5 Ways to Kill Your Online Business Before You Get Started

Starting an online business is an attractive proposition for those who dream of working for themselves. There are practically no start-up costs involved, and by signing up for affiliate and MLM programs you can have an online business up and running in less than a day. Sounds easy, right?

The sad fact is, online businesses fail at the same incredibly high rates as brick-and-mortar start-ups: somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 percent. That’s right: at least nine out of ten online businesses will never show a profit, and eventually fold. This often starts the intrepid entrepreneur on a vicious cycle of abandoning one affiliate or MLM program, just to wind up with a string of failures. Why? Often, it’s because they fall for one of these five common mistakes online business owners make.

Mistake #1: It’s just an online business—I don’t need a plan.

Wrong! Every business needs a plan, even if it’s “just” an affiliate or MLM program. In fact, affiliate and MLM online businesses may need plans more than other business. You will be competing with dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of other online businesses who are selling the exact same products as you.

You don’t necessarily have to come up with a 30-page business proposal outlining the steps you plan to take for the next ten years. You do, however, have to determine where you want to be in the next 12 months and figure out how you’re going to get there. It can be something as simple as “in twelve months I plan to make enough from my online business to quit my day job”—as long as you have the how to accompany the what.

Mistake #2: I get a free website with my affiliate programs, so I can skip investing in a private domain name.

This is an easy mistake to make. Why pay money for something you can get for free? The answer is: because you can’t make money without spending money. There are two very good reasons to invest the ten bucks a month it will cost you to get your own domain name for your online business. One is that it looks far more professional than a long, nonsensical affiliate URL with a string of numbers tacked on the end. People will be more likely to trust you and your products when you have your own domain name.

The other is purely from a marketing standpoint. A private domain name is easy to remember and can be printed on business cards, flyers, and other sales material—try to do that with a domain name like www.thisgreatproduct.com/yourname/426563#. Additionally, search engines tend to give more weight to private domain names, and will sometimes ignore unwieldy affiliate site URLs altogether.

Mistake #3: The more programs I participate in, the more money I’ll make.

In online business, the real money is made by cultivating the businesses you own. Slapping your name on twenty different affiliate programs will not bring you any profit. You can’t just plaster a website up and then sit back to wait for the money to roll in—contrary to what some internet marketers would have you believe. Each program needs an investment of your time to make it work. Pick a handful of programs that you believe in and will be passionate about, and focus on them.

Mistake #4: The more money I spend on advertising, the more profitable my online business will be.

This makes sense on paper. But as it applies to online business, it’s completely erroneous. Throwing money into pay-per-click programs will generate you a lot of hits on your website—but it won’t translate into sales. The real key to success in an online business is time. You must build a customer base, cultivate loyalty and word-of-mouth (or word-of-mouse, as the case may be for an online business) and concentrate your efforts on offering value and service. Buying customers is bad business sense; you want money coming in, not going out.

Mistake #5: If I e-mail, they will come.

Here the message for avoiding mistakes is simple: don’t spam. This is the fastest way to turn potential customers off. Always build your mailing list through double opt-in messages. Your online business must be as professional as possible. Spraying e-mail boxes with your marketing messages will not only generate a negative image for your business, it can also get you banned from search engines.

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Managing Your Time is Easier Than you Think

With so many businesses taking so many drastic cost cutting measures, it is strange to see how few of them really look deeply into the benefits of time management. Effective management of time is like effective management of any other resources – it can save your company a huge amount of money if it is properly implemented. With the huge cost of outsourcing and moving operations overseas, it seems like every measure should be taken at home to improve efficiency before such a drastic solution is proposed.

Of course, performance management is nothing new. Although the modern understanding of the benefits of time management is a little bit different than as it was originally conceived, the concept still goes back about as far as Henry Ford and the invention of the assembly line. Back then, workers were clocked to see how efficiently they were putting together cars. Various steps were taken to improve the program constantly, resulting in less work for the same product.

The benefits of time management are easy to see on an assembly line. In an office environment, however, time management benefits can be a little bit less apparent. This does not mean that they are not important! The benefits of time management will show up in the books, but it will take a while. After all, the tasks that people have are usually a little bit less concrete. Rather than manufacturing a car, you have to type up financial reports, communicate with clients, and do other similar business tasks.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of time management is on the individual performance and job satisfaction of any particular worker. Without effective time management training, increased job duties can seem overwhelming. After all, when a worker is used to getting a certain amount accomplished in a single day, adding additional tasks on is never welcome. To do that without giving them training on how to accomplish other tasks is not only unrealistic, it is also unreasonable and unfair. The benefits of time management training is that it allows you to provide a way to ease workers into taking on additional responsibilities. If you provide them with adequate training, they will be able to cope. If not, you can often lose some of your best, most seasoned employees to greener fields. No matter what employee benefits you offer, if you stress them out too much, or stretch their time too thin, they will leave for another company.

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Using Mailing Lists to Your Advantage

E-mail or electronic mail is by far the most commonly used and the most powerful feature of the Internet. However, its characteristics are often overlooked as people use the service for more mundane and day-to-day activities. E-mail can be used to distribute information to a large target audience as well as supporting direct person-to-person communication.

E-mail can also be used to keep in touch with one’s customers, or to inform them about special offers or new products, etc. This is further facilitated by the usage of e-mail lists, or commonly known as mailing lists. A mailing list is basically a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers are referred to as "the mailing list".

The use of mailing lists can lower the amount of printed information one needs to dispense. The speed of delivery of email and its low cost are extremely attractive qualities in making mailing lists a huge success. There are several features of mailing lists which can be automated according to your and your customers’ convenience and it is possible for individuals to subscribe or unsubscribe themselves from any mailing list.

Generally, there are two types of mailing lists which are commonly used. In the first one, a mailing list of people is used as a recipient for newsletters, advertising or periodicals. The second type, known as a mailshot, is used when identical material is being sent out to all subscribers on a mailing list.

Mailing lists are often rented or sold. If rented the renter agrees to use the mailing list for only the agreed upon times. The mailing list owner typically enforces this by "salting" the mailing list with fake addresses and creates new salts for each time the list is rented. Unscrupulous renters may attempt to bypass salts by renting several lists and merging the lists to find the common, valid addresses. Mailing list brokers exist to help organizations rent their lists. For some organizations such as specialized niche publications or charitable groups, their client list may be one of their most valuable assets and mailing list brokers help them maximize the value of their lists.

For individuals who are in the process of creating a mailing list, some of the guidelines to keep in mind are:

• It is important to start off with a catchy title in your e-mail's subject line that gets the reader hooked
• Add value to your newsletter by including something of interest to them. This can include product reviews, links to similar sites, how-to articles, etc. It is important to keep an unbiased view in all these fields.

Some of the essential information which need to be included in your mailing lists are:

• Your website address(es)
• The way to subscribe or unsubscribe
• Copyright information
• The e-mail address of your company contact(s)
• Personal introductory note
• Links to any products or sites mentioned
• Note telling readers to forward the letter to people they think will be interested
• Shortened privacy policy along with a link to the full one

If used properly, mailing lists can simplify your life drastically, as well increase your work efficiency. However, do keep in mind that you should not come across as a spammer. Therefore, choose carefully what you put in your mailing lists.

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