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Posts Tagged ‘Getting Started Online’

It’s A Business – Your Business

You want to make money online – lots of it – but have you really got clarity on what your new business venture is going to look like?  Have you created the “map” for your business so you know when you are on track and when you get distracted or get lost?

As I mentioned in my last blog, the first module of Alex Jeffrey’s, Marketing With You coaching programme is all about helping you conceptualising your vision for you new business.  If you don’t do this you may make some money but you certainly won’t be making it for life. 

“This is not a get rich quick scheme but a get rich forever system”

Alex Jeffreys’ (MarketingWithYou)

There are three resources we all have.  They are time, energy and money.  These are also the three resources that you will be investing in your online business.  If you aren’t willing to manage these resources well or you aren’t willing to invest in your business, then maybe having your own business isn’t for you. 

If you want a successful online business you must be willing to invest these three resources:

• Decide how much time you will invest each week and block it out in your diary
• Understand when your energy is at it’s optimum and devote that time to building your onlne business.  Also do what you need to do to look after yourself to keep your energy levels up. 
• Be willing to invest some money in your business.  As your business grows you will need to outsource – if you don’t you will get in the way of creating a successful online business.  More about that later.

Many people are fine with the first two points but sometimes struggle with the third point – investing money.  For some reason they don’t think they will need to invest any money for an online business and they will spend more time and energy in trying to avoid investing any money – not a very useful way of investing two of your three resources, in my book! 

I’m reminded of what Debra Meaden of The Dragen’s Den said to one of the hopeful entrepreneurs who was hoping to secure money to help fund his aspiring business:

“If you aren’t willing to invest in your own business, why should you expect me to?”

One of the first assignments Alex gets his students to do is to create a pledge that they read at the start of each day.  It’s about making a commitment to yourself about managing your resources.

Did you know that if you are 20% dehydrated you will be 20% less effective?  Knowing that, many of Alex’s students pledge to drink water whenever they are working on their online business. Alex gives loads of simple but effective tips but at the end of the day, you need to get to know yourself and understand what makes you most effective.  On my pledge, for example, I’ve included:

• Only checking emails twice a day
• Going to the gym 3-4 times a week
• Drinking 2 liters of water every day
• Sunday evenings – plan weekly
• Each evening clear desk & check plans for next day
• Each morning – check plans for the day & only have that project on my desk
• Do a daily “did” sheet

The pledge sheet is your commitment to yourself and your new business.  The daily “did” sheet is about accountability and which I really find useful.  It’s a simple concept.  As you work through the day, you track what you are doing by writing it down.  At the end of the day you can see how focused you have been or how many times and how you got distracted.  So as well as being a great accountability tool, it’s also a great learning too.

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”

Henry Ford

 Alex reminded us that each distraction will cost us at least 11 minutes of time not focusing on our business.  He suggests checking emails once a day for example.  As I am also doing a “day job,” I feel I have to check my emails twice a day, but even that is a lot less than how many times a day I used to check it. 

“If you did 4 x 60 minute productive sessions a day,

In 12 days you would have done more that many would in a year”

Alex Jeffreys (MarketingWithYou)

Take the time for planning, reading the pledge and writing your daily “did” sheet. Take the time to create your business vision.  All of this will really focus you – which is one of the secrets to success.

Designing The Road Map

Alex knows the importance of planning and so spends a good deal of time in that first coaching call. When I first started learning about making money online, I was so eager just to get going that I skipped over this part – and it’s cost me a lot of time, negative energy and money.

Alex encourages us to take time on creating our vision and he teaches a strategy for creating our plan and staying focused on the plan.  There are three plans actually:

• Your business plan
• Your entrepreneurial plan
• Your personal plan

Once you have these plans Alex provides you with worksheets to break the plans down into:

• 90 day plan
• 3 – one month plans
• 4 – weekly plans

Like most things, if you haven’t done it before it may take a bit of time – but as I said, it’s well worth it.  It will save you in the longer run.  It will take less time and you become more efficient, focused and productive over time.

Alex also suggests you create a journal – and suggests that we use our blog as a way of doing this.  This might sound daunting if you have never done it and you might not even get the reason for why you are being asked to do it. 

If you want to learn about how to create a successful online business you are going to have to step out of your comfort zone.  That’s what all learning is about.  Once you understand and are willing to do that then, in the words of my previous mentor:

“Just follow the bloody instructions”

Nicola Cairncross (TheMoneyGym.com)

Oh, and something Alex constantly reminds us of and which I wholeheartedly agree – Have Fun!

