Saturday, March 10, 2012

Warning! 3 Dangerous Mistakes That Will Destroy Your Online Business (Do "THIS" Instead)

Are you excited about building your online business and think great things are around the corner? Do you have PASSION and a sense of purpose about what you truly want to do, and think it's going to be easy to parlay that pride into perpetual piles of profit?

The truth is, no matter how many amazing success stories are printed

Mistake #1: Selling Affiliate Products as a Primary Business Model

The truth is, in 2012... this is not only a terrible idea, but probably the hardest path to profit that there is. With so many new rules, regulations and restrictions on promoting products as an affiliate, in addition to the lack of quality programs to promote, the chances of success using the general affiliate model are UNDER 1%... and far worse in the IM and over saturated online marketing niches like diet, dating, divorce and others.

Mistake #2: Building a list "last"

It amazes me how many people will invest hundreds of dollars in ebooks, gadgets, gimmicks and gurus... but don't think they can spend 20 bucks a month on a commercial grade auto-responder. The truth is, list building, and cultivating a community of fans, friends and followers through consistent CONVERSATION (i.e. - an email sequence) is the absolute easiest way to make money online bar none. As a matter of fact, as someone who has written thousands and thousands of articles (over 6k as of today) and has used that content to promote close to a 100 unique products and promotions over the last few years, I can honestly say that the biggest regret I have is NOT using all of that content to build a list, rather than using it to try to make sales instead. (as my conversation percentage is literally 10 times HIGHER when folks sign up first for an email list, versus sending them straight to a sales page instead)

Mistake #3:

Over-thinking it

I know this isn't going to be a popular thing to say... but most online marketers are really professional (or part time) learners, readers and sideline stalkers. How much of YOUR time is dedicated to doing, rather than learning, watching or re-hashing things you already know? The truth is, my first few years of working online, I read, re-read, re-learned and re-tried a seemingly unending avalanche of information, ideas and momentary inspirations.

Those things never made me money... and more often than not, cost me time, energy, income and enthusiasm instead.

I have never read one forum post, or one blog post, or one guru video that has put a single dollar in my bank account.

Instead?

The key is to dive in and do it. Make mistakes. Learn on the job. Don't try to make your content, or your campaigns, so carefully choreographed that you wait forever to get them off of the ground.

The truth is, there is an old adage in the direct response marketing business that every newbie, or struggling beginner or overwhelmed information marketer MUST buy into to truly succeed.

"A C minus advertising campaign in the mail is better than an A+ idea in your head... 100% percent of the time"

Unfortunately, far too many marketers think that they have to learn everything, or discover every secret before they get that first piece of content, or copy or campaign into the hands of the people who WILL buy what you have to sell... as is, today.

The key takeaway?

Don't let perfection be an enemy of achievement in YOUR business... and don't let the 3 mistakes above keep you from the success you deserve, and that's pretty easy to achieve, this year... and forever more. (no gurus required!)

No comments:

Post a Comment