THE Formula for Business Success

Believe it or not, all success in business comes down to this one formula. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling insurance, hamburgers or lawn care. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been in business for 30 years or you’re starting your business today. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you live or who your customers are. This same formula brings success to every endeavor, and ignoring this formula almost surely brings failure.

Big promises, huh?

Think of Occam’s Razor (also known as Ockham’s Razor) which simplified states that the simplest answer is often the correct answer. And so it is with THE Formula – there is no need for volumes of business advice when you have this simple formula and FOLLOW this formula to the letter.

Are you ready to know once and for all the true secret to business success? I’ll clue you in – I am not the first to write of this, nor will I be the last. Many others have written millions of words about it, sometimes taking an entire book to cover this simple piece of information:

THE Formula for Business Success:

Step 1: Create an Irresistible Offer
Step 2: Present this Irresistible Offer to the prospects who are hungry for it
Step 3: Sell to them again. And again. And again.

That’s it. To clarify, the irresistible offer is one that presents so much desired benefit for such a small perceived cost that prospects rush to purchase. Step 2 says to present this offer to the people who desire it. Don’t sell snow tires to Floridians, sell them to Northerners on the eve of the first winter snow storm.

And Step 3 says to hang onto those customers and sell to them time and time again. Why? Because they already know you, trust you, and like what you sell. It is far easier and far more profitable to sell to an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one.

So what does this mean in the world of Internet marketing? First, don’t sell something because you want to sell it. Instead, find out what your customers fervently desire and create an irresistible offer based on that.

Second, target your offer to those who are most interested. If you have a course on marketing for brick and mortar businesses, you might have to get it in front of 200 prospects to make one sale. But if it’s a course on marketing for chiropractors, you can double the price and still close 1 in 20 prospects because your offer is more tightly targeted to the exact people who want to buy it.

And third, treat your customers like royalty. Notice I didn’t say to treat them like family, because unfortunately we sometimes take our families for granted. NEVER take your customers for granted, and always share your very best insights, news and helpful tips with them so that when it is time for them to make another purchase, they don’t hesitate to purchase from you, even if you are merely the affiliate recommending someone else’s product.

Whatever you’re selling, this is the formula that will make you rich.

“But surely,” you wonder, “there must be exceptions?”

Not really. Let’s say you don’t sell anything outright, and instead you are a blogger or perhaps run a curation type of website. You still have an irresistible offer, and that is the information you are sharing on your website for free. If it is great information that is targeted to your niche, then your readers will be excited to read it and return time and time again to read it again. And surely you are monetizing the website, whether it’s through ads or affiliate products. So while your readers are returning to read, they are also sometimes clicking your ads or purchasing the products you promote.

And so it is with any online endeavor. “But I run a non-profit,” you say. Even non-profits follow this rule. The irresistible offer is the chance for the person making the donation of time or money to help a cause that is near and dear to their heart. The non-profit will be promoted only to those who have a keen interest in the cause. And if treated with care, respect and gratitude, those who donated once will likely donate again and again.

I’ll give you one more example of this formula working, this time in a non-business platform. You find the woman of your dreams, and you create an irresistible offer to convince her to marry you. Of course this offer would not work with most women, but it works with your beloved because you have caused her to fall in love with you (targeted market). And then you go on selling yourself to her for the rest of your life if you hope to have a happy marriage, and she does the same for you.

You can apply this to religion as well, and to getting your children to mind you, and even to training your pets. In fact, I can’t think of one human interaction where this formula won’t work, it’s that powerful.

But we are focused on your business today, and so here is my challenge to you: Take out a pen and paper and write down the 3 steps. Now write how you will specifically accomplish each of the three steps in your niche or your next marketing campaign. And then please drop me a line to tell me of your success, because if you do these 3 things, you will be successful indeed.

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source http://www.nta-connect.ca/the-formula-for-business-success/

Internet Marketing Timewasters You MUST Avoid to Be Successful

Another day goes by and what have you accomplished in your business? If the answer is nothing, or not as much as you would have liked, here are several ways to reclaim your own time so that you are spending it wisely on your business, rather than frittering it away on meaningless activities.

Remember – time is the ONE commodity you cannot get MORE of, so you use wisely.

1. Stop wasting time on Internet marketing forums. Yes, you want to go there when you need help, when you have a question, when it’s something that will further your business.

But you also want to minimize the time you spend simply answering questions, agreeing or disagreeing with the threads topic, and generally joining in just for something to do. Forums can become an avoidance tactic when you’re stalling about working on your business. Use forums wisely and they can help you to succeed, rather than robbing you of valuable time you need to work in your business.

2. Minimize the time you spend on emails. Sure it’s addictive to see what the latest greatest offer is, or to see what Joe Marketer is up to. But the more lists you are subscribed to, and the more emails you open and read, the less time you have to do the things you SHOULD be doing instead.

