To grind the gritty details down to a point, through her experiences James came to feel she earned more money and respect pretending to be a man than she did when people knew she was a woman. She felt there was a gender bias being perpetuated in the online community that played a hand in how she was treated by her customers.

Taking a man’s name opened up a new world. It helped me earn double and triple the income of my true name, with the same work and service.

No hassles. Higher acceptance. And gratifying respect for my talents and round-the-clock work ethic.

Business opportunities fell into my lap. People asked for my advice, and they thanked me for it, too.

Did I quit promoting my own name? Hell yeah.

Eventually, I had earned enough income and credibility to get a mortgage, and I bought a tiny, modest house for me and my kids in a quiet town near my mum. It was the first home of my life I could truly call my own, paid for by long hours and hard work. Paid for by my own sweat and tears, at the tender age of 37.

Originally I wasn’t going to write about the situation. I didn’t feel I had anything of value to add to the subject of gender bias or why this single mother felt the need to pretend to be a man in order to win work. I agreed with her, and others who have commented on the subject, that there was a bias against women that affect us in tangible ways. In fact, I believe that prejudice in all its forms exist on the internet just like they do in real life. People take their baggage everywhere they go including the virtual world.

But then I experienced a transforming event in my own life. While clicking around the website Spirit Library, I came across a series of Abraham-Hicks videos. Abraham-Hicks is the combined name of a self-described group of non-physical beings called Abraham and the medium named Esther Hicks who channels them. The duo speak at length about the Law of Attraction.

One of the videos I watched called Fine-Tuning Manifestation really hit me in the common sense department. In the video, a woman is talking about how she can feel that her goals are about to be achieved and Abraham picks up on the fact that she seems more focused on what is missing than on what she has. It is this focus on the missing pieces that is kicking her out of alignment with what she wants and causing the manifestation of her desires to be delayed.

For those of you not familiar with Law of Attraction, the short explanation of this theory is we are all energy beings and we attract those things that are in harmony with the vibrational frequency we are emitting. If you are putting out positive vibes then you will attract positive things. If you are vibing at a negative frequency then you will attract negative things. In order to attract the things you want you must tune into the frequency they broadcast on. It’s just like using a radio. To get the station you want, the dial must be in the right place otherwise you’ll end up with static or a station you don’t want to listen to.

This basic explanation does not do the theory a whole lot of justice and I encourage anyone interested in learning more about it to watch the videos. The biggest takeaway from this particular video is Abraham-Hicks explains to the woman that she cannot allow the knowledge that her goals are yet to be realized to influence the vibe she is putting out. By focusing on the missing pieces she may inadvertently change her positive frequency into a negative one and repel the very thing she is trying to attract.

I had to watch the video 2-3 times before it sunk in what Abraham-Hicks was really saying. Too often we allow outside forces to dictate how we feel, what we do, what we say and especially how we live our lives. When it comes to things that are wrong or unfair, many people latch onto the wrongness or unfairness of the situation and use that as an excuse not to pursue what they want. They say things like, “No one wants to pay me what I’m worth because I’m a woman so I’ll just take whatever comes my way even though it pays slave wages,” or “Those people in that industry are so racist that I’ll never get anywhere there so I’m going to stick to this career even though I’m not happy.”

While those things may be true, you cannot allow circumstances to stop you from pursuing your goals. First off, nothing is 100%. There will never be a time when no one in the world is willing to pay you the wages you want and not every single person is going to be a racist and therefore plotting your downfall with step you take in their direction. The only exception to the rule is that there are always exceptions to the rule.

Secondly, the things that exist in the world have nothing to do with you as a person. The fact that men seem to have an advantage in the world has nothing to do with their gender and everything to do with the perceptions they’ve been able to create for themselves over the centuries. They’ve been able to create the image that they are somehow more reliable, more logical and more trustworthy than their female counterparts.

Is it true? Of course it’s not true but that is how they are perceived and it is unfortunate that as women we have to fight against the stereotype that we are just hormonal, illogical, image obsessed gold diggers with a fetish for chocolate and shoes. But just because that seems to be the prevailing image of women in the world, or the western world at least, does not mean you can’t go out and prove them all wrong.

