Create an Awesome Home Business » How to Create Success

How to Create Your Unique Difference

Martin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:30:09 +0000

I’ve seen a lot of talk in blogging forums lately about developing your blogging voice.

But developing your voice shouldn’t be restricted to blogging. It applies to all your online activities, and it’s a powerful part of the way you brand yourself in the crowded world of marketing online.

Your voice is the style in which you write.

Shakespeare had a writing voice, so does Robert Ludlum, so did Dale Carnegie.

Developing your voice takes time and effort, but it’s important because it’s part of your brand. It’s part of what makes you unique.

I read lots of Robert Ludlum books because I like the way he writes. Same with Tom Clancy. But I do not read the books written by their proteges – the ones that carry Ludlum’s or Clancy’s name but are written by someone else.

I’m surprised, often, that Ludlum and Clancy are happy to have their name on a book that reads so differently from their own styles.

It dilutes their brand.

Branding yourself, and strengthening your brand, is the most important way you can set up your stall online.

Why?

To be successful you need to stand out. To stand out you need to have a unique brand. The easiest way to uniquely brand yourself is to be yourself.

Being yourself makes it easier for people to connect with you, and once people connect with you they’re more likely to buy from you.

Here’s an often-quoted piece of advice:

‘To become more successful online you need to watch what the already-successful people are doing and copy them’.

But I disagree.

The theory that if you do what they’re doing you’ll also be successful is flawed, because what works for them will not necessarily work for you.

And if you copy what they’re doing you’re not being unique.

You need to watch what they’re doing and then work out how to adapt it to your own unique style.

The Third Tribe was set up precisely to address this point. It shows people how to take the strengths of traditional Internet Marketing, as seen in those long sales letters full of yellow highlighting, and adapt them to their own style.

It’s about developing a combination of proven marketing principles and personal branding, which you use to connect with people.

So whether you’re writing sales letter pages, blog articles or a sequence of email messages, make sure you’re being yourself, not a clone of someone else.

Develop your writing voice and use it as an important part of growing your unique personal brand, through which to connect with people.

Cheers,

The Reality Behind Those Overnight Successes

Martin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:30:08 +0000

When I first started working online I used the fact that I was a newbie to comfort myself when I wasn’t making any money.

And then I saw others coming in, who were newer than me, making their first $100, or getting their first 10 sales, while I still had nothing to show.

And panic set in. How could I be getting it so wrong?

So I did the rounds, buying every ‘secret system that the gurus didn’t want me to know about’. And still didn’t reel in the money.

Looking back now, I wish I’d had someone who’d told me that those ‘newbies’, who’d started after me and were making money, had probably been working away at this for a couple of years.

Their ‘overnight’ success was actually an ‘over-2-years’ success.

But, because all the messages that hit me at that time spoke about earning $5,000 a week within a month, I figured that a) they were true and b) that was normal.

But they weren’t and it’s not.

This is a business and, like any business, it needs work, perseverance, patience and application.

It also needs to be properly planned and properly funded.

You see, earning $5,000 a week isn’t much good if it’s costing you $6,000 a week to do it.

So you need to look at what you’re selling online and understand very clearly a) what revenues you can expect and b) what costs will be involved in getting them.

It’s no good, for example, hopping onto Clickbank and picking up a product on which you’ll get $20 per sale, if you’re paying $15 on Adwords and $5 on Yahoo Search Marketing to get it.

You still need to eat, after all.

So you need to develop a proper business model into which you can put all your fixed costs (rent, telephone, hosting charges, membership fees) and all your variables: Pay Per Click costs, classified ads, and other costs involved in getting traffic to your site.

You can then work out how many of these $20 products you need to sell just to cover your costs.

And, since any budgeting process is basically a stab in the dark, you’ll need to track the actual performance of your business to see how accurate your projections were.

Because, if they were way off, you’re going to need to make changes. Unless you want to end up earning $5,000 a week but spending $6,000 to do it.

So please – look beyond the surface. If someone says they’re making $5,000 a week online, don’t imagine they’re rolling in cash while working from the beach.

Try to work out what they invested to earn that, and how much work and planning went into it.

I think you’ll find that a lot of work went into it and their actual profit (the real measure of success) is a lot less.

Update – 10 August, 2010

I just read a post on Men With Pens that echoes this point – far more eloquently that I did. Discover why a Six-Figure Income doesn’t count.

Cheers,

The Importance of Keeping Control

Martin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 04:15:26 +0000

Things can go horribly wrong if you’re not constantly vigilant. Here’s what happened to me recently.

I was asked to do a Search Engine Optimisation review of a local business’s website. The initial arrangement was that I’d sub-contract to the IT house that handled all the IT requirements of the business in question, including their website.

