So, instead, I’ve just tuned all of that noise out.  Do you know what I discovered?

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Okay, I’ve been away for the blog far too long. The truth is that I’ve been distracted with so many little projects, preparations for the holidays, and laying plans for the future that I have simply neglected to update my blog here.

In the last few weeks, I have been making last-minute purchases for my online business. I always like to pre-pay my various vendor accounts, stock up on supplies, and purchase any business equipment or software, so that that I can take the tax reduction in the current year.

This year, I have spent a good deal of time considering security issues. You may not realize this, but once you make the decision to become an Internet marketer you expose yourself to a number of nuisances and potential criminal activity on the Internet.

The nuisances include things such as spam, viruses, hacking attempts, phishing, etc. The criminal activity that most concerns me is identity theft and the fraudulent use of my personal information.

These pitfalls are not a reason to avoid the Internet, however. You simply need to be informed and take appropriate precautions to protect yourself.

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In his post, I want to share with you one of the several projects is that I have been working on. I routinely write articles for private membership site that focuses upon the subject of Internet marketing. I decided to undertake an experimental project involving article directory sites, and report upon the experience for the benefit of the membership.

Article marketing is an inexpensive means of building back links to your website, teen exposure to a Lord audience, and generally driving Internet traffic to a destination of your choice. Article marketers are hungry for a wide array of places where they can post their articles. One way to take advantage of this phenomenon, is to own and operate an article directory site.

The first three steps in the process are to select an appropriate and domain name for your new directory site, select an article directory script that will serve as your needs and those of your authors and publishers, and find hosting to accommodate the website. I accomplished the first task by simply falling back on a domain name that I had previously registered in the past four a separate project. The project did not materialize, but I had kept the domain name and decided now to put it to good use.

The article directory script that I decided upon is a freely distributed script called Article Dashboard, which has several drawbacks what has a large installed user base that is well supported in an online forum. The script is not open source, but you can download and freely use the software without need of registering it. Because it is not an open source project, the code is not freely distributed. The kernel and all PHP files needed to operate the directory site are encrypted and cannot be modified. All modifications must be made through text based template files, which are numerous and somewhat cumbersome.

In later posts, I will provide you with a list of those template files along with a short description of their use. Using a standard text editor, you can modify the files for your purpose. For example, you’ll be able to change how the site is displayed and insert advertising and other monetization techniques of your choice. Some basic modifications will also be covered in later posts.

At this point in time, my article directory site is up and running. Further modifications to the template files will be made as the site matures. In the interim, the focus is upon marketing the site to authors who have need of additional article directory sizes to which they may post their materials. As those materials increase in number on the site, they will in turn be marketed to the e-zine publishers for possible publication and/or syndication.

So, check back here and I will hopefully have the next installment up over the weekend.

Here is to your success!

Chris

When I started this was definitely not the case, however.

So, how to you build some critical mass to get your Internet or home-based-business off the ground and thriving?

The BIG SECRET is that there really are no big secrets. I realize that this may be a bit of a surprise given the number of Internet marketing products out there promising to share the secret to Internet riches…

It’s hype, of course. You see, marketers of Internet marketing products market, too! It reminds me of some advice about playing poker. The advice is that if you sit down at a poker table and cannot figure out who the sucker is, it’s you. The same is true in the Internet marketing field.

For marketing on the Internet you do need to learn a number of skills. What skills depends upon how and what you intend to market. The trick is to outline your business plan and then set about executing on it.

Without question, you will want to buy some Internet marketing related products. These are products that provide you with needed information and that help you develop your skills. You will also want to invest in products that automate certain aspects of your business and that reduce your time on certain tasks.

You can pass on many of the e-books that promise to reveal how to make a million bucks in your sleep. How will you know which ones to buy and which ones to avoid?

This is the great thing about a business plan…

Simply ignore the hype and stick to your plan. Understand that you will have to modify your plan as time goes on, as things in your business change, and as you learn what works and what does not work. However, your business plan will tell you what you need to do.

