Good Internet Business Practice
Jun 25 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, Strategies
When running an Internet business, it’s important to maintain good business practices, just like when having an offline storefront establishment. The major difference in operating online is that you have a much larger market—and therefore potentially can do many times the business that you would be doing locally. All the more reason to keep your business practices up to snuff! :-)
An example of how you can go off the rails in your business practices is this…
Say you are communicating to customers via email. You should treat email as if it was a handwritten letter. Sign it! Otherwise how does the person receiving it know who you are? Then how do they address you when they write back? “Dear Ghost”? Or “Dear you-won’t-reveal-your-name”? Or “Dear you-want-me-to-visit-your-web-site-and-search-for-your-name?”
You won’t be using letterhead with email, so the best way to handle that is to have not only your signature at the bottom, but the name of your company and your contact information, too. Or perhaps a great, catchy headline making them want to click through to your Web site.
The same goes for greetings. Don’t just start messages with “I wanted to write to you about your last purchase…” Use their name in a proper greeting, “Dear John,” and give them some respect. In your offline business, you would never write a letter to a business associate and fail to use a greeting at the head of the letter, would you?
In a store or office, when a customer comes in with a question or complaint, it gets answered right away. You can’t turn away someone standing there in front of you. Even phone calls are answered and you deal with the person on the other end.
The same goes for an Internet business. The communication methods will often be different. They will usually email you or fill out an online form. These have to be handled rapidly.
When you don’t answer communications right away, you can lose a good customer. They wonder if you are really there at all, or if you are really serious about your business.
Perhaps you went out of business. They don’t know. It’s not like calling a company and hearing a voice on the other end stating the company name and giving you the option of speaking with a live person.
Truthful and accurate descriptions of your products or services are a must, too. If someone can walk into a physical store, they can inspect the merchandise for themselves.
They can’t see the actual item online, so you must be able to substantiate whatever claim you make as to its appearance, ability to do any function, etc. To advertise a product otherwise would be misleading and can result in less sales and countless refund requests.
Offline, when a store gets unsolicited referrals from a “competitor” it is likely that competitor becomes a partner in that you also refer customers to that store. Do the same online.
Does someone recommend and link to one of your products? Recommend and link back to one of his/hers, at least to his or her Web site!
Bottom line? Run your Internet business with all the care of one offline, and you will be respected for your good Internet business practices… and likely get more business through word of mouth!
—Marcus Hochstadt
The Importance Of Rapid Communication
Jun 17 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Strategies
In any business, online or off, your communication with your customers and business associates alike is extremely important. Whether you have a Web site, a regular store front establishment or have a mail order company from your kitchen table, you have to maintain rapid communication with all concerned; clients, customers, partners, and others.
It isn’t just what you say that’s the crux of your communications, but the speed with which it is delivered. Of course, what you say is vital. You are, after all, imparting a message with what you are saying—a message that should travel over to the other person by whatever means, and be understood. But perhaps you have that down. It won’t matter what perfect message you are relaying; if it comes too late, it won’t make a big difference.
What I’m saying is that speed in delivering the communication is very important. It can actually make or break you as a business. Here’s an example…
A lady wants 10 small booklets printed. It’s a pretty simple job, with no huge design challenges. She walks into a printer’s shop and tells them what she wants and gives a couple options, wanting to get a price range. The printer takes down all the details, and then says she will email the quote by the day after tomorrow.
The lady is sort of stunned, since the job seemed pretty simple. But she thanks the shopkeeper and leaves. She drives down the street to another printing shop. She walks in and tells them what she wants and gives a couple options. The printer pokes at a calculator and gives her a quote.
Guess who gets the printing job?
Take complaints within a business for another example. A customer with a complaint, although sometimes hard to face for a businessperson, needs attention, and needs it fast. It’s the complaints that aren’t “communicated to” that escalate into legal suits and other things.
This world has become one of customers desiring instant gratification. With the speed of the Internet and the ease of phone calls, this continues to increase. The same goes for communication. People with questions of you expect rapid response. If you don’t respond at all… well, they think you don’t exist anymore and go somewhere else.
So, okay—you know that you must respond to communications fast. Good! But now, how to you prioritize these communications? Glad you asked… ;-)
You should treat any communication as a priority when it’s related to your business, but how do you break them down more thoroughly?
Prioritize communication handling this way as a suggestion:
- People appearing in person
- Telephone calls
- E-mail messages
- Letters
There’s nothing worse than being in the middle of a business transaction in person with someone and having the phone ring to interrupt. What’s worse is when you are the customer and the business owner stops, picks up the phone, and begins a whole new transaction. It would be just as simple for him to either put the person on hold, explaining that he was going to be a few minutes, or taking a number to call back.
E-mail messages can be answered within a few hours with no real problem, and letters can be replied to within 24 hours to three days and still be considered rapidly handled.
Fast communications are vital to today’s business practices. Get good at it. You’ll have more business—guaranteed!
Or as Joe Vitale famously says, “Money loves speed!”
—Marcus Hochstadt
Law Of Attraction In Action
Jun 13 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Strategies
The term “Law of Attraction” is used a lot these days. And because I’m far from being an Law of Attraction expert, there are two sources I visit often and highly recommend, Abraham-Hicks and Gary Evans.
As far as I know, it’s based on the principal of “like attracts like.” Simply stated, if your emotions and beliefs are all positive, you will attract positive things. It precludes actually having to take action to attain these things. The idea is “they will come.”