Watching that Abraham-Hicks video has taught me that the issue of gender bias on the internet is really a non-issue. If you want to be paid what you are worth then you need to go out there and find clients who know your value and gladly pay it. And if people are paying men these high wages that you covet then you know they are out there. There are close to 7 billion people in the world. According to Internet World Stats about 1.7 billion use the internet. Even if 1% of 1% of those people were willing to pay you the wages you wanted that is still 170,000 potential customers.

If a man is able to command premium rates there is no valid reason why a woman cannot. And if you are getting less than what you want, as harsh as it may sound, it is because you are settling for less. It’s true that you may have to work little harder, your sales copy may have to be a little more compelling or your brand has to shine a little brighter in order to get what you want but it is there for the taking.

Is it fair that you may have to sift through 10 customers to find a good one while someone else only has to sift through 4? Of course it isn’t fair. I’m not denying that one bit. What I’m saying is brooding over the wrongness or unfairness of the situation will only attract more evidence of how wrong and how unfair it is. If you focus your energy on getting paid what you deserve then you will attract people who will pay you what you are worth.

I’m not saying that what James did was right or wrong, up or down, left or right. To me, it’s just one way a woman chose to deal with the issue of gender bias on the internet. What I’m proposing is simply another way to approach the issue and that’s by turning our attention away from the unfairness of it all and instead focusing on creating individual realities where we are each paid what we are worth. It is only through a combination of these individual stories of success that we will eventually change the world at large.

Other Links of Interest:

Do Male Bloggers Receive More Respect?

Call Me Maven – Why Women Writers/Blogger are Still Fighting Gender Bias

Who Defines You? More Thoughts on the James Chartrand Story

Where Do You Want to Be?

(photo credit: phunkstarr @ Flickr)

Captivating Title

You could have written about a cure for cancer but your article won’t do any good if no one reads it. To get people to give your articles the attention they deserve, you have to make them curious enough to spend the time reading what you wrote. You do this by using a catchy headline that speaks to your customers’ needs.

The article headline should promise a solution to their problem. For example an article titled, ‘Have Men Buy You Drinks Even If You’re an Ugly Duckling’, promises to teach a reader how to score free drinks. It’s important to know who your target audience is because knowing the type of people you want to appeal to will help you create titles that catch their eyes.

Informative Content

If your article title is the bait that grabs your reader’s attention then the article itself is what hooks them. Unfortunately, this is where most articles commit the dire sin that chases away potential customers. It fails to deliver what the title promised.
Telling your readers that you are going to give them information and then failing to follow through essentially tells them that you aren’t trustworthy. You don’t have to write a dissertation on the intricacies of the topic but the article has to do what the title promises.

Call to Action

The author resource box is where you reel your client in to your website. Many article marketers make the mistake of using this space for their biography. This is fine if you are writing an article for a magazine. However, the point of article marketing is to drive people to your website so you can sell them on your product or service.

Therefore the author resource section must provoke them into taking action. Use the first sentence to give readers information about you that reinforces your expertise on the topic. Then in the next sentence, tell the reader what you want them to do and the reward for following your instructions. An example of an effective author resource would be: ‘I am a dating coach who was rejected by a 100 men before I found true love. Go to my dating blog to get the information you need to win the man of your dreams.’

Crafting articles that wow your audience takes a bit of work but you’ll be rewarded with thousands of people visiting your website. Which, in turn, means increased popularity and cash in the bank.

(photo credit: kasperbs @ Flickr)

It can be disheartening to have to close a business because you couldn’t interest customers in your product. In fact, it can make you feel like a failure. You’ll even think that if you had tried a little harder then maybe the business would be a smashing success instead of a phenomenal flop.

The first thing you need to do is realize that entrepreneurship is a tough road to walk which is why a lot of people stay in the safe lane of employment. Instead of beating yourself up about having to close a business, you should congratulate yourself for being brave enough to try to make your dreams a reality.

If you have come to the decision to close your business, here are three tips to help ensure a smooth transition.