Any product that does not directly assist in executing that plan is a distraction and will only serve to delay your success and waste your money. Focus on your business plan and you will be much less susceptible to all of the marketing hype!

To your success!

-Chris

My attention the last couple weeks was pulled away by an initial product release that I was invited to participate in as an affiliate marketer. I have established myself as a “Super Affiliate” in certain circles, which brings the benefits of being the first to know about new products, services, and to be invited to help introduce those new products or services when they first launch.

I realize that there are more e-books and courses out there on affiliate marketing than a person can realistically hope to read. I’ve read a lot of them, however.

Unfortunately, most of what I have read on the subject is not very helpful beyond laying the basics out for you. Many of the e-books I am now seeing released on the subject are pure crap, and you should feel absolutely no need to purchase these items. You’re money and your time will be much better spent conversing with other affiliates, learning from them how they operate.

The best piece of advice that I can give you is to 1.) be absolutely genuine, and 2.) never ask your audience to buy a product that you yourself do not use or otherwise find value in. The upshot of these two rules is that we all ‘live or die’ by our reputation. What people think of us is our most valuable resource.

That’s right. It’s not your mailing list. Your reputation carries the most value!

Most would-be affiliate marketers fail because they read one or more of the e-books and try to make the big money following the advice set forth in those pages. The problem is that they are just one more clamoring voice in a sea of voices, all indistinguishable from the rest.

The successful marketers are able to sell in the same environment because they have an established reputation and rapport with their audience. The bottom line is that they are trusted by enough people that when they deliver their message it is heard.

My personal story is no different. When I started I was a “nobody” on the Internet. What’s interesting is that I did not think of myself as an affiliate marketer, or an Internet marketer, or any kind of marketer or sales person. In fact, if you had suggested such a thing to me I would have cringed at the thought.

What happened was that I first started on the Internet pursing a passion. That passion was entirely unrelated to Internet marketing. I developed a web site. A small audience grew to a larger audience. People took notice. I offered advice and folks found value in it. It was a gradual, genuine process. I formed relationships.

The marketing came out of accident and necessity. One member of my small audience was making a living as an Internet marketer and suggested that I could probably cover the cost of my web server and other expenses through the Good Adsense program. She explained the basics of how the program worked and I followed her lead.

Adsense provided a nice steady income. It was by no means “big money” but it was a consistent producer. I was quite happy with the results and had no plans to look further.

The next step in the evolution was when another member of my growing audience introduced me to a gentleman who was just starting to sell a new home study program on the Internet and had just started an affiliate marketing program. He provided me with a complimentary preview copy of his program and I was impressed. I liked it enough that I wanted to spend time with it and I agreed to share it with my online community.

I didn’t realize it, but I was now a marketer. I shared this home study course and several others made the decision to purchase the product through my affiliate link. I told people that if they did buy the course that I would host an online study group. Once each week we had a telephone conference and helped each other learn the material and apply it in a practical manner.

The study sessions resulted in some very positive feedback. That lead to more sales and I soon found myself identified as a Super Affiliate.

The whole experience was a very positive one for me on a lot of levels. For the first time in my life I found myself absolutely fascinated with the concept of marketing. A began studying the subject and learned about the concept of “consultative selling.” This was my niche…

Consultative sales is a process by which you help your customer along the process of identifying their particular needs and then educate them about the available solutions. The goal is to help them satisfy their needs in a manner that truly benefits them, while furthering your long-term relationship with them. Even if an immediate sale is not realized, the bigger picture is that you want to establish sufficient credibility with them that they will value your insight and opinion.

This is the tact I tend to take with my affiliate marketing. I seek out products and services that I fill a need, then either become a customer myself or ask for a preview copy. In general, I do not want to sell things “sight unseen.” This is not always possible, because I have marketed some live seminars and those you just have to attend to find out if they’re good. In this situation, I stick with seminars that are produced by people I know and trust to deliver a good quality experience.

New marketers are often tempted to sell anything and everything, just to make a buck. I think this is partly greed and also a function of simply doing what they see the “big guys” doing.