It has been considered that you get what you feel in alignment with, and what you feel in alignment with determines what you will experience.
And yes, this can be applied to any area in your live, including the thriving Internet business you are building.
Let’s share a story with you…
A friend of mine had the Law of Attraction work for her—and she didn’t even know about it as a subject. That just goes to show that laws are laws. The law of gravity works whether we know about it as a law or not.
She had recently divorced and her children were grown and out on their own. She thought this was the perfect time to change everything in her life, move to a new city and start over. She could do all the things she had not had the chance to do before. She sat down for a couple of nights running and started making a list of the things she wanted.
She wanted a cheap place to live to start out. She wanted to get a job in which she could advance, and she even listed out certain things that she would like that she never had with her family. For instance, her family had hated chocolate (for whatever reason) and she loved it. She wanted to have Boston cream pie until she could stand it no more.
Once she arrived in the new city—with a friend putting her up until she could find a place to live—she almost immediately found the perfect place in the exact price range she pictured. (And it was commented by her friend that NOBODY found apartments that cheap in this area.) She got a job and was promoted in two weeks to an executive position. And when her birthday arrived, what did the office have for her celebration? You guessed it! Boston cream pie.
These were just a few of the things she had visualized. In fact, she had kept a little notebook where she wrote down all the things she had listed. A year later, she came upon the notebook while cleaning. Opening it to her list, she began highlighting all the things she now had that she had wanted back then. Every single one she had or had accomplished!
My friend had never heard of the Law of Attraction. Yet it worked for her. She knew what she wanted, listed it down, pictured what it would be like to have those things, and forgot about it… everything just happened from there.
If you have never seen the film entitled “The Secret,” you should see it. The way the Law of Attraction is defined presently is largely due to this film and its popularity.
Without getting into the history of the concept, suffice it to say it’s been around for a long, long time… like from the times of Babylon. :-)
The concept is simple. How you feel is shaping your future. If you have good thoughts, positive ideas and feel good, then that is how your future will be. The good things will come to you.
Following with the rule of like attracting like, you must therefore avoid negative feelings. If you are concentrating on the negative, negative things will come into your life.
For instance, if you are thinking how broke you are and how hard it is to get money, this will manifest for you. You’ll be broke and have a hard time getting money.
So how do you “practice” the Law of Attraction to change your life for the better? It’s only a few steps, and there are many details to each, but here is a summary.
- First you know what it is you want, and know it with conviction. You can list the things you want, like a shopping list.
- You ask “the universe” for it. The universe can be whatever you envision it is—God, some other higher power, a kind of energy source, whatever.
- You then focus upon the thing you want with an upbeat emotion like cheerfulness or enthusiasm or gratitude. You experience the emotions and feelings you have as if you already achieved or have what you want. You do this on a daily basis.
- You are open to receive it. If it doesn’t just appear, you might expect it to come in the form of some opportunity—and you should go with the flow if it feels right. Take advantage of the opportunity that will likely bring you what you want.
There isn’t any time frame. It will come about in its own time and space.
Do things that make you feel good, practice the Law of Attraction, and make your life better. Opportunities will unfold, and you can get what you want!
The Importance Of An Internet Business Plan
May 23 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, Strategies
So, you have this wonderful new idea for an Internet business—many have one—but web development and technology move at breathtaking speeds. Do you really have time to put together a business plan?
Of the millions of Internet businesses that have opened in the last few years, how many of these put together a detailed business plan, or even a blueprint? It’s a small percentage. Most new online businesses think preparing a business plan is a waste of time, and by the same respect, over 80% of all new businesses fail, often in the first year.
You have the vision, you may have lofty expectations of what you want to achieve, but do you know how to get there?
There is no “one fits all” solution… Every business—and every one—is unique, even for companies within the same sector. Plus, if you have a successful business offline, that doesn’t guarantee the transition online will be easy, and there are extra considerations when you start any business on the internet.
The primary purpose of any business plan is to give your business direction. In order to move forward, you need vision, planning, research, and goals. Not only do you need to convince yourself that your idea is viable, but a business plan will also convince others. Let’s say you want to raise capital, then your bank manager or potential investors will also need to see a detailed business plan.
The Internet is also a valuable source for finding templates and advice for your Internet business plan, so here I am going to outline the need of a business plan rather than the content, and if you still think you don’t want a business plan, come back in one year and let’s see how you performed. ;-)
Writing a business plan forces you to analyze every aspect of your proposed business venture and whether you use ten or twenty sections to get you there, it puts your vision down on paper, proves your understanding of the business, highlights any hurdles you may not have expected, and ensures that the overall idea is realistic.
Key Issues To Outline
Your Mission
Explain your new business and what you want to achieve. What are you currently doing that makes you believe you can make a success of?
Explain in detail what your business does, detail your products & services and illustrate your goals. Developing a Web site also requires further planning. What do you want to achieve from the front end, your user interface? Is this an e-commerce business, or do you just want to promote your business or services? Do you want to generate hits or want users to sign up for membership? What do you want your clients to see and do?
Express your vision and the keys to its success. (I personally use and highly recommend Mindjet’s MindManager Pro for this.)
How Will You Get There?
What resources do you have available? Are you using your own expertise, or will you be using employers or outsourcing work? If you have a successful business away from the internet, how will you make that transition online, and what effect will it have on your existing business?