Meet with Your Business Team

Closing a small business begins a visit to your accountant and lawyer. Depending on how your company is set up, there will be forms that need to be filed to let the government know that you are not going to be in business any longer.

This is especially important if you owe back taxes. Before you close your small business, you must get any tax obligations cleared up if you want to protect your personal assets and credit rating. Even if you are a sole proprietorship, it wouldn’t hurt to get some professional help to make sure all the correct paperwork has been dealt with properly.

Notify Customers and Suppliers

Customers will need to be notified as soon as it’s feasible that you will be closing your business. Be prepared to offer recommendations on where they can get your product or service. If you own a business that maintains information on customers, such as an eyeglass store, they will need to know how they can gain access to their information should they need it.

Additionally, you’ll need to notify suppliers and service providers that you are closing your business. Suppliers will want to know when your last delivery will be, what returns you’ll be making and when they will be paid in full. Service providers will need to know when your last day of service will be and where to send your final bill.

Fulfill Your Business Obligations

To protect your business reputation, be sure to complete any outstanding orders. If you are not able to, notify your clients and return any money they have paid. Maintain your relationship with these customers by helping them find someone who can assist them with their needs.
Additionally, try to collect money that is owed to you before you close your business. It can be infinitely harder to settle outstanding accounts once the business has been dissolved.

Having to close a business can be one of the toughest challenges you face as an entrepreneur. However, don’t let a business failure discourage you from getting back on the horse and trying again. As a wise man once said, “It’s not how many times you fall that matter, it’s how many times you get back up”.

(Photo courtesy of PSD @ Flickr)

Marketing is a major component in the development of your business. Without an effective internet marketing strategy that brings in customers, your internet business is just an expensive hobby.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Hobbies are great for relaxing. I have quite a few of my own which include writing fiction, decorating cakes and collecting music. However, they’re not so great if you are trying to put food on the table or quit your day job. For that, you need a business that makes money. To make money, you need customers and to get customers, you have to market your business well.

Identifying your target market makes selling your products a whole lot easier. Instead of running around the internet posting your sales message in every online nook and cranny, you’ll save time and money by putting your ads in places where your audience is most likely to view and respond to them.

Creating an effective internet marketing campaign that captures the attention of your target market requires you to think about the ways people find products and services online. In 99.9% of cases, when people need something, they go to sources they trust which include:

• Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing
• Referrals from their social network (friends & family)
• Favorite websites
• Online news sources
• Online classified ads

To show up on the radar of your target market, you have to be in the places where they hang out. For example, I am a fiction writer. I’ve been writing fiction since I was a child which means I’m pretty passionate about this particular hobby.

• I use a search engines to find tips on writing better
• I read the blogs of other fiction writers
• I visit websites that publish news about the publishing industry
• I own a website dedicated to helping other fiction writers learn the craft
• I usually buy books about fiction writing in an offline store BUT I first research them and look for coupons online
• I belong to several writing forums
• I used to subscribe to a fiction writer’s magazine but since they have an online presence I go there to read recent issues

If I’m in the target market you’re trying to sell to, then you have to be where I am online. That means having representation in the search engines for the keywords I use as well as advertising on blogs, forums and online magazines that target fiction writers.

To figure out where your target market wiles away their time online, you need to use your imagination and put yourself into the shoes of your potential customer. Let me tell you a little story.

For a number of years, I worked in the hotel industry. Long ago, I had a sales manager who was fairly aggressive about squeezing as much money out of our guests as she possibly could. Since her bonus depended on how much revenue the hotel generated each month, this was understandable.

One year, she decided to raise our rates. At the time, I was in school and worked as a front office clerk so I could eat Kraft macaroni and cheese instead of the cheap store brand. In fact, most of my coworkers were just like me; young college kids with no real business experience.

One day she overheard us bitching about the rates and how difficult it was selling people at the higher price point. Understanding that it’s hard to push a product you don’t believe in, she decided to give us a valuable lesson in sales.

