Believe it or not, that’s how our company, TicketKick all started. Our President, Greg Muender did in fact get three traffic tickets in three weeks when he started college at San Diego State University in 2006. Having the stubborn, think-outside-the-box mind that he does, he thought, “There’s got to be a way out of this.”

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One ticket in California is expensive enough, and surely three of them very well may have ruined his college experience. Greg faced severely high ticket fines, enormous insurance hikes, a possible suspension of his driver’s license, and a seriously sad start to his college career. So he did some research.

“Just Google It”

Greg found out that the California court system allows you to do a trial by mail, through a trial by written declaration. He researched the laws, found some loopholes, talked to some attorney friends, and contested all three of his tickets through the mail. Two of them were completely dismissed. The third one he was found guilty for, but was still able to take traffic school. He kept a clean record and saved thousands of dollars. Friends and family started coming to him for help with their tickets. He started charging for his help, but only if he got them out of their ticket. That’s when the money back guarantee that TicketKick is so famous for originally started.

In 2009, Greg asked me, his girlfriend to quit my job and come on board to take over the customer service end so he could focus on the business end and legal aspects. We started with two desks in his bedroom. Within that same year, we moved into an upscale executive suite, hired two other employees and our team kept growing.

Within the next two years, our company grew to 7 employees, a team of outside legal and marketing consultants, and is set to break a million in sales by the end of 2011. TicketKick to this day offers a 100% money back guarantee, maintains about a 70% dismissal rate, and offers the lowest prices in the industry, giving thousands of drivers with traffic tickets in a bad economy a big incentive to kick their ticket. Okay, I’m honestly not trying to sell you on our service, but there’s a point to it all.

How We Did It ?

Now, of course, whenever I tell people what I do for a living, they say, “That’s so cool!” and yes, it feels to be on this side of the law. Everyone gets traffic tickets, but we didn’t do it for the popularity.

Greg shares his secrets of business success:

Regarding what has contributed to overall success in building our business in a bad economy, Greg says his key tactics include “providing a service that people really need, good or bad economy. Find a way to take advantage of a bad economy. People always like saving money, and that’s even more prevalent in a weaker economic environment. Providing a service that fills a need, instead of a want, is a great recipe for a stable company.”

A couple of Greg’s mottos include “Just Google it,” when it comes down to finding answers or better ways of doing things, and “I’m a master at finding people who are better than me at what they do, and bringing their skills onto my team.”

Customers First

Our core product as a legal document assistant, of course, is successful legal defenses for the customer and helping them kick their ticket, but it’s not our only focus. Regardless of how our their case turns out, we want each customer to leave satisfied with our service. We work diligently in only hiring the friendliest and helpful team members. The job market’s tough right now, and whenever we post an ad to fill a position, very qualified people with years of legal experience just pour in. We realize, however, that when it comes to customer service, knowledge and experience do no good unless the employee is willing to go above and beyond in meeting customer’s needs. Greg always makes this very clear in our employee meetings.

He says: “If someone calls us looking for the nearest Taco Bell, you jump on google and find it for them. If they ever get a traffic ticket, they’ll know who to call first because we’ve helped them before.”

Point being: Don’t skimp out on good customer service, in any business you’re in, and always maintain good business ethics. Train your employees to do whatever it takes to leave the customer satisfied. Many times we’ll go against our own terms and conditions to leave a customer happy.

Of course, we don’t endorse reckless driving. How does Greg feel about those 3 traffic tickets back in college?

Well, he certainly isn’t proud of potentially breaking any laws on the road, nor does he advocate it. And we won’t get into whether or not he was actually speeding. That’s not the point here. He surely did turn a potentially very bad situation into an amazing business opportunity just by doing some initial research.

We are very strong believers that out of something bad can always come something good, as long as you’re open minded, look for opportunities, and ultimately want to work to help others in some way, and helping people is our passion.

image: lasse

For business there are still plenty of reasons to get a BlackBerry — especially the new BlackBerry 7 smartphones, which are undoubtedly the best BlackBerrys to date.

There are downsides to the BlackBerry, too, so it’s best to approach this from both angles. When does the BlackBery work for business users, and when does it not?