How will you create your Web site and what resources do you have available? When a web designer starts work on your site, you will need a blueprint of how your site comes together, and how the pages are organized and integrated.
Outline your marketing strategy, your pricing strategy, and your plan to promote sales.
Analyze your competitors and explain what will give you the edge, while at the same time list possible partners. Take the time to plan for contingencies, too. Show that you are aware of possible hurdles and how they can be overcome.
Include timelines, goals, and explain where your Internet business will be in one year, five years, and ten years time, or within a scale that suits your business.
Back Up Your Information
If you think there are thousands of customers for your business, prove this figure and provide an up-to-date market analysis. You must include projected sales figures, cash flow and profit and loss forecasts. Not only will you need this to raise capital (in case you want to), but it provides you with a budget and planning tool to measure your progress.
Finally, top it all off with an executive summary. This is like the blurb on the back page of a novel. Summarize your Internet business plan and explain it on one page, which will be the very first page. When approaching investors and bankers, it should encourage them to take the time and read through your Internet business plan. It ensures that you can encompass all your facts, figures, vision, and your mission into one statement.
—Marcus Hochstadt
11 CommentsPermalink Tags: blueprint, internet business plan, vision
The Anatomy Of Hurdles
May 21 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, Strategies
On a daily basis, you may encounter several different hurdles… They distract you from the job at hand and frequently slow you down, but quite often they are an expected part of your working day.
It’s the bigger hurdles that present a challenge; they creep up through neglect, or bad planning, and can be extremely detrimental to your Internet businesses success.
So how do you define an Internet business hurdle? A challenge to one company can be a disaster to another. No wonder they are called a roadblock to success.
Let’s see… An Internet business hurdle may…
Impede Advancement
Unforeseen hurdles can slow down the progress of a project. They increase man hours, and affect its profitability, which has a continued effect throughout your Internet business, and the necessary excuses distill confidence with your customers.
Dictate Choices
A hurdle can force you into changing direction. When you plan and choose the direction your Internet business needs to move in, an unexpected hurdle limits those choices and may force your Internet business in a direction that would not be your ideal or first choice.
Block Avenues
A hurdle can also block avenues or possibilities completely. A roadblock to success is a common description for a business hurdle. For some hurdles, there may not be a way forward.
Cause Discouragement
When projects do not work as planned, or unforeseen hurdles block progress, the effects on morale are harsh. It’s very disheartening for managers and staff to not see a project through to fruition and can cause owners to neglect their Internet business rather than face further disappointment.
Affect Cash Flow
Most hurdles can have an effect on cash flow, when customers are slow to pay bills or sales drop, it’s increasingly difficult to pay your own suppliers and creditors. Bad financial management means that serious hurdles, like unforeseen tax bills, will also drain your resources, plus losing staff to sickness, family problems or other employers is another hurdle which slows down your advance and adds more expense with recruitment and training.
The Solution
To overcome Internet business hurdles, plan for them. When you create your initial Internet business plan, you have to implement plans for contingencies and analyze every potential hurdle. Risk Management needs to continue throughout the life span of your Internet business, and every new project and investment needs planning to control it and predict future outcomes.
The more you plan, the less Internet business hurdles you will face, or the smaller their impact will be. And when they appear, they are expected and you know the appropriate action.
Let’s look at the number one hurdle, lack of sales, and see how planning can prevent this problem:
How Well Do You Know Your Market?
In Internet business, you need to analyze your potential markets, and know how to reach them. If trends suddenly change, you need a plan to move with them. Your old marketing strategy may have worked once, but you need to keep up with the changing market. Never sit on your laurels. Reach out to your customers, reward loyalty, and actively promote and analyze new ventures.
Look At Your Performance.
If you cut corners on your production or service, your customers will soon realize. Plan your pricing strategy, and review and test it continuously. Is your price too expensive to be appealing, or are your prices too low? Most businesses do price themselves too low, which may win a short term popularity vote, but affects the performance of your overall Internet business and its “Net Worth” and can rarely be sustained.
Look at, and evaluate you customer services standards. These standards should be outlined in a plan and upheld regardless of the circumstances. Bad customer service is usually the number one reason your customer does not return.
Has Your Product Reached Its Lifespan?
Trends change continuously. The latest gadget on the market may earn you millions, but it will not be around forever. If you have based your business on one product, you will need to know what to do when this product reaches the end of its life-cycle. Do you have other products to replace it with? Or do you update old products to be “the latest” again?
Bottom Line
There are far too many hurdles to list here, as every Internet business is unique with its own set of risks, but planning and prevention are paramount.
You may not think you have the time, but that’s something else you need to overcome and plan. And when your Internet business stumbles over that last hurdle you failed to overcome, you will have all the time in the world to analyze it then and eventually start over.
Having said all this, I want you to remember a quote I use quite often…
If something doesn’t work, do not adjust your goal, adjust the action steps towards that goal.
—Marcus Hochstadt
Why I Do Not Use FeedBurner
Apr 30 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Marketing, Reviews, Strategies, Traffic Generation
Ever heard of FeedBurner? Stupid question, huh…
It seems as if the majority of bloggers use FeedBurner to distribute and track the use of their RSS feeds.
Every day I come across blogs showing off the neat little counter proudly displaying how many subscribers they have, just like so…
Here is the thing I have with Feedburner.
Feedburner feeds are, per default, in a format that looks like this…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/KeywordPhrase
And more strangely, when you view a blog post in a feed reader their URLs look like this…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/KeywordPhrase/~3/279888022/
Isn’t this a bit strange? How do you know to which site or post you’re subscribed to or what that post is about?