A point she made that made the biggest impact on me was that our guests were not like us. They weren’t broke college kids struggling to make ends meet. Our customers were business men and women traveling on the company dime, vacationers who had saved money to visit our little town and people who just made more money than we did.

In essence, our guests could afford our hotel rates but because we (the employees) couldn’t, we were overlaying our poverty mindset onto our customers and unintentionally putting up roadblocks to selling them on out hotel. Stepping outside myself and looking at our product through the eyes of our target customer made me more comfortable with selling to them which in turn helped fill empty rooms.

Just as I had to think like our hotel guests in order to sell to them, you have to think like your customers in order to effectively market to them. Take out a piece of paper and answer the following questions:

• What types of forums are your customers likely to participate in?
• What kinds of blogs and online magazines do they read?
• Do they own web properties? (This is good to know because you can turn your loyal customers into commissioned sales people by having an affiliate program)
• What types of social networks would they use to connect with people of like mind?
• What types of keywords would they use to find information online through a search engine?*

*Keyword research is a subject worthy of its own article series. For now, just jot down some general keywords you think your customers might use.

Start searching the internet for websites that match what you’ve written down. Try to generate a list of at least 50 places where you can advertise to your target market online. This doesn’t mean you must advertise on every site you have listed but you want a good selection.

The next article in this series will talk about the criteria you should use for deciding where to place your ads as well as crafting your sales message to attract your target market.

Peace and Prosperity

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What is a Target Market?

A target market is a group of people, usually defined by a set of demographics such as age, gender and location, who are most likely to buy your product or service. Put another way, these are the people who will run into, or are already dealing with, the problems that your product solves.

For example, you’re a web designer who sells custom made websites. Your target market would be people who want a professionally designed website. Now that’s a pretty big group but one that gets narrowed down according to the characteristics of your products. If you do site design at a low price point then you’re going after people who want budget friendly design services.

When I started my internet business, I had heard that blogging was a great way to attract customers and I jumped in with both feet. I believed that by providing useful information, I could kill two birds with one stone; draw in customers and demonstrate my skills. However, I did not identify my target market and instead just began dashing off post after post.

But, because I didn’t define a target market, I ended up picking a topic for my blog that was both too general and too competitive. As I learned more about marketing, I eventually realized that while I was aiming in the right direction, I was shooting too wide with the result being a lot of wasted time and effort attracting people who didn’t need my services.

How to Define Your Target Market

Since I already had a product to sell, I needed to do a little reverse engineering in order to identify my target market. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down my service offerings; content and SEO article writing. I then determined the type of problem I solved for the people who hired me. I saved people time, money and aggravation by providing them with informative articles that targeted their audience and were optimized for the search engines.

I had chosen blogging as the topic of my blog but the problem was not all bloggers hire content and SEO article writers. The majority of personal and professional bloggers create their own content. My target market was people who ran websites that needed constant updating but didn’t have the time, knowledge or inclination to create that content themselves. This meant online magazines, affiliate marketers and serial niche builders.

Now that category is still pretty broad and I’ve since narrowed it down with the type of writing I do as well as the price point where I sell my services. When identifying your target market, you don’t have to hit the bull’s eye on the first try. As long as you land somewhere close, you can then fine tune your customer profile until it matches your product offerings.

Questions for Identifying Your Target Market

To get a general idea of who your target market is, ask yourself the following three questions.

• What does my product do?
• How do people use my product? Or what problem does it solve?
• Why type of person or company would need what my product does?

Like me, you’ll probably end up with a large group of people. To trim it down, apply some demographics to your target market.

• What gender is more likely to use my product?
• What age group would find my service useful?
• Where does my customer live? What type of place is it? What are the people like who reside there?
• What economic resources are available to my target market? Who can afford to pay for my product or service? This question is especially important if you are selling luxury or high priced items.
• How often would they need my product or service? Knowing this will help you price your product accordingly.

For highly specialized products, you want to get even more specific:

• What type of lifestyle does my target market live? Are they environmentally savvy? A jet setter? A stay at home mom?
• What are their religious views?
• What are their political views?
• How savvy are they with technology?
• What stage of their life are they in? Are they retired? Just graduated college? Experienced a job loss?