Favoring BlackBerry

1. The keyboard. One advantage BlackBerry has retained throughout the years is its physical keyboard. For some this might not seem like a big deal. Ask a former BlackBerry user who switched to iPhone, and she’ll tell you that the iPhone’s virtual keyboard works just fine. And it does. The average consumer likely won’t notice a big difference. But a business user will.

An attorney friend put it best. To paraphrase: When you’re on a plane, emailing a junior associate about a brief, emailing your boss about another brief, emailing a judge’s clerk to reschedule a hearing, and the flight attendant has just come by to tell you to turn off your cell phone for the third time, you come to appreciate the keyboard.

The keyboard simply makes for faster and more efficient messaging. It helps avoid the perils of autocorrect. That’s because it’s familiar, even if we’re typing with our thumbs. We just respond better to the tactile feedback of a physical keyboard. That might rule out a touchscreen BlackBerry device, such as the BlackBerry Monaco, but there are plenty of BlackBerry smartphones that still have physical keyboards.

2. Core functions. Amidst heavy competition, BlackBerry has managed to maintain its superiority in core functions. That is, they still feature better email, calendar, and contact apps than Android and iPhone. Since these are the primary reasons a business user buys a smartphone, it stands to reason that the BlackBerry might be the best option.

How is BlackBerry better at core functions?

• The interface is tried and tested, and has undergone only minor tweaks over the years.
• The inbox is easy to manage, and managing multiple inboxes is even easier.
• There are icons for each inbox, and there is a universal app that combines them all.
• The real difference is in the delivery method. BlackBerry uses proprietary servers to encrypt data, so it is not only secure, but also delivered instantly.

Calendar and contacts are pretty much on the level with iPhone, but it’s pretty difficult to screw up those two. (Then again, a look at Android’s contact system might prove that wrong.) BlackBerry’s advantage in messaging is one reason that businesses still choose it over the sexier alternatives.

3. Distraction-free. The iPhone and Android sell well to the consumer market because they’re filled with apps. Both the App Store and the Android Market have far, far more apps than BlackBerry App World. They also have more of the most popular apps. This might be and advantage to consumers, but it is not necessarily so to business users.

Apps distract. That’s what they’re there for. That might be welcome on a commute or during down time. But that’s not why a business user gets a smartphone. He gets a smartphone to more efficiently conduct business.

• If apps are cutting into that efficiency, it might be best to not have them at all. And that’s where the BlackBerry has an advantage. It might be a strange one, but it works for some users.

Disfavoring BlackBerry

1. Lack of software. Yes, the lack of software might keep the BlackBerry distraction-free. That could work for some users. Other users need certain software, perhaps proprietary software, to conduct business on a smartphone. On BlackBerry this might not be possible. While developing for the platform isn’t necessarily more difficult than for other platforms, it seems that there are more obstacles in the way.

Disfavored Blackberry user....

There is also the possibility that certain organizations use particular apps. If those apps aren’t available for BlackBerry, that makes life quite difficult. There’s a better chance they’ll be available on the iPhone.

2. Cost and usage. With many carriers, the iPhone and BlackBerry will incur the same data costs. While AT&T has a lower tier data plan that could appeal to BlackBerry customers, they are the exception. Other carriers offer a higher baseline. BlackBerry users will rarely hit that baseline, but iPhone users might. That is to say, iPhone users will get more bang for their buck. That’s certainly one justification for spurning the BlackBerry.

3. Outages. As mentioned above, RIM has top of the line push email services, because all of its data is routed through its servers.

• Unfortunately, as everyone learned a few months ago, those servers can crash. Sometimes they can crash for days on end.
• This isn’t common, but every so often BlackBerry devices will experience a massive outage. That can kill productivity, especially for organizations that rely on smartphones for communications.

Outages might not happen frequently and they generally don’t last long, but those precious hours can cost businesses plenty.

However, with all these favoring and disfavoring in mind Blackberry will be one of the best alternative for the Apple’s business gadgets.

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This piece of writing is meant as a guide for aspiring online entrepreneurs, who have got the drive and the expertise, but are oblivious of some challenges lying ahead. If you think, you can handle the various challenges of online entrepreneurship after reading this; then sure, test the waters, otherwise, I suggest you give it a second thought and save yourself the hassles.