However, for reasons that I never fully understood, I ended up contracting directly with the business itself.

Which was a good thing, as it turned out.

I did the review, came up with 17 recommendations and forwarded them to the IT house to implement.

And after a month nothing had happened.

I was getting hassled (quite rightly) by my client who, in turn, was being pressured by their shareholders.

So earlier this week I sent an email to the IT house pointing out that I’d had no questions from them on any of my recommendations and asking if I could help in any way.

And in return I got a phone call saying that everything had been done and the updated site had been uploaded a few days earlier.

Being a busy lad, I thanked them for the information and got on with other stuff that was sitting on my plate.

Then, a day or so later, I decided to take a quick look at the revised site – and received a shock.

Of my 17 recommendations less than 50% had been implemented. Further, the way some of the implementations had been done made things worse rather than better.

Recalling the details of the telephone conversation I’d had a couple of days earlier, I realized that picking up the phone was not going to help. They simply didn’t have the expertise to do what needed to be done.

But now I was faced with a situation where I’d been contracted by a client to do the review but the implementation, which was out of my hands, was going to make things worse, not better.

And it was my reputation that was going to take the hit.

I pondered for a while on the best way of handling this.

My first duty was clearly to my client, but I also saw an opportunity to do a lot more work for the IT house in a way which would benefit both them and me. So this needed careful handling.

In the end I decided to re-create the entire site from scratch and offer the revised site files for free to the IT house, so all they had to do was upload them.

I took the view that if they accepted my revised files and uploaded them there would be no need to mention anything to my client, since they would have their optimized site.

I also hoped that this approach would be appreciated by the IT house and may enable me to pick up more website work from them in the future.

On the other hand, if the IT house refused to upload my revised files then I’d have no option but to raise the problem with my client.

As I write this, the revised site is up and the IT house has the link that it’s on. I’m awaiting their response.

The moral of the story?

If you’re asked to do a site review (or any project) make sure you have control of the final deliverable.

Because if you don’t, it won’t matter how good a job you do, you risk being the one to take the hit.

Cheers,

What Can Go-Karting Teach You About Blogging?

Martin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 05:11:32 +0000

I had a plan to go Karting with a friend yesterday, but a couple of hours before we left we got a text message warning us that the weather wasn’t looking good and it may be called off.

I met up with Robert as planned (I’d agreed to help him with something else prior to leaving) and, for sure, the weather didn’t look promising.

Robert was in two minds about going, since it was a long way and it did look like it could be called off. But in the end we did.

Good decision.

Just after we got there it did start to rain – but not too heavily. And, after a 20 minute weather delay, we eventually got out on the track and had a great day.

So what’s the lesson for bloggers?

If you’re going to do it, whatever ‘it’ is, take Nike’s advice and just do it.

That could be starting a new blog, overhauling your current blog, changing its direction. Anything.

It’s so easy not to start because you can’t be sure of the result, or you’ve not been able to anticipate all the problems.

And many times the result is you never get started at all.

So just get stuck in. Approach it with the mindset that you can’t possibly anticipate every problem, and resolve to deal with things as they arise.

Decide what you want to do. And get started.

You’ll almost certainly be pleased you did – just like our Go-Karting day.

Happy New Year to you all – I hope 2010 brings you all the success you deserve!

How To Build a Loyal Customer Base

Martin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:56:32 +0000

I saw a question recently where someone was asking for advice on providing an Internet Marketing consulting service.

It was apparently their first, or one of their first, consulting gigs.

The question was full of vibes about how to protect themselves by making sure their client couldn’t take anything they came up with to another consultant.

It had a protectionist feel about it (self protection, that is).

But I think that’s the wrong approach.

I’m a great believer in ‘give and ye shall receive’.

It’s an approach that’s worked for me, and it’s worked for others too.

With that in mind, I’ve copied below the answer I offered:

Speaking from my own experience, I’d suggest you help this doctor for a minimal fee and use this project (assuming the good Doctor accepts your proposal) to learn the business of providing Internet Marketing consulting.

You can’t just rattle off a few points and be concerned about preventing him from taking your suggestions to his current consultant. That’s the wrong focus.

You should focus on building the relationship.

If you build the relationship with him, so that he trusts your advice and intentions, he won’t take his business (or your ideas) anywhere.

But he may well do so if he doesn’t believe you have his best interests at heart.

My suggestion:

Charge the doctor a minimal fee and focus on winning his confidence.

Demonstrate that you truly know what you’re on about and can provide better value than his current consultant/advisor can.

Work WITH the doctor, treat it as a partnership, learn and understand his business and provide the best advice you can.

