There’s been a lot of negative talk recently about the imminent demise of a whole generation of internet marketers who are going to be ‘crushed’ by the more-established, more business-savvy breed of marketer.
It seems that hardly a week goes by without being reminded that unless we take drastic measures, (which usually involve very expensive seminars), our very existence as online entrepreneurs is threatened.
What do you think? Are you worried?
Personally, I’d say I’m a little nervous but I’m not in a state of panic. The sand IS shifting a bit at the moment. New technologies are replacing old technologies at a very rapid pace. The internet marketing landscape is in a constant state of flux as marketers search for new ways to grow their businesses and find a marketing angle for every new technology that comes online.
For the individual, home-based entrepreneur, it becomes an increasingly dizzying array of things to learn and things to do.
On top of that, there’s all the distraction…
How often have you sat down to work on a specific aspect of your business, only to get caught up in email or stalled by some technological glitch or complication? The net result is that you often spend loads of time getting nowhere.
A big part of the problem is down to 2 things…
1) Trying to do everything yourself.
2) A lack of planning and/or focus in the business.
In the earlier ‘Wild west’ period of internet marketing, the majority of the online marketing gurus were trying to do everything by themselves too.
In recent years, however, the situation has changed.
The savvy marketers — those who brought focus and proper business approaches to their online business — are taking their business out of the home and into an office. They’re hiring personal assistants, in-house webmasters, accountants… They’ve got business plans, annual budgets and sales projections.
In short, they’re establishing themselves as real businesses that function like real businesses.
The message now being spread on the internet marketing grapevine is, “if YOU don’t get your act together and bring focus and professionalism to YOUR business too, then you’re going to get brushed aside by the big, established guys“.
Now, if you’re just in internet marketing because you enjoy what you do and just want to make a few extra dollars, then there’s probably no reason to be overly concerned. If, however, this is your only source of income (or you want it to be your only source of income), then the idea of being brushed aside isn’t all that appealing.
So what are you supposed to do?
Well, the first thing I suggest you do is download and read the Rich Shefren’s Internet Business Manifesto (That’s not an affiliate link, by the way). If you’re serious about your business, then this is ESSENTIAL reading. It will help you determine where you’re at and what you need to do to go farther. It will probably scare you a little too…
After that, I suggest you read this short, thoughtful, (and free) PDF ebook by Dr. Mani — it may help ease your mind a bit.
After that, I’d recommend taking a pen and paper and giving a good, long think about your business.
Here are some suggestions to help you get started…
- Write a paragraph that explains what your business does. Is it an ebook business? Is is a marketing business? Is it an ebook marketing business? Does it sell a product? Does it sell a service? Does it sell lots of products and services? Does it aim at a specific, clearly-defined niche or does it use the scatter-gun approach that wants a little bit of everything?
- Write down a list of all the individual streams of income to your business. Write each product individually, each website individually, each affiliate program individually…
Open Excel (or any spreadsheet software) and enter that list of income-generators down the left-hand column. Now, go and find out how much income you’ve made each month from each of these profit-streams. Go through your sales records, log into your affiliate accounts and so on, and find out how much money each one has been making. Go back as many months as you can - you need at least 3 months to begin developing an overall picture of things.
Suddenly, you get a much clearer view of your business. Where’s the money coming from? Which areas are wasting your time for practically no return?
- Now, make a list of all the costs associated with your business over the past few months. This would include things you bought like ebooks and software, services like webhosting and autoresponders as well as marketing costs like PPC advertising and ezine solo ads.
Again, create a spreadsheet with each item going back as many months as you can. Now you have a clearer picture of where your money has been going these past few months.
Now, you start comparing the money “in” list and the money “out” list to get a picture of how much you’ve really been earning each and every month.
Suddenly, you can do 3 things…
1) You can clearly see which areas of your business are not making enough money and/or cost too much to be profitable. Armed with that information you can decide to either work on improving that area or just get rid of it. You can see which areas are costing too much and determine wheher they’re worth it or whether they can be done for cheaper? In short, you introduce a logical decision-making process and bring bring more focus to your business.
2) You can project your earnings for coming months and set targets accordingly. If you sold 10 copies of X last month, you can aim to sell 12 this month, 15 next month, 20 the month after… Setting targets to aim for is critical to your success. As each month goes by, chart your actual earnings versus your projecting earnings and tweak your future projections accordingly. (If you search around, you’ll find good software like Quicken or QuickBooks to really put your business planning on a solid footing.)
3) Just by studying the list of income streams on your list, you can help determine what your niche is. If you can’t settle on a central niche, you may need to narrow your activities to create one ‘core’ to your business. You can, of course, operate in more than one niche, but the more niches you operate in, the more you’re ‘diluting’ your business. Have a second niche if you must (especially if it complements your primary niche), but don’t have 10 different niches. It’s too much for an individual to cope with.
Listen, you won’t make it to the top by being “Jack of all trades, master of none”. You’ve got to narow your business focus to a specific niche or niches. Not only will this increase your profile and your worth in that niche, it will also make it a LOT easier for you to conduct your business. Instead of being distracted by everything that comes your way, you’ll only be distracted by those things that directly affect the business you’re in.
Now you can master your primary niche by focusing all your time, energy and attention on just that niche.
For a very insightful look at why niches are becoming increasingly important, (and for an excellent example of how to pre-sell and affiliate product), read this page by Mike Filsaime: http://mikefilsaime.com/thelongtail.htm
By adopting this simple approach to bringing focus, planning and insight to your business, you’ll be helping to strengthen and protect your business for the tougher days ahead. Please remember, this isn’t about accounting. It’s about getting a clear picture of where you stand right now, so that you can develop a clear picture of where you want to be next month and next year.
Armed with this fundamental information, your business will become much easier to run and you’ll be well on the way to increased profitability (and less stress).
The next step is to start recognizing those areas of your business where you can hire other people to do the work. The less work you have to do personally, the more you’ll be able to grow your business.
But I’m all rambled-out at this stage, so I’ll save that for another day. 
One last thing, I see that Russell Brunson has hit upon a brand new concept in online forums: a Viral Internet Marketing Forum. Basically, you get free credits to place your ads inside the forum, just by READING posts or adding posts of your own! Worth checking out methinks.
All the best,
Michael
http://www.bizzydays.com
http://www.totalresale.com/
http://www.selfpublishing-ebooks.com
http://www.ebooktags.com — NEW!