If you need to, pare down the number of marketers you subscribe to, and only stay on the lists of those you really want to hear from. This tactic alone can save you as much as an hour a day.

3. Make a list of every IM product you’ve purchased in the last six months, and note beside each one whether or not you’ve read the product and used the product. The results may surprise you.

Add to that list how much you spent on each product and then add them all up. How much did you spend? How much of it was a waste of your money? Look at the money you could have saved and calculate how long it takes you to earn that much money.

The point I’m getting to should be obvious – unless you’re going to actually USE the product, then you shouldn’t be wasting your time or your money on it.

4. How many webinars do you attend each week? Again, unless the webinar actually has something to do with whatever it is you’re working on right now, don’t spend your time on it. Many webinars are simply glorified sales letters. Others do give great info, but unless you’re going to use it, then it’s simply a waste of your time.

5. This one is so important I just HAVE to say it twice. It’s a reiteration of what I said before – Only Buy Those IM Products That You Are Going To USE.

Here’s why: First, let’s say you purchase a 12 video package on list building. You make the transaction, you navigate to the download link, and you download, clicking on each file one by one and placing them in the folder you must made. How much time did this just take you?

Now then, you never watch the videos, never use the product – you’ve just spent that time AND money for nothing. It’s not just a waste, it’s a DOUBLE waste.

Don’t get me wrong – I am NOT saying you should never buy another Internet Marketing product. Whether it’s a plug-in, a program, whatever – if you’re going to use it within the next 30 days to build your business, then BUY IT. If not, then pass.

Once I started following these rules I wasted far less time and spent less money – AND I enjoyed less stress because I wasn’t constantly pulled in several different directions at once. I was able to focus on the task at hand, rather than running off to see what was happening on the forums, or buying a product with the intention of ‘maybe someday possibly’ using it.

Try it – and see if you don’t have more time for your Internet business AND for the other things in life – like your family and fiends.

The post Internet Marketing Timewasters You MUST Avoid to Be Successful appeared first on Online Business Opportunities.

source http://www.nta-connect.ca/internet-marketing-timewasters-you-must-avoid-to-be-successful/

Make it Impossible for People NOT to Buy

If you offer a product or service, this may or may not work in your case, but it’s something to consider. If it is applicable and you start doing it, you can expect a big boost in sales. Vacuum cleaner salesmen used to (or perhaps still do) show grossly enlarged photos of dust mites, explaining that there are millions of these critters in your bed feasting on dead skin and defecating all over the top and inside of the mattress. (Sorry, that was a nasty visual, wasn’t it?) Then the vacuum cleaner salesman would tell them how his vacuum was the one and only solution to sucking those little bad boys out of there, as well as removing pounds of dead skin and more pounds of dust mite feces. (Again, apologies for that picture.) Next, the salesman would ask to be taken to the bedroom, where he would ask the man which side he slept on. This is the side of the mattress the salesman would vacuum, purposely NOT vacuuming the woman’s side. And another sale was made. Why? Because that lady did NOT want to sleep on dust mites and dust mite feces that night. Plus, if she didn’t get the vacuum them she was going to sleep on her husband’s side and her husband could sleep on the couch. In another far removed business, a shoe shine man with a stand in a hotel lobby was hurting for business. So he put up a sign that read, “One shoe shined FREE.” There after he was inundated with business. Do you see where this is going? Depending on what you sell, it’s entirely possible that you can make more money by giving away your service – or even your product – in a limited quantity. After all, who’s going to walk around with just ONE shoe shined? If you are a graphic artist, for example, you could give away one header. Of course if they want the matching footer, ebook cover, etc. then you’ll be happy to do that for them for a charge. If you sell car wax, you could give away enough to do just the hood. If you do remote virus removal on computers, remove one virus or malware for free. And so forth. By giving away a portion of your product or service, you can effectively make it extremely difficult for the customer NOT to get the rest of your product or service.

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source http://www.nta-connect.ca/make-it-impossible-for-people-not-to-buy/

Pssst… Wanna Know a Secret to More Sales Through Email?

You send an email to your list promoting an affiliate product, and you can tell from your autoresponder stats that a good percentage of those emails were opened. Yeah!!

But after that, it’s all downhill. Only a tiny percentage of the recipients who opened their emails actually clicked the link, and of those that clicked the link only a tiny percentage of those bought.

And this wasn’t some $997 product, this was a $7 product! So what happened?

You didn’t prime them for the sale.

Sending your prospects cold to a sales page usually does not get great results. You need to tell them a little bit about WHY they should go to that page and WHY they should consider handing over their money in exchange for the product.

