To your online success

Finding your niche

Hey everyone, sorry about the lack of updates during easter. I´m now back from the vacation and will update regularly again.

When you decide to start working on the internet you should sit down and think about what you would like to work with. The Internet is a place full of different products and services and you can find pretty much anything you want to work with. But in order to find something to work with you need to know what you are looking for.

When I stared working online I tried to go into a field that I knew nothing about. Sounds silly doesn’t it. And it was. I was swept away with the idea of how much money was actually in circulation in the market I wanted to break into. I thought that if there´s that much money going around it should be easy to grab a piece of it. Guess if I was wrong.

I knew nothing about the thing that I tried to promote which meant I knew nothing about the people I tried to sell products to. Knowing your potential customers is a key in all business and the internet marketing business is no different. I thought that I could be very general and get people to be interested in the product I tried to sell. Again, a product I knew nothing about since I didn’t really understand what it would do for the customer.

The point of the above rant is that you need to know who you are trying to sell things to in order to know what your customer needs. We can try to sell people the best product in the world, but if we don’t know what problem it solves for our customers, we can never convince them to buy the product. Which makes sense. If you go into a car dealer and the sales person tries to sell you a van when you’re actually looking for a sports car, the chance is slim that you get even a little interested in what he has to say.

My suggestion is to pick something that you are interested in when you are starting up. It doesn’t matter if you write articles, blog or make landing pages for PPC search engines, if you know what you’re talking about you can better sell the products. Worth mentioning is that most niches have smaller niches within them and only someone who are really interested in the topic might know about these micro niches. Knowing these things will make it easier to sell things too since you can talk about how the product solves exactly this particular problem for people.

After my first failure at just picking a random area to work with, I actually did pick something I’m interested in. It’s been my hobby for a few years now and I know what I’m talking about in this field which makes the material I write seem a bit more convincing. So, what you decide to work with is really up to what kind of person you are but it could be basically anything you are interested in and know a good deal about. Hobbies, sports, work related things - there are a lot of options. Find the niche you want to work with and then find a product or products that you think would help the people you want as customers. Most often it´s people with an interest for the same thing as you, so you know how to talk to them.

If you can’t think of anything that you would like to work with or there are simply no products that you think would sell you might have to learn a new thing. Pick something you would like to know more about and start reading about this subject, become an expert in what you want to do and you will have better results.

Do you have suggestions for other ways to find niches to work with, please post your thoughts.

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Sticking to the plan

I know I nag about the whole motivational part quite often, but it´s just because it´s a really important part. Being clear on why you do what you do and how to get there are some of the more important things with running your own company.

You have decided to start you own online business and you are excited about working from home. That´s great, making a decision is the very first step to anything.

When you decided to start your company, did you also make a plan how to go about with your start and with your work?

Even though making the decision is a big step, it will be just that if you don’t have a plan. And you can’t stand on one foot for too long. The plan is the path you lay out in front of you so you know where to put the other foot.

My suggestion is that you first of all decide how much time you can invest into the company. Make a schedule for your daily, weekly or monthly time investment and stick to it. Working from home takes a lot of discipline since you don’t have anyone standing over you shoulder to see if you are doing the things you are supposed to do. And you will be surprised how many distractions you can find in your own home if things are a bit slow one day.

Don’t get distracted would be the next logical thing to say. No matter what the distractions are, they are a form of procrastination. You go do ”just take care of this little thing” and all of a sudden you have found yourself doing five other ”little things”. When you sit down to work with your company, work. Don’t let little things get in the way and work the hours you have set aside.

The next suggestion I have when you start up a business is to do research. No matter what kind of business you are starting you should research. This becomes more important if you are going to work with affiliate marketing and promoting a product you are not 100% familiar with. Research, research and research. You want to become an expert on the product you are promoting. Or better yet, you should become an expert on the problem this product solves.

People who are looking to buy products or services do so to fill a need. If you know what problems or issues the might have, and why they want this product, you will be much more convincing in promoting it.

I mention this in a lot of articles I write. Goals. Set goals for yourself. If you have a plan but you don’t have a goal, you don’t know what you are working for. Be sure you know why you are doing what you are doing and what you want to achieve. If you are working to be able to buy your dream house, then get a picture of your dream house and hang on the wall so it serves as a constant reminder of why you are doing what you are. It will help you on days when things feels really slow.

Doing these three things will help you be closer to success in what you do, no matter what kind of business it is.

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Internet marketing mindset

I guess this post shouldn’t be named internet marketing mindset specifically, since the attitude and mindset I mention here goes for everything you do. Anyone who start their own business need to learn how to be able to motivate and ”speak” to themselves in a positive way.

Something you should always remember is that a positive attitude goes a very long way, even if that phrase feels a bit over used.

Working with internet marketing is a fun and challenging occupation. Because of these challenges we face, it can also be a frustrating job at times. That´s the reason you need to be in the right mindset all the time.

I´m no guru or motivational speaker of any sort, but I know that having a positive attitude is important in everything you do. Sometimes, it´s easy to forget that when you are working like this.

While you are working online you will have days when you feel like you are getting nowhere and you will be ready to throw in the towel. These are the days when you log in to your affiliate account (or what for of income stream you use) and for the X number of days in a row, you still just see $0 in the money made.

What you need to remember when you are working online is that you are building a company, most likely from scratch. All companies have slow periods, especially in the start-up period. What you need to do is keep a positive attitude to what you are doing even when things are not going so well.

It´s been said over and over, but it´s still true, the mind is a powerful thing and if you keep telling yourself you will fail then most likely you will indeed fail. But this goes both ways, keep being positive about what you do and keep your spirit high about the work and things will eventually pick up.

I am still learning the internet marketing ”game” and my philosophy is to try to learn at least one new thing every day. This have gotten me to a point where I’ve read countless pages, reports and e-books about this business. Some of these things are good, some are… less good. But if I’m able to just learn that one thing every day, I have accomplished my goal. And I most often do.

My point with this is, break things up and don’t expect everything to ”explode” at once. It´s like they say, the first sale is the hardest one to make. Until you get that first sale, you are still learning how to speak to your customers. Sure, some people go into this business and make a massive income in a very short amount of time, it happens. People also win the lottery.

Most of us will struggle when we start a company, it takes time and effort and we will have bad days. The important thing is to not get stuck in those bad days and look forward, because the in the end, this struggle will be worth it.

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