Overcoming barriers to your income ceiling October 5, 2010
Posted by Andrew Wee in : Internet Marketing , 15 commentsI talked with a friend today about strategies to grow our businesses.
The main barrier to how much you can earn is the amount of time you have each day.
Even if money seems to be your most scarce resource now, once you’ve got a decent amount, the main issue is how much you can get done in 24 hours.
Here’s one commonly-misunderstood way to grow your business: It takes money to make money.
This doesn’t mean that you should spend more on what you’re already paying. But do consider hiring someone whether it’s a freelancer, part-time employee or a full-time staff member to help you do your stuff.
I especially like to delegate/outsource stuff I don’t like – administrative work, working on my taxes.
Hiring an employee might give the highest ROI in your business.
I typically get a 200 – 500% ROI on my labor costs each month.
Couple that with software/automation and you up that increase by a higher multiple.
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So there’s the fallacy that partnership/JVs are the way to go.
Most people forget that that works only if everyone is putting in their 100%, or at least 50%. The reality is that many “partners” will drop the ball and put in only 10% or in the worst cases, be deadbeats and do nothing.
If you’re stuck with such partners, you’d better run for the hills.
How do you avoid this? Simple, protect yourself.
Start with smaller projects. If the partnership doesn’t work for those, then don’t bother working on anything big.
Set specific goals and deadlines: Same logic. If a partnership which combines resources and is supposed to be greater than the sum of its parts can’t get its act together, then you are really in trouble.
If this all sounds too general, that’s because there’re many moving pieces in any partnership.
Trying to condense it into a 300- or 500-word post is just silly.
Here’s the synopsis:
1) Set tough, aggressive (and very profitable) goals.
2) Everyone has to pull their weight.
3) Get rid of the losers.
4) Profit.
Now, get back to work.
Popularity: 19%
5 Years In Internet Marketing And Counting… October 2, 2010
Posted by Andrew Wee in : Internet Marketing , 15 commentsA confession: I had planned to publish this post on 24th Sept on my 37th birthday, but I had been having so much fun that the days kinda flew by. Which is one of the advantages of this crazy thing we call e-commerce, internet marketing, or it’s subset affiliate marketing.
What this post was intended to be (and hopefully will end up as) was a retrospective on the past 5 years.
So here goes:
In mid 2006, I decided to leap headlong into fulltime Internet marketing. Before that I had a pretty successful career as a newspaper reporter, then a realtor as well as consultant for small businesses.
Money wasn’t the lure for me to do the “online thang”, it was time. The ability to call the shots when and where I did my work – whether it was doing a 16-hour grind for a week to get a product out, or to take three weeks off to go on vacation (or sometimes go on a two-week powerlevelling binge on a MMO or online game), then savor the rewards of immortality or highbie-dom before settling down on my next project.
There are lots of reasons to do what we do, but I think the strongest motivator is to have a strong reason – a raison d’etre – reason for existence, else whatever you’re doing online – whether it’s domaining, cpa arbitrage, ebay-ing will get boring after a while.
One of the reasons I’ve focused on creating my own products over the past couple of years has been the ability to follow my interests and I still get expressions of surprise when other marketers find out that I don’t use keyword tools or gauge market demand for many of my projects. I think being able to observe what people are doing in the malls, in the LAN shops/internet cafes, what they’re buying on the Amazons, eBays will stand you in better stead than buying a $500/month keyword or spy tool.
Warren Buffett mentioned that one strategy in determining whether to buy a stock like K-Mart or Wal-Mart or Coke, involved just standing in the company’s store and keeping an eye out for who’s buying what, how much and how many customers there were. If you’re buying based on a representative sample of consumer behavior, you might not be 100% correct, but you’ll swing the odds in your favor.
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During my 5-year journey, I’ve had the opportunity to see many of the big forums and blogs now, in their infancy, getting to meet and get to know many affiliates, marketers and some who have a “guru” status in the marketplace. I’ve also had the opportunity to see how some of them have created this self-appointed guru title and built a business on a house of cards. It’s not surprising that business for a number of these guys have come crashing down, even as they continue to launch new products and courses, hoping to snag some newbies.
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The operative word for being in the game for the long term has to do with creating value.
Another smart business person once said that with employees, you’ll have some that are working at the level you’re paying them.
There’ll be a greater number who’re working and performing at less than the level that you’re paying them.
There’ll also be the rare few that’re performing at a level way higher than what you’re paying them – these guys are the keepers and the ones who’re the first to get promoted.
In the same way, whether you’re an affiliate, a product/offer creator/owner, you’re also in the same boat, but the customers are the ones who’ll decide whether to fire you or to keep you around.
I’ve had the fortune of pursuing projects that I’ve been personally interested in and offering these products to the marketplace and have had an overall positive reception.
If the example of the past 5 years has been an opportunity to test different business models, different types of products and see what works and what doesn’t, the next 5 years will be focused on systematizing the business, automating elements which are manual and repetitive, and overall scaling the business.
The key driver for doing all this is providing even greater value than before.
And if I succeed in doing that, then the long game will take care of itself too.
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The next lap:
The next phase will be more tightly integration the various parts of my business more closely together, I’ve been working on a new book on getting started on the Internet and although it was supposed to be ready at the end of this week, I might give it a little more time to add more value to it.
Expect to see something next week.
Till then, keep on working to reach the next level in your personal life and your business. I’ll be doing it too.
Popularity: 17%
Getting Away From The Bonanza Model Of Internet Marketing August 17, 2010
Posted by Andrew Wee in : Internet Marketing , 5 commentsYou’ve probably heard them, the online equivalent of fisherman’s tales.
“This one time, I had a campaign that generated 400% ROI. Yeah, I spent $50 and made $200.”
“This one offer was generating $2,300 per day. It’s about 10x higher than anything I ever had. Unfortunately it was a Christmas offer and died after 3 days.”
This is the same type of mindset you have with newbie punters who visit Vegas expecting to hit the jackpot, or the old guy who shows up at the gas station and buys $30 worth of scratch-and-win lottery tickets.
While it’s possible to strike the motherlode, whether you’re buying a ticket, signing an insertion order for a high-value media buy, or trying out a new strategy with PPV traffic, just realize that beyond just the dollar value of your return, there’s the repeatability of the offer too.
If you won a $30 million lottery, you’re probably set (for a while).
But with the broader picture, your income is a function of:
[dollar value] x [repeatability].
If you’re generating say $1,000 a day, the strategy is to keep this going every day, to hit a consistent $30,000 per month. Because someone who’s doing $10,000 per month consistently (or $120,000 annualized) is going to outearn someone who had a one-off $50,000 campaign over a month, but then has difficulty finding his or her legs for the rest of the year.
Scalability (the ability to grow your campaigns on a massive basis) and sustainability (the ability to consistently generate returns from your campaigns) might be among the easier concepts to understand, but probably among the most difficult to understand.
To grow your internet marketing or affiliate marketing efforts to the next level requires understanding of this concept.
Popularity: 19%
Should Marketers Fear Competition? July 6, 2010
Posted by Andrew Wee in : Internet Marketing , 9 commentsYour “inner game” or mental outlook has a great deal to how you run your business.
In a recent conversation with another marketer I mentioned that a specific home improvement niche might be worth developing, he mentioned that there’re a number of incumbent sites in the space and it might not be worth developing.
There’re bound to be free high authority sites with great content in any lucrative niche. They do have to monetize, even if it’s via adsense, yahoo publisher or some other form of advertising, if they’re planning to be in the business longterm.
On the other hand, you could take a rock and hit some other marketer who’s in the same niche and charging a premium for content – video, PDF reports, audio walkthroughs.
What’s the difference between something that’s free and another that’s paid? Should you fear competition?
My stock response is that free stuff tends to be limited. Unless someone is paying you, the site tends to be one-sided. The site owner publishes content based on keyword demand and search volume and works on 1-2% of traffic clicking on ads or picking broad enough keywords to bring a nice ROI on their CPM-based advertiser payouts.
Paid sites tend to be more customer-focused, just because it’s performance marketing-oriented. If they don’t like the affiliate program you’re promoting or the ebook or guide you’re created and are selling, you’ll come away with empty pockets at the end of the day.
If capitalism teaches anything, it’s that markets are self-correcting. Or in simple English, if your product sucks, you will get zero sales.
So the first thing you need to figure out is your concept. If it isn’t sound, you’re going to have an uphill battle making much headway in your niche, let alone making any decent coin.
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The second element is probably the more important one. While a solid business model and concept are good, I’d say that marketing is even more important. You could have the world’s best product and yet fail. Two examples: Creative Technology (based out of Singapore) was the first out the gates with sound cards (remember those?) especially it’s “SoundBlaster” series of cards. It was also one of the earliest with MP3 players (at least a couple of years before the first iPod was released into the market). Given its expertise in audio technology, you’d think that it’d have stitched up the market. But no, instead it decided to come up with it’s own kookie/weird advertising and promptly lost the war once the iPod came onto the scene.
Here’s a video about branding and marketing for the iPhone (note: coarse language)
Like I said: branding/marketing > market concept.
Popularity: 17%
Save $50 Or More On Amazon.com Purchases June 22, 2010
Posted by Andrew Wee in : Internet Marketing , 7 commentsAlthough other websites might have some items which are a couple of bucks cheaper than on Amazon, I still order most of my stuff from there because I can get almost everything at one place – books, DVDs, software, electronics and computer stuff.
I’m a “burst shopper” because I’m overseas. So when I come visit the US, I tend to buy a couple hundred bucks worth of stuff each time and send it to my hotel or conference location.
I just saved about $60 on an order placed just this weekend. It was really easy since Amazon has just changed some of their terms and conditions. Want to know how?
Click the “More” link below to find out:
Popularity: 18%
Internet Marketing Cookbook 2 launch promo ends Wednesday, midnight EST June 16, 2010
Posted by Andrew Wee in : Internet Marketing , 3 commentsIf you’re not sure what the title’s refering to, be sure to read the Internet Marketing Cookbook launch promo post.
What’s happened in the past week since the launch, I’ve kicked off a pay-per-sale case study for the Mail Order Shoppe and will be revving the campaign into high gear till mid-July before shifting into another case study. Whether you’re a new or advanced marketer, you should get some tips from this to incorporate into your own campaigns.
Promo ends Wednesday, Midnight EST (which will be noon Thursday in my part of the world).
See you on the other side.
PS: The promo code is available at the IMC 2 launch post.
Popularity: 16%
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