The internet is very useful for finding information on your target market. The more specific you can get, the more targeted your sales message which, in turn, means more sales conversions. In a follow up article, we will talk about how to use the information you gain to market to your ideal customer.

Peace and Prosperity

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And chances are pretty good that you have fallen for this marketing ploy numerous times. Seriously, think of all the times you went to the store for just one thing and ended up with a basket full of stuff you really didn’t need. That’s the power of loss leader marketing.

But this marketing tactic isn’t only for retail stores. Loss Leader Marketing can also be used as a part of a marketing strategy for your internet business. Even service oriented companies, such as consulting firms and web designers, can use this tool to attract customers to their online store.

You see this all the time in the freemium marketplace. Internet business owners offer a product for free in exchange for a link back to the site or an email address. However, a person who is looking for something free isn’t always your ideal customer. You want someone who is willing to pay for the solution to their problem and using a loss leader can help you build a list of proven buyers that you can sell to over and over again.

You can also cement your relationship with your customer with loss leader marketing. Buying a loss leader allows them to experience what it is like to do business with you firsthand which will make them more apt to purchase from you again rather than seek out an untested competitor.

Using Loss Leaders Effectively

The Benefits Must Outweigh the Loss

Using loss leader marketing to attract buyers means that in order to benefit from the sale, you need to make money some other way. Put a system place that up-sells your customers on other more profitable products. The system can be a prompt at the point of purchase that encourages them to check out other items you have for sale or an option to receive your newsletter which can contain enticements for them to buy.

It should be Attractive to Your Target Market

This goes without saying but the loss leader should be something your target market would be interested in buying. For example, if you were a life coach, selling a CD of New Age music at half price probably isn’t going to interest a customer who needs someone to help them achieve their goals. On the other hand, giving 50% off one consultation would encourage people to try your service and could lead to the purchase of a coaching package.

Use a Non-Stockpile Item

This isn’t as much of a danger for internet businesses as it is for retail stores but you want to make sure people are not able to buy your product in bulk and stockpile it for later use. That defeats the purpose of having them visit your site on a consistent basis. If you issue a coupon, make sure it clearly states the number of times it can be used to avoid any misunderstandings that could cost you a customer.

Track Your Results

You must track how well your loss leader marketing is going. If it is costing you more money than you make then by all means abandon it. However, if things are going well, you can consider keeping the campaign going for awhile or rotating it with similar promotions.

In this competitive global market you need every advantage you can get. Used correctly, loss leader marketing is a smart way to attract the customers your business needs to thrive.
What are some ways you have used loss leader marketing in your online business?

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So where you get content for your niche website? Well, here are six avenues you can walk down to find articles that get results.

Write Them Yourself

Many internet business owners create the content for their niche websites. Why not? It’s free in the sense that it doesn’t cost money, only time. You also have complete control over your articles which gives you the freedom to use them however you want. You can post them on your blog or use them as a part of your article marketing campaign.

There are some drawbacks, though, to being the content provider for your niche website. It takes time to write articles; time better spent building your business. And you’ll have to take extra care, meaning more time, if you are not a good writer or have difficulty with the language you are writing in. Otherwise your articles could make you sound illiterate, or worse, scare off visitors because they can’t understand what you are writing about.

Guest Writers

You can ask other people to write articles for your niche website. Internet business owners are always looking for free advertisement for their business. If you allow them to place a short biography with a link back to their site at the end of their articles, many will take you up on your offer. You’ll get content for free and increased traffic because the writer will tell their readership about the article they posted on your site.

But accepting guest posts brings it’s own set of challenges. You do have to read the article to make sure it is written well and pertains to the theme of your site. Additionally, if your website is new or doesn’t have a lot of traffic, you’ll have trouble attracting a steady flow of guest bloggers which means you’ll still end up supplying most of the content on your niche website.

Article Directories

Article Directories are websites that contain thousands of articles on a range of topics. As a part of an article marketing campaign, people submit articles to these directories to gain exposure as well as build up links to their website. The directory allows other people to republish the articles on their websites.

