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If you thought anything like I did several years ago,
you probably thought you could just THROW up a
website and make money. You know, like the ones
our "friends" at Dead yellow offered. FREE Website,
FREE e-mail, FREE money, FREE...........well, I
won't go there.
After throwing the site together, just submit it to the URL
submitter a couple times a day and visitors would just flock
to my site. NOT! Boy did I feel stupid. Still do sometimes.
But I have to admit making mistakes has helped in my
approach to earning money online. Fortunately those early
ventures only cost me about $400 and I did actually earn
several checks so I put my loss at around $240.
I think it was worth the lessons I've learned.
The way I see it, these are the things you MUST have in order
to prosper on the Internet.
1) A Unique Product or become a dealer for a reputable company
2) You own opt-in mailing list with a listserver
3) A PROfessionally designed website
4) A Salemanager (software to follow up on your prospects)
5) Traffic
Being in the restaurant and lawn & tree care businesses a unique
product was somewhat of a problem. I mean I really couldn't have
you download a T-bone medium rare and a twice baked, now
could I ? Mmmm...maybe a fungicide treatment for your lawn. Nope.
Grub treatment.......Nope.
Now off to the Net to find something that people would NEED and
purchase in quantity. First I cut some cookies. BIG mistake. Then
I tried to sell overpriced vitamins. HUGE mistake. Not only did I sell
about 2% of what I ordered, they weren't as good as ones costing
about 20% as much. Boy did that guy FOOL me!
Now my pea-sized brain was spinning..........where do I find the products
or sevices that people TRULY need. I needed to offer the same quality
that people received from my offline businesses. And it HAD to have the
same VALUE.
Off to the web to find a Professional designer. Made a list and started
checking out their reference sites. Whatever you do, check out at least
twenty of their designs. Alright lets go site seeing. Mmmm...Nice....Ah
OK.......Oh Gosh is that Elvis? I mean pink on black, who can even
read that? YECH ! Pretty good. Gross. Eyes glimmering. Terrible.
The one thing I kept asking myself was, would I be PROUD to let my
Mother see this? I mean I may not have the greatest sense of color in
the world, but NEON on black??? Just so amateurish it made me
wonder what in the world these people were thinking about. Did they really
think ANYONE would buy something from a HORROR show? Nuff
about the hunt for the website designer. I FOUND them and they did
a terrific job for me.
Well, I hate to tell you the truth about this, but it truly took me OVER
a year to find the right combination of companies that has started
earning me money. I found companies that offer great products and
education. I combined them with a company that has everything you NEED
to do business on the web. The smaller investments have slowly but
SURELY grown while I now have a PRO fessional website with which
to advertise this combination of products and services.
My site has a listserver built in, so my newsletter subscriber list is
growing
very quickly. I have the salesmanager software also built into my site.
And I am proceeding to make adequate (for the time being) money
on the Internet. Ta Da......I never really thought I would get rich doing
this, just earn enough to retire from the brick and mortar world.
Hopefully you understand that it does take HARD work and long hours to
prosper on the 'Net. If you think you can just get "lucky"........forget it
!
Hopefully we will all realize our dreams of being financially independent,
working from HOME.
Happy Marketing !
About the Author
Mike Cantwell is the webmaster of Income Solutions Online.
Your one stop website for everything from Professional
Design to Solid Business Opportunities. Subscribe to our
free newsletter. http://www.incomesolutionsonline.com/newsletter.htm
Website URL: http://www.incomesolutionsonline.com
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