Archive for Info Product Business
Hold The Perfection Please……
Posted by: | CommentsI often sit and think and try to remember everything I did when I first started in the business of making money online. I always fall back to one of the keys to the success I've had and that is not trying to make sure everything is perfect before I go after it. Yes, you read that right I try to make sure it's NOT perfect.
One of the hardest things to grasp when you're building your first website or just trying to make money online is that things do not need to be perfect for you to make money. In fact, sometimes you don't even have to be really good at it to make money – it just happens.
I want to share my thoughts on this and I really believe this will help many people. Striving for perfection during the learning phase can lead to discouragement. Let me give you an example. Imagine you're a carpenter and you just started learning how to build a cabinet with a blue print. Do you really think your cabinet will be better than the person who studied for years and has already built things for several years? Probably not. You'll then look over at the guy next to you who been doing it for so long and go “My cabinet looks horrible compared to his! No way is this thing going to sell!”
You know what, you might be right. But, I'd be willing to bet you can still make money with it. The fortunate thing about a website is that once it's built you're not trying to sell the website itself you're simply promoting products on that site which is much simpler. But, that site isn't going to be as well optimized and as good looking as someone that has been in the biz for 5 years.
Along with discouragement comes another issue for those who seek to hit perfection immediately out of the gates. That other is is procrastination. The longer it takes you to get your site out and start link building for it, the more likely you are to keep waiting or even give up. I've always believed that you should get it out there and then tweak after it's out. You have to remember you're not trying to launch an Ipad here that needs to be perfect when it comes out. Wait, you mean even the Ipad wasn't perfect at launch time? Therein lies my point whether we agree with it or not even large companies launch things without them being perfect at first. Because…
A). They'll make a lot of money with it right away.
B). They can tweak it and try to perfect it later. Hopefully.
So even if your site isn't perfect at first chances are you're going to be able to make money with it sooner than later. After you get the site out you can go back and test, tweak, move things around, add more pages/posts or do really whatever you want to it. Plus, by getting it out there and working on it you'll be less likely to be discouraged and less likely to procrastinate or give up.
The mental game of making money online is often harder than the actual process of making money online. We want everything perfect and we want steady money rolling in almost immediately and those are 2 things that seldom happen overnight.
So my advice is skip the perfection and get the site out asap. As time goes by and the more practice you put into this, the more more money you'll make and the easier this all becomes.
How to Destroy Your Business (This is UGLY).
Posted by: | CommentsRecently, I bought a product online from a pretty well respected person in the Internet Marketing niche. I bought the product because it looked like a great tool and I thought I could use it to increase my business.
I installed the product and started using it. It worked GREAT for awhile. After 6 months I began having some issues with it so I contacted the vendor. (This is where the whole experience becomes and utter nightmare and where I think MANY businesses are shooting themselves in the foot.)
First, I couldn’t find a support desk anywhere for the product. I finally found it by watching one of the guys videos where he simply mention the help desk email address. Keep in mind I still have to write it down after watching a 16 minute video just to find that.
So I now send an email to the help desk (on a Monday). A few days go by and I get no answer at all. So I send another email at this point (Hey I fully understand emails can get lost, dropped in a SPAM folder, accidentally deleted or just lost in the shuffle.)
Another 5 days go by and still, nothing.
By this point I’ll admit I’m getting a little bit irritated.
Finally, an email comes in. YAY! Except their solution is I am not using the product right and to re-watch the videos.
So I basically waited 8 days to get a two sentence email back telling me to go re-watch the videos. So I decided, for sake of my own sanity, maybe I missed something and I went back and rewatched all the videos.
Hmmm I’d set everything up right. So now I get to email this person again.
So I fired off another email explaining that I followed the videos again, the product was originally working and now is not working, but upon rewatching the videos I know that everything is setup right.
After only 7 days this time I got a response back. I felt great about not having to wait until the 8th day again….
PAY ATTENTION – if you have a help support desk, support staff, sales team or are just doing things yourself in your own Internet business, this is what not to do……
The email this time simply says…. "The product works but you must have another script interfering with it. If you can’t get the product to work we’ll send you a refund, just send us your receipt and we’ll get that taken care of for you."
Right now you should be cringing if you’re reading this.
So I sent back a message explaining I DON’T want a refund and that it would be nice if they could help trouble shoot the potential problem and help me get it working again…. I mean unless I am wrong that is what a HELP desk is for. (Honestly, the $67 I spent on the product isn’t life changing so I’d rather have some help to get it to work.}
Now, 13 days later – still NOTHING.
So that prompted me to write a post and go over some things that if you’re doing in your business you MUST FIX now.
#1. If you have a help desk train your staff. Do I even need to cover this? Just hiring a person to send emails back and forth isn’t going to help your customers. I mean you do care about your customers, right? Having ignorant people with your company makes you look really ignorant as well.
