Couple of things that helped me to create 5-figure business from scratch

I've been doing business online for some time. I have a gaming company I run, and I generate income via the web. While I'm in the gaming biz, the principles I've used are valid in other areas as well.

Here's couple of things that have helped to bring me that decent 5-figure (per year) income. There's nothing shocking here... all this stuff is basic, but I believe it's something you guys might want to know.

So, here we go:

#1 - Learn from Digital point
Okay, that's pretty obvious - but I really must admit that before I started learning stuff via DP, I wasn't that interested in generating income. I read & helped others & learned stuff. I asked, wrote and learned. Basically, I found a secret that's so obvious that many people miss it. If you want to know how to get more traffic or sales, you can use the secret.

I presume you want to know what the secret is?

It's behind this link: the magic that reveals all the secrets <= just use this to learn "how to get traffic" or "how to get sales" etc.

#2 - Read books
I love reading. I love writing. I love collecting books and putting them on my book shelf. There's couple of things I keep in mind when getting books:
- I get books written by successful people, the kind of people I'm going to be
- What you read affects how you think (more on this in the next point)
- New or old... they cost just $10-20 per book and can help you make loads

Get books. Read & learn from the pros.

#3 - What you THINK is what you get
The more $$$ I've seen in my bank account, the more convinced I am that the phrase "What you think is what you get".

If you aim to get $100 per month... that's pretty much where you will end. On the other hand... if you price your products higher (like... sell blog reviews for $300, you only need to do one review per 3 months). If you sell $1000 products (or $977 or whatever), you will simply earn more than when you are selling $10 (or $7) products.

The market is filled with people who sell $7 (or $27 products). By raising the price, you raise the perceived quality as well.

To get more... you actually need to change your thinking.

#4 - What you want is what you get
Another important point. At one point I wrote a lengthy post about how I got traffic - part 2. I wanted to bring this post to John Chow's site. I approached him and voilá, I got the post appear on his site (I modified it a little).

Was it difficult?

I don't think so... I wanted it, I gave John a good offer (and provided value) and things went on.

Stuff happens. You can decide what you want to happen.

#5 - The number one rule
Even when I list this as the 5th point, this is actually the rule number #1. You gotta provide value. If you have a humor site, your job is to entertain the visitors. Your job is not to "think about how to get as much as money as possible". Your job is to provide value - provide FUN.

If you have a political site, your job is to provide political discussion, ideas, news - something people want to read.

If you sell games, you gotta make great games that people want to buy.

If you sell golf ebooks, you gotta make such golf ebooks that people find useful.

You gotta provide more value than anybody expects.

#6 - Understanding rule number 5 will make you unique
About 89 out of 100 "internet marketers" try to "make the one sale". They want to sell to one customer once. They want to sell $7 affiliate ebooks that explain how they made lots of money using "the secret" in these books (the secret is: they get people to sell the $7 as affiliate).

So many people look for one sale.

You can look to provide value. That gets you in the top 11% who actually earn good $$$.

#7 - Trying new stuff
You gotta try new stuff. You gotta try, try, try. Many people do it like this:
- they get excited
- they try something and fail
- they stop
- they go whining
- they get excited and try again
- they fail again
- they go to boards to whine "why nothing works and everything sucks"

If you read the principles 3 & 4, you should understand that these guys are doomed to get "more failure", "nothing works" and "everything sucks".

Do you know what successful people do?
- they try
- they fail
- they try again
- they fail
- they try, try, try
- they fail, fail, fail
- they try as long as it takes
- and they succeed

Then they repeat. And as they go further, they fail lots of times again - but that doesn't stop them. They are so focused on success that they know it's just a matter of time before they succeed. They simply do what it takes.

Bottom line
Hopefully these tips helped you. They certainly helped me to get thousands of visitors to my site, and nice 5-fig biz so far.

And I'm going forward.

 

Great post mate, very simple thinking, yet logical when you look at it.

Most great entrpreneurs all say very similar things.. and why? because it works.. persistance, passion, determination, forward thinking and having a dream are all ingredients we have in our personal war cabinet.. yet people just need practice using them rather than saying 'I cant do that'..