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As a newbie it is so easy to get pulled into the marketing hype around how quick and easy it is to make money online – it’s the motivation for many who start this journey and it’s also, in my view, why so many will never actually see their dream come true.

People want the get rich quick online dream – especially in the recession when so many people are struggling just to make ends meet.

The marketing experts will tell you lots of stories about how people “suddenly” made their fortunes online.  And you’ll see sales pages with headlines of how someone made thousands of dollars by sending out just one email or how they made a business from nothing and took it to 7 figures in just a few months. It’s so tempting to buy into the idea that the way to getting rich quickly is to do it online.  

The first thing Alex told us, on that first coaching call,  was that this coaching programme was not a quick rich scheme . . . . . As he said those words, I could imagine hearing the sighs from the other coachees and I wondered if some were going to ask for their money back. But then Alex continued:

“This is not a get rich quick scheme but a get rich forever system”

Alex Jeffreys’ (MarketingWithYou)

While you might be thinking: “Ah, that’s better,” several thoughts immediately came to my mind:

• Alex’s credibility went way up in my eyes.  I knew he was trustworthy.
• By being honest he was going to save us from failing.  People give up when things start to feel harder than they imagined.  While making money online is simple – it’s not actually easy.  As Alex reminded us you need:
  • The right MINDSET
  • You have to take ACTION
  • You have to understand how to use LEVERAGE
  • You have to understand how to  POSITION yourself
• He was going to teach us an even better system than a “get rich quick” system – a system that wouldn’t fizzle out because we didn’t learn what to do once we made that money.  Alex was going t teach us a system that would last forever.

It happens al the time.  You have conversations with people who tell you that something “suddenly” happened.  A pop star or movie star “suddenly” gets fame. A business deal “suddenly” comes through.  Someone “suddenly” makes that 7 figure income.

The reality behind “suddenly” is that these people have put in a lot of hard work!

The pop stars and movie stars have usually been working at their dream for years before they get their break and “suddenly” become famous.  Any business deal that “suddenly” comes through was proceeded by planning, budgeting, marketing and networking.  The person who “suddenly” makes the 7 figure income has been completely focused on their business – usually to the despair of their friends and family.

“Everyone wants to be a millionaire. I have no secret.

I just work hard and, as I always have done, believe I can do it”

 Richard Branson (“Screw It, Let’s Do It!”)

What Alex was telling us is that things don’t “suddenly” happen:

• There is a learning process – and we all know how frustrating that can feel at times and how tempting it can be too give up when you think it isn’t working.
• There is work or taking action.  While there is a lot of talk about The Law of Attraction, what people don’t always notice is the word “action” in The Law of Attraction.

So Alex’s starts his coaching programme with getting you to think about your online venture as a real business. 

Forward To Basics

The first module of Alex’s coaching is all about helping you to think about what is to become your new business.  “Forward To Basics” is about conceptualising your vision for your new business.  It’s about designing your business “roadmap” or as my previous coach, Nicola Cairncross, used to drum in her students:  “Start with the end in mind.”

You cannot afford to skip this or think it’s not important.  It’s dead important and will be what the difference between succeeding in your online venture or failing in it.  I didn’t pay enough attention to this  when I started out almost two years ago. Had I paid attention, I’m convinced I could have accelerated my progress.

I’ll cover more about that in the next blog. . . . but before I go, I just want to leave you with a simple but, hopefully useful tip. You may already be used to telephone coaching and teleconferences and teleseminars, but if you aren’t, and you are worried about the costs (and who isn’t price conscious in this recession!) here is a tip you may find useful:

Quick & Useful Tip:

With telephone coaching calls, because the software used is usually USA based, it can be cheaper to dial to the USA using a cheap override provider:

• Planets  0844 605 0666 (1p/min)
• Telesavers:  0844 861 25 25 (1p/min)
• Ratebuster:  0844 720 2020

There is also a site called “The CallChecker” which finds the cheapest override provider for each call type:

• http://www.callchecker.moneysavingexpert.com/ukcallchecker
• http://www.callchecker.moneysavingsexpert.com/intcallchecker

I’d suggest you take some time to start thinking about your vision for your new business.  Personally I constantly draw out mindmaps as I’m quite a visual person.  A great tool that Alex introduced his students to was the MindMeister  mindmapping tool .  Not being very technical and having tried other online mindmaps that I didn’t get on very well with, I was a bit sceptical, but I tell you what – it was so easy and I love it!  Oh and by the way – it’s free!

So get started with your vision for your new business  - and enjoy!

“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,

but that it is too low and we reach it.”

Michelangelo

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