Do You Really Mean Business?

You mean business if you:

• Have well-written content that is grammatically correct and spelled properly. Your Web site is chock full of information that talks to your customer’s desires and needs.
• Have excellent photos and graphics that will represent the quality of your products and services — no clip art for you!
• You understand your profit margins and what you can sell your wares for to make money while remaining competitive.
• You have a marketing plan and budget to ensure you get the network visibility necessary to get found and produce orders/inquiries.
• You make sure your Web site’s design and layout is conducive to your company being perceived as a credible, legitimate and professional enterprise.

These are just a few of the details that I see are minimized or disregarded on a daily basis. Do you really mean business?

If you want to succeed, you’d better look as if you mean business.
~ Jeanne Holm

Can You Get Rich Online?

That would depend on:

1. What your product or service is. Certainly if you had a legitimate recipe for the cure for cancer, you would have it easier than trying to get exposure in say real estate, online marketing, gift shops, etc. which are saturated online markets that require a very serious and rabidly aggressive approach to enter.
2. How much it is desired. People have to want what you have to offer. Something you may think is a good idea, may not be at all. That is why it is so important to do your due diligence when investigating your future online offerings.
3. If your price is right. People shop around. If you are not competitive, unless you are the only game in town, they will go elsewhere.
4. Effort put into running a tip-top shop and offering professional service and presentation. Your online presentation will speak volumes about the quality of your program and the seriousness in which you take your business. Cut corners on design, content, security, etc. and folks will wonder what else you felt was not important enough to do properly. Product quality? Customer service? Security?
5. Realize that time and money needs to be spent on marketing. Period. You want to get found you have to market just as in the off-line world. And now-a-days it behooves you to have an offline marketing strategy for your online enterprise too. No marketing plan or budget, no “getting rich.”

So there. You can get rich online! All you have to do is take the time to have a realistic plan and run your business with ethics and integrity while not sacrificing quality for the easy/cheap/fast route.

Do it right and you’ll enjoy more ROI than you’ll know what to do with. But there’s the rub; “Return on Investment” requires you invest in the first place!

5 Principles to Live By Online

Do you live by your principles? If someone were to ask you what principles you run your business by, would you have a concise and committed answer for them?

prin⋅ci⋅ples
a guiding sense of the requirements and obligations of right conduct: a person of principle.

Over the years, I have found that many who want to start an online business for additional income or to replace their current income, have no idea or basis of what principles should guide them.

Your principles need to be based in respect, honesty, integrity, ethics and character. Unfortunately, each and every day that I sit behind these keyboard, I run into onliners who feel the need for these traits is not necessary or something they can disregard. Just to make a buck…

You shouldn’t run an online business if:

1. RESPECT: …you are not going to respect the time and efforts of others on your behalf. Whether that be suppliers, partners or customers. Not respecting their time or hard earned dollars is a critical error in judgment.
2. HONESTY: …you are not going to be honest about how you run your business and any mistakes you will make. And you will make mistakes — we all do. You need to be prepared to right your mistakes promptly and without excuses regardless of the cost to you to do so.
3. INTEGRITY: …you need to stick to your moral principles regardless of what the monetary value may be. I’ve had many an opportunity to rip-off customers by taking advantage of what they don’t know to make more money. I can’t do that because my moral fiber will not allow me to because that is the type of person I am.
4. ETHICS:…you need to be prepared to do what’s right regardless of the pressure, hype or cajoling by others to do otherwise. Sometimes standing against the tide is the toughest thing to do — but it’s the right thing to do!
5. CHARACTER:…you are not concerned about your character. Character is born of the four traits above. This is how you build your reputation as an honest and forthright business owner. Reputation cannot be bought, it must be earned and there is no way around this fact.

Without the above, you are no different than all the other fly-by-nights or snake oil Web sites out there purely to take advantage of or to get into the pocketbooks of their customers.

Doing what’s right because that’s how you roll is what allows you to look yourself in the mirror at the end of each day and know you did the very best you could — by those who know you, those you work with and most importantly yourself.

“Important principles may and must be inflexible.”
~ Abraham Lincoln

Can You Get Rich Online?

