Internet Business

One thing I have learned in internet marketing is you better have more than 1 income stream or you can kiss you butt goodbye.

I learned this in a big way about 5 years ago. In 1997 I started learning the ropes of internet marketing and made a few dollars here and there. Wrote a newsletter, wrote a training course. In the old days of SFI I helped develop their flagship product Full Circle Success. I had my ducks in a row. 3 streams of income coming in. My bank account was golden.

I few years later I started working with a partner in the lead generation arena. I plunged all my energy into that company and started to let my other stream of income dwindle until they were not even generating enough money to buy a “Big Mac” at McDonalds. I was still flying high until the worse case scenario happened.

In one swoop a group of brilliant but hugely mis guided individuals struck our web server hosting facility. They destroyed our database of close to 2 million leads. Our customer database of over 1000 customers and our programming. In the process they also took out the web site and databases of 9 other poor schmucks. Plus these guys were so smart that they started corrupting the backups before they took the whole system down.

I could have died. I just purchased our new farm, our family income was depending largely on my income and whamo I had no business left. My husband was standing outside my office door when the news came over the telephone. He didn’t quite grasp the concept of the server being hacked. The tears started to roll down my face knowing that a hacked server was similar to a office building getting burned to the ground.

I said the business is gone and I would not be able to make the mortgage payments. He said, “You don’t have a choice.” Seems sort of harsh. Isn’t a husband supposed to console you when your down. Not in our case. He knew what I had done to start my internet marketing success. He knew that if I gave up at that moment I would never find success again. He knew how to push my buttons to piss me off just enough to get me started again.

Within the hour I had a partial customer list. The phone was hot from the conference calls with programmers, lead suppliers and bankers. Within 1 month the company was operating at break even. With in 3 - 6 months we were turning a profit.

You’ve come this far so I better tell you what you should learn from the tale of woe.

1. Keep more than one stream of income going at all times. The Internet is a fickle place. It changes fast and moves quickly. What is hot today could be gone tomorrow.

2. Backups and Security are crucial to your web based business. If you get wiped out by a virus or a hosting provider it is your own darn fault. Back up once, twice, thee times if you feel better. Your web host is your life.

3. Keep your head above water. You will ride many, many waves in the internet marketing game. I think that’s what attracts me to it in some sick way. I can go from making nothing one week to cutting a deal for $10,000 the next week. You are going to get kicked in the teeth my more than one venture. The key is to keep moving forward as long as you do that you will continuously run into new opportunities.

Charity Adams, CEO Mom is a 8 year veteran of online marketing and lead generation. For more information on Search Engine Optimization pick up our free Ebook at http://adamsacres.com/seo

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One day I was talking to a friend who had made his money in real estate. He had bought apartment buildings, paid them off, and now lives off of the income his building bring in month after month. I said that sounds easy enough. He told me that if he had to do that today he wouldn’t even try. At the time he bought his buildings real estate doubled in price about every 6 to 8 years. He told me that you would have to wait at least double the years to see any real increase in value.

But the concept of having multiple income streams coming in month after month intrigued me. Online is the absolute easiest means of doing this. An income that continues to come in whether you work or not, and that does exist.

Many programs promise to do this for you. But the problem with most of these “opportunities” is that they are money-making ventures aimed NOT at giving YOU the opportunity to earn a significant income, but are rather schemes designed to line the pockets of the programs’ creators!

So the problem is how do you find the programs that will create that multiple income stream. Why not let the experts do it for you. That’s what we do. There are experts out there looking for the best programs, and they will share that information with you, after all, it benefits everyone when they do.

What To Look For

Whether you follow a program such as the ebizrotator for example to have new opportunities delivered to you or you are looking for opportunities yourself there are some criteria you should use to judge whether a program is worth the time and investment. For example the company should provide or have:

The company should provide some legal information about their company.

A product or service that has real value at a fair price.

A compensation plan that provides for spillover (you get members under you automatically).

And a forced matrix that “compresses” (you’ll never have “holes” in your group).

If the product or service is not distributed via network marketing a revenue share or commission pay out that pays a good commission, at least 10% to 20% or more.

The complete specs on their technical aspects including their server information etc. Are they using a shared or dedicated server.

A complete profile of everyone on the program’s management team.

A means to contact downline members

A money back guarantee

A try it free program so you can learn.

