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| The Internet Is Full Of B.S. |
| Posted: 4-05-2006 |
| Author: Michael Walrath |
When I was a small
boy on my Grandmothers ranch in Montana I was given a
funny little device called a B.S. grinder. I’m sure some
of you have seen or at least heard of one. It was a small
block of wood with two grooves routed in it, one grove
extending horizontal and one vertical. It also had a crank
with two small rectangle blocks attached to it that were
connected into each of the grooves. On the back it had
these words. “In Case Of B.S. Turn Crank.” The object
of the small contraption was to crank it whenever you
heard someone that was full of B.S. Ahhhhhhhhhh! You do
remember it now.
Well that is not the kind of B.S I am going to talk about
here. The B.S. I am going to discuss with you is Business
Success, particularly Internet Business Success.
There are 280,000,000 Internet business success listings
on Google, 48,000,000 listed on yahoo and 5,450,725 listed
on MSN. Each and every one of these listings offers insight
into Internet Business Success in one fashion or the other.
Listings like information about Internet Marketing Business
Success, Internet Business Success for work at home Moms,
MLM Internet Business Success and Internet Business Success
for the Affiliate Marketer.
Each and every one of these Internet Business Success
arenas has one thing in common. That commonality is Education,
education for the Internet newbie and education for the
seasoned Internet veteran alike.
The importance of education in Internet Business Success
is so major that is has spawned the largest education
market in the world with 1,440,000,000 listings on Google
210,000,000 listings on yahoo and 31,175,263 listing on
MSN.
Like with any business with out the proper education success
is impossible. One thing to consider in business education,
Internet business education included is the education
required to succeed is not single faceted. There are many
different areas that need to be learned.
I consider these areas to be key elements to successful
Internet business education.
· Business planning
· Marketing concepts/strategy
· Target Market
· Product knowledge
· Internet Security/ Link
Protection
· Basic accounting/bookkeeping
Business Planning
Creating a business plan is probably the most important
thing you can do for business success.
Having a business plan defines your Business. It identifies
your goals, and serves as your companies resume. The basic
components include a current and pro forma balance sheet,
an income statement, and a cash flow analysis. It helps
you allocate resources properly, handle unforeseen complications,
and make good business decisions. Because it provides
specific and organized information about your company
and how you will repay borrowed money, a good business
plan is a crucial part of any loan application. Additionally,
it informs sales personnel, suppliers, and others about
your operations and goals.
The best place to get information about starting and writing
a business plan would be. The United States Small Business
Administration, starting your business plan basics Webpage.
Marketing concepts/Strategy
Do your homework. Learning all of the different ways of
marketing your Internet Business. A few great ways to
market a successful Internet business are, newsletters,
blogs, RSS feed, email campaigns through opt in list or
safelist, (remember never SPAM it is against the law and
you will lose everything.) Also search engine marketing;
PDF ebook marketing & branding or free giveaways.
Another great way to marker your Successful Internet Business
is to market out side of the Internet. You could place
ads in newspapers, local publications and magazines. There
is snail mail or Direct mail, as it is known in off line
circles. And don’t forget television and radio ads can
bring a lot of new business to you website.
Target Market
Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia defines Target market thus.
A target market is the market segment, which a particular
product is marketed to. It is often defined by age, gender
and/or socio-economic
Targeting strategy is the selection of the customers you
wish to service. The decisions involved in targeting strategy
include:
· Which segments to target
· How
many products to offer
· Which products to offer
in which segments
There are three steps to targeting:
· Market
segmentation
· Target choice
· Product positioning
Targeting strategy decisions are influenced by:
Market maturity
· Diversity of buyers needs
and preferences
· Strength of the competition
· The volume of sales required for profitability
Targeting can be selective (e.g.: focus strategy, market
specialization strategy or niche strategy), or extensive
(e.g.: full coverage, mass marketing, or product specialization).
In a nut shell Get to know your customers. Are they male
over 25, females with small children, do they use MSN
chat or Yahoo? Find out whom you are selling to and what
their needs, wants, and desires are.
Get to know your competition. Do a bit of research. Get
to know what’s hot and what’s not. What are other Internet
marketers successfully selling to your customers? How
much is your competition selling their Gizmo for? It is
as sturdy as your Gizmo. Your competition can get it in
green. Your customers want it in green. Can you get it
in green?
Find out what your customers want and Sell it to them.
Product knowledge
Product knowledge comes in many various forms. For example
the products features and its intended purpose. The products
association, how it works and what goes where. A successful
Internet marketer should know their products features
and how to use it well enough to convince their customers
how worthy it is for them to buy.
Internet selling eliminates the human representative though.
So in order to anticipate the customers’ needs, suggest
support products and services and how the product features
relate to use of the product. The successful Internet
marketer must translate his/her product knowledge into
content.
One thing to mention is that when you are creating the
web content about your product. Ask your self this, is
there any other product or service that my customers might
need or could use, is there anything I may be able to
link to my product/service that will enhance it or make
it better? If so you could offer it as a reduced rate
special or use it as a free gift to help close the sale
and get a name and email address for your opt in email
list.
Internet Security/ Link Protection
It doesn’t matter if you are into Internet marketing or
just like to play the occasional game and chat with your
friends. Internet security is the very first thing you
should consider.
What it is and how it can affect you are of grave importance.
Computer security also known as Internet security prevents
and detects unauthorized intruders from gaining access
to any part of your computer system. It can detect whether
someone is attempting to break into you system or if they
were successful, it can also tell you what they might
have done or what type of Spyware/Malware they may have
placed while on your system.
