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Part I
Welcome to the new world
The first part of success lies in âbelieving it can be doneâ. With so much confusion about how the internet can be used as a business medium you need to know what sort of business you should set up, what you should sell and how itâs possible. In this part, I take a look at each of these elements, and more.
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Chapter 1
Why the internet is the best way to make money while you sleep
If you wanted to start your own conventional business on any high street near you, what sort of costs do you think you might be up for?
Letâs say you wanted to open a clothes shop. To begin with youâd probably need to lease premises. Standard rent is between $1000 and $2000 per week. So before you do anything, youâd have an average of $75 000 a year to cover in lease payments. Then youâd need to:
- order stock to fill the shelves (youâd need to pay for the shelves too, and maybe even a small refurbishment)
- hire one or two employees
- take out insurance to cover your business, stock, fit-out, yourself, your staff and customers
- perhaps install some security to protect your stock and your premises
- pay for utilities
- spend time in the store â six days a week is not uncommon â as you wait for customers to come in
- provide for other, unexpected, expenses along the way.
This is before youâve earned a single cent or even spent money on advertising. Is it any wonder that itâs so hard to start your own business and make enough money to live on too?
Iâve worked in 153 different industries, and you would be alarmed at the number of small-business owners who are scraping by week in, week out. The owners would be better off if they just had a job in their chosen industry â a predictable income without the stress of trying to run a business.
My aim is to make you aware of a new business medium. Something that puts the rules back in your favour. Something that gives you half a chance of success. And, yes, it lets you make money while you sleep.
Seven reasons an internet-based business makes such good sense
Itâs time now to get to the bottom of what an internet business is all about and take a look at the advantages of setting one up.
1 No premises to rent
You donât have to pay for a lease because you donât have a business that operates out of a shop or an office. If you can keep your costs low right from the start, you will have a much higher chance of success simply because youâre neither being weighed down by a big debt before you get going nor feeling the pressure of having that debt.
Instead of a shopfront, youâll have a website. Many people choose to design their own website on their laptop or desktop computer. (I explain a much easier way to do it though, in chapter 7.) Either type of computer is fine, but you should consider how much portability you want. These days you can get a perfectly adequate PC with everything you need for under $2000.
If you buy a laptop computer and expect to travel or commute with it a lot, consider getting a pull-along bag. Itâs much better for both your body (because laptops can feel quite heavy the longer you hold them) and your computer.
The next thing youâll need is an internet connection. If you can afford it, get a broadband internet connection. Itâs much faster than dial-up, and while itâs not critical to have this speed, broadband will certainly make your online life much easier.
Hosting
In the online world there is an equivalent to the lease, and itâs called hosting. Letâs say that you create your website and store it on your computer. In order for anyone in the world to be able to see that website, you have to upload (move) it to a much bigger computer that is âhooked inâ to the internet. This is called a server. (Iâll discuss creating and putting your website online in chapter 7.) An internet server is switched on 24 hours a day so that people across the world can look at and interact with what is stored on it.
When you store your website on a server, itâs called hosting. The server hosts your website for the rest of the world to see. Youâre charged a fee for this, making hosting very similar to leasing premises in the real world. But the good news is itâs very cheap. You can find hosting for as little as $10 a month. Can you imagine if leasing premises was this cheap in the real world?
2 No staff to pay
Staff can be a great asset to your business, and youâll probably want to hire some if your business gets really big. But they are also a great responsibility, and when youâre starting out, your goal is to keep costs to a minimum so that you can build enough profit to survive.
One of the great things about having a business on the internet is that you can do almost everything yourself. You donât have to â sometimes youâll actually want people to do some of the work for you â but at least you have a choice.
If youâve ever employed staff before, then you may also agree that managing staff is a job within itself. Again, the internet allows you to bypass this for as long as you need.
For instance, a salesperson is one of the most valuable staff members you can ever have. Without sales, you donât have a business. On the internet, you can have a 24-hour salesperson working for you. This salesperson requires no pay, no superannuation, no holidays and no sick pay. In chapter 6, Iâll tell you all about this, but for the moment you just need to understand that the words on your website are your salesperson. Your website merely needs to say the same things that an actual salesperson would say to your prospective customers to make them want to buy your product.
The great part is that, once youâve got these words in place, you donât have to keep saying them or rewriting them. They work day in, day out. You do the work once, but benefit over and over again.
3 Your business can be automated
This is the part I love most. When I first learned about automating my business, I couldnât believe the implications. It was so exciting. This is what it means for you:
- Your website can be advertised 24 hours a day for very little cost.
- People from all around the world can join your email list (a critical tool discussed further in chapter 9) and receive emails, lessons and tips from you for as long as you want, automatically. This enables you to build a relationship with them that helps them to trust you and want to become your customer.
- You can send an email to everyone on your list at once (a broadcast), and you can even set the time and day it is sent. You donât have to physically send the email to every person on your list â software does it for you automatically. Can you imagine making an offer to 1000 people at once? If just five people out of those 1000 buy your product at, say, $100, thatâs $500 for simply sending an email.
- Money can be processed and put into your bank account automatically.
- A thankyou message can be sent to customers a split second after they buy your product.
And the best part? This all happens while you sleep, holiday or watch television! Never before have you had such freedom and leverage. It means that a one-person business can function with the efficiency of a big business.
4 Beginners can do it
As Iâve said, I teach internet marketing all over the world. Most of the people I teach are absolute beginners. Very few can type their name on a computer let alone do it with any great speed. Yet many of these people can have a thriving internet business â and you can, too.
You donât need to know everything about business or how the internet works to succeed â all you need is to understand the following concept: be the general of the army, not a soldier in the trenches.
Let me explain what this means. If you are a soldier, you will be doing a lot of hard, physical work. One day you might be on guard duty; another on reconnaissance; and another on patrol. Or you could be digging trenches, cleaning firearms or practising drills. The general doesnât do these things. The general just moves all the pieces around like in a chess game. From one location the general can control an entire army.
With that idea in mind, when it comes to your internet business, you want to be the general of the army, not a soldier in the trenches. The internet gives you the freedom to not be the one running around designing your websites, creating your product, writing your sales copy (the words that sell your product), promoting your site, processing the money, delivering the product and so on. You can choose to do this (and many do), but the good news is you have the freedom to choose not to.
This freedom comes from working smartly by:
- using template software to design your website
- utilising other people or tools to create your product
- using software to write the copy for your website
- splitting your sales profits with partners who will promote your site to the people and companies listed in their databases, at no up-front charge
- making your product downloadable so your customers can access it when they want and at any hour of the day.
Get the idea? By doing things cleverly from the start, a beginner can master the internet. What you need are the ideas and the knowledge. As long as you take responsibility for these, there are other people, tools and software that can do the bulk of the work for y...
