What is Happening in 2013?

 Internet Marketing  No Responses »
 

When we look at last year have you achieved all that you could have? If you did not take time to see goals at the beginning of the year then you have another chance.  This is the time of the Chinese New Year and this is the year of the Snake. Take time to write down all your goals now. Write down the long term goals and then break them down into months and then weeks. When writing out your goals always give yourself a realistic time frame to achieve each goal. As long as you do this you will find that you are will accomplish your tasks much easier and not be stressed.

When you write out your goals you must believe that it is possible to achieve what you want. Having a positive mindset is necessary if you are going to be successful. This does not mean that you will not sometimes have some difficulty in reaching each goal along the way. If this happens, just take your time and solve any problem and keep moving forward.

The key to success is taking action and following through with your plans. Remember nothing happens if you are not prepared to take action. Taking action means you follow the plans you have set for yourself and don’t be swayed by others. There is no such thing as being an overnight success. Each day have a list of tasks that you want to complete. When you complete the first task on your list give yourself a small reward – like moving away from your computer and making yourself a cup of coffee. Being a success in any field of endeavor requires persistence and focus. Don’t be swayed by what other people tell you. Stay positive and you will gradually achieve all of your goals.

So take the time now and really get those goals written down. These are like a builders set of blueprints and then all you have to do is follow the blue print in a logical sequence.

Work at Home Scams

 Home Based Business  2 Responses »
 

These are most certainly the biggest scams regarding home businesses. They are not in any particular order. Various companies involved charge various up front fees some ranging from a few hundred into the thousands.

1. Craft assembly

Here you are required to pay an up front fee to get your starter kit so you can assemble your craft objects. It does come with written instructions and the necessary parts.

People begin assembling the first lot of craft products and advise the company when they have completed them. The idea or promise has been that the company will buy these assembled crafts from you and you will make money.

Unfortunately, they tell you that “they didn’t all meet our specifications” and at this point you realize that even though you followed all instructions to the letter, they are not going to buy the crafts. The company has taken your money and left you with the assembled craft. This is a scam and the only one making the money is the company selling the kits. You could try to see them at a local market to see if you could recoup your initial investment.

2. Companies looking for workers in their own home.

Here you pay a small fee to join. The catch here it is a list of companies that you are shown who are not even hiring home workers – so you have lost your money. Some companies may have originally hired home workers but do not do that now.

3. Medical Billing/Medical Transcription.

Unfortunately, people do not think about this very much. It is advertised that you do not need previous experience. You buy the soft ware and then you are given a list of potential customers in your local area.

Most clinics process their own bills immediately. Medical transcription is a very specialised field and it requires that you know and understand medical terminology.  There are companies that will employ people to do medical transcription but not from home.

There is little doubt that the people this software would want to refund your money.

3. Call this number.

The way this is advertised, if you call a specific number like a 1900 they will give you details of what they are selling.

Don’t call any numbers like this because they could be charging you account several dollars per minute. They are not free calls so do not waste your money.

4. Make money with your computer at home.

The advertisement could be a variation of this but you pay them a fee and then they send you a list of instructions for making your computer a money making machine. You will find that these instructions are how you can place ads so that you can get other people to sign up just like you did.

5. MLM – Multi Level Marketing.

Usually when you join these schemes you have to recruit more and more people. People are more interested in finding more people than in actually selling the product.

I think that the FTC would view this as a pyramid scheme.

6. Earn money typing at home.

Now if you are a really good typist why not use that skill to make some extra money at home.

You pay a fee and then the scammers send you information and a disk that show you how to place an ad and sell the information and disk to other unsuspecting people. This is very similar to #4.

7. Chain letters.

This is a very familiar way of being conned that has been around for some time. You are instructed to send some money to the top 3-5 names of a list you are sent. Then you join the list at the bottom and one day you will work your way to the top and you will be sent lots of money back.

This is another pyramid scheme and people involved with these schemes can be prosecuted.

We often wonder who would willing fall for these schemes. In this economy, there are a lot of people who are looking for quick ways to make money. These include the sick, elderly or disabled. Another group that fall for this is the low income earner, the stay at home parent or guardian who wants to earn extra money. These scammers promise the world but really they are the only ones making money.

