Achievement, in virtually all aspects of life, is directly proportional to effort. The formula for ensuring success is the same for athletes, doctors, artists/musicians/writers, and even internet marketing professionals. This "mystery formula", if you will, is nothing more than common sense and it has been validated through proven laws of Physics for over three hundred years; "Objects at rest tend to stay at rest, while objects in motion tend to stay in motion." The recipe to start the object at rest moving requires only one very special ingredient from an "outside force". The ingredient is not a secret, it is practical knowledge, shared by the most successful people in our world, it is action.
We can build the most impressive inventory of items ever witnessed in the history of the internet. We can polish those items, we can organize those items alphabetically, by shade, by size or anyway we want, but until they become cash they are nothing more than a shiny liability. Unless we put a plan into action to move those items, they will remain in our inventory until we fail, 100% of the time. The only "outside force" causing those items to move will be liquidators purchasing them for pennies on the dollar, after we are out of business. We can create the Mona Lisa of websites with more computing capacity and technological appeal than R2D2 and Pixar's Wally combined, but unless someone sells something we will still fail.
There is no shame in feeling compelled to create a stockpile of items, "hoarding" is a condition experts have documented which makes up between two and five percent of our population. There are even reality shows where camera crews go into the homes of hoarders and document their obsessiveness. The concept is very popular, and it is frightening to imagine how busy those camera crews would be if they investigated the inventories of internet marketers who, shall we say, are "action challenged" to coin a more PC word to fit in with our present day culture. It is probably closer to say that many internet marketers are not driven by the compulsion to hoard, they have simply digressed into involuntary merchandise collectors.
There are two basic ways to approach success. Many experts feel it is necessary to learn the most common reasons why most internet marketing business fail within a few months of their start up and teach entrepreneurs how to avoid failing. Reasons for failure include lack of commitment, getting bogged down in too many details with respect to social media, lack of expertise, not creating enough visibility...there are probably over a million reasons to fail and we can dwell on them for as much time as we have available to waste. Best guess why those businesses fail---nobody sells anything, those items are remaining "at rest."
If we choose to succeed we will most certainly be in the minority. In order to distance ourselves from the majority we would be defying our natural instinct to "run in the middle." Just like us, the instinct to remain in the safety of the herd is the hardest for great race horses to overcome in order to run ahead of the others. In order to survive attacks from predators a feeling of security came from the crowd in the center of the running order. Surely we possess enough "horse-sense" to cast aside the false security of running mid-pack and choose to win instead. We must be aware that the attacks from predatory competitors will intensify as we pull ahead of the others, but those assaults are minor in comparison to the guarantee of failure if we choose not to lead.
Business planning is a great idea. Proper planning will start us on the road to success. Once we have started our journey we have two options in order to survive(think in a primitive way)...we can eat from our cash reserves until they run dry or we can hunt for food along the way and maintain our cushion for only those days when we can't find anything edible to consume. Selling is nothing more than modern day hunting. We must explore every avenue possible out of necessity to create sales. If we are willing to hunt, in places where other hunters have never thought of, we will obviously find more game. Many marketing professionals forget that barriers are most often a perception as opposed to reality. A great source of customers may come from within a 20 mile radius of the physical location. If everyone is concentrating on finding a "target audience", in various parts of the world, maybe they are like the hunter, assuming the closest territory has been over-harvested of game.
Winning requires two crucial commitments for internet marketing professionals. The first commitment is action and the second commitment is putting forth more action with more intensity than everyone else. If we choose to start an internet marketing business the first thing we need to understand is how to sell the items we place in inventory. Once we learn how to effectively sell the items we can train others to sell as business expands. The best way to lead is by example and the best way to survive is to create sales. It is amazing how many internet pros say "I am more of a strategy and design person". Unfortunately they have a term which fits that scenario and there is no PC way to spin it-"dead man walking".
If there is not an understanding of the sales process of a product, combined with the experience of actually selling it, revenues can only be achieved by hiring others to sell those products. Now we have created a complete dependence on someone else to provide income necessary to survive and expand. Since we do not understand how to sell our product we must rely on the staff we have paid to sell to train new staff members. Our strength by possessing individual power to directly create revenue becomes more diluted as we expand. The most successful companies, which remain strong for the longest time, are most often founded by someone who started from the very bottom and completely understands each process in their company. Companies which have a tendency to be "tech heavy" as opposed to "sales driven" usually experience slower growth, unless acted upon by the "outside source" of exponentially less expensive material or extremely low cost labor.
Another possible solution to drive more revenue is to create partnerships with other highly successful and visible internet companies. This requires selling yourself, your company philosophy and the concept that your product and values will help promote those of the prospective marketing "partner". If your company has a customer base of 10,000 and you develop partnerships with ten others you now have 100,000 potential clients. Links, ads, exchanging of approved customer lists, all great sources. With this rapid expansion of potential customers and the willingness to concentrate on selling the products as opposed to admiring the website and trying to make it more beautiful, growth should be must faster.
Many experts talk about "thinking out of the box"-that is a super cliche' but often overrated. Coming up with unique ideas and business development strategies are a nice extra, but we can think of ways to get out of the box forever. Until we decide to jump out of that box we will never clear those walls. Many talented people with brilliant ideas and business strategies have fallen by the wayside while those with only a small fraction of their skills and intellectual ability have risen to the top. If anyone plans to "move up" the business ladder they must climb. Climbing is a positive action and as we climb we can empower our team, through positive actions, to do the same. Positive energy becomes exponentially more potent as it passes through an entire organization. In most organizations 20% of the people create 80% of the revenue-if we "drill down" we will most likely find that same 20% performs at least 80% of the action. The leader of the team will always be the most effective "outside force" which wills forces those objects at rest into motion.
What about a photo! Ive been in advertising for years, a photos is one of the most important!
My First post in Steemit - been looking on how to edit and add one as you're replying - didn't find that option :)
open your post, than near the bottom where it says reply, you can hit edit, than once you are editing, you can select upload a photo its in between the tag section and where you werite. good luck
Thanks man - I see the edit , I can start editing - but I don't see an option to upload a photo but I was able to add a tag... I am using Chrome on an iMac - could it be the browser?
I followed and upvoted. Please follow, comment and upvote back. Thanks!