Right, Straight down to business! To make money you have to sell something, you have to provide a person / company with something they want, something they will pay for. Here are the sales options: 1. Sell your own services 2. Sell your own products 3. Sell other peoples/companies services 4. Sell other peoples/companies products This may seem like the most obvious statement ever written, but it's easily forgotten when working on the internet; the on-line world has taken a turn towards “use this methodâ€, “get a blogâ€, “get trafficâ€, “get clicksâ€, “run a social network†and hundreds of other such sentences. Even after reading that sentence you'll feel you just lost your clarity, and no wonder, with the constant barrage you soon find yourself loosing focus and concentrating purely on these methods, or worse yet, researching, discussing and learning constantly. To further illustrate this point all you need to do is review the top sites on the internet; every single one of them, without fail, offers one or more of the sales options above. Let's get back to business. It is vital that you clear you're head, temporarily, of all the internet marketing noise. Pretend the internet isn't here for a moment if you must, pretend you work off-line, your business is off-line, you are off-line. ------------------- Step 1: Identify your Business. Read the sales options again and identify which option(s) your business falls in to. If you do not already have a business, start by removing the options you can not do. Now, write down a couple of your ideas and which sales option each falls in to, in the purest form (e.g. “resell web hosting – selling other peoples productsâ€) . If you do not have any ideas, either write down your ideal business and pretend it is yours for now, or stop reading; start again when you have something to work with. To gain clarity it is imperative that you take this first step now; before you move on to step two. ------------------- You should now be able to simply answer the all too common question: “What do you do?†Try it, ask yourself, if the answer you give is more than a few words, stop and run through this first step again. ------------------- Step 2: Identify the Sales Action / Moment of Sale. Again, very simple, but the most important part of any business. This is where you make the money, no where else, this is what feeds you and your dependants. There are far too many options for me to viably go in to here; but you must identify the sales action now, persist until you can, then work out if the sales action is as simple as possible. This is no fools guide to business, you are capable of figuring out how to simplify this action; separate it from the rest of your business, get feedback from friends, clients and your associates, and act upon it. Fact, the last thing you ever want is for a client to change their mind and not convert due to a complicated sales process. ------------------- Step 3: Create / Identify the Sales Funnel(s). When ever anybody touches any element of your business, a web page, an email, a phone call, a link on another website, an advert, even you yourself.. you need to have a clear defined path of how they get from this entry point, to the sales action. You may have multiple paths, but each individual path should be clear, easy to identify, and be as simple as possible. Every element without a clear sales funnel is a waste, pointless. Again this stage will take time and effort but it is vital. What you're dealing with here is the conversion ratio, before you throw resources, traffic, people, advertising and money at the business, you have to work on the conversion ratio, get it as high as possible. Finally, review each final step, every place that somebody can take that sales action and make that purchase. If it's a web page look at it for a split second, can't see the buy now button? Can't see where to click? Neither can you're prospective client.. (fix it). ------------------- Step 4: Rest and Restart Take a break, think about, is it all clear in your head? Is it simple? Clarity? You know what your business is, you know exactly where the moment of sale is, you know how people funnel through your business elements to the sales action. Great. Now, restart your internet marketing, use those mediums: blogs, adverts, links, social sites, networking all of that; you know why you're doing it. With each medium take a moment to analyse, can you quickly see how interested people will get from the medium to your funnel? If not, forget it, move on. Interested People coming from the medium to your sales funnel, that's what you want. Good Luck ------------------- Where's my funnel? Well I wrote this for myself as well, I'm just about to do it; however you can donate a $ or so to paypal or pm me about anything; or not. ps: sadly this is not a sales pitch; there won't be a part two - none needed! Regards!
nah.. if I'd put it in any other section you wouldn't have read it so quickly (if indeed at all) would ya Have a good one! edit: lol moved and infracted within 2 minutes; fair enough but I meant well