These directories are good places to find articles relevant to your niche website topic especially if you need something in a hurry. However, the content you get has most likely been published on several other websites. Search engines don’t like duplicate content which can result in your PageRank getting dinged. Also, there are a lot of poor writers out there submitting to article directories. You could spend hours trying to find one well written article to post.

Paid Content Sites

There are two types of paid content sites. The first type is a website that hosts a database of articles that you sort through to find what you want. Unlike an article directory, the content found in a paid content database, like Constant-Content, has been screened for quality and are guaranteed to be unique, so you won’t have to worry about duplicate content penalties. However, you do have to pay and there is a chance that you won’t find the type of articles you need for your niche website.

The other kind are Private Label Rights (PLR) article packs. These are multiple articles centered around a single topic and sold as a set. For example, a PLR article pack would include 10 articles written about credit cards. With PLR articles you can use them however you want. The drawback is that oftentimes the pack is sold to multiple people, so you’ll need to rewrite the articles to avoid being flagged as a plagiarist.

Bidding Sites

Job auction sites, such as Elance and GetaFreelancer, sell talent. You list your project on the site, freelancers bid on the job and you select the best offer from bunch. Job auction sites are extremely competitive which means you can get content for your niche website at a low price. Job auction sites also have policies in place that help you avoid getting scammed by unscrupulous providers.

The axiom, ‘you get what you pay for’, is true when it come to job auction sites. You’ll get a range of bids but you usually don’t want to select the lowest one as that often means poor quality work. Not always but often. And these sites are not for people who are in a hurry to get content for their niche website as it can take awhile to collect enough bids on your project.

Professional Content Writers

Professional content writers produce unique and effective articles for your niche website. The good ones take the time to learn what your goals are and customize the articles to help you achieve them. And most will get your articles written within a few days. A good content writer can save you time, money and hassle leaving you with the freedom to build your business.

Out of all of the options available to getting content for your website, hiring a content writer can potentially be the most expensive one. Experienced writers provide the best results but they are not cheap. Sometimes you can get lucky and secure a good rate from someone starting out in their career. You just have to take the time to find the right person who offers the best quality at the price you want to pay.

Finding good, solid content for your niche website is important to its success in the online community. Carefully evaluate each of your options and select the one that nets you articles that fulfill your needs.

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But did you know that the offline world can also serve as good source of website traffic? It can seem kind of strange, at first, to promote your internet business offline; especially if you deal in internet only web services. But with the right real world marketing campaign, you can end up with as much traffic from offline sources as you receive from online ones.

Here are 8 marketing ideas for promoting your internet business in the real world.

Tell People about Your Website

Unless you have a compelling reason for keeping your internet business a secret, you should be telling everyone you know about your website. Friends, family, your dog. Okay, maybe not your dog. They’ve seen your website a million times anyway. But you should be talking about your website to anyone who will listen. People can be a great source of free promotion for you. Why not take advantage of it?

Submit Articles to the Local Paper

Newspapers suffer from the same malady that websites do. They always need content. If you have a good idea for an article that would interest the public at large, approach your local newspaper organization about possible publication. Since most newspapers allow you to promote yourself in a tiny byline at the bottom of your article, getting published in a newspaper can generate some buzz about your internet business.

Additionally, most newspapers also update their websites with the content from the paper to attract online subscribers. This presents the potential to generate traffic from two sources with the same article.

Put Up Signs

Okay, you might think this is cheesy but if you can set aside your sense of shame for a moment, you’ll see that you can get some offline hits to your website with flyers and lawn signs. It’s just a matter of positioning your message so that people are compelled to remember your web address.

Of course, you have to research your local laws to make sure it’s okay to post signs around town. Some states will write you a ticket for “littering”. However if they don’t care, put your flyers everywhere.

Give Away Bookmarks

I’m stealing this tip from book writers. Since I am a fiction writer (unpublished) I’m not going to feel the least bit guilty about it either. To promote their books, writers – or their publishing companies – will have bookmarks made with the writer’s book information on it and send them to bookstores who then give them away to customers.