Another thing is word-of-mouth. Imagine you send the FeedBurner URL of a particular blog post to a friend. You eventually provide a short description to entice him/her to click trough. Yet still, it is fairly hard to imagine what one will find when clicking on such a ghost link.
Whereas, when one sends an RSS feed link of one of my blog posts to someone it is clearer what you will find when you click on it since it serves as a “URL headline.”
Do not underestimate word-of-mouth! I get lots of visitors from mail services like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Live Mail. Many of them enter my blog on individual pages. (My blog announcement list mentions the home page only.) It is likely some of them picked up the post’s URL from my RSS feed and sent it via e-mail to a friend.
How often did you hear that the headline is the most important part of a message? With a great headline you can pull a reader to your site to read all the rest. You can entice him, brag him and encourage him, but with a Feedburner feed… where is that “URL headline?”
Let’s compare the following two RSS feed links. Assuming both lead to the same location, which one would make you click?
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/InternetBusinessGuide/~3/279888022/
http://www.hochstadt.com/aweber-secret
See?
This is my main reason why I’m not a FeedBurner.
Another thing is that FeeBurner owns your feed when you use their services. Theoretically, they could do whatever they wish with it. They could even terminate your account. In such a case, you would instantly lose all of your subscribers. Think that won’t happen?
Recently, there was a guy using myspace.com as platform to social network with others and promote his upcoming first music CD. He built a large following in a fairly short time period. He had lots of friends and even established connections to popular names in the music industry. What happened?
Myspace.com terminated his account two days before his CD came out, without providing any reason.
BANG!
What was supposed to become a hit became a flop.
Bottom line, if, after reading the above, you still think it is advantageously to use FeedBurner, I at least strongly encourage you to remove the counter (unless it shows thousands of subscribers.)
—Marcus Hochstadt
45 CommentsPermalink Tags: feedburner, rss feed, subscription, word of mouth
The “Not Enough Time” Excuse
Mar 24 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, Strategies
“There are never enough hours in the day.”
This is a common excuse and everyone is using it. As I figured out over time, for our customers and colleagues, it’s exasperating to hear, and only highlights our poor time management.
When you bring up the topic of Time Management, it’s often dismissed as nonsense; business jargon from do-gooders with too much time on their hands. Try working in the real world is the response, no one could possible understand or do their job in the measly 24 hours allotted every day.
Even if you start work every day with the greatest intentions, time management is constantly challenged. You are distracted by phone calls, e-mails, or that mountain of mail that arrives on your desk daily. After hours on the computer you are lethargic and cannot concentrate, or the demands on your time are causing you considerable stress.
Or here’s another scenario… The project you are working on commands more time and resources than you can possibly handle, but you are reluctant to delegate this project to a colleague, contractor or employee.
There Is Logical Reasoning Behind This
Maybe you don’t want someone else to take the credit for this project; you want the praise, or even want to play the martyr for completing this task alone.
Another—and equally misleading—reason for not delegating work is the fear that the other person may not be able to complete it to the same standard and you will have to waste more time putting it right. You know the age-old saying that if you want to get something done correctly, you are best doing it yourself.
How insane is that…
Of course, if you cannot produce services to an agreed deadline, people may look elsewhere for a more reliable source. The internet has made this even more demanding. As technology has advanced, human beings struggle to keep up.
Also, some folks expect instant responses to their e-mails. They can purchase goods online in seconds and they can instantly buy into any online service with very little effort.
Still, performing all tasks by yourself due to fear of rejection or imperfectionism is a surefire way to 24/7 busyness (i.e., all-nighters) and discarding freedom.
So, Now That We’ve Heard The Excuses Let’s Look At Fixing The Problem
A successful Project Manager knows that you have to organize every project into small easily manageable tasks. By breaking the project down into small pieces, you can assign a timescale and budget to each of these components and then delegate roles. Delegating administrative and less important tasks gives you breathing room and time for finalizing more important and/or more confidential tasks.
Ever heard of the “80-20 rule” or the Pareto Principle?
The Pareto Principle is a business model that decrees that we achieve 80% of our results from only 20% of our efforts. The model is based on the Pareto Index, a parameter outlined by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, when he proposed that 20% of the population owned 80% of the wealth.
New models have changed the percentages slightly over the years, but the 80-20 rule can be applied to many different areas from the laws of nature, to human and social behavior, such as our network of friends, recognized when we spent 80% of our social time with 20% of our friends (or that 80% of our sales is generated by 20% of our customers.)
When you apply this to Time Management, the 80-20 rule seems quite outstanding. How can you possibly achieve 80% of your results with 20% of the effort. Does that mean you only have to put in 20% of the hours?
Well, when you start delegating and outsourcing, yes, definitely!
Now you probably recognize that you work hard 20% of the day, while the rest of the day is full of distractions, breaks for coffee, needless conversations on the telephone, browsing the internet instead of working, and on and on…
Ha! I caught you. :-)
Think about how you organize your time. Break projects down into small manageable tasks and don’t be distracted by those 80% time fillers. Plan your week, plan your day, and use whichever method gets the best result.
If you can, only review and answer your e-mails twice a day and not every ten minutes, when the server drops down the latest batch of junk into your inbox (including that distracting sound alert, uh!)