Work at Home Insider

 Home Based Business  No Responses »
 

1. Work at home for a Call Center

If you are experienced with customer service this may be a good job for you. You just have to ensure that you are not disturbed while you are working.

There are legitimate companies that you can apply to that provide this service world wide. These are some you can try.

Alpine Access
liveops

2. Freelance writer.

If you can write articles, blogs or ebooks there are several places you can sign up and get paid to write for others. You can sign up on these sites and work when you want to. Go and have a look what is available. There are other services that these sites provide so if you have other talents like programming or graphic designing you might be able to sign up as a contractor. Go take a look:

oDesk
Freelancer

3. Computer programming

There are several companies who hire computer programmers to work from home. You can sign up at either of the above companies or find a company that accepts freelance programmers. There are so many different jobs available in the IT industry.

4. Virtual assistant.

This may be the job you are seeking. You virtual assist and carry out tasks that you are assigned. As a VA you may have to do some of the more repetitive work that the business owner does not want to do. Communications is usually either skype or email. Again the about companies will have these positions. The VA are usually in some of the world’s poorer countries and they accept a smaller wage that would be paid in the western world. Most are very well educated and speak English very well and are happy to be able to work from their home.

5. Massage therapist/Hairdresser/Any type of Therapist

If you are qualified in any of these fields and you have the room at home, it is possible to set up a home based business. You must have a dedicated work area and this area has to have its own entrance. It would be unprofessional to allow clients to walk through your house. Always display your qualifications as this shows you as the professional you are.

6. Tutoring at home

If you come from an education background this is another way to work from home. You can teach or tutor. Again it would be ideal to have a dedicated area. There are always people looking to learn one on one and this could be the legitimate business that will provide your income.

With the advent of computers, people are now teaching and tutoring using the internet. You can use skype or teach using webinars. You do not even have to have people in your home and you can teach people all over the world. This is usually done through a membership site where you pay a monthly fee.

7. Personal Trainer

There are several qualified personal trainers that will come to you to train you or there are some that have set up a gym where they live and you go to there facility to train.

The amount of work available at home is really endless. The main thing is that where ever you live you abide by the rules that are imposed on your business. This may require that you have to register you business with a government body. Most home business must display their registration certificate (if applicable) qualifications and also an insurance certificate for the business.

My Goals

 Internet Marketing  3 Responses »
 

I have had to step back and take a serious look at where I am going and look at where I have been and where I want to now go. I am not making the type of money I want and the only reason is ME! Yes that is the cold hard truth – if it is going to be it is up to ME.

So this is my business plan for the next six months. By the 25 December 2012, I have to have created a brand new product with an up sell. No ducking and weaving – just do it. Launch this product as a WSO. When that is launched, start and create another product.

Increase my list of subscribers by 5000 within the next six months. Increase my follow up emails series on some of my lists but only give information of value. Giving value to my list will help me gain more respect from my list and lower the unsubscribe numbers – they are not very high at the moment but if I can retain more that is all the better.

Create videos that can help increase my traffic. Survey my list and see what they need help with and create a video to help them.

Find JV partners that will help me increase my lists and increase my sales by 25 December 2012. In three months,31 March 2013, employ a VA to help me especially with some of the repetitive tasks. This will free my time to do what I have to do – create more product and sell it online.

I am aiming to make to make over $100,000 by the end of this six month period.

So now that I have committed this in writing I am holding myself accountable for my own actions. I can go and cross things off as I get them done. I have to have a to-do list for every day that I am working on my computer and follow it and if something is not done on that day carry it over to the next. There is nothing as powerful as writing down what your goals are – why don’t you try it.

To YOUR success

Sue McDonald

 

Marketing your business

 Internet Marketing  1 Response »
 

There are many different ways to market your business online. We may use banner ads, write a series of emails, go to related forums in your niche and you can use social media to get noticed. We have to get our website seen by as many eyes as possible. We are looking for potential customers to buy our product or service.

At this stage, we do not want to pay for traffic through advertising but we want to explore as many free methods as we can. We can use a blog to advertise our site and link this to our website. When we create our website we are able to place photos of the product or products we are going to sell. Always give a description as well as and in the description list the features and benefits of the product. People want to know about what you are offering. When consumers are searching the internet, they are looking for an answer to a problem they or someone close to them may be experiencing.