For example, let’s say you’re promoting a product on how to drive traffic. Which of these email messages do you think would get the most clicks AND the most sales?

1. You gotta see this, it’s INSANE! <link>

2. Here’s a way to get more traffic that I think you’re going to love. <link>

3. I found this new video that shows how to not only get more traffic to your offers starting this afternoon – it also shows you how to convert a HIGHER PERCENTAGE of that traffic into buyers.

That’s right, more traffic AND higher converting traffic.

And the method is fairly simple – it took me about 90 minutes to set up, and within 48 hours I could definitely see more traffic AND higher conversions.

See for yourself…

<link>

The third one, right?

Now why is that? It’s not because it’s longer – longer emails don’t always produce better results than short ones.

It’s because it tells the story.

The first email is what we call “blind.” You have NO idea what it is or why you should click on it, and thus you probably don’t.

The second one is definitely better – it tells you why to visit the link – to learn how to get more traffic.

But the third one ROCKS because it tells you exactly what to expect and gets you excited to make the click and check it out.

To get your emails acted upon, you want to make them specific – tell them exactly what benefit they can receive for clicking. No need to tell the entire story, but you do want to get them warmed up.

By whetting their appetite for the product you’re promoting, you’re making them receptive to the offer before they even get to the sales page. It’s called pre-selling, and it’s a vital component to getting the sale.

The post Pssst… Wanna Know a Secret to More Sales Through Email? appeared first on Online Business Opportunities.

source http://www.nta-connect.ca/pssst-wanna-know-a-secret-to-more-sales-through-email/

My Beef of the Month…

Okay, so I’ve never had a “beef of the month” before, at least not in this newsletter. But I’m fed up, sick and tired of some of the B.S. that I and my fellow marketers are subjected to day after day after day.

Let me give you just two examples I encountered in the last two hours:

First, I received an email proclaiming that I was going to make money in the next 60 minutes, guaranteed.

And you know what? It’s entirely possible to do that. Go post in forums that allow you to use an affiliate link in your sig file and you could make a commission in the next hour. And of course there are other ways, too.

So I thought, “Why not?” and I opened the email and clicked the link.

And what do I find? First, a video telling how awful it is that Internet Marketers are bombarded with “Click this and make money!” kind of nonsense. He’s ranting on about piling one falsehood on top of another to make a buck off of you.

Meanwhile there’s this red banner ticking the time down like some bomb is going to go off if you don’t whip out your wallet and send him your money immediately.

Okay, so far, so tolerated, but just barely. We’re all familiar with the, “Everyone else is trying to stick it to you but I’m the good guy you can trust” routine. It’s old, it’s tired, and I suppose it still works. I’m not even faulting the guy for that, or his ticking time bomb banner.

But then you scroll a little further and what do you see? A headline very similar to the one below (I’m not using the actual headline but this is close.)

New Software “Artificial Intelligence”

Rigs A Certain Website In Your

Favor, Producing

OVER HALF A MILLION DOLLARS

in just 39 Hours

Your Only 2 Options:

1. Be a part of it…
2. Or Eat Our Dust

The real headline had red numbers over an inch tall in place of “Over Half a Million Dollars.”

There’s a good chance you’ve seen a headline like this recently, along with a dozen more that could have been clones.

So here’s what we’ve got: A guy going on and on about how terrible these ridiculous promises are, while he’s making a ridiculous promise.

Who really, truly, honestly believes that…

a) There is a software that tampers with a certain MAJOR website and produces HALF A MILLION DOLLARS for you in 39 hours?

b) If this major website caught someone “rigging” them, they wouldn’t fix the hole and bring a lawsuit faster than you can say “Uh-oh?”

c) If there were such a software, it would be sold out in the open for a lousy 49 bucks?

This is where I normally close the page, and I imagine a LOT of other people close the page because who believes this crap?

But if you let the video play out, or continue reading the sales pages, eventually you come to the point: They’re just poking fun. Really they were hired by a big company whose name they cannot reveal to create a revolutionary software that blah blah blah.

So in other words, while you’re not supposed to believe everyone else’s nonsense, you are supposed to believe theirs.

But hey, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and go to the Warrior Forum to see what others have to say about their product…

…so I go and check and guess what I find?

Bad BAD reviews from those who either a) purchased and tried to use this product or b) purchased a previous product from the same seller that didn’t come CLOSE to living up to the sales letter.

So what’s my point? Folks, in this business your reputation is EVERYTHING. If you don’t want to get shut down by Paypal or your merchant account, if you want to be in business a year from now (or even a month from now) you’ve got to cut the crap and simply tell it like it is.

Yes, you still sell. But you use the TRUTH to sell. And if you have a great product that people want and a great offer, then you really don’t need to do that much selling anyway.