#2. TIME is an issue. I understand smaller companies might not be able to have phone support. However, if you’re going to have a help desk make sure they respond to YOUR customers in a timely manner. Making someone wait for 7-8 days for an initial response is BAD business. If you’re business is so busy that, that is the fastest time they can get back to you – hire more people.
#3. Make sure people can find your help desk. This should be a no-brainer. If you are selling online products make sure people can find your help desk and support area. If you’re selling digital products this should be included on your download page and inside the product.
Not an extremely hard list to follow is it? You’d be surprised at how poorly managed this is online. It can at times feel like an epidemic of poor customer service.
Keep in mind a couple things. I fully understand that a help desk might not be able to get back with me over a weekend (between Friday night and Monday morning) and I also understand lack of support for holidays. If your company is large enough you should include that, but if not it makes sense not to have it over the weekend. However, all support should be done on the Monday after the weekend.
It’s also possible for emails to not arrive at their destination. It happens. It’s not perfect. However, if it keeps happening to a customer that excuse won’t fly. Treat your customers like gold and they will keep buying. Even if my situation gets resolved I will never buy from this person again. Let’s face it, I’m busy and to waste time isn’t really an option.
Lastly, I’ll stress it one last time, Treat your customers like GOLD. You may not think one person matters but each time it adds up. The last thing you ever want to get labeled as is someone who doesn’t give a crap about their customers or that you’re only doing this for the money and you’re basically ripping people off. They will flee and never come back.
Fast Way To Rank For Your Name
Posted by: | CommentsAs many as you know ranking for your name can really help your business grow. If you have a very unique and not often used last name it’s not that hard and if you have a rare first and a rare last name it’s even easier! However, some of us have first and last names that are so common that ranking in the top 10 can be ridicolous.
I personally rank between #1 and #2 consistently for Michael S Brown but have never ranked well for Michael Brown for a couple reasons. First, I have never tried or never really needed to. The second thing is that is was always extremely competitive and just didn’t bother with it. After all there are over 85,000,000 competing pages for Michael Brown.
However, now is a good time for anyone to start at least getting their name on the front page of Google with very little work.
Before I show you the easy steps to do this let me first tell you the importance of this. If you are doing anything that involves your name such as writing e-books, writing books, displaying yourself on video, public speaking or even running affiliate sites where you present people with your name this is important. When people hear about you or one of your sites or products they want to learn more about you. One of the best places for them to do this is Google itself.
Now you still might be thinking "What’s the point?" But, the point is that your name can be up there in case the look for you. When the person looking for you finds your site/profile listed in Google they will likely visit to learn more about you. On this page you’ll want to have some links to your sites, products and just over all more information about yourself.
You can see my profile here. (more info about me will be added later). You can also see my screen shot below that.
Now, let me show you below how you can take advantage of this and how you can make yours pop up on the first page…
Go to www.google.com/profiles and setup your own profile. Make sure to include as much information about yourself as possible (especially if you have a very common name). The more information you add the more it will help you show up on the first page.
Now believe it or not one of the biggest factors is simply adding a picture of yourself. I went from page 8 to page 1 in just a few minutes of adding a picture of myself. Also the same rules apply as normal ranking. Use your name a couple time in the body and you could optionally build links to your profile if you wanted to. Lastly
The best part is the ability to add links on the side bar and add links in the body of your profile. When people come learn more about you they can then find your rpdocucts or what your teaching, promoting etc. Cool eh? There are a lot of cool things you can do with your profile and I am sure I’ll update mine alot over time.
What are your thoughts? Are you using this yet? Questions or comments below.
Product Creation Labs – Private Workshop Is It For You?
Posted by: | Comments|
|
Recently Kevin Riley Released his Product Creation Labs Private Workshop and it’s sure to be a hit. This is a physical product that get’s sent to your doorstep. Inside the set are step by step instructions for every single day and comes on CD Roms and designed for you to watch on your computer. This product is designed to get you going fast into the world of starting your own successful info product creation businesses. Kevin has been doing it successfully for 30 years and over 5 years ago went online with his product creation. What comes with the product? 8 CDS (one is a special Bonus CD with a ton of vieo and content). A step by step manual used to guide your easily through the course. Over 50 step by step work sheets that will ultimately enhance your learning experience. It also includes a useful forum where you can get help step by step everyday of the week. What else does the Product Creation Labs Private Workshop Come with? How about a weekly Mastermind session? This is a live on air session where Kevin will answer questions, provide insight and even offer direction for your product!! If you really want to make money online one of the best ways is with your own product and you should really grab a hold of this right now.. Plus, the first 100 orders get a $100 discount. |