This is the advantage of having a presence online because if you know how to get your website on the first page of the search engines you have a great potential that you can get a stream of customers.

We are not only marketing your products here but customers can buy your products directly online. Products online are usually cheaper than products that you can purchase off line. The reason for this is that there are very few overheads to having an online business.

When you market online you have the advantage of having your business seen worldwide. There is no limit to the amount of people that could see the product or service you are offering. If you chose to advertise via any other form of the media, like TV or magazines, you would probably only reach potential customers in a relatively small geographic area.

One advantage that cannot be overlooked is that by using a website to market your business, the internet is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Unlike conventional stores that have regular business hours, you website is available to your customers at any hour. Many people work long hours and they find it a lot easier and quicker to purchase on the internet.

The final advantage of having a website is, as a second stream of income, you may like to sell advertising space. If you are thinking of selling space on your site, always be very careful that you do not sell space to a competitor. Never totally sell all the space available because if there are too many advertisements on your site, it will distract your potential customers.

Know how to use Aweber

 Internet Marketing  7 Responses »
 

If you use Aweber as your autoresponder, here are a few things that you might want to know.

Aweber charges you for all of the people on your list including those that have unsubscribed and those who have signed up to your list but Aweber cannot deliver your email to that address.

First let’s look at how to delete unsubscibers that you should not be paying for. If you have more than one list, you have to go through each list separately.

Log into your Aweber account. Up on the top toolbar go across to “subscribers” – click on the down arrow and select “search.” This is what the screen will look like.

Go to the “View Segment” and click on the down arrow and select “unsubscribed.” This will bring up a complete list for that list that have unsubscribed. You will notice at the top of the list on the far right is a small box beside the word “Erase” and if you click there it will bring up a tick beside every unsubscriber’s name. Then go down to the bottom of the page on the right hand site and click “save.”

All the names will disappear and Aweber cannot charge you for them.

Now let’s get rid of the subscribers who have an undeliverable address. Go through each list separately. There is no point in paying for people on your list that are not receiving your email. There can be a few reasons why this happens. If it was a single opt-in, they could have given you a false email, or they since could have closed their account. Using the same screen, click on the “View Subscribers” click on the down arrow and select “undeliverable subscribers.” Click on search and you will see how many of your emails are not delivered. Simply erase them as you did before.

Now that last way to clean up your list today is to delete the people who are not opening your emails. Using the same screen, click on the “View Subscribers” click on the down arrow and select “All Subscribers.”

Click on the left drop down arrow and towards the very bottom of the list select “no opens.” Pick a date approximately two months back. The reason I have picked two months is there could be people on vacation and you do not want to erase them. You can pick a longer or short time frame. On the next line down click on “date added” use the same date here as you have used above. Click on “search” and your list will appear. Erase them as before.

You may notice that doing this exercise you might delete a lot of people on your list but there is not point in paying for people on your list if they are not active.

To YOUR success

Sue McDonald

Set Your Goals

 Mindset  No Responses »
 

Just watched a video from one of the people I enjoy most. He is one of the best when it comes to mind set – John Assaraf. The whole video was about setting goals and achieving them.

Always write you goals down. You will never achieve anything if you do not know what it is you want. Write them a clearly as possible. You goal may be for better health, to become more financial secure, to have a better relationship with your partner or to have a better business or career. Look at these goals everyday and visualize yourself achieving what you want. Now that you have written your goal, you need strategies in place to achieve what you want. You need to know what it is that you are going to do, and then you need tactics, or in other words, how you are going to reach the goal. Then you must have a process or a system in place.

All of us are creatures of habit. By this I mean we get up every day and usually we start the day with some breakfast and then go to work. The first thing that a lot of us do is check any messages that may have come to our smart phone or computer overnight.

Now if we are finding that this is a bad habit, we have to change it. We need to have routines that are productive and are leading us in the direction of our goal. If for example, you wanted to write a book, tell yourself how much you are going to write ever day. Be committed and do not be deterred. There is such a major difference between commitment and being interested.

The committed person will not let anything get in their way to achieving their goal. The interested person will make every excuse under the sun why they have not achieved their goal. So if you are finding that you are not achieving whatever it is you want – change your habits and reach all of your goals.