If you have the design know-how, or can blackmail someone to design it for you, you can produce a set of bookmarks advertising your internet business fairly cheaply. Then it’s just a matter of finding an awesome bookstore to give them away for you.

Give Away Bumper Stickers

If you’re pretty clever, or you know someone who is, consider using CafePress or Zazzle to create a few cool bumper stickers. Then give them out to both your online and offline peeps. Most people take notice of bumper stickers especially if they are funny. If you create something memorable enough, someone might even take a picture of your sticker and post it online. Just don’t tell anyone it was your mom.

Participate in Local Events

Organizations always need help doing something. Call your local visitors center or Chamber of Commerce for information about events going on in your town. Then contact the hosts to see if you can lend a hand in exchange for a little promo op. If you are able to wear one, be sure to have on a t-shirt with your internet business name and web address on it.

Take Advantage of Sponsorship Opportunities

If you’ve got the money, consider sponsoring an event, team or charity. It doesn’t have to be anything huge like a conference. Even small things like buying uniforms for the little league team or hosting a picnic for high school seniors can get people talking about your internet business.

Get Interviewed

This idea came to me when I was listening to the radio. A woman managed to be the Nth caller for some prize I wasn’t interested in winning. Instead of screaming her head off like most people, she calmly thanked the radio show and mentioned her website. I’ve always thought that was a pretty ingenious way to advertise an internet business.

Radio shows offer tons of opportunities to get on the air. If you can’t get a regular interview, try calling in when deejays ask people for their opinions on hot topics. This of course requires some effort on your part but I’m pretty sure your internet business is worth it.

Now I know some of these ideas are little guerilla marketing-ish and they don’t take into account the fact that you should focus on your target market. However, these are just ideas to get you thinking about ways to promote your internet business offline. And when it comes to getting customers in this competitive environment every idea counts.

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Here are three reasons why you procrastinate and three ways you can overcome it so you can move forward in your internet business.

This is my favorite book to read about self-motivation. Click the image to buy it from Barnes & Noble.

Sometimes the sheer magnitude of what you need to accomplish is intimidating. If you are like most internet business owners, you do it all. You contact the customers, do the marketing and develop the products. There is so much to do that you honestly don’t know where to start and you procrastinate on making a decision by firing up a game of Solitaire.

Solution #1 – Eat an Elephant

When I find myself in this situation, I always ask one question. How do you eat an elephant? The answer: one bite at a time. Too often we look at the elephant, in this case our internet business, and think that we have to eat it all in one big bite which causes us to procrastinate. The truth is, all successful internet businesses were built by entrepreneurs who took consistent action every day.

So list all of your goals. Then break those goals up into bite sized, easily digestible pieces. For example, if you want to write an ebook to help promote your internet business, avoid the urge to procrastinate by dividing the project into daily steps. One day you’ll work on the summary of the book, the next day you’ll devote to developing the outline and so on until the ebook is complete. You’ll find it’s easier to do small tasks every day than it is to complete a big project all at once.

Reason #2 – Just Plain Unmotivated

Some days it takes all of your willpower just to roll out of bed. Actually sitting at the computer and getting any work done is asking way too much. So you jump on Twitter under the guise of marketing your internet business but we both know you’re doing it to procrastinate.

Solution #2 – Warm Yourself Up

There are a couple of ways to handle this type of procrastination. The first way is to ease into working. Take out your to do list, pick a task that will take fifteen minutes to complete and start working on it. When you’re done, take a break, come back and work another fifteen minutes. Like a car with a faulty ignition system, sometimes getting started is the challenge.

If your mood is still stuck on “procrastinate”, start ingesting some motivational material. Go to YouTube and watch a few Zig Ziglar videos or go to the iTunes store and download some inspirational audio. Read a motivational book for an hour.

Listening to a motivational speaker puts us in a positive frame of mind and inspires us to take action on our goals. I find that a few minutes of listening to someone say, “You can do it!”, is all I need to overcome the urge to procrastinate and work on my internet business.

