Just watch thirty minutes of gloom and doom on CNN or CNBC. You’ll know right away that times are tough everywhere. The global economy is in a slump and the world political climate is no less than frightening.
Personal economies are threatened as well. Jobs are being lost, disposable income for the average person is a fond memory, and credit cards are being maxed in meeting normal everyday living expenses.
What does all this mean to you?
If you currently own and operate any type of business, no matter how small, you have a tremendous advantage over most other folks. Even if your business is presently quite marginal, you still possess the ability to produce an independent income – an opportunity to take control of your own destiny.
And if you’re not (yet) operating your own business, there has never been a more opportune time in history than right now to get started.
In either case, you have essentially two choices in tough economic times – get up and do something new and different – or roll over and wet your pants. Here are a few suggestions toward keeping your pants warm and dry.
Reduce Your Business Expenditures Take a long hard look at any service, membership, or subscription that is costing you a monthly fee. Do the benefits derived actually translate into improved cash flow? Or could you axe those expenditures today and still maintain your current level of income?
Stop outsourcing any services that you can learn to do yourself (ie. site maintenance/webmastering, search engine submissions, list maintenance, etc.) Sure, your own time is valuable as well – but if your business is hemorrhaging cash, your own time may well be the best investment you can make.
Find Out What Your Competitors Are Doing Start saving to a dedicated folder all the ezines that you have been habitually deleting. Then set aside some time each week to scan them for info that relates directly to your business.
Do an online search for keywords you`re using on your own domain. Then make a list of sites that are in direct competition with yours, and visit them frequently.
Sure, it’s easier to say that you don’t have the time – you’re too busy promoting your own business. But how can you promote, even moreso compete, if you don`t know who and what you`re up against?
Track the ROI From Each Ad Campaign Hits tracking alone tells you nothing, except how many tire-kickers clicked your link. You need to know the ROI (return on investment) in specific dollar amounts, from each and every ad campaign you roll out. Otherwise, a pile of money can be quickly and unknowingly lost on advertising that is not pulling a profit. A single bum ad can easily drain the profits from two or three productive ones.
This is an insidious and often overlooked profit leak, especially when you`re continuing to pull orders and it appears on the surface that you`re making money. We’ve used LightningTrack the past couple of years in all our advertising campaigns. It automatically makes all the necessary calculations and provides in depth ROI statistics with a minimum of hassle.
Focus Your Website on Making Sales We’ve visited countless sites that, at first glance, looked more like a family homepage – only to find the “products” link tucked up in some corner in small font. With regard to making sales, that is about the same as pulling your pistol and shooting off your own big toe.
We suggest you billboard your products or services on the front page. This let’s the visitor know right away that you have stuff for sale. Then minimize the number of clicks and other obstacles between the visitor and your order link.
Beware of meaningless content. Sure, the search engines love it – almost demand it. But does the content presented on your site actually help you earn money? Or does it only serve to confuse and detract from the issue of making sales?
Believe it or not, most visitors will not come to your site just to read a guru article. If you really need to post other people’s articles for site content, then be sure to include your own related advertisement at the top of the page. Any content that you post should have a singleness of purpose – to help you make sales.
Develop New Low Overhead Streams of Income Resellable digital products (ebooks, software, etc.) are a near perfect solution. They`re easy and inexpensive to obtain, usually come with a ready-made minisite, and set-up time can be as little as an hour or two. The typical high profit and low fulfillment cost can quickly drive your bottom line profit to new highs.
You should also consider offering services-for-fee that you can perform yourself with little to no upfront cost. The key is to bring in a quick return of new revenue with as little out of pocket expense as possible.
Make Them an Offer They Can’t Refuse Something like nine out of ten visitors will never return to your website, unless you give them a good reason to do so. Even then, you can’t depend on those potential customers to remember where your site is, or what they saw there.
It’s a critical point of doing ebusiness to entice the new visitor into leaving behind her email address in return for something of real value. Worn out ebooks will no longer do the trick. Neither will an insignificant sign-up form stuck like an afterthought in the corner of a page.
Whatever you offer as a list-building incentive, it must be in-their-face and impossible to resist.
Follow Up Dilligently This is where the money is. A majority of sales – some say as much as 80% – are made only after several contacts have been made. In most cases, your own credibility must be established with a new potential customer before she will seriously consider buying from you. Consistent and gentle reminders about the benefits of your offer, sent over a period of time along with a bit of education, can and will maximize your sales.
Established customers, when treated fairly, ethically, and with human concern and respect, will translate into money in the bank. In most cases, they want to hear from you again, if for no other reason that to make them feel more comfortable with the purchases they have already made from you. Stay in contact, and treat those good folks like precious jewels. After all, that’s what they are.
Thrive or Fail The final assessment is this – your business is not some external entity – your business is you. You make the choices, and you carry the responsibility. Whether your business thrives or fails is ultimately in your hands alone.
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Dan B. Cauthron runs several websites and publishes his 100%
original and highly opinionated *Revenew QuikTips* online
whenever he has something significant to say. To subscribe
please visit: http://DanBCauthron.com Dan also operates:
http://Earn-Revenew.com and http://SlideInADSGenerator.com