1. Accepting Online Payments

One of the most frustrating problems could be that of setting up a payment gateway. You need to have more than one mode of payment options available for customers. Paypal is of course the most preferred option by most customers, but unfortunately their services exists primarily in the US and European region.

Vendors in the Asian continent and around a hundred more countries are not able to use Paypal for payment options. If you are in the list of one such country, you have got no other option but to use alternatives like 2co or Moneybookers.com.

You can also use other payment options such as credit cards, bank to bank transfers, and international wire transfers as well. But for any of these options, you will have to visit the bank, fill out forms, set up accounts and make sure your payment options are feasible for clients. They won’t bother working with you, if they have to go through unnecessary hassle while making the payment.

Some might want to pay through online payment processor like paypal, others would prefer paying through credit cards. For those who are setting up all this for the first time, it can get a little too troublesome to get yourself verified or get the merchant status. You can also get affordable credit cards for your online business which helps to save a lot of money in business transactions.

2. Managing Staff

If you have got the capital, you can think of setting up an office and recruit in-house candidates to work for you. But mostly the budget constraints will make you outsource the work and hire virtual assistants or freelancers who will be doing the work for you from home (coming from low cost regions). Getting work done from such staff is not always a pleasant experience.

You would seldom find serious freelance workers who are dedicated to their jobs. The good ones usually have lots of projects and they are never perturbed by the pressure coming from one of them! So, often you are left with students working part time, who want to earn some pocket money, house wives who need extra work and part time freelancers looking to make extra living.

Every now and then, you will get to hear a hundred excuses for delayed work and a hundred reasons for poor quality work.  Learn more on, what you can outsource in business and to save money, work load.

3. Building clientele

For any business to be successful (especially the one offering services), you must be having some clients to get going. First off, finding reliable clients is an uphill battle in itself, you’ll have to convince them to select you as their service provider and it requires exceptional marketing skills.

• You have got to answers questions like what makes your services different from competitors.
• Why are you charging more or less than the other providers?
• And if you are charging the same, why should they choose you over others?

People looking to work as a freelancer and get the jobs like SEO, content writing, web development, graphic designing, can get a good stream of clients from freelance platforms like oDesk, Elance, Guru and other such work platforms (given that they are good enough). All online businesses needs to develop a strong social media profile and stay connected to a lot of people from the related field.

Your success in online business depends largely on how well you can socialize, both offline and online.

Businesses dealing with providing products will have to start with word of mouth and catering to the local neighborhood. You need to invest in gaining credibility, before your online efforts can bring in sales. Learn how to turn visitors into customers for your business.

4. Maintaining Clients

Not only you will find it hard to get customers, the bigger challenge is to retain the customers. You have got to convince or remind your client every now and then through the quality of your work as well as through active interaction and good work ethics that you are the best that they can get.

• Initially, you will have to do a trade- off i.e. providing excellent services under low rates, even though it wouldn’t be profitable in shorter run, it’ll pay back after some time.
• You can always raise your rates gradually, as clients begin to see the quality of work that you can provide them.
• Remember that meeting deadlines and showing a professional attitude is extremely important.

If you’ve done a great job, but missed an important cut-off date, it will be held against you, and all of this can be quite strenuous.

5. Managing Your Time

Most people think its all fun to be your own boss and work at your own leisure. If this is what you’re thinking, you’re in for a rude awakening call. When it comes to starting your own startup, you have to work day and night; it’s almost like running a one man show. Learn the steps for successful online business startup.

From customer satisfaction to offering flawless services; from managing time schedules to solving daily routine problems, you just have to put a lot of efforts, time and energy to put in.

Even though there are stories doing round about a teen entrepreneur going on to hit the jackpot all alone but those are just exceptions.

A successful business always requires the combined effort of two or more people. Thinking you can do it all by yourself is an overdose of optimism which is not practical. Unless you don’t have some partners, or you can hire some helping hands, it is bound to fail, especially when you will be de-motivated and exhausted from the constant stress.

image:bp

Apart from on-page branding, it is really required to have a social media presence to build off-page branding.

The entire world is inside the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus etc. Hence, for a business, social network stands like a major source to find new customers as well as helps to hold them into your own business network.

It builds your brand and also, drives you lot of visitors for your business site apart from search engines (or SEO traffic).