Cant is an evil word..

 

Excellent post you've done here. Congrats for such achievements. I've checked your sig links for traffic, it seems I have to read some more. I checked your blog too and found your "100 ways to be more productive" post.
You "love writing" for sure !

Thanks for inspiration.

 

spot on here

 

Glad to hear you guys liked this.

Yeh... I read from a book called Chicken Soup for the Soul (not biz book, but ok read for inspiration & success) about this "can't do". These guys were doing some sort of campaign and one of them wrote a big words "why we can't", and marked a big X under that. Then he said, "now we've gone through 'why we can't' - let's now put everything under this line: Why we can".

Yeh, there's some stuff that might be worth checking out...

Aye - there's some stuff on my blog that can be applied in any online biz (not just games). For example the business category contains some useful stuff, and so does the practical marketing.

Thanks

 

Thanks for the excellent read. Great stuff!

 

Nice post chap.

 

The whole try, try, fail, fail, succeed thing is dead on. Most new webmasters expect people to magically know about their site and if they don't start seeing $$$ they give up within a month or less.

 

Heh, glad you liked it.

Cheers

Aye.

That "overnight success" saying is really great. I mean... if somebody puts 20 years into online marketing, and then does $$$$$$ in one day... that's really the results he gets from his great past experience/knowledge/deals/etc.

 

I'm reading the one minute millionaire at the minute, and a good analogy they use is when they talk about building a skyscraper.. Once they start building a skyscraper it takes about 6 month to erect.. seems extremely fast! However no one sees the 4-5 years planning and development into building the skyscraper.. then it takes about 1 year to excavate and lay the foundations.. and its a quick 6 months to sucessfully erect it!

The same is with businesses, its all about planning and laying the foundations, then great wealth and success will come!

The same is true for pretty much every rich successful person, be it a pop star, a sports person, an entrepreneur.. none of them got rich over night, they spent many hours and years trying to be the best at what they do.. and then came the tipping point, that tipped them over the edge to success!

Hard work, planning.. determination, dreams, goals.. thats what makes someone successful.. not a get rich quick scheme!

 

Hard work, work hard or work smart?

Whatever it is you need all this 3

 

Excellent post and a great boost!

 

Hmm, I've read one minute manager (which was excellent me thinks). I suppose I have to get that one minute millionaire too... thanks for the reminder.

Analogy is so correct.

I don't need hard work

Cheers

 

thanks very much for the pointers. These are very useful and very true.

MAtt

 

Outstanding post!! Keep up the good work. Cheers

 

Wow, what an inspiring and very informative post. About being persistant - It's sometimes hard to keep trying to be successful and focused at something especally when the people around you (friends, family) don't support you and think what you are doing is a waste of time. You have to learn when this advice is valid or not I've found.

I've only hit minor success on a few ventures, but I'm not giving up. The idea of working for myself and not someone else is what keeps me going. It's all about having a positive attitude towards things - not just in business, but in life in general.

 

this is a great post thank you!

 

Thank you very much for the post. Its good to get a boost every now and then to let us all know that the hard work we are doing now will pay off eventually as long as we keep at it.

 

Yes, that's something that really needs to be thought. I mean, sometimes their advice CAN be valid. I've noticed that it's easier for other people to notice when I'm stubborn, so it's very good to think what you do.

On the other hand, I would not talk about the biz matters with for example friends who aren't supportive, or who cannot suggest solutions. You could still be friends... but what's the point hearing them discouraging you.

"Minor success" is such a relative thing... from your speech I'd say you've had experienced success in the past. It's like... when you see one guy buying your stuff, you can start thinking "If I have such good stuff that one guy buys the product, what stops me from getting 100 or 10 000 customers too?"

The answer is of course "nothing!"

I can't remember who it was... but some big corporation boss said that "failing is mandatory" in their company. That's the way to learn.

Many people keep PLANNING lots of stuff. You have touched the waters and HAD success - so keep on going forward.

Yeh, although I try to avoid "hard" and "work" as much as possible - rather focus on having fun

 

- New or old... they cost just $10-20 per book and can help you make loads

Get books. Read & learn from the pros.

You can also find some for free in the council library or university library.