The same applies to your mail. Organize as it arrives. There should be only three categories: Action now, File, or Throw Away. If you have to add an Action Later category, you will soon find that the contents will end up as junk as well.
Although many businesses have standards of correspondence, when you receive a letter, rather than spending time typing another letter in return, could you simply write your response on the bottom and send it back? It’s good for the environment too.
And as for all that paperwork - clear your desk. It takes only five or ten minutes at the end of the day. This allows you to further organize your work for the following morning and walk into the office without being confronted by a mountain of paperwork.
Write To-do Lists And Prioritize Your Time
Another tried and tested Time Management technique is to list the five most important tasks to do in each day, or maybe ten depending on your Internet business, but make that list and stick to it. Prioritize the list further by listing the tasks in order of importance. Then make sure you complete the most important task first thing in the morning!
This tip alone—if applied consistently—saves you another 1-2 hours each and every day. (Don’t believe me? Why not just do it and experience it yourself… ;-) So did I.)
Finally, delegate any tasks that you are able to, empowering your contractors to be fully involved in your internet businesses success. After all, you should be managing your business, not suffering under the stresses of not having enough time…
—Marcus Hochstadt
Do You See The Footsteps In Front Of Mount Everest?
Feb 12 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, Strategies
Do you have big dreams? Do you know of people who have?
I know people with big dreams. Each and every single one of those dreams involves making a significant change in the way these people are currently living their lives.
Have you ever asked yourself why so many people spend all that time dreaming, but so few actually manage to live the life of their dreams?
The way I see it, the world is split into two camps: the world of people who actually get things done and the world of people with wishful thinking. So, what really makes the difference?
The answer to that question is twofold… It depends on peoples’ level of commitment to their goals and the way they go about achieving them.
Your Level Of Commitment
Big, ambitious goals demand a lot of energy, passion, commitment, determination, and persistence.
Why do you think Michelangelo took four years out of his life to carve the famous statue of David? Why do you think NASA keeps sending astronauts into space? Why is the tallest building in 2020, the planned Al Burj on Dubai’s waterfront, going to be over 1,000 meters high?
All these big projects were and will be achieved because they have one very important thing in common. The people behind them cared enough about them to make them happen. Tackling the question of what the source of true commitment is, then, becomes quite simple.
Commitment always starts with identifying a dream that is truly worth having, one that makes you stay up at night.
What do you really care for?
What is it that you really want, from the bottom of your heart?
How much does your dream mean to you?
Does it mean enough to you to commit yourself to it?
It’s something you need to become clear about before you embark upon achieving your goal. I cannot stress that enough.
How Do You Go About Achieving Your Goals?
Turning to the issue of how to go about achieving ambitious goals…
I often come across extremely driven, determined people who just don’t seem to be making any progress. Most of the time, it’s because they fail to find the correct balance in setting their short and long-term goals.
In other words, they set short-term goals that are too big, and long-term goals that are too small.
Setting big, even huge, long-term goals is nothing to be afraid of. You can make your ultimate goal as big as you like, as long as you stay conscious of the fact that anything worth having does take time, passion and determination.
You cannot earn a degree, master a musical instrument, or have a thriving Internet business in a couple minutes. Just like Rome wasn’t built in a day. Instant Gratification is a virus that needs to be stopped.
On the other hand, setting short-term goals that are too big can be detrimental to the achievement of your final goal. Motivation is vital for getting things done. So, when you fail in one of the shorter term goals, you risk losing your nerve and abandoning your dream completely!
Here’s a wonderful technique to avoid that from happening…
Cut the big picture into small, very small and doable pieces. Transform your journey towards the final goal into a series of tiny, mini-steps. Make sure each of these steps is so small that it makes you think they’re too easy—they might not even look like actual steps!
Write down every single one of them in a list. Tackle each step, one at a time, and check it off on the list once you’re finished with it. Ticking things off is a very powerful technique to motivate yourself. You are giving yourself a personal reward of sorts every time you complete a task. This will keep you going until your dream finally materializes.
Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?
Well, one could say Simplicity was the father of Archievement. ;-)
Bottom Line
The right strategy is to think big, but execute small. After all, the only way to get from here to where you want to be is by taking all the little steps in between.
Give yourself permission to motivate you.
—Marcus Hochstadt
Internet Business — Planning Comes Before Building
Feb 6 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, Strategies
“If you build it, will they come?”
Don’t think just by creating a blog site or starting an Internet business that you will be like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams. He built a baseball field and the players came… but that was a movie and this is real life.
In order to sell or bring in business, you have to plan and work at it. Even the best entrepreneurs and copywriters will tell you that. (No, not those GRQ scams; they’ll continuously promise you the quick ‘n dirty easy zero-cost path to wealth—when you buy their $97 e-book. Sorry but I’m just too tired of them… LOL)
The following startup tips will help you become a successful entrepreneur… one step at a time.
Before you register your domain name and put up a Web site, you need to plan and build the foundation of your Internet business and the audience you’re about to target. What? You already started a site or blog but haven’t planned anything upfront?
Well, then… now is a good time to do it and start fine-tuning (or starting over if necessary.)
What are your plans for marketing? Who is your target audience? Where will you find these people? And, most importantly, why should they buy from you? Deejay vu… English 101 all over again…. Who, What, Where, and Why. The “How” will be answered… through the creation of your Web site.
Let’s look at marketing first. There are many sites out there, including mine, that offer marketing tools, tips, and products (soon) that will help you bring in more traffic or assist in sealing the deal. Take some time to check them out and choose the ones that are best for you and your product.