Most don’t see the sales materialize, however. The “big guys” have spent a lot of time developing name recognition. It’s sort of like famous sports star endorsing a product. People will buy simply because their favorite athlete endorses it.

The same is true on the Internet. A well known marketer will send out an e-mail to their list promoting a new e-book which they may or may not have read themselves, simply because they know that 1% or more of their list will buy the book and generate commissions.

The problem with this approach is that you begin to see a lot of turn over on your list because after a while folks catch on that you’re just pushing anything and everything at them. They hit the “spam” button or un-susbcribe. The “big guys” understand this, but they have the muscle to constantly replace the leads that drop off their lists.

A different approach is to seek out a relationship with your subscribers and the members of your online community. Enjoy the relationship, value it, and think of them as your friends. From time to time you will present them with offers for various products or services, but only those that you find particularly valuable.

You’ll adopt a consultative sales model, helping each person to evalaute whether the product in question is appropriate for their needs. Over time, you will develop an inventory of products and services that are either part of your affiliate network or that are your own offerings. That inventory will become a powerful part of your marketing arsenal.

Remember that the job of a marketer is to help their customers to improve their lives. If your product or service does not improve the situation of your client, why are you offering it? Is it simply to generate commissions for your pocket? That short-term, short-sighted greed will never pay-off in the long run.

In any event, I am back after the big promotion! I have helped my clients to improve their lives and have been compensated for the effort.

To your success!

-Chris

The first thing to be clear about, is that when we talk about an Internet business, we’re talking about Internet marketing. It does not matter what industry you’re in, because no one makes money unless they are able to convince people to buy what they’re selling.

It makes no difference whether you are Joe and Mary Smith who work out of their spare bed room, or whether you are Amazon, Ebay, Google, or Yahoo! Your job is to deliver a message to a group of people - “Use this product or Service…”

So, you are a marketer. Wrap your mind around this, get used to it, and let’s start moving forward. There is a learning curve involved here. That means that you will need to struggle a bit, “learn the ropes” and develop an understanding of what an Internet marketing business is all about.

It does not matter what you hope to sell. Your first job is to build an audience. There are a few different ways to do this. We will get into those in later posts, but right now we’ll simply stick to the “big picture.”

Without an audience, you are not able to deliver a message about a product or service. That means that you can invest a lot of time, money and effort in developing or acquiring products and services, and still not have a business!

On the other hand, if you have an audience but no product or service you still have a viable business. Once you have an audience, you can sell marketing messages from other marketers. The most common example of this are all those little advertisements you find on web sites.

Many web sites have a large audience, but offer no product or service of their own. To generate revenue, they sell advertising to other marketers who either lack an audience or who want to expand beyond their current audience.

The first step to building a successful online business is developing an interested and responsive audience. Forget about all of the gimmicks being sold in e-books, because those are largely designed to help others build their audience. As you develop your business plan, focus your initial efforts upon building a responsive audience.

We will begin discussing different methods of doing this in later posts.

-Chris

From experience, I find that there are three basic stages when it comes to home-based-Internet businesses.  These stages are a natural progression that starts with curiosity and ends with a plan.

Stage One: Investigating The Possibilities 

The first stage is investigative.  You do not yet really know much about making money on the Internet, but you are curious about the possibilities.  Perhaps you have heard the myths about automated profit machines churning out cash while you sleep, or you like the idea of commuting to work in your slippers with your cup of coffee in hand.

The bottom line is that you are considering the possibilities of starting an online business and are now taking those steps necessary to learn more about what is involved.  You are likely spending a fair amount of time visiting web sites, reading e-books, and you may even purchase a course that promises to teach you the “secrets” of a successful online business.

You are vulnerable during this stage, because the Internet is still a mystery to you and you do not yet have the ability to spot the scam artists or recognize real opportunity when it presents itself.  This is the time when many online marketers are eager to get their message in front of you, because they thrive on seducing the novice would-be marketer.

Stage Two: Tinkering With The Possibilities

You have read a few e-books and subscribed to a membership site or two, and you are now ready to “jump in” and make some cash.  You might try selling affiliate products on Google Adwords, writing articles for others to publish, or participating in any of the thousands of “business opportunities” marketed on the Internet.