Later, when people like the doctor are singing your praises and business is flooding through the door – that’s when you can start wondering whether people are taking your ideas to competitors.

But by then it probably won’t matter that much.

I Got Laid Off Yesterday

Martin — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:54:16 +0000

I got laid off yesterday and I haven’t felt this pumped up for a long time.

The world, as they say, is my oyster.

Last time I got laid off it was a nightmare.

Firstly, my then employer had gone out of business owing me a lot of money and, secondly, I didn’t have the right of abode here in Hong Kong.

This time it’s all very different.

It took me a long time to recover from those dark days in 2001 and early 2002, but the one thing that stayed fixed in my mind was the commitment that I’d never let myself get into that position again.

My first objective was to find another job so I could get control of my finances. That took a long time – I went without any income for 9 months.

Having got another job I then started looking for ways I could make myself independent of my employer.

I’ve written about that before – here.

So following my own advice (for a change), I set about learning Internet Marketing. And that opened up a whole raft of opportunities that had never occurred to me before I started.

Over the past couple of years I’ve accumulated a lot of knowledge, not only about how the Internet works and how to apply that to my own situation, but how to apply that to the corporate situation

As a result of that decision to get into IM, and what I’ve learnt since, I now:

Earn a bit of money from product sales online
Have another stream of income from building websites and blogs for others
Am a partner in a business renting out short term flats in Hong Kong – purely on the strength of being able to build effective websites.
Consult with big companies on how to make use of the web for managing their customers

I’m also marketing my own telecom consulting skills far more effectively than I was able to 8 years ago.

And now that I’ve been laid off I’m able to focus my full attention on these income streams instead of just doing them in the evenings and at weekends.

I’ve escaped the commute and the office politics, and my lifestyle is going to improve hugely.

What more could a man want..!?

Recessions And The Opportunities They Provide

Martin — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:45:04 +0000

Life’s pretty tough for a lot of people right now. If you’re not personally affected I bet you know someone who is.

If you’re feeling nervous and worried about the future, here are two things to think about that history has proven time and again to be true:

Recessions always end
Recessions always provide opportunities

Over the past 30 years or so we’ve had 4 recessions: the early 80′s, the early 90′s, the beginning of this century and now.

Previous recessions have all ended and this one will too. The question is: are you ready for the upturn?

There are some businesses that are doing very well right now, precisely because we are in a recession:

Supermarkets – because people are eating out less
Dollar Stores (or $10 stores as they’re called here)
DIY stores – because people are re-modelling/repairing things themselves

Industries that provide the necessities of life do well in recessions. Healthcare is the clearest example of that.

So what’s the opportunity?

The obvious answer is to look for a job in an industry that provides the necessities of life. That’s the quick and easy answer.

But what if your skills and experience don’t equate to what these industries are looking for?

A far better, longer term and ultimately more profitable solution would be to use your skills and experience to provide services to companies in industries that provide the necessities of life.

That’s where the real opportunity lies.

What services could you provide on a freelance basis to Supermarkets? Or DIY Stores?

Could you help them with recruitment? (They are recruiting in these times).

Could you help them with IT support? With Web design services? With Marketing support? With Administrative support?

I wrote a post here on how to assess your strengths and weakness to prepare yourself for self employment.

But the short message is: work out what services you could provide to companies on a freelance basis, assess whether it’s worth teaming up with someone you know to offer a more complete service and get going.

The other clear message (at least for me) in these times is to make it easy for your prospects to do business with you.

I recently started my own web design business and while (of course!) I’m always very happy to get work for a fixed fee, I always talk to my prospects about creative ways that I could be compensated.

I try to make it easy for my prospects. Save them the up front cost by taking payment in the form of revenue share, or a fee based on costs saved.

Or whatever works for them in their business.

Every situation is different and the arrangements will be too. But by making things as easy as possible for my clients they start to see me more as a partner than a supplier.

And while I may not get a nice big fat fee up front, I do get an ongoing stream of income. 4 or 5 deals like that and I’ll start to build up quite a respectable ongoing stream of income.

It’s easy to hunker down into survival mode in times like these. But don’t. The recession will end, but you don’t need to wait for that.

Start your own business providing services to industries that do well in recessions and make it easy for your prospects to do business with you.

Surviving The Recession

Martin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:41:24 +0000

When’s the best time to invest? When’s the best time to start a new business?

Right in the middle of a recession, because when the up-turn comes you’ll be brilliantly placed to benefit from it.

Let me say up front where I am right now: I’ve just taken a 30% cut in time and salary from my day job.

What does this do to me? It’s given me the required kick in the pants and a transition path to getting my own business going.

I’ve been making plans for my own business for a while now but, as so often happens, it was easier to continue doing my day job than to actually make the move.