That would depend on:

1. What your product or service is. Certainly if you had a legitimate recipe for the cure for cancer, you would have it easier than trying to get exposure in say real estate, online marketing, gift shops, etc. Try to find a niche that isn’t a saturated online market. Otherwise nothing less than a rabidly aggressive approach will be required to penetrate and compete.
2. How much the product or service is desired. People have to want what you have to offer. Something you may think is a good idea, may not be at all. That is why it is so important to do your due diligence when investigating your future online offerings. Search on Google for the keywords you think folks would use to find your new business so you have a realistic view of what you are up against.
3. If your price is right. Onliners shop around. If you are not competitive or do not have a unique value proposition justifying a higher price, potential customers will go elsewhere.
4. Effort put into running a tip-top shop and offering professional service and presentation. Your online presentation will speak volumes about the quality of your program and the seriousness in which you take your business. Cut corners on design, content, security, etc. and folks will wonder what else you felt was not important enough to do properly. Product quality? Customer service? Security?
5. Realize that time and/or money needs to be spent on marketing. Period. If you want to get found you have to market just as in the off-line world. You can throw hundreds, even thousands of dollars at online ad programs — but if you don’t have the above items covered you will just be throwing good money after bad. Beyond that, you simply have to be involved and participate in online communities, Blogs, forums and social media sites to hope to get exposure for your new enterprise. Don’t want to spend the time; rethink having an online business. No marketing plan or budget, no “getting rich.”

So there. You can get rich online! All you have to do is take the time to have a realistic plan, understand what is truly involved and run your business with ethics and integrity while not sacrificing quality for the easy/cheap/fast route.

Do it right and you’ll enjoy more ROI than you’ll know what to do with. But there’s the rub; “Return on Investment” requires you invest in the first place!

Where is the Online Success Easy Button?!

I am perplexed as to why the assumption that succeeding online should be easy. I guess folks have bought into the hypey sales pitchy advertising of providers, consultants, developers and TV commercials whose only purpose is to get into their pocketbooks.

What dismays me even more is how often potential business owners throw their hard earned dollars at these programs (even though afterward they admit it sounded too good to be true)! I then hear the sob stories about all the problems that then ensued, the disappointments, the amount of additional work/expense/time that ended up being required when the “easy button” didn’t materialize on their desktop.

There are three basic reasons why one’s online business would produce failure or disappointment:

1. Lack of a solid work ethic. Ask any established online business owner who has produced a livable income online and you will find that in reality hard work is what got them where they are today. It is not uncommon for successful online business owners to work 10-12 hour days and weekends too. I still do after over 14 years in business! If you are starting part-time and have a day job; plan on working at least 5-6 hours after dinner and weekends, at least, to build a business that you can then be confident will support you full time.
2. Inability to embrace a perpetual learning curve. No way around this one folks. I still learn something new every day. If you are not open and willing to learn, and accept the frustration that will go with that, you shouldn’t open an online business. You’ll have to learn your server control panel, your e-commerce application, basic HTML and CSS won’t hurt, as well as other numerous and sundry applications, software and processes that will be initially foreign to you. Your mastering of all these elements will be crucial to your success.
3. No realistic budgeting effort or business viability due diligence. I’ve yet to run into a single client who had detailed budget. I’ve lost count of those thinking they can open a new unremarkable business where there are already millions of others established and doing the same.

   The most common responses I receive when I inquire about a budget: “I don’t have a budget…” or “I don’t have allot of money so…”. So, you probably shouldn’t start an online business until you have reviewed and determined your costs and expenses.

   You’ll have consultant/developer fees, server fees, advertising and PPC fees, application fees, merchant account fees, gateway fees, business cards, shipping/packaging materials, inventory, accounting software and/or fees, legal fees (Sole Prop, LLC, Inc.?) and the list goes on.

Another key to your eventual success is choosing your online partners wisely by not making your decisions based on the lowest price, effort, investment you can find. Just as with anything on or off-line you get what you pay for. And when it comes to the online business environment, you will get out of it proportionality what you put into it in time, effort and investment.

If you are being told/sold anything contrary to what I describe here, know it is hypey sales pitchy hooey.

Whether you are starting a brand new online enterprise or running an established business that isn’t meeting your expectations, there won’t be any “easy button” appearing on your desktop. But, if you plan wisely and make your decisions judiciously, while having a positive attitude based in reality — in a year or two you may discover success wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be.

Do You Mean Business?

You mean business if you:

• Have well-written content that is grammatically correct and spelled properly. Your Web site is chock full of information that talks to your customer’s desires and needs.
• Have excellent photos and graphics that will represent the quality of your products and services — no clip art for you!
• You understand your profit margins and what you can sell your wares for to make money while remaining competitive.
• You have a marketing plan and budget to ensure you get the network visibility necessary to get found and produce orders/inquiries.
• You make sure your Web site’s design and layout is conducive to your company being perceived as a credible, legitimate and professional enterprise.
• You keep up with technology to ensure you can take advantage of new trends, tools and functionality that will give your business the edge over your perceived competitors.
• You budget the time to be involved and participate online by using networking sites and social media tools necessary to rising above the noise.

These are just a few of the details that I see are minimized or disregarded on a daily basis. Do you mean business?

If you want to succeed, you’d better look as if you mean business.
~ Jeanne Holm

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