There are a number of ways an intruder commonly known
as a black hat hacker or cracker can gain access to your
computer. Some of these ways are through.
Trojan Horses
Including key loggers and backdoors, which open up your
PC to attackers control or use your PC to send spam emails.
Worms
Bagle & others are worm viruses, which usually arrive
as an email attachment. Worms can destroy all your saved
data.
Dialers
Change the dial-in number of your modem connection to
premium rate numbers causing high phone bills.
Spyware
Adware and Hijackers continuously show annoying popup
ads and spy your private data as well.
Once a black hat hacker gains access to your computer.
They can hijack your desktop and perpetrate all sorts
of computer crime. They can place spyware, viruses, worms,
and other nasty malicious parasites, stealing your passwords,
credit card and bank information. They can view every
keystroke that you make from you key pad or they can hijack
your computer completely.
Adrian Ling in his wonderful e-book, Spyware Secrets Exposed
writes that “Today, security professionals estimate that
over 91% of all Internet connected PCs are infected with
spyware!”
This is just the tip of the iceberg for these black hat
hackers and crackers, for they can place a piece of code
onto you computer called a logic bomb enabling them to
exploit your computer at a later date. This code will
set off a malicious function at a specific time or when
a specified condition is met. This method of hack is usually
done to mask the location and the identity of the black
hat hacker and the point of their attack by using your
computer as the send off point for their cyber crimes.
It makes it next to impossible to trace any malicious
behavior back to the black hat hacker.
Another growing problem black hat hackers and crackers
pose is to Internet marketers and affiliates. This problem
is Website pay gate page, download page and affiliate
link theft.
Website pay gate page, download page theft is where a
black hat hacker creates a mirror pay gate page then reroutes
from the website owners website pay gate a customers payment
to theirs. Then the customer is sent to a mirrored download
page, downloads the digital product. The black hat hacker
does this by a process called Pharming.
In a recent article on a US Government info website an
FBI warning stated. Pharming is setting up a fraudulent
Web site that contains copies of pages from a legitimate
Web site in order to capture confidential information
from users. By hacking into DNS servers and changing IP
addresses (see DNS hijacking), users are automatically
redirected to the bogus site, at least for some period
of time until the DNS records can be restored. Unsuspecting
Internet users will type in a web address only to be redirected
to a website that looks just like the real thing.
A black hat hacker can use this same process to steal
you hard earned profits.
In affiliate link theft the black hat hacker hijacks the
affiliates id number or name and replaces it with their
own and the unsuspecting customer buys the product and
the black hat hacker link thief gets the credit and the
commission for the sale and nobody is the wiser although
the black hat hacker is the richer.
There are a multitude companies dedicated to help you
find the best possible way to protect yourself and fight
back against black hat hackers and crackers and the spyware
companies.
For anti virus protection and computer intrusion Norton
antivirus and Norton security would be at the top of my
list. The No.1 anti-spyware, anti-malware program that
I have seen to date in my opinion would have to be a program
from emsisoft called a-squared.
No matter what type of computer security you choose the
fact is if you don’t have it you will be invaded. Protect
your self.
Basic Accounting/Bookkeeping
Aside from Internet security a basic knowledge of accounting
and bookkeeping is the most important education you can
have to succeed in any business. Knowing what you bring
in and pay out and keeping track of it on a ledger is
Basic Accounting/bookkeeping.
It doesn’t matter if you are just starting or if you have
been at it for may years, keeping a record of what you
have coming in and what you are paying out are of grave
importance.
Not only for Profit and loss determination but also it
is imperative to have records when it come to tax time.
Because Uncle Sam wants to know how much of your hard
earned money he gets.
You could keep a small ledger or you can track everything
on your computer using Microsoft Excel. Even better yet
you could purchase an accounting/bookkeeping software
package such as Quicken or Quick Books, Microsoft Money
is also good.
If you don’t have the time or if you just can’t figure
out the complicated programs you should hire an accounting/bookkeeping
firm to keep track of everything, your budget permitting.
I do how ever recommend that when it does come to Tax
Time no mater how you keep track of your books, you go
out and have your taxes done by a professional Tax company
or your accountant.
Business Success
Internet business success has no guarantee. For that matter
there is no particular guarantee for life in general.
Success is how ever what you make it.
There is one final form of business education that I have
not covered. That is the school of Hard Knox.
They say that experience is the best teacher. You can’t
put a price on it. You can’t order it on line or learn
it from a book. You can’t sit in a classroom and get it.
The only way to get your diploma is to go out and experience
it first hand, Live it!
Michael Walrath is a student of life and the Internet.
He has been active in business for 20 years. While ten
of those years have been spent on the Internet he is still
a student, attending cyber classes with Success University
gaining valuable information and would highly recommend
it to anyone serious about their Internet success.
http://com-to-you.com/Recommends/SuccessUniversity
Affiliate Marketing had played a big part of Michaels
success he has gained a great deal of insight and knowledge
form Affiliate Classroom.
http://com-to-you.com/Recommends/AffiliateClassroom
With Internet security an ever-growing problem the more
you know the better off you are. If you would like more
information about Internet security please visit these
sites.
http://com-to-you.com/Recommends/SpyWareSecretsExposed
http://com-to-you.com/Recommends/a-squared
The foundation of any business is a good plan and a great
marketing strategy. For help on planning your business
or creating your marketing strategy check out The United
States Small Business Administration, starting your business
plan basics Webpage.http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/planning/basic.html
For information on Marketing visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_market
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