Next, who is your target audience? You should have been thinking about this all along when you were drawing up your business plan and fine-tuning your ideas. Who will shop or purchase your products. Everyone? A select group? Men? Women? Pets? (Just kidding with the latter…) Now is the time to truly define this in order to know where to look online to find these people.
So, you have your target audience… now what? Start out by checking for blog sites, forums, and other sites that cater to your target audience, or who would buy or market your product, or be interested in your blog. Compile a comprehensive list and then start contacting them or participating.
You can either write up a great sales copy, post to their blog, forum, or site, check out their affiliate programs, etc. The sky is the limit here. With so many Web sites out there, you are bound to come across many potential buyers or customer bases.
When contacting these prospects, think to yourself, “Why should they buy from me or check out my blog, rather than someone else’s?” What makes your site and/or product stand out? You need to be able to answer these questions and stand behind your product (or the ones you recommend) in order to bring in the sale or hit to your site.
Do not copycat someone else; build your own “brand of one”.
Now that you have answered the “Who, what, where, why, and how,” you should be well on your way to Internet business success.
Remember business plans always need fine-tuning. Also, make sure to keep your blog (if you have one) fresh and updated… posting things people want to read on a regular basis (more than once per week; yes, blogging is a commitment.)
Continue to create or build upon your sales base. The market is always changing and you need to be ready and on top of your game… if you want to stay in the game.
“If you build it right, they will come!”
Right? :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
Why Drafting Messages Saves You Time
Jan 29 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, Strategies
Drafting messages in order to publish them at a later time is a great way to save a bunch of time. You sit down one time, focus on writing, writing, writing, and then you’re done for a couple of days or even weeks.
I haven’t “completely” done this exercise yet. What I mean by “completely” is to take an entire day off and write as many blog posts as I can, putting them into my WordPress post management and schedule them for a certain date to be published (or simply leave them there as drafts and hit the “Publish” button when the time is right).
I did once spend two hours though. I locked my door and really focused on the task at hand and got five blog posts written that way. Two of them are still in my draft posts area, so to speak.
Matt Cutts posted the other day mentioning he’d have ~219 (!) yes, two hundred nineteen draft posts. He’s now thinking of deleting or publishing them. Think about this for a second (or two)… 219! I currently have only 5 drafts (five). He has 219… Wow!
How many draft posts do you have in your WordPress Mission Control Center?
Well, I do have an excuse (we all have one, don’t we)… I started this blog just a couple of weeks ago (4 weeks exactly today!), not two years ago like Matt.
Still, one of my goals is to have a bunch of posts finished and scheduled to be published on __.__.____. Let’s say to have enough for an entire month… this would free up our time, wouldn’t it? Imagine, you’d have 30+ posts ready and scheduled, how much time would you have freely available to do something else then?
And to answer Matt’s question… Matt, I, personally, would trash the “pretty sucky” posts and polish those that would make them become a high quality one, if you have the time. (Matt must be 10 times as busy as I am!)
“Well, let’s first get that AdSense video finished, Marcus…”
Alright!
—Marcus Hochstadt
Not Enough Time?
Jan 21 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, Strategies
Occasionally, I see messages from folks complaining they would not have enough time to do this or to do that. They say their day would need to have a lot more hours than just 24 (say, 36 or 48) in order for them to accomplish the tasks that are on their to-do list. They then usually continue to say if this or that circumstance would not be present they would certainly be more successful, “but”…
This is employee thinking that even I had to get rid of.
Of course, when you think of spending 24 of your personal hours then you get something in return for those 24 hours. And to continue this, in case you’d be able to spend 48 hours per day you’d probably get more in return than by 24 hours spent.
As a matter of fact though, you CAN have 48, even a lot more hours per day being spent on your business. No, you don’t have to do all that on your own… It is a very wise move to have other people grow your business. Or how else do you think are big companies being built?
Use their business model to your advantage. Delegate!
Think you can’t delegate? Think your work is too confidential?
Step out of your comfort zone. You have to let go of certain tasks in order to discover people that are more apt to accomplish things for you. There are tons of people available and willing to do a lot of work for you.
The less you work on your business and the more you delegate tasks, the more your business will grow and the more profitable it will be (provided you hire the right people for the right job, of course.)
Doesn’t this sound like freedom?
For me it does; discovered it myself. It was when I read Timothy Ferriss’ book (was in April 2007, when it came out.) I started hiring people that did some work for me. As I found out there are folks that are faster and more sophisticated than I am in certain areas.
I encourage you to get out of your comfort zone. Look at which of your tasks can be outsourced, then go ahead and hire someone today. Not tomorrow, not next year— do it TODAY!
—Marcus Hochstadt
How To Synchronize Your Brain Cells
Jan 16 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Lifestyle, Strategies
I’ve spent two hours playing Frisbee on the beach today. Sport is, generally, something I do find attractive. It is not only healthy, it also gives me the opportunity to train my brain.
Today, my friend David (who currently lives here in sunny Brazil too, just a couple minutes from my home) received the package from the USA with the Freestyle Frisbee discs he ordered in December. They look really nice and are very good in the hand.