Reason #3 – Hidden Fears

I have a confession to make. I am a coward; well, I used to be anyway. For as long as I could remember, I have wanted to own a home based business. I got involved with, first, Mary Kay and then Avon but once the initial excitement wore off so did my interest in building those businesses. At least that’s what I told myself. I have started many other home based businesses since then with the same result.

I became extremely frustrated and disheartened at my failures. It wasn’t until the universe threw me into the deep end of the pool yelling, “Sink or swim!” that I realized what was holding me back all those years. I didn’t believe I could be successful. This belief caused me to constantly procrastinate on doing things to develop my business which caused me to fail in each attempt I made thereby completing the vicious cycle by reinforcing the belief that I just couldn’t do it.

Sometimes, it’s our hidden fears that cause us to procrastinate in building our businesses. Until we deal with those fears we will always end up sabotaging our efforts.

Solution #3 – Get it Out

All of our beliefs about ourselves, other people and life in general live in our subconscious mind and these beliefs dictate how we behave. When handed the full responsibility for my survival, I forced myself to confront the source of my tendency to procrastinate. I find that journaling is a good way to get my subconscious mind to reveal what it is hiding. So I opened my journal and talked to myself about everything that was on my “mind” until this belief revealed itself as the root of many of my problems.

If you suspect that a fear is holding you back then I encourage you to journal to find out what it is. If writing in a book doesn’t appeal to you, then talk to a trusted partner who can help you get a glimpse of what’s going on in your head. Once the limited belief has been exposed, you can then take steps to overcome it and the resulting tendency to procrastinate.

So this blog post ended up being longer than I anticipated but it is important to me that you have the tools you need to overcome the compulsion to procrastinate. Knuckling down and taking consistent action towards your goals is the only way you are going to achieve the personal and financial freedom you deserve. Until next time, peace and prosperity.

We figure people are moving toward frugal lifestyles that involve cutting out the fluff; things that are nice to have but, since they are not necessary for survival, can be sacrificed for the sake of a healthy budget.

Faced with dwindling profits, we take a hatchet to our internet businesses and slash prices hoping the deep discounts will entice customers to our websites to buy. While this may seem like a good idea on paper it’s actually counterproductive to building a successful internet business.

First and foremost, not everyone has cut their spending. Shockingly enough, there are people out there who have money and are willing to spend it on the things they want. I don’t know any of these people personally but, believe me, they are out there.

The thing is, though, that these “people who can still afford stuff” aren’t spending their money on just anything. They are buying products and signing up for services they think are worth the price. And, oddly enough, the price of the item contributes to its perceived value.

There are many people who equate price with quality. If your price is too low, you’ll end up chasing these customers away from your internet business because they’ll think what you’re selling is cheap; both in cost and quality.

I can already hear some of you saying, “My internet business is not targeting high end buyers. Bring on the bargain shoppers!” All that means is, you have to be extra careful when trying to compete on price otherwise you’ll run into double the trouble.

If you are constantly changing the price of your products and services in an effort to find that magic number that will attract buyers, you will instead train your customers to hold out until you lower the cost again. Thus, the pricing strategy for your internet business becomes a self-defeating cycle that encourages your customers to wait rather than buy when you need them to. And if there’s one thing that bargain shoppers have in abundance, it is patience. They’ll wait until you put up that ‘going out of business’ sign before they will click over to your online store to buy something.

Lastly, let’s go ahead and acknowledge a fact that you might be trying to avoid thinking about. There will always be someone who can beat your price. In this global economy there will always be someone who can get supplies at a lower price that you, who will work for less money than you and who will sell their products cheaper than you. And they have internet businesses too.

Basing your internet business strategy around price is a lot like trying to walk five miles through six feet of snow in a bathing suit. It’s not a good idea in the first place and you’ll only get so far before you freeze to death. Or, in this case, your price based business strategy will end up hindering your progress in the long term.

There are more effective ways to help your internet business compete in the crowded marketplace besides price; some of which I’ll talk about in upcoming articles. Until then, here are some other articles that may be of interest to you:

For Newbs: Making Money With Your Blog
For Newbs: How to Market Your Blog

Peace and Prosperity