Creating a social media presence for your online business helps:

• to find new customers for your business
• to keep hold of your visitors under your own network
• to quickly ping your followers to come back to your site
• to show a brand and to build TRUST between your business and customers

Overall, social media presence is required for your online business to grow as well as to survey.

Lets quickly get into the steps on how to create a social media presence for your online business.

I want to keep these steps short and simple to understand….

• Step 1 : First, create a Facebook fan page, Twitter page, Google+ page for your business web site and share your key message.
• Step 2 : Add Facebook box, Twitter widget in your website at the sidebar or bottom.
• Step 3 : Ask every visitor to connect with you on their preferred social account.
• Step 4 : Integrate Facebook Like/Share buttons, Tweet buttons, Google+1 button on your site
• Step 5 : Publish your site updates automatically to Facebook, Twitter, Google+
• Step 6 : Interact with your network every day, provide updates/information about your business.
• Step 7 : Understand social media marketing and utilize it for your business benefits.

For an online business to grow, you have to create a social media presence and you must utilize it well. This helps to diversify your online business dependencies especially the traffic source.

For example: Search engines are so dynamic and it may or may not send you visitors every day because of constant algorithm changes which affects your business a lot. In that case, social media helps to diversify the traffic source and it helps to balance the business risks. Make use of it…

Go back to course page.

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1. http://lagangtours.com/

Living in ‘da hood’ is bad enough, and surely no one, other than drug addicts, would want to go there. This is what regular people think, but Alfred Lomas is not regular person. After all, he is a felon, drug dealer and former gang member. Realizing that there people who are fascinated by the underworld. So he started a two hour South Central bus ‘gang tour’ visiting most prominent gang sites and telling the history behind them. He wisely turned online to promote his business and now charges $65 each person who wants to go on the tour.

2. http://pickydomains.com

Good domain name is extermely important, but it seems that all the good ones are already taken. Buying a name on the aftermarket ususally costs thosands, so Dmitry Davydov sensed that this problem offers a great business opportunity. He launched a risk free naming agency with a simple proposition – you deposit $50 and he’ll come up with a great domain name for you. If you don’t like any suggestions and decide not to use them, you get your money back. The service was launched in 2007 and Dmitry was so overwhelemed with requests, he could not complete all the orders himself. So now over 46000 people have signed up as contributors who get paid for their suggestions and after successfully coming up with over 1500 domains, the service has branched out into slogans, product lines and software naming.

3. http://pavel-sidorenko.com/

Living is a small country of Estonia, Pavel Sidorenko was limited in money-making opportunities. But being a designer by trade, thinking outside the box was part of his nature. So when he has stumbled upon thousands of unwanted vinyl records, he immediately decided to do something with it. The result – vinyl record wall clocks that is known for now worldwide and sells for $40-$50 each from his website mosly outside his native Estonia.

4. http://www.humorhotlines.com/

We tend to think of phone pranks as juvenile, but it’s a $2.5 million a year business for Jeffrey Goldblatt, HumorHotLines founder. He stumbled into the idea in 2001, after getting tired of hearing same trashy pickup lines and putdowns. This is when he started Rejection Hotline -a phone number ladies gave out to pursuers, that led them to this voice mail: “Hello, the person who gave you this number obviously did not want you to have a real number. Maybe you’re not this person’s type; note this could mean that you are short, fat, ugly, dumb, annoying, arrogant or just a general loser.” Because these recordings were funny, people would dial the number again and again, and with each call Jeff made more and more money.

5. http://www.recycledseatbelts.ca/

Betty Funk is obsessed with recycling. Imaging her feelings when she discovered that car seat belts can’t be reused for legal reasons. So she decided that she’d have to do something with millions of seat belts that are sitting in junk yards. Being a woman, she decided to make a purse out of seat belts. The idea quickly caught on and first 1000 bags where sold out quickly (they can be quite expensive, up to $160 for a custom bag). The main selling point turned out not to be ‘green’, but rather their amazing durability due to material they are made of. Not only there is no ‘wear-and-tear’ with her bags, one woman pulled a truck with here bag when a tow rope proved too short.

David Deprice blogs at Unusual Business Ideas That Work, the only online blog solely devoted to strange but successful online and offline business ideas.

