How To Get to The Next Level (Part 1)

A lot of people think they can start an online business today and be a millionaire tomorrow.

Reality is not like that. There is no magic button.

You have to build a business step by step. It takes work and focus.

You make $1, then $10, then $100 and so on.

I started with a clickbank product that built my first list of 1000ish and had a few $1000 of sales spread over a couple of years. It’s a good way to start but you need some good affiliates.

Make a plan. Break it down into managable segments and decide what you will do when and then stick to it.
I prefer to do something every day on my current plan however small. Do this and you will reach your target.

If you can’t get them I build a list using JV Giveaways and then follow with adswaps.
Just have affiliate banners on your thank you pages, downoad pages, and in your email signature.
That’s where most of my current sales come from.

I’m currently (August 2010) have sales of 4 figure sales per month and am adding 1000+ subscribers per month (now reached 11,200).
Notice I have 4 figure ’sales’, not I ‘make’ 4 figures – you have to allow for expenses – most product sales letters do not do this and so are misleading. Anyone can get sales of $10,000 per month by spending $20,000.

What will I do to get to the next level?

I’m building a new membership site with tools to automate an online business. I’m developing them and
using them myself as I go along.

The basic level will be free with various paid higher levels.

One change I am making is to set higher targets.
I used to set fairly easy to reach targets because I prefered of the positive effect of reaching them compared to the negative effect of falling short.
Now I am changing to set a high target and a minimum target.
This is so I battle to reach those targets and ultimately achieve more even if I fall a little short of them.

So here are my new targets

3 Months
List Size: High target 20,000, Min Target 17,000
Sales: High target $5,000/month Min Target $2,500/month

5 Months (end of 2010)
List Size: High target 26,000, Min Target 21,000
Sales : High target $10,000/month Min Target $5,000/month

I’m going to keep this post sticky and add to it showing my progress getting to 5 figures per month….

(This post is part of the 100 blog comment challenge
http://creatingmybusinessonline.com/the-100-blog-comment-challenge/)

Things got a bit hectic in early July trying to get everything finished in time to go away for a week touring Ireland.
I had to try and make sure our staff could run our printing business by themselves while we were away so produced new prices lists etc.
I also took a laptop so I could keep in touch each day.

I got a bit behind with my online marketing and didn’t promote Your Internet Buddies ‘Blueprint Coaching Program’ when I originally intended too. I’m in their Platinum Coaching Group so know their content is good.

I received an email showing the pre-launch JV table showing me in 12th place. But I hadnt done anything! Affiliate marketing isn’t as hard as I’d thought

This must be because I had a lot of subscribers optin to their list which are then tagged as mine. So when any emails go to these subscribers they count as being from me.

So I’d got 12th place by doing nothing

That made me think if I actually did something I was in with a good chance of a prize (which go to the top ten).

I’d dropped to 18th the next day, but then I sent my first email out and jumped back to 12th.
I sent another email while on holiday and I made it to 9th and won a Flip HD
My first prize in a major IM competition…

Next came the actual launch. I knew this was going to be harder.
Once or twice I’ve managed to get into the top ten in the first few days, then some of the big players sent out emails and knocked me out

The first day I got 12th place again without doing anything – that was from people tagged as mine buying the product.
I sent out a couple of emails and just made it. Equal 9th place on the final day and have won either an Ipod or a video camera.

Two prizes in two weeks, and I’ve gained some credibility as I ended up above some well-known marketers.

It isn’t as hard as it seems when you first set out…

What is the best format for your download files whether they are gifts in a Giveaway, for Adswaps or paid products.

My early paid products were all Zip files. The reason was they contained a bonus PDF file eg resources file that had affiliate links in.
This was recommended by marketers such as Alex Jeffreys (Easy Profit Auctions) , John Thornhill (Planet Forum) and Lee McIntyre (Standing Start Profits).

More recently I’ve noticed a lot of people have direct links from download pages to PDF files. The products given to students in Marketing with Alex 2.0 and also by MyIMMentors used this arrangement and I have done this for my recent free products (except Free Backlinks Generator which has multiple files)

The reasons for PDFs -
It’s quicker to setup, and also apparently easier for people to access since they don’t have to unzip the files (not everyone knows how to do that apparently).

Now I come to the reason for this post – a few people had gifts rejected from a recent Giveaway for using PDFs. I’d entered well over 100 giveaways and never had this happened before.
We were all a bit surprized at this and felt the admin were being over-officious.

Last week I spoke to Rodger Hyatt (who is supervising the Giveaway) on Skype about this and here are the reasons for using ZIP files.

1) PDF files can contain Viruses. Zip files are automatically scanned for viruses.

2) PDFs open directly in browers and some people don’t know how to save them.
Also a browers will be slower and if the PDF is large it will slow down the computer. If a zip file is used then the unzipped PDF will default open in Adobe Acrobat not in a browser.

3) As already mentioned a ZIP file can contain other bonus and resources PDFs or other files like worksheets which benefit both the customer as they get more information and the product owner (form affiliate links)

If you don’t have an unzip program there is a free on here
http://www.camunzip.com/download.htm

(Most people recommend WinZip but that is a trial only)

Having run my own Giveaway I can say it’s harder than it sounds to monitor.
A lot of gifts break the rules and checking everything out takes a lot of
time.

So it’s your choice – will you use ZIP or PDF files?

Myself an Michael Ottman have been busy for the past few months putting together a Giveaway Event which we planned to launch on Friday June 11th.

We customised the script as much as possible with high quality graphic designed and installed my Michael and various additional changes that I made to the templates and to the copy for the sign-up pages and emails.

We also have some secret competitions planned…

The news leaked out though and the event launched itself on Tuesday and within two day we have over 100 JV Partners.

There’s 100% commission on sales of upgrades and a lot of people are already earning from this.

If anyone hasn’t joined yet then here’s a link. Jump on board and build your list..

http://originalproductsgiveaway.com/summer/go/5/jv

I’d like to pass on my condolences to the family and friends of all of the victims of the events on 2nd June.
Almost everyone in the area has some connection with somebody involved.
Kevin Commons, the solicitor, was the founder of the firm occupying the two upper floors of the building where our printing company operates. He was a customer when we took over the business.
Paul Wilson, a taxi driver who is a customer of ours, was shoot at the crossroads just 2 buildings along from us. Fortunately Paul was relatively lucky and able to leave hospital the same day.

There will be a vigil at 12 noon BST on Wednesday 9th June. We will close for one hour from 11:30 to 12:30.

The following part of the post was written during Wednesday when nobody was sure what was happening:

Today was a nice sunny day to I decided to walk to the office about 11am. Our staff open the business so I don’t have to go in early.

On the way down I passed 2 emergency medics and heard their radio say at least 10 people had been shot!

It turned out the shooting began only just round the corner from our shop and Printing company.

This is a quiet town on the west coast of northern England and you do’nt expect this kind of thing to happen.

At the moments all the shops in town are closed – they were told to lock the doors with customers inside.

This is all going to be on the local news, but hopefully the person will be caught by now, and I will be able to walk home later.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/10214661.stm

Update 2:20pm
The police came round and said it should now be safe to open.

June 3rd
I walked to work again and the town is full of film crews, and reporters are coming into our shop Printpoint.
It was announced that one of the victims was solicitor Kevin Commons who occupied the offices above us.