Running Multiple Programs

It’s highly unlikely that if you try to become successful trying to run multiple programs that you will have the success you are looking for. The trick is to develop one program then move on to the next one. You can try and join free programs to “get in line” so to speak and when they launch you can decide whether you have the time or decide whether the program deserves your attention to make it successful. For example I recently heard about a new search engine called ZaBang. They have the intention of becoming one of the top search engines on the Internet an sharing their revenues with you. You can join free, check out their information and when they launch and you can decide whether it’s worth your while. You can join free here.

Another option is to use a service such as the ebizrotator that are screening opportunities for you. That way you have some confidence that these opportunities are worth the work you put into them.

Online Success Programs

Even if you join a good program getting that message out to as many people as possible is at times very difficult. Use the expert advice that we do. The 5 Pillar Program is free to join and you get literally thousands of free pages of information on how to build a successful Internet business. This is well worth the time and can get you started on the right foot.

About The Author:

Bob Power has been an educator, Internet entrepreneur and author of tutorials, the newest trends found on the Internet, and Internet work at home business. He is the owner and operator of WYYNvillage.com, a group of web sites dedicated to community and Internet business. For more articles on this subject and more visit his articles site.

This article may be reproduced as is with no changes. Please contact the author with the web site where the article will appear.

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When I first went into business for myself five years ago as a marketing and public relations consultant, I struggled with setting my fees. Even though I had been making a good salary working for someone else in this capacity, at first I found it difficult to set my fees at what they truly were worth (plus the added 20%-30% for overhead for being an sole proprietor!).

Then I learned about “dollarizing” (a topic for another article) and about looking at the results that I was creating for my clients. I also had to build my confidence and comfortability in telling prospective clients what my fees were without stammering…

I don’t struggle with this anymore, for a few reasons. One reason is because I KNOW what a difference I can and do make in my client’s business. And another reason is that I have loads of clients, past and present, who continue to tell me what a difference I’ve made for them in their business. Both of these have helped to build my confidence and comfortability factors in setting my rates.

Now it’s easy for me to say that my coaching rates are $350 an hour, or that a private mentorship with me starts at $5000. Obviously that means I have fewer clients than I did when I was charging $350 a month (as opposed to an hour), but it also means I work one-on-one a lot less, which frees up an incredible amount of time.

And, by packaging my knowledge into information products, I actually help MORE people now than ever before, and I love that!

Now, my business has gone through more than one iteration over the last five years, so I don’t want to give the impression that this happened quickly for me, because it didn’t. But it could happen for you a lot faster if you implement some of the tips I’ve given you here:

1. Consider yourself the expert.

Why wait for someone else to crown you something? Seriously, if you didn’t think you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t have taken the leap into entrepreneurship. So make yourself the expert and put yourself out there as such.

Why? Because you’ll build credibility faster, your name will be the one that comes to mind when people are in need of what you offer, and because it will allow you to command higher fees that people are willing to pay.

People want to hire someone who is an expert in solving their problem. For example, I started out as a generalist in marketing and public relations (and web development), and I did ok money-wise as such. Then I started focusing on working with entrepreneurs in marketing their business, and financially I did better. Now I focus on online marketing for a specific niche (solo service professionals) using the multiple streams marketing and product funnel model, and my client base and income has increased exponentially! My business is also a lot easier and much more fun!

2. Increase your income by increasing your fees.

Like I did, most of my clients struggle with this issue at first. It’s normal. They’re afraid of losing clients (they will), and of charging themselves out of their market (they won’t). But, among other things, I encourage them to remember that if they charge more, they don’t need as many clients, and by having less clients, they will have more time and freedom to do the things they enjoy (and even more so if they create products to offer to their niche - see #3).

If there’s still resistance, I suggest that any new clients they accept, they do so at their new higher rate, and keep their current clients at their old rate.

3. Package what you know.

Stop trading time for money and start packaging what you know. By this I mean creating information products that you can sell to your niche that helps them solve their problem at a much lower rate than working with you one-on-one.

This has made a huge difference for me particularly over the past year with the birth of my daughter. Creating products for my niche helped me to continue to bring in the revenue I “lost” by not taking on any new one-on-one clients while I raised her.

There are many ways to leverage your time and talent, but these three will get you started in the right direction to building a more satisfying business for you ~ one that gives you the freedom to enjoy both your work and your life.

Copyright 2006 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com

Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach

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