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Online businesses are same like the real world business and you have to take it serious – that’s my perception. In most cases, such beginners end up running a blog (with Google Adsense) which only makes few cents. Finally, you end up giving way.

Basically, the lack of knowledge, experience and curiosity towards earning are the major tiebacks of online business.

At the same time, when you think online business as a real world business, you won’t get into that mess. As a beginner, spend time to explore, understand what really is an online business, gain the practical knowledge and then get into the work. This way, you could survey and make a lot for the long term.

In my case, i started this blog as a hobby and slowly, i realized the seriousness of online business and now i am completely in a different mode towards building great businesses, products.

In this article, i will help you towards making money for the long term and interestingly, you don;t need to work hard every day.

First, Have an Idea.

Every business starts from a silly idea, you and me are not an exception. You can think something unique or something that no one had tried before.

• Explore your own knowledge and try to address the problems in a particular market.

I mean, your idea should address a problem and that’s the very basic requirement for a business to begin.

On the other hand, you don’t need to be unique, you can also find an existing idea/product in the market and alter the methodology to replicate in your business.

Any way, its the Time which nails down, how your idea works – because until you get into the work, you don’t know whether the idea works or not.

Have a look on this another article on new web site ideas.

Build your own product.

With my own experience, there are 3 types of online based businesses like:

• Type 1: Offering a service and getting paid
• Type 2: Selling others product
• Type 3: Selling your own product

Its up to you on which track you want to go.

• Type 1: If you are talented and highly capable to serve customers then open up a service business. Example: web design, banner design solutions
• Type 2: If you have the capability to appeal audience and push a product then simply, sell others product. However, you have to work every time to find new products and new audience so that you can make continuous sales. Example: affiliate marketing.
• Type 3: The last type, build your own product and sell it. You have to work at the beginning and once established, you can get into maintenance mode – however, money rolls in every day.
• When you compare type 2 and type 3, my choice will be type 3 – because there you have to work once and leave the product in the market (to others). You don’t need to work hard every day like type 2.

So the summary is:

• have an idea (spend time to identify its profitability)
• turn your idea into a product
• leave to others for selling
• take the back seat & count on profits….

Do Initial Marketing.

Product development is a tough process however, when you are clear with what you are going to do and the exact purpose of your product – you can make the process simpler.

A product can be anything a digital downloadable component (i am not speaking about physical products). For example, iPhone App is a downloadable product.

Once your product is ready, the next step: do initial marketing. I call it as, Push Marketing.

Because, when you are releasing the product into the market, no one knows about it. You have to push the product and show it to others.

• SEO, Social media, advertising are few of the ways to push market your product.
• Learn the rules to advertise online business.

Get into maintenance/support mode.

It is true that, the real work starts once product is released. Yes, the product is released and its being used by your customers. This is the mode where you have to support them.

When you are expertise with your product, customer support becomes simpler. You should be able to convince the customers and solve their problems, if any.

However, based on the complexity of your product, you can quickly move into maintaining/support mode.

• You can setup a support forum or wiki specific to your product and this releases you from hard work. And you are almost done with the product – the profit process is frozen here.

Do Periodic Marketing.

It is not like once you are into maintenance mode, you don’t need to work any thing. In order to survey/grow with your business for long term, you have to periodically market the product.

You have to make every one aware that your business is still alive and your product is here to serve new customers.

Do periodic marketing, say once in 2 months and also, you can spend some time to enhance your product in order to make is competing with other products in the market.

Make others to Sell It.

The greatest advantage of building product is that: you can make others to sell it.

Many of the successful Internet marketers are doing this only: even they outsource product creation and make others to sell it by sharing an affiliate commission. Learn what business functions to outsource ?

This is one of the best strategy which makes you money for the long term without doing much work every day.

Final Thoughts…

Don’t get into the beginner’s mess, understand: how to build products and take it to the market.

See, what other successful Internet marketers are doing and follow their strategies – so that you can easily inscribe into the success path. Check this Treps column from entrepreneur magazine for role models.

• On the other hand, you can build a great blog in a particular market – upon building, you can push both your products as well others product easily which makes you even more quick profits – This is the strategy that i am following today !
• Understand these steps to successful online business start up.
• Take this short free beginners course on steps to start online business.