To YOUR success

Sue McDonald

Your Goals

 Mindset  No Responses »
 

Firstly what is a goal? A goal is a dream or fantasy with a time line. A goal is something that you want and so far you have never done it before.

We want to go from where we are at present in another direction – but we must have a definite plan. If you do not have a detailed plan, how will you know what you are achieving? It is like going on a journey. If you were going to drive from one city to another you would not leave home without knowing what route you are going to take and the approximate time it will take you.

If you take action and be prepared to encounter any difficulties along the way and handle each as it comes – there is no reason why you will not be successful.

Don’t let other people tell you that your plan will not work. Don’t let these people steal your dreams from you. Tell yourself you are willing to do what it takes to reach your goal. We all have infinite potential to achieve what we want. The only time we fail is when we stop trying. Never give up and just work your way systematically through everything.

A goal is really like fantasying about something that we want. Keep it in mind as you work towards achieving what you set out to accomplish.

Both science and theology tell us that nothing is created or destroyed. Everything is out there. So knowing this you can have anything you want. All it will take on your part is working towards your goal and never giving up.

“God’s gift to us is more talent and ability than we ever hope to use in our lifetime. Our gift to God is to develop as much of that talent and ability as we can in our lifetime.” Steve Bow

So just prioritize what you have to do and go and do it.

Information Overload

 Home Based Business, Internet Marketing  No Responses »
 

As a person new to working online, we are tempted to buy products that we believe will help us succeed. Education is critical and if we are going to make money online, we end up with so many products that after we have looked at them, we often just stored them on one of your hard drives for later investigation. Then what happens – it is like following a bouncing ball. We go from idea to idea and never really complete what we have started. If you are doing this, you need to stop and pick one thing and stick to it.

Buying information all the time will only lead to information overload and you are completely lost and do not know where to start.

When you buy a product, be it an ebook or a course, I would suggest that you create a folder on your computer and write down the good ideas that you are discovering. If you write it down on paper it is more difficult to remember exactly where you wrote it. Now that you have written down what you think are good ideas, why not implement them. This is one way to improve your own business. So may people read all the information or watch webinars or DVDs but never implement what they are shown or read.

This is a matter of taking action and repeatedly working to improve what you are doing. So if, for example, you are building a web site where you are going to blog about a particular subject, you must be prepared to add blogs at regular intervals. You may choose to blog about getting traffic to your web site. Make sure that you write about this subject as often as possible and you will find that people are visiting your site on a regular basis. You are the expert on this subject and want to follow you and learn from you.

To YOUR success

Sue McDonald

Autoresponders

 Internet Marketing  No Responses »
 

When you run an online business you must have an autoresponder to deliver your email. It would be impossible to send out as many emails yourself because you would probably run into a lot of trouble including being black band. Autoresponders are a great tool because as the name implies it can automatically respond to any email they receive.

I would never suggest you use a free autoresponder because they can close down at any time and you would lose all your customers.

What you have to do is write your copy and then load it into your autoresponder. When a potential buyer or current customer sends your autoresponder address a message, the information he or she is looking for will automatically be delivered to straight to them. Autoresponders are very quick – delivering information via email in a matter of seconds.They allow your customers to be able to obtain the information that they are looking for.

Autoresponders can be programmed to deliver information on a daily basis or any period you choose. You can send out free courses, reports, articles and information about your products or services. When a customer fills out an optin form to obtain a free product from you, they will automatically receive a thank you email that you have pre-programmed into the autoresponder. This thank you letter can tell them how they will receive the gift they signed up for.

Unlike mass emails, your autoresponder is set up the way you want it to be. If, for example, you are sending out a 14 day free course when anyone signs up for this they will receive their first email. If someone signs up 3 days later they will receive the email of day one and then receive emails consecutively for another 13 days. If when the person signs up you have requested their first name – you can personalize all the emails that this person receives.

When people sign up they are placed on the list you have nominated. If a person buys from you should move them from the prospect list to a buyers list.

One very important thing regarding your lists is to establish a relationship with them. When you are running your business online you must have an autoresponder. When you have set up your autoresponder you will see that you have a lot more spare time. It is a way of updating your prospects and customers of any changes in your business including new products or services.

To YOUR success

Sue McDonald

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