If you think about it, all progress on your blog is a function of you taking initiative and going out seeking opportunities instead of sitting at home waiting for them. Go For Broke @ Performancing.com
This is true of everything in life, not just blogging.
About a month ago, I decided to get serious about learning to how to make money with affiliate marketing. I mean, I had made a dollar or two off of Amazon and the like, but I was not having any success breaking through.
I have been reading a few books, scouring the interwebs for articles, trawling the forums… learned a lot, but I just could not seem to put it all together. Then yesterday, for the first time, I understood. I found a step by step action plan that made sense, that would not cost me a fortune, that I could implement within minutes, that I could start doing right now. Let me explain:
A friend recommended a book about making money on Craigslist. She said that this guy uses Craigslist to drive traffic and make money and that it was worth a read. Honestly I was about to tune her out when she mentioned that he did a lot of it with affiliate programs and that was why she was recommending it to me.
Long story short; I bought the eBook, read through it in about an hour. He goes into detail on about 8 ways to make money using Craigslist; combining it with affiliate programs, using it to build your list, how to drive large amounts of traffic to your website and others. I was skeptical, but decided to try just one of them (the simplest, naturally) and see what happened. That was at 8:00 pm last night; this morning I am $37 dollars richer as a result. And that was one technique, applied in a half-assed fashion, just as a test.
Maybe you want to know how to make money in affiliate marketing, maybe you need to build a mailing list of buyers, heck, maybe you just need some extra money. In any event, I highly recommend you check out The Craigslist Profits Guide. It only costs $17 (He claims he will raise the price later, but I do not know if that is just a marketing gimmick; I will say it would have been worth it at twice the price).
The strategies he tells you about are simple, straightforward and not “spammy”; most of them cost nothing at all to implement. This is NOT some huge text filled with fluff; rather, it is about 45 pages of pure how-to information.
I have read about 40 eBooks this year and this is the first one I have ever recommended to my readers; I feel that strongly about it. As I said, it only costs $17 (less than I spent on my last meal at a restaurant) and is a pure bargain at that price.
He has a page set up with more information, a copy of the table of contents and so on, along with gobs of testimonials. Click here to read more about it and get your copy today!
As you can tell from the sidebar, my most popular post ever is 5 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me. I cranked that one out in early summer of 2007, and honestly, I did not plan for it to be some great post; I just sort of threw it out there. It is six times more popular than my next most popular post, Are you Selling What Your Customer Wants To Buy?.
That being said, it amazes me that people either love it or hate it. The emails and comments I have gotten over that post either lean toward telling me I am full of it, or telling me that they love it and wish they had heard it sooner.
The theory behind those 5 things is a guiding force in my life, however, and I thought I would expound on it and perhaps they will make a bit more sense.
For all the talk about the law of attraction and the power of positive thinking, I also believe in the power of negative thinking, or put another way, the assumption of a negative outcome. Let me explain:
Most of the things you attempt, will fail. If you are a salesperson, most of the people you call on will turn you down. If you are looking for a mate, most of the people you go out with will not work out. If you are learning a new skill, you will mess up a lot on your way to mastery.
Now, instinctively, we all know this. However, we all assume the new job will work out, that the marriage will work, that everything will work out. The moment that happens, you give up options. I believe that you are free to the extent you have options.
Behind those 5 points is the belief that most things will not work out, so you need to keep your options open. You need to strive to have as many deals, as many promotions, as many options open as possible. You need to assume on the front end the worse possible outcome, because, more than likely, that is what will happen.
To believe anything else is to ignore history, to ignore what you have experienced in your own life and what you have observed. To ignore all of that seems, to me anyway, irrational.
I owe much of this philosophy, believe it or not, to Dale Carnegie. In his book How To Stop Worrying And Start Living, he said if you imagine the worst possible outcome to a situation often you will see it really just is not that bad. It might not be desirable, but it is usually something from which you can recover. I went one step further and decided to assume that the worst case would happen and plan for it. By doing this, I removed it’s power over me and the fear of being tied to the outcome.