Think smart, have short term as well as long term plans and work smart….

image:wahbain

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In fact, people are getting so good at scamming others, that their websites look no different than any other website… on the surface.

So how do you keep your website from scaring off consumers by coming across as a scam?

Avoid pop-ups like the plague

Aside from being tremendously annoying, the very first thing a pop-up says to a consumer is that you’re desperate for their business. This makes you look exceedingly amateurish, something that will act against anyone looking to succeed in the world of online money-making.

And since the majority of spam websites include some sort of pop-up you will most likely immediately be lumped into that category and be forever fighting that stereotype. You should especially stay away from the pop-ups that ask potential customers if they’re sure they want to leave the webpage or offering them something to stay on the webpage.

Double check everything before going online

To ensure that people don’t question the validity of your website, you have to ensure that it is error-free. This means that you have double (and even triple) checked all of your content for spelling or grammar errors and that everything is properly formatted.

• Only use all caps if it is absolutely pertinent to your message, otherwise stay away from them.
• Having grammatical errors and employing all caps are two common signs that a website isn’t genuine.

Use verifiable customer reviews

Make sure to get consent from anyone you are using as a review before you post them on your website and make sure that the reviews sound authentic.

• Scam websites often employ reviews that sound too good to be true. You want to put up reviews that don’t sound exactly like the writing on your website – otherwise, people could come under the assumption that you wrote the reviews yourself and are trying to trick them into something.
• Write reviews naturally – explain both pros and cons of the product.

Don’t utilize “Free Trial Services”

Unfortunately even if you have the best of intentions, you can come across as a very unreliable source if you promise a 30-day free trial that requires customers to give all of their information and a credit card.

• A genuine business doesn’t need to trick people into paying for their goods or services by getting credit card information up front – particularly because people tend to forget that their free trial is up and they needed to cancel continuing the service and end up unhappy that they’ve been charged for something.
•  It’s better to keep your customers satisfied than to get a few extra dollars and a lot of complaints.

Provide full and valid contact information

One sign of a scam is that their contact information is nonexistent other than a random email address or a 1-800 number.

• Instead, make sure that there is a real person’s name they can ask for, a phone number that they can reach a person at and an email address that utilizes the domain name and not Gmail or Hotmail – both of those elude to unprofessionalism, whereas an email address at the website’s domain name comes across as much more reliable.
• You also want to respond quickly to any questions, comments, or concerns that your potential customers may have – if their email goes into a black hole and they never hear back from you they probably aren’t going to utilize your services or buy your product.

It’s unfortunate that there are so many websites out there that are trying to scam people out of money and thus making it more difficult for the legitimate business owners out there.

To quickly summarize:

• Don’t use pop-up windows in your site and also, don’t load wired graphics/sound in the background which annoys the visitor.
• Have original content and provide useful information to your visitors – don’t over promote the content (for example, avoid words with all caps).
• Never get credit card or other related information from the users before offering a service or product legitimately.
• When you are writing reviews, provide relevant information about the product. Add product images, review videos and don’t just force the visitor to buy. Keep it naturally flowing.
• Provide your contact information and say your visitor that you are available to support them anytime.

The online world can be a difficult one to break into, but by utilizing some verified tips and tricks you can ensure that your website is professional and reliable and not lumped into the category of websites to avoid.

Because there’s not much worse than when someone types your website into Google and the word “scam” comes up after it.

image:crashmatt

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Increasing your online business income is not a simple task because you have work a lot with dedication. In fact, it takes time and you have to experiment with different strategies so that your online business grows every day. You have to set goals and work smart to achieve those goals.

In this article, i will take you through those strategies involved in increasing your online business income that too for the Long Term.Yes, you have to think for the long term so that you grow along with the market and its trend.

With my blogging business, i do plan for the long term however, i break them into short term goals so that i could achieve them faster. Okay, lets get into the topic…

Set Goals and Plan For It.

In general, when you are looking to grow (at any place) you have to set goals. Without goals, you are like eye-closed and you will loose your way. This is highly applicable to online business because of its flexible nature. I mean, online businesses are easy to drive in terms of employing your own ideas/strategies. Hence having goals – works better.