Here is a dirty little secret.  Most of the material out there teaches you how to build some body else’s business.

It is a real neat trick.  You simply write an e-book about how to make thousands selling affiliate products, teaching your readers a step-by-step process to marketing that very same e-book.  They spend their time  and their money marketing your product and building your business.

The unfortunate reality is that most people do not progress beyond here.  Most fail to turn a profit and eventually become discouraged.

Stage Three: Running Your Own Business

The third stage, the one most do not reach,  finds you focused on building your own business.  You may still market affiliate products or participate in a network marketing program, but your eye is focused on the goal of building your own business and not simply on delivering customers to others.

Those who succeed here tend to be disciplined, tend to have well defined plans, and typically commit those plans to writing.  They have probably been scammed once or twice, but they have persisted in their efforts and have achieved profitability.

Hopefully, I will be able to offer you some guidance as this blog develops and help you avoid some of the traps that await you.

To your success!

-Chris

Once I realized that Internet marketing was going to be a part of my life for the foreseeable future, I decided that it was important for me to “hit the books” and figure out what legal mine fields lay out there for me. With a little work and a bit of luck, I hoped to avoid unnecessary liabilities.

As I learned more about about Internet law, I became surprised at home many web sites and other online marketing materials were actually violating U.S. law. Granted, a lot of those “little guys” will never suffer any real penalty for their ignorance and laziness. However, if you’re serious about this business, it makes sense to learn how to play by the rules.

So, here’s the deal…

I am hoping to not only share my Internet marketing insights with you. I would also like to help you learn how to run an Internet business that is on solid ground both ethically and legally.

Let’s be a bit smarter, a bit more savvy, and build a profit machine that will feed us for a very long time to come.

To your success!

Christopher Smith, B.B.A, J.D.

I had founded a local users group, which met once per month for a few hours at a time. We all agreed that our meeting were too infrequent, but no one could commit themselves to more frequent gatherings.

The answer was a web site that allowed us to share information, file downloads, etc. I registered a domain name, bought hosting, and set up a very basic web site. At our next meeting, I heard from several people about how impressed and thankful they were. When the meeting ended, one of my members echoed the positive sentiments and then suggested that I place Google Adsense on the site to create a little revenue.

I did not know what Adsense was, but if I could cover the out-of-pocket expense for the site I was all for it. She sat down with me, explained that she earned her living marketing on the Internet, what Adsense was and how it worked, and helped me register for an account.

I received the approval from Google, got my account set up, and inartfully placed ads on the site. My goal was to make about $10 per month, which would cover my out-of-pocket expenses related to the web site. During the first month I earned more than $100 and found myself a bit nervous that I had somehow done something wrong. The next month produced a bit more money and the revenue continued month, after month, after month…

I was hooked.

Amazon was the next program with which I became involved. I learned how to place the code on my site, wrote product reviews, and was quickly seeing commissions accrue in my account.

Those two revenue streams were my primary source of income, earning a few hundred buck each month. I was happy with my success.

I still had the bug, however. I bought e-books, researched, joined discussion groups. Looking to expand beyond my one web site, I signed up for a Plug-In-Profit-Site and began a journey into the heart of Internet marketing.

What I have found was that my initial success was unusual. I also found that with most new Internet marketers they struggle to earn their first buck and struggle even more to earn their second buck.

As I learned more, I came to believe that the reason so many struggle and fail is a result of two factors. The first is the reality that a majority of those struggling are approaching Internet marketing as a hobby. The second reason is that there are a group of Internet marketing “gurus” that sell a lot of crap.

So what’s this blog about?

There are two things I hope to do here. One is to share with you the insight and knowledge I have in the field of Internet marketing. The second is that I would like to help you avoid some of the ethical and legal pitfalls that are involved.

I hope you find value here. Your suggestions are always welcome and your willingness to spend time here is appreciated.

To your success!

Christopher Smith, B.B.A., J.D.