Now, this does NOT make me a pessimist. To the contrary, I am perhaps the most optimistic person I know. I am able to be an optimist, however, because of my assumption on the front end that things could not work out and I have taken that into consideration in my planning. I know that because most things will not work out, I need to plan for that from the very beginning.
Now, I know this is not very warm and fuzzy cheery thought stuff; if you want that, you are at the wrong blog. You should go back to the nursery and eat your cookies and milk; you will be much happier.
If, however, you are about taking control of your life, taking charge of your situation and deciding your own destiny, then you should really give the power of negative thinking a try. You might just be surprised.
NOTE: This is article 2 of 3.
6 Reasons Your Business Should Sell on eBay (part 1)
In a previous post, I mentioned six reasons you should have a strategy for using eBay to build your business. Today, I take the first three reasons and expand on them. After my next post, where I expand on the last three, I will post a list of resources for eBay sellers. I also highly recommend you check out Meagan’s new eBay blog put out by the folks at emomsathome.
To recap, the six reasons for having an eBay strategy are:
1. Cash Flow
2. Velocity of Inventory
3. Search Domination
4. Credibility Transfer
5. Expanded Reach
6. Virtually Free Sales Leads
Cash Flow
When you first think about using eBay in your business, one of the first thoughts is generating cash flow. I mean, really, there are few places in the world where you can put an item up for sale on Sunday and have money in your account on the following Monday. Done properly, eBay can allow you to offer your goods and services to a wide audience and generate near immediate cash.
There are several ways to use eBay to increase your immediate cash flow. For example, instead of selling your end of life models or customer returns to a liquidator, you could sell them on eBay. Sears does this, as does Olympus Camera and many other companies. In fact, many of the liquidators out there that are currently buying your overstock and returns are turning around and selling them on eBay themselves.
Another way you could use eBay to generate cash is if you are in a crunch. I think all of us have had the experience of overbuying, getting overextended or just plain having too much month at the end of the money. Many a small business has been kept afloat by the cash flow that eBay can add to your business.
Velocity of Inventory
Similar to the idea of Velocity of Money, Velocity of Inventory is the idea that the faster you move your inventory, the better off you are. All things being equal, it is often better to turn your inventory more often, even if it is at a lower profit margin. Let’s face it, cash is king and the less cash you have tied up in long term inventory, the better. Sometimes, it is better to have that fast nickel rather than a slow dime.
Search Domination
If you are in business these days, the internet plays a part in your business whether you like it or not. More and more people are ignoring the yellow pages and going straight to Google to find everything from plumbers, bakers and landscape companies. One problem these small businesses have is lack of page rank, lack of incoming links and lack of Google attention. Luckily, Google just loves eBay. I have had auctions on eBay be indexed within 48 hours and they stay up for weeks, sometimes months.
One way a small business could use this effectively would be to run a continuous auction for a gift certificate for their products, goods or services and chalk up the auction fees to marketing. When you create the auction, use strong keywords and a strong linking strategy to direct traffic to your *real* website (more about a linking strategy next time). When people search Google for those keywords, they will come across your auction and can be drawn to your site.
You can also create an “about Me” page that is in essence a one page website. These also get indexed very quickly.
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Next time, we will cover the remaining three reasons and talk about ways to use eBay to generate more traffic (and business!).
It is no secret that I am a big fan of Wendy Piersall. Truth is, she just plain rocks.
Well, earlier today she announced the expansion of her emomsathome brand; she has expanded into a full blown media empire, with a total of 7 blogs and 9 authors all under the emomsathome umbrella.
From her announcement:
Our congratulations to Wendy and company. She just keeps raising the bar higher and higher.
Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized. - Daniel Burnham
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Yes, I know I said I was done worrying about stats and from now on I was just going to crank out good content and let things fall where they may. That is still the case, but you do like some external validation when it happens.
Way back on May 25th, I wrote that my goal had been to break the Technoratti 100K in 2 months, but that I had done it in 28 days. Then I bet that I could break 50k by the 15th of June, but it just did not happen.
Today (August 23rd), just over 2 months later than I had intended, I finally broke the 50K barrier. Yes, I know I probably could have done it sooner had I not taken those weeks off in the middle of the summer.
