Posted by There might be a dozen or more reasons why you’re having troubles in your online business, but for my coaching clients, I’ve noticed these three problems coming up time and time again.
The good news is, once you know what they are, they’re easy to remedy.
1: Not knowing the right things
You don’t have to know everything to succeed online. In fact, you never will know everything, so don’t try.
But you do need to know the stuff you need to know.
Let me illustrate: Marketer Joe is building a sales funnel. In fact, he’s been building this funnel for months now, because Joe is stuck on one thing – writing the sales letter for his product.
Joe could fix this easily enough in a couple of different ways.
He could Google, “How to write a sales letter” and learn how it’s done.
He could get a sales letter template and work from that.
Or he could outsource the sales letter to a copywriting professional.
Instead, he laments that he doesn’t know what to do, and instead does nothing.
I know how silly this sounds, but it’s shocking how often I see this exact thing happening with just about every online marketing facet possible: How to build a website, how to get traffic, how to create a product, how to build a funnel, how to hook an autoresponder up to a website and so forth.
Beyond a specific item here and there, you also need to know the basics of online marketing, like how to build a funnel, how to use certain hardware or software, how to do all the little things that go into building an online business.
If you don’t know some of this stuff, your first step is to get a basic course in online selling. Make a list of everything you need to do.
Your second step is to decide which of these things you’re going to do, and which you’re going to outsource to professionals.
Your third step is to do it.
I know a guy who took three months to place his JVZoo button on his website. Why? Because he didn’t know how.
I had him go to YouTube and search for, “Put JVZoo button on site,” and in 30 minutes he had it done.
Crazy but true. If you don’t know something, either find out how to do it, or find someone to do it for you.
2: Not focusing on marketing
Building a website, adding a plugin, tinkering with this and that… none of that is marketing. It’s important, but it’s not where you make your money.
If you’re always focused on the technical, internet aspect of your business, you’ll never make money. Driving traffic, writing sales letters, building funnels… all of that is the internet. It’s not marketing
Marketing is selling stuff to real people. Internet marketing is all the background stuff that enables you to do that.
You want to put energy into finding out what your customers want, how they want to buy it, and the psychology that will get them to make the purchase. That is marketing.
The key is to focus on your business, and not the internet side of things. I know guys who spend weeks building the perfect website or creating the perfect product.
That’s cool and it’s fun, but it’s not marketing. You haven’t sold a thing.
Maybe some of the best training you can get for how to market online is to learn how marketing is done offline.
The only difference is whether you have a brick and mortar store, a mail order business or an online business.
Otherwise, it’s all marketing – finding out what people want, and then finding the absolute BEST way to sell it to them.
Your number one priority is marketing. The internet is only priority number 2 at best.
3: Fear of investing
Many people are drawn to internet marketing with promises of, “Build a million-dollar business without spending a dime.”
If you look at the comments on Warrior Special Offer products, you’ll find people who are incensed that they might have to SPEND something to make money.
“You mean not only do I have to buy this $7 WSO, but then I have to spend $50 on advertising?! What a scam!”
No… ‘what an idiot’ would be more like it.
Sorry, I don’t mean to offend.
But who really thinks you can build a 4, 5 or 6 figure business for free?
Probably the same people who buy lottery tickets. No wait, those cost money… Maybe they’re the folks walking the beaches looking for the magic genie lamp.
Okay, that’s the end of my rant for now. The point is, if you want a REAL business that makes money, you’ll need to invest some money to make it happen.
And by spending that money correctly, you’ll save years of anguish and failed attempts and wasted time, too.
You’ll need to invest in resources, software, hosting, traffic, outsourcing and maybe some type of coaching – or at least a blueprint that tells you how to get started.
You can start small – you don’t need to invest your life savings on day 1, or ever, for that matter.
Take your profits and reinvest them to grow your business bigger and faster.
For example, take the profits from your first sales to buy more traffic.
Take the profits from your first product to outsource more products, and so forth.
Being afraid to invest money in your business not only stunts your business’ growth to the point of possibly killing it… it also does damage to YOU.
When you don’t even think enough of your venture to put a little money behind it, you are essentially telling your subconscious that it’s not worth it, that’s it’s going to fail anyway, and why waste the money on something that won’t work?
And you know what your subconscious will do then – it will self-sabotage to make your thoughts a reality.
Even if you do get lucky and manage to build your business for almost free, there are three major hidden costs you haven’t thought of:
Time – If you’re doing everything yourself, then you are investing a tremendous amount of time into learning how to do things and then getting good at doing them. Time during which you could already have been in profit.
Effectiveness – Yes, there might a free version of that plugin you need, but is it as effective as the $39 version? If you’re losing subscribers or sales because you’re using an inferior version, then you’re actually spending a great deal more than the thirty-nine bucks you ‘saved.’
Slow growth – For example, if you can buy all the traffic you need to earn, say, $5,000 a week, or you can work 40 hours a week to drive enough traffic earn, say, $1,000 a week – not spending money for traffic gets pretty darn expensive.
There are some things you can do online for free. There are others that will cost money. Invest the money and grow your business or pay the price.