When you have goals, you will get inner drive to work and automatically you will work more to achieve it. Basically, you have to find your passion which drives the growth naturally.

Take your business as your passion.

As a first step, set goals in terms of driving traffic, finding new customers and income.

For example:

• Income goal – I will earn $100K in 1 year
• Traffic goal – I will double the traffic in 3 months
• Customer goal – I find 50 new customers every day

If you are an individual working with your online business, have reasonable goals that are easy to achieve. In that case, have short term monthly goals and work for it.

Once you are clear with your goals, make a plan. Simply, write down the various steps involved in achieving the goals – this will be simplest business plan ever.

Important, you must follow the plan and work towards the goal, never give up !

Read more about preparing an online business plan.

Drive Lot of Traffic (Targeted).

The success of any online business either you run an eCommerce web site or building a blog or selling digital products online – you need traffic.

Traffic is the source of income – the amount of visitors that you drive decides your online business income.

Naturally, when the traffic increases your business income also increases.

That’s the fact.

However, you have to drive people who are related to your business.

For example, if you are selling fashion products – you have to find people who are interested in fashion – this creates the chances of getting more sales.

• SEO plays a major role in driving targeted traffic especially from Google. The search market is dominated by Google and you have to make your web sites optimized for Google. Otherwise, your business won’t grow faster.
• Alternatively, you could employ paid advertisements which quickly brings in targeted traffic (if you are ready to invest money) however, you have to optimize your pages for maximum conversion.

Diversify Your Online Business Dependencies.

When it comes to online business, there are variety of opportunities available right from building web sites, attracting people, driving traffic and effective monetization. I mean there are lot of opportunities to diversify the dependencies.

Diversification is really required because you should not dependent on one source – when that source fails, it greatly affects your business.

For example, you should not dependent only on SEO – instead, diversify your traffic sources from other alternatives like social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, G+) and traffic from other web sites (referral traffic).

• Similarly, list your current income sources and identify the alternative sources of income. Utilize the alternatives.
• For example, you may be selling your product yourself – in that case, bring in affiliates and share a commission, this quickly sells your product more than you expect.

Never become dependent with one source of income – always diversify your income sources.

• Go through my another article on how to diversify your online business dependencies ? which explains more on this topic.

Do Experiments (but follow Proven Strategies).

Experimentation is part of every business. You have to do experiment every time with different strategies. Based on your goals and business model, experimentation varies.

Whatever experiment you do, in the end you have to measure the results. Collect data and see, how you are growing and what are all the sources of income boost. Tweak your strategies and look for improvements. Not only to increase your income, you could do experiment towards every different goals.

• As a note: spend some time to understand your competitors and also, any other grown business in your/other market.
• Learn how to dominate ? and beat online business competition
• Identify their growth strategy and understand how they grown their business.
• Simply, employ the same strategy for your business according to your goals.
• I mean, follow proven strategies from other successful people (i don’t say to copycat their business, instead follow their business model).
• This way, you are more than 50% safe with your business and that proven strategy definitely works for your business too.

Final Thoughts….

Increasing your online business income for the long term is not a simple task, you have to set goals and plan for it. Diversify your income sources and other traffic sources, do more experiments until you identify the best income source for your business. Follow proven business strategy from other successful people.

When you are not able to follow all these tips – just work to help people with your business. Your online business grows non-stop and incomes increases naturally….

image:beth

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When it comes to business success, it is really that much flexible. Yes, you have to do lot of work and most important, you have to consider your online business same like the real world business. This is one of the misconception that every individual is having in mind especially in the earlier stage of online business.

These misconceptions are the real killers of your growth and you will be put inside a circle (with low circumference). The end result, your world gets limited and you don’t know the reality in taking your business towards growth.

There are many such misconceptions that every individual as a beginner gets in the business life cycle. In this article, I will take you through those misconceptions which are most common and clearly know, that’s why i call it as Immaculate Conception. Yes, when you live under these misconceptions you could not grow. Though this a negative statement, I don’t bother because you have to understand that you are in a misconception. And you have to come out of it.

In the end of this article, I want you to think that you are doing a real business rather than saying “I am also doing business”.

Misconception #1 : No Need To Work Hard.

The beginners mind is so clear that they will accept any thing in the earlier stage.