Every time you’re about to do anything in your business, ask yourself: What will this do to my reputation? Enhance it or hurt it? If it can hurt your reputation in ANY way, then just say NO.

One more example: The other day a marketer (who shall remain nameless) launched a new 20 page triple spaced PDF on how to make quick money online. So far so good, right? (Actually, the report was 29 pages, but the other 9 pages were pleas for testimonials and a sales letter for an upsell. And the sales letter was at the beginning of the report AND at the end of the report.)

This marketer has put out other products and received pretty good feedback. In fact, he’s built something of a reputation for himself, so much so that the moment this special offer launched people on his list were buying it without even reading the sales letter.

But guess what? This offer was a flop – and in fact one of the techniques he recommended would get you BANNED from the forum he suggested if you tried to use it. (He’s since removed that technique.)

The other techniques were about as basic as telling you that if you want to live, you should breathe. I mean it’s stuff that anyone who’s been in Internet Marketing longer than 5 minutes already knows. And one of the techniques isn’t even useful anymore since Google’s latest updates. But hey, who cares, he’s making his money, right?

So what happened? During the first few minutes of his launch one person after another wrote things like, “Whatever this guy puts out is gold – get this!”

Then those who purchased read the report. It only takes about 10 minutes to read because it’s a few pages of big font with widely spaced lines.

So next you see comments like, “I’m really disappointed,” and “Why don’t you give refunds?” and so forth.

He started taking one hit after another, and now his reputation with those buyers is shot.

Think about that – he worked for months to build his reputation, only to have it torn to shreds in one day.

Think before you act. The world really is watching you.

The post My Beef of the Month… appeared first on Online Business Opportunities.

source http://www.nta-connect.ca/my-beef-of-the-month/

How to Make [SERIOUS] Money Giving Away Courses

Can you earn $5,000 to $10,00 a month giving away what other marketers sell?

Actually, yes! I love this because it’s simple and will work in a variety of niches.

There’s this gal in the investment market who gives away her course. Mind you, it’s a great course, complete with videos, pdf’s, and a ton of actionable information.

People would pay good money for the course, but she advertises it everywhere for free.

She uses very professional looking ads, banners and landing pages to give away this free system.

All people need to do is hand over their name, email address and physical mailing address.

I suspect she sells her customers’ info to mail order businesses as well, but that’s not where she’s making the money mentioned above.

And of course she’s building her mailing list so she can promote other products, as well.

But again, that’s not where she’s making the money mentioned above.

In order to start investing, people need a trading account. And the trading account she recommends in the course pays her a commission for every person who signs-up… a fairly hefty commission, at that.

This business model could be expanded to many other niches as well. Simply find something that people need – preferably something they pay for on a monthly basis – and then create a product that leads them straight into buying that product or service, and give the product away for free.

No real selling is involved, and you can make not one, but multiple different income streams simultaneously.

The post How to Make [SERIOUS] Money Giving Away Courses appeared first on Online Business Opportunities.

source http://www.nta-connect.ca/how-to-make-serious-money-giving-away-courses/

How to Publish & Sell One-of-a-Kind Info

So many products are simply a rehash of other products, and the same goes for books.

Someone wants to write a book on persuasion, so they buy five books on persuasion, read them and then take all the best ideas from the books and write a new course or book or whatever.

But what if you want truly unique, stand-alone info that no one else has?

Then you’ve got to go to the sources.

Let’s say your niche is cat care, and you’re in a forum where people are discussing how they helped their cat get over a certain illness. In that forum you meet Jessie, who found a way to cure her cat in half the normal time at one-tenth the normal expense.

You contact Jessie and ask for an interview, which you then turn into a product. No one else has this information because it’s something Jessie came up with in her veterinary practice, or wherever.

You now have a product no one else has. Split the profits with Jessie, and do it again and again with people who know stuff that no one else knows.

For example, you can dig through various niches and find people doing new, unique, unusual things, or people who have just achieved some sort of milestone, or anything special that solves a problem or gives a benefit that people want.

Do an interview over email, Skype or any method you choose. Let your subject know you’re thinking of using this in a product, and that you’ll share the profits. Almost no one will turn you down on this, especially if you’re working outside of the make money niche.

And now you have an endless source of truly new, helpful info that you can turn into posts, products and books.

This is a great way to make a big name yourself in any niche. Pretty soon people will be approaching you, asking if they can share their discoveries in exchange for a slice of the profits.

Simply write up the info they give you, pad it out as needed, write some sales copy and get busy selling it.

This is a perfect business model for almost any niche outside of IM where money is being spent.

And it works especially well if you’re solving people’s urgent problems – like getting kitty over her illness twice as fast at one-tenth the expense.

source http://www.nta-connect.ca/how-to-publish-sell-one-of-a-kind-info/