Making the transition from employment to self employment calls for some major changes in thinking and lifestyle, and it’s only natural to baulk at this.

In my case I was looking for the easiest transition path possible.

I started the year hoping that my employer would set up a voluntary redundancy program, but that was not to be.

Then about 3 weeks ago they announced a reduced time and pay plan, which will be effective until at least the end of 2009.

That provided me with the perfect transition path:

7 days a month in which to concentrate on setting up my own business and getting some new customers, while at the same time having an underlying (albeit much reduced) income to enable me to eat at night.

It also provided me with the required kick in the pants: a 30% drop in income is going to knock a big hole in my lifestyle.

So all the plans I’ve been thinking about and making over the past several months are quickly falling into place.

And thank goodness for those plans. I’m all set and ready to roll almost without breaking stride:

I have my website set up, things like my charging and invoicing processes are all set up, I have business cards ready to be printed, I’ve identified my target market (I’m already getting leads) – basically, everything’s in place.

If you’re still in employment that’s great. But, before the axe falls (as it may well do in the current environment), get your plan B sorted out.

I wrote a post a while ago on how to prepare for a recession. For one of the few times in my life, I actually followed my own advice, and right now I’m more grateful than ever that I did so.

10 Steps to Success Online

Martin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 06:49:03 +0000

I read a series of posts in a forum group yesterday which set out the steps people should take in order to achieve success in their online businesses. So I chipped in with my own views – which I’ve repeated here:

1) Take as much pressure off yourself as you can.

In my experience, if your IM business is not properly funded the pressure to start making money becomes intense – very quickly. And when that happens you usually start making bad decisions.

So minimise the pressure on yourself by making sure your IM venture is properly funded. That can mean doing it part-time along side your day job until you start to build up revenue, or using a redundancy pay off to fund your new business, or using your lottery winnings.

Whatever you do, make sure you’re properly funded.

2) Set yourself achievable short-term goals that you have full control over.

A goal that you have full control over is something like ‘Learn CSS this week’.

‘Earn $100 this week’ is not something you have control over (not total control, anyway) – so don’t set that as a goal.

Setting yourself goals over which you don’t have full control is setting yourself up for failure. Setting goals over which you do have total control, and achieving them on a regular basis, gets you into a successful mindset. And that’s the foundation for success.

Make sure that your short term goals all lead you towards your vision, or ‘why’

3) Set out your ‘why’ and stick it up where you can see it each day.

Your ‘why’ is the reason why you want a successful online business. It could be to spend more time with your family, to become financially independent, to escape the rat race – whatever.

Times will get tough. You will get frustrated. You will feel like giving up.

Having your ‘why’ stuck above your computer screen will help you get past these roadblocks.

4) Make sure you’re making measurable progress each month.

Do this by ensuring your short term goals are constantly moving you forwards. If you’ve learnt CSS make sure you’re doing new and more things with it each month, or learn something else – as long as it moves you forward in your business.

5) Trust your gut feel.

If something doesn’t feel right it’s probably not.

6) Don’t do stuff in your business that you wouldn’t want to talk to your family about.

Ultimately your online reputation is even more important than your offline one, because people are increasingly suspicious of online scams.

So create an impeccable online reputation, and keep it.

7) Don’t listen to the nay-sayers.

Let me say that again: don’t listen to the nay-sayers. There will be plenty of them.

Some people (probably including some of your family members) will try to discourage you from doing anything new. They don’t want you to succeed. They will destroy your self belief and when the going gets tough you’ll quit.

Don’t listen to them and don’t talk to them about your business. (That’s the exception to point #6!).

8) Don’t get taken in by stories of mega success.

Whatever stories you read almost certainly didn’t happen. Those that really achieve big success overnight (and they are exceptionally rare) are usually discreet and don’t talk about it – at least not publicly online.

9) Play to your strengths and strengthen your weaknesses.

Honestly evaluate your weaknesses and find ways to strengthen them. This could include finding a business partner who has complementary strengths, taking a training course, or whatever.

10) Stay focused.

Whether it’s on the niche you’ve picked for your site, or your tasks for the day, staying focused will get you to where you want to go. Losing focus will not.

Recession – And an Inspiring Example of Success

Martin — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:50:53 +0000

I’ve written several times now (find them here) on why the recession provides opportunities, and how to take advantage of them.

Today, though, I read a post from Brian Clark on Copyblogger which not only takes the same line as I’ve been taking, but tells a truly remarkable and inspiring story of someone succeeding against the odds.

It also provides a heads up for what should be a truly invaluable source of information for anyone wanting to think outside the box and take full advantage of the recession.

Read the article here.