I mean, there are lot of faulty rumors around the Internet that you could easily make money from it. These are fake get rich schemes which puts you into trouble and you will loose all your money soon. They promise that you don’t need to work hard or you need to work less. If you are seeing such an advice don’t believe it.

You could not build an online business without doing any work. Either you are running a web site or blog, promoting your own product or others product, offering an online service – you have to work harder.

Internet is widely spread with information and services, if you want a place in this Internet world definitely, you have to put yourself before the audience. This doesn’t happens suddenly unless you are a real lucky star – you have to set goals, plan, work out, experiment in order to reach the success path.

Come out of this misconception and keep in mind that, you have to work harder (at least smarter) to run an online business.

Misconception #2 : Money Comes Easier (richer mind).

As I mentioned earlier, you could find lot of get rich schemes in Internet where they promise you that “the next day you will make thousands of dollars” and that too without doing much work.

Only way to possible is bank robbery (that too requires lot of work, I believe).

As a beginner, you think that business over Internet is simpler and you could earn a lot with out much work. That’s not true.

Even I had this misconception in the earlier stage, I was in the impression that when I start a blog immediately I will make money. However, when time passed, I realized that we need to do lot of work and more important the right strategies we have to employ. It is tough like the real world business and you must need to plan every thing properly.

Come out of this misconception and keep in mind that, you won’t become sooner with an online based business and it takes time + dedication + right strategies.

Misconception #3 : No Goals and No Plans.

Any activity, when you plan – you will win 50%. This is a general truth. For a business to grow and survey, you need goals in terms of production, turnover, resources, customer management etc. And also, you need a plan to reach those goals. Having a business plan would help you much in this direction.

For an online business, you must forecast all these at every stage of your business which helps in taking better decisions. Without a goal, you are lost “where you are” and without plan, you are lost “how to go”…

Come out of this misconception and keep in mind that, you have to set goals (have reasonable goals) and a short/simple plan to reach that goals – more important: you have to follow the plan (not just planning is enough).

Misconception #4 : Over Expectations (the Killer).

Expectations are the real life killer and when you keep your expectations less/reasonable – your life will be happy (that’s the advice from many saints/priests).

This is also applicable in business. Yes, I am not saying that you should not expect any thing instead, have reasonable expectations and this way, your business life style will be peaceful.

Expectations are the out come of any action towards the goal – so simply, break the goals into expectations (basically, milestones).

Come out of this misconception and keep in mind that, you should have reasonable expectations and not too much.

Misconception #5 : Fake Hypes and Lack of Reality.

Creating fake hypes is one of the dangerous game in business. Faking grabs Peoples attention easily. However, once your mask gets teared – you will be beaten like any thing and definitely, that will happen one day. Be in reality and tell people, what you are doing or what really your business offers.

Always work to add value to your visitors or customers – this way, you gain Trust from others. Once you gained Trust, you could make use of it for any thing right from making money to growing your business higher.

Get out of this misconception and keep in mind that, being real takes you to higher for the long run….

I hope you are clear that, what is really involved in an online business (as an individual) and the immaculate misconceptions to avoid. When you realize and come out of these misconceptions your online business definitely grows more than you expect…..

Have a great day !

image:clay

The concept of demand and supply plays a lot in market competition.

Yes, when there is a demand in market, there will be equal amount of supply from many business sources. How the supply happens whether, it goes over the demand or less than demand decides the competition in market. When more people are in the market and supplying enough, then you could not easily find room for you to supply. This is the basic concept of business competition….

Okay, in this article i will take you through the steps involved in simply dominating your market. These are general steps applicable for any kind of business either you run a service based web site or an information rich blog.

Market Analysis, Have You Done Before ?

Understanding the market is the very first step to start dominating the market.

All you need to do a market analysis by finding out, what are the market demands ? how those demands are supplied ? who are all supplying ? This gives the basic understanding of the market as a first step. This has to continue till the life cycle of business.

However, you could go further and digg deeper into the market like: what are the products available in the market ? who are the audience ? Nature of the audience, do they buy or just surf ? All these data gives you enough knowledge about the market and its condition.

See my earlier publishing on How to make money from business ? A strategic plan with example this gives you more knowledge on this topic.

Analyzing Your Competitors