my hope is that I can provide a place where people can come and find some basic tools and other information and just possibly keep a few people from falling into the frustration trap and becoming part of the vast majority. Most marketers who have been able to make a go of it over time have paid the dues of a few failures and pretty much worked until they were able to get enough experience (and a good mentor along the way) to be able to make a decent living. By a good mentor I DO NOT mean someone who charges hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend a pep rally and sell you outdated material. Those GURUS are the people who have nearly ruined the business for many, but there are some good people I have come across who after they have paid the price and are now making decent money are willing to help some promising people who are fortunate enough to be in the right place for a fair price.

     My belief along the way has been to put out a lot of money on someting that sounds promising without being able to "Test Drive" at least the idea. If you have been online for any length of time you have seen the "Latest Programs" that hit the market and are pushed by half of the marketers out there with all the hype that it is a limited time item and you only have a few hours too react. What always gets my blood up is seeing the same product pop up weeks later with the same hype like I missed it the first time. Or the email that says they have PAID for a product just to send a copy to me...or that only they can get me this offer when there are 3 messages in a row from other people that all say the same thing! But I digress...My motives here are a bit different. I never came here with the idea of getting rich, only to see what it was all about and maybe make a little pocket change. Most of the tools and other things I will post are FREE or very reasonable. Many have an upgrade option by I cannot see paying for something until I see how it works first! Over time I have managed to collect quite a library of material, so if you are interested in something let me know and I will send you what I have on the subject, there are just too many to clutter up a blog  : )