Not only that, but they fly like angles… soft, precise, elegantly. I’m even so far that I can do a little bit of freestyle, which he taught me. Just a little bit and it’s a lot of fun! :-)
Freestyle Frisbee means to rotate the disc on one finger when it arrives at your spot. That’s a very basic thing you may title as “freestyle.” They even go so far and do whatever it takes to make playing Frisbee much more enjoyable (ex., rotating around your body, picking up while you jump, etc.)
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself here…
The point is, once we were warm (yup, we’re now back at the beach ;-), I had an idea of throwing a disc to each other at the same time. Meaning, he threw one to me while I threw one to him. So I had to catch his and he had to catch mine at about the same time.
That was the first step to “synchronize my brain cells.” ;-)
I figured my brain was on the one hand concentrating on how my disc flew while also focusing on the disc that came to me and wanted to be caught.
Now, the really fund part started when David recommended to go extreme.
He recommended to go back to one person throwing only, but to throw two discs instead of one. Wow!
Imagine this, two discs in your hand, and throw them to your partner.
With a little training you throw them pretty much together so your partner can catch both, one in each hand.
The stretching of the body looks soooo spectacular, I’m telling you. Not only this, your brain starts to react in a really funny way, too. When I was watching him trying to catch both discs, his brain apparently was confused at times as for which disc to catch first.
After a short while though you could see a tremendous improvement. It got easier and easier to catch both disks fairly quickly.
It’s similar to another exercise I learned when studying NLP. There we were doing some funny looking “dances,” like touching your right kneecap with your left elbow, then your left kneecap with your right elbow, then again the right kneecap with the left elbow, etc etc.
Try it! You might end up coming up with new, fresh ideas! ;-)
~Marcus
P.S. I would really LOVE showing you a real photo of our today’s funny looking exercise instead of the stock image you see above. Didn’t have the camera with me, sorry. Next time, OK?
No CommentsPermalink Tags: , brain exercise
First Class Progress, Or The Power Of Deadlines
Jan 10 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Strategies
Many of us, me included, have encountered times in our life where we became slow in getting something done. We are working on a project every day and it seems, somehow, we do not proceed in the way we intended to. What’s the cause? Why is that so?
There are various reasons. One of them is the lack of a deadline.
When you are (or were) an employee your boss usually gives you deadlines (or s/he asks you to give him/her one; pretty much the same.) Miss them and you get into trouble.
In the Internet business world, you are your own boss. Do you set yourself deadlines?
The majority says “no” here; so this issue needs to be addressed.
Do you have a Mentor? Great! Make sure s/he keeps track of your progress by, for example, using a Weekly Action Plan. In that plan, write down your last week’s accomplishments and the goals for the upcoming week. These weekly deadlines, when treated seriously (!), WILL boost your accomplishments every single week. (At least you’ll find yourself finishing the remaining tasks before you submit the report to your Mentor. ;-)
Again, you need to treat it seriously. If you start thinking you don’t have to send anyone anything, well, you’re probably right. And when you’re zealous with a strong discipline you might very well be able to write a Weekly Action Plan to yourself and follow it to a tee. Still, there exist countless people getting stuck in simple tasks. I’m confident they’d get past the hurdles when they’d use and follow such a plan thoroughly.
Been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt. :-)
Don’t have a Mentor yet? Get one! It’s not launched yet, but I’m going to start a Mentoring Program in the future. Meanwhile, either you continue your search and get one NOW, you seek someone else whom you trust and DO follow, or you become your own mentor for now.
Beware… It doesn’t help a single thing when you send this document to your mom, and then once the day arrives where you’re supposed to send the next plan to her you come up with excuses why you couldn’t do this and what kept you from doing that.
Do you get the idea?
Remember, at the end of the day, the work you do is not for someone else; you do it for you and for yourself only. The Weekly Action Plan is just an instrument to push you forward and bring your Internet business to the next level, every single week.
Another method is to increase the pain accompanied with NOT fulfilling a deadline, also known as “away-from motivation.” For instance, “If XYZ is not finished until DDD, I am going to pay $XXX to YYY.” Sound familiar? It should since something like that does happen when you miss sending in your tax return on-time. Why not apply that very powerful method in order to create a First Class Progress in your Internet business?
At least it’s a method that has been proven to work countless times! ;-)
And here’s an advanced technique you could apply to this…
– Specify an amount that would really hurt to pay; preferably that would be twice your monthly earnings.
– Write a letter to someone you’d really HATE sending this huge amount of money to. It should really make you think, “No, not to THAT person!” Exactly that person would be the right one. ;-)
– Send the letter to that person and to at least five others. This is to reinforce the power and urgency that is behind the goal you set yourself and the promise you wrote down in the letter in case you do not fulfill what you’re supposed to do.
The biggest accomplishments often lie in finishing the simplest tasks.
—Marcus Hochstadt
P.S. Wanna know what stands in MY Weekly Action Plan? Well, part of it you are going to find here on this blog next week. ;-)
How To Increase Alexa Ranking
Jan 8 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Strategies
Would you like to increase the Alexa Ranking of your Web site? I did it myself a couple times already, and once again just recently.
Two weeks ago on December 24, 2007, the Alexa Ranking of this domain, hochstadt.com, was below 3,000,000. Today, its one-week average is at a more glorious 175,347. (In Brazil, I’m even on 19,264!) That’s a huge jump of more than 2,800,000 spots. (With the 1,400% jump in Reach they currently display, I actually should be on the Movers/Shakers page, shouldn’t I? ;-)
How did I accomplish that?
Simple answer: I initiated a traffic boost.