Thank you all for your links, your loyalty and your readership. I could not (and would not) do it without all of you.
NOTE: This is article 1 of 3.
6 Reasons Your Business Should Sell on eBay (Part 2)
Unless you have been in a cave for the last 10 years or so, you have probably bought or sold something on eBay. What started off as a hobbyist site to sell your odds and ends has become big business, invading the popular culture (did anyone else watch Transformers this summer?) and has become a way to work from home for many people.
After I mentioned in my last post I made a large portion of my income from eBay I received several emails and phone calls wanting to know both how they could make money from home with eBay and how to use eBay in their business.
While working from home by selling on eBay is a valid business model and one I will talk about soon, right now I want to focus on the top 6 reasons a traditional business should look into making eBay a part of their business strategy.
Here are the 6 reasons you should have an eBay strategy in your business:
Over the next week or so I will take each reason and break it down in it’s own post, showing why it is important and ways you can implement it in your business.
I know many people think eBay and think collectibles or yard sale rejects but, done properly, eBay can have a huge impact on your business.
This will be a 3 part series, so subscribe here to keep track of the ongoing discussion…
Hughism: Most people take a sample of one.
I once knew an older gentleman who had been fairly successful in real estate. He had bought apartment buildings over the years, leveraged them well, used the rents to pay down the mortgage and now had a large income stream every month that surpassed his needs by a considerable amount.
The excess he put in a safe in his office until he had enough for his next down payment. I am not kidding. He put it in his safe. At any given time, he might have had $25-30,000 in the safe. Earning NO interest whatsoever.
I recommended he put the excess cash in laddered CD’s so he could have the safety of the bank plus relative liquidity. He said no.
Why?
It seems his father had his life savings in bank CD’s and lost everything…in 1933. Thus, this guy had told himself that because of this experience, he was never going to trust a bank with his cash.
Never mind FDIC insurance, never mind the Great Depression. None of that mattered to him.
Based on a sample of exactly one.
While this is admittedly an extreme example, the same thing happens all the time.
A customer comes in your store and writes a check for $12; it bounces. The bank charges you $10 for the trouble and worst case, you never see this guy again. Thus, you put up a sign saying NO CHECKS and offend other customers and lose sales. Over $22.
A teenager comes into your shop and slips a candy bar in his knapsack; you see him as he runs away. Now you have instituted a NO knapsack policy, requiring customers to check their bags at the door. Over a candy bar.
I sell a lot on eBay. In any given year, some 40-70% of my income comes from eBay. I have performed thousands of transactions over the years. I have been stiffed by customers maybe 4 times, for a total loss of less than $50. All the fees of which I have been reimbursed by eBay when I filed non-payer bidder. So I am out zero cash, right?
This is why I laugh when I see warnings like this in an auction listing.
You MUST pay me within 5 days or I will leave you negative feedback. These prices are NOT negotiable, do not ask. I only take PayPal, so don’t ask for anything else. I ship every Tuesday and Thursday, so pay quick to get in the next shipment. If you don’t want to pay extra for the insurance then I am not responsible if your item gets lost in the mail. Thanks for looking and Good Luck Bidding!
When you read this, do you feel like the seller is hoping you have a great experience? I don’t. I think the seller is convinced I am a thief who is going to try to wheedle them down on price and then make a false insurance claim. Then they tell me “Good Luck Bidding!” More like, Good Luck Buying.
More than likely, this seller once had a check from a customer bounce, so they went to a NO CHECK policy. Then they heard that their friend Joe had heard about a fake money order someone on eBay got ripped off with, so now NO money orders either. Now they only take PayPal, leaving huge amounts of money on the table and scaring potential bidders off.
The sample of one. Most people make decisions based upon it.
It is why customers do not come back.
It is why bad decisions get made.
Can you think of any more examples where bad decisions are made based on radically insufficient data?
…to say thanks for all the votes of support and confidence you have all sent me. I am fine, just working my tail off on quite a few projects. I have some big announcements coming up, so stay tuned.
See all ya’ll later in the week.