Believe it or not, all internet marketers, from the complete novice/beginner to the experienced marketer, need support from a wide variety of sources for their business plans to succeed. By support, I mean that not everything can be done by the individual. You will need to rely on others to achieve your goals. Prepare for it now. Lay the groundwork and then begin to build on that as you move forward.
Right from the outset, unless you are treating your online activities as a real business, you may be wasting a lot of your time and money. If you are serious about making more than spare cash from your online activities then you must acknowledge that you need support, identify where you will obtain that support and how much, if anything, it will cost. If you cannot afford the amount you arrive at, then go back and re-think you business plan.
Support comes from a range of sources. Free support is available in many forums, blogs (such as this one), articles, to name a few. You can find some well-written articles by clients of some of the top IM gurus as their curriculum requires the students to blog about their weekly lessons and progress. You also need to pay for some forms of support, such as professional mentoring, copywriting, graphic design and so on.
Support comes in many forms too. I use an autoresponder for collecting the name and email address of people interested in getting updates when I make a new post. I use a payment processor for taking payments for various products and services I sell, and buy. I purchase products that I can then redesign and call my own, or develop them from components. I pay for web hosting but I get my blogging software free 
WordPress, as you well know, is a free software tool that allows so many of us to create blogs with amazing simplicity. There are also the thousands of enthusiasts who design and write the code for the themes and plugins we all use to some extent. Be sure to make use of the free products and services on offer. There are too many variations to list anything here other than to say, if someone has a product for sale, chances are there is a free version of something similar. Free doesn’t always have to mean “cheap and nasty” but it can sometimes mean little or no follow-up or help if something goes wrong.
Do not attempt to cut out 100% of the cost of all support services in your business plan. For example, there are some free, self-hosted autoresponders available. You load them on your own web host and set them up to collect names and emails on your very own server. The trouble is, if some over-zealous reader of yours marks an email as spam, depending on your hosting provider, it is possible your whole site can be shut down until such time as you convince them you are not a spammer. This would not be a situation to be in for your business. By using an autoresponder service your website is mostly safe from spam reports (unless you really are spamming) and there is little risk of it being shut down by spurious spam reports from your readers.
Decide which elements of your business are critical, such as hosting, autoresponder, payment processor, then shop around, read their terms and conditions, ask others for recommendations and then choose what suits your budget and operational plans.
Whatever your business plan, consider all the support you will need to get it on the road to success, and keep it there. Some of that support will cost you money upfront, such as the autoresponder and some will be free. Factor these costs into your cashflow estimates. If you have got no idea what cash will be coming and going over the next 6 months, take a couple of hours to sketch out the next 3 – 6 months of your online activities. To do this, answer these questions.
- Where do I want to be at the end of this period (say 6 months)?
- What sort of income do I desire?
- How will I achieve that?
- What support will I need?
- What will it cost to set this up?
I you don’t have the money or are not prepared to risk some to invest upfront then you may want to seriously consider another means of achieving your success. Online business may not be your ideal pursuit right now.
I am happy to offer my advice of course, but you need to be willing to do your own homework and research your proposed business activities to see if you are on a good thing, or not.
What do hope to achieve during the next six months? Add your thoughts below.
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Twitter: barry_wells
says:
Hi Michael, I love this reply and notification system that you have in place. I’ve just added it to my blog, so thanks for the info on that.
Onto this post: That really is some helpful info laid out so simply that it gets straight to the point.
I’ve created my first product and have it on clickbank, but when i was creating the sales page i cut some corners as i was in and out of hospital for a few months. I am now going back over it and correcting my mistakes.
So for the next 6 months my aim is to complete this product (within the next few days) then complete my next product which is going to be free. I would also like to start a new blog on a whole new niche idea that is circling my brain at the moment.
Thanks again Michael, back soon.
Regards, Barry
.-= Barry Wells´s last blog ..Start Making Money On eBay With The eBay Want It Now Listings =-.
Hi Michael, thanks for the post-I think support is critical as the more I learn the more I realise how little I really do know! Cheers Orla
.-= Orla Kelly´s last blog ..What has the tortoise and the hare got to do with it? =-.
Orla Yeah, I find that too. The way that I manage it though is to maintain focus on my primary business goals – develop and sell a range of products that enhance online business processes. I might hear about something new that I do not have much knowledge on but I am careful to not let that distract me (too much at least
) from my main activities.
Barry, I am glad to be of assistance. I just checked out your product sales page. Great graphics!
If you are into testing your sales copy, I have read that some sales pages do surprisingly better with simply an image, half a dozen benefits listed as tick points, and then the buy button, all at the top of the page. Some people just want to know what you’re selling, check out the benefits (what’s in it for me) and then buy.
Below that, of course, you keep the remainder of the copy, testimonials, etc, for people who like to read long copy. If you’re into testing different copy, you might want to give it a go for a few weeks, drive some traffic to the page and measure conversions.
I am sure you have, as you mention that you took shortcuts, but have you considered adding a description to the page meta tags?
That sounds like a good plan going forward. Will the giveaway product by for building up a mailing list? Michael.
Twitter: barry_wells
says:
Hi Michael, you’ve raised some very good points that i will consider. Thanks for bringing them to my attention.
Yes the free product will be in the aim of building my list, but i’m thinking of doing a 2 tier product. The free one and a more detailed one with the tools needed as an upsell.
Back soon my friend,
Take care, Barry
.-= Barry Wells´s last blog ..Start Making Money On eBay With The eBay Want It Now Listings =-.
Hi Michael, thanks for the post-I think support is critical as the more I learn the more I realise how little I really do know! Cheers Orla
.-= Orla Kelly´s last blog ..What has the tortoise and the hare got to do with it? =-.
Hi Michael. Support is something that many people don’t include in their budget/business plan. This post is very informative because it call out just how important support can be to the operation of your business.
I am currently in month six of my current plan. In the next six months, I plan to have increased my exposure and the forms and formats I use to help my clients.
Thanks for another valuable post.
-James
James Hampton@Network Marketing Coach´s last post..Thinking About Getting Into Network Marketing? – Part Two
One thing I forgot to mention is that blogs pretty much live or die by their comments. So thank you very much for taking the time to comment.
Do you have an income plan associated with that 6 month plan? I see you have been blogging for around 4 months now.
For the first six months, with this blog, my focus is not income driven for the blog. The focus for the blog is exposure and reach. For the next six months, I plan to derive affiliate income from the blog itself.
I have been blogging for about three years. With this domain, for about 4.5 months.
How about you?
James Hampton@Network Marketing Coach´s last post..Thinking About Getting Into Network Marketing? – Part Two
I started blogging several years ago and this is the third one. It is the result of learning so much from the first two. I help run a couple of niche sites but my strength is in programming. I provide practical tools for bloggers, in fact anyone online, who wants to save time, increase the functionality of their site, add a novel tweak or pretty much anything that streamlines their business.
[...] work effort you invest in your business while not burning yourself out.Last month I posted about all internet businesses need support. In that post I emphasised the need to spend money if you want to experience any degree of success. [...]
I only wish that one day my blog will as good as your. I follow your tips and start to use WordPress to build my sites… What a great tool!
Thanks!
Ben
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This may also help:
I have also learned –
Where do I want to be at the end of this period (say 6 months)?
What sort of income do I desire?
How will I achieve that?
What support will I need?
What will it cost to set this up? – which is just as powerful.
I totally agree with this article, if Internet business doesn’t have any support by others for example marketers, SEO’s, Virtual assistant we can’t say its online business its nothing am I right.we can’t gain any income about this.
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