I own that domain since 2002, but up to that point I used it mainly for my day-to-day e-mail communication. In December, I decided it was time to “do something more useful” with it and put up a blog. I then announced to the small lists I own and to a whole bunch of friends and relatives by mentioning a Christmas Card in HTML format. (It was a plain simple HTML page with a picture (still live) and text in three languages, as well as a small link to the home page where I was playing around with the Wordpress installation.)
Some of them obviously have the Alexa Toolbar installed. That’s where the first jump around Christmas occurred.
The second jump happened when James Brausch honored one of my posts on his blog on January 2nd.
By the way, Jack S. Keifer has also experiences with increasing his Alexa Ranking. As of today, his one-week average ranking is at 159,503 (jumped up from 3,550,000.) Even when you compare our site’s ranking, the curves (representing the past three months) are very similar, aren’t they…
(C’mon Jack; let’s push our sites up to the next level! :-)
Jack was inspired by an article Richard Lee recently published on how to improve your site’s A-Ranking. (New word, huh?) Also a nice method to pump it up.
Bottom line? Alexa is useless for measuring your own traffic. Use more reliable tools such as Google Analytics, Site Meter, and the like for that.
It IS useful for comparing how you are doing against your competitors and friends. And the better the ranking (above 100,000) the more accurate the data becomes.
Stay within your theme, post quality content on a regular basis, and you’ll soon as well attract more visitors to your site, therefore it is likely your Alexa Ranking climbs up, too.
See you at the top!
—Marcus Hochstadt
P.S. In case you have it not done yet, here’s the link to download and install the Alexa Toolbar on your computer…
11 CommentsPermalink Tags: alexa, ranking
How To Overcome Writer’s Block
Jan 7 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Strategies, Tutorials
Think you cannot write? Wanna know how to overcome writer’s block? Here’s a test I did just today in order to write this very article here…
When I was downloading files of a demo video in order to watch it offline at a later time, I took a look at the time that was remaining to have the video fully downloaded on my hard drive. It displayed “35 minutes remaining.” I found myself asking what I could do with those 35 minutes.
“I could drink a glass of wine.”
Straight to the kitchen, I grabbed a glass of wine, went back to my desk, and started sipping. Well, that took me only 20 seconds. What the heck am I going to do with the remaining 34 minutes and 40 seconds?
“I could write an article for my blog.”
That’s it! Write an article for my blog and show my readers that they can do the same. I could tell my readers there exist people that need 1-2 days to write an article for their site, whereas others need a lot less than an hour (ex., while downloading something ;-).
I am confident there are people out there that can write a 500 word article in 10 minutes. My mom is one of those high-speed writers. No, that’s even lightning speed, isn’t it!
OK, back to my writing…
So I opened up the plain text editor on my machine (NotePad, that is) and started writing.
The first thing I usually do is decide upon a topic to write about. In most cases, I take a look at a keyword list; either at the one I already have or simply by going to one of the keyword research sites (ex., WordTracker, Google) and perform a quick brainstorm in order to find profitable keyword phrases, topics where people are looking for information and solutions.
Yes, when you build a Web site, in order to succeed you’re better off providing solutions to problems. Give them what they want and everyone will be happy, win-win all over the place.
Alright, back to my writing… I opened up my Web browser and went to Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool in order to find a keyword phrase for this very article real quick. I put myself into the visitors shoe… What would *you* be looking for? What would your question be? What would you probably enter into the search box at a Search Engine?
The topic I’d probably write about is how to overcome a writer’s block. So… When I’d have that sort of obstacle I’d probably enter “Writers block” at the Search Engine. So, that’s what I entered at Google’s Keyword Tool, including checking the “Use synonyms” check box. (Who knows, perhaps Google shows me keywords that are more profitable than the one I’m thinking of?)
Once I clicked on the “Get Keyword Ideas” button it brought back a list of 12 related keywords plus 30 additional keywords to consider. Wow, I was in business!
And there it is, my keyword: “writers block” with good demand and supply; even “overcoming writers block” is worth considering.
Here it was… my today’s topic to write about.
Since I have knowledge on how to overcome writers block, I was excited. I started writing right away. I wasn’t thinking—I just started writing.
And this is what I recommend you to do whenever you encounter a writer’s block, whenever you think you don’t know what to write about what. Just start writing! Even if you think it’s just plain stupid, just start writing. The first couple of paragraphs really don’t have to make perfectly sense.
There are only two things you need to take care of at the beginning…
#1 – Get started by just writing. The more you write the more you’re going to let the words flow naturally, the more profound knowledge will flow through your fingers. And…
#2 – Perfectionism paralyzes. There’s a *perfect* example I’m going to share with you here. As you know, English is my second language. So there are quite a few words I don’t know the word in English but in German. When I’m writing and such a word occurs, I put special marks around that word (ex., _word_). Later, I can find or replace that word once I got my draft finished and mentally go into editing mode. So…
Put those words on (electronic) paper and edit later. (Wow, a rhyme!)
-
That’s about it. Let’s take a look at the counter…
1 minute and 15 seconds remaining at the download timer. OK, that was not writing at lighting speed, but it’s done after all! And I do have an excuse… I sipped that delicious white wine a couple times! ;-)
My today’s story is finished!
I wish you all the best and… happy writing! :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
P.S. I did indeed take a couple more minutes (10, perhaps) for editing the article and bringing it in better shape. Again, without perfectionism. Keep your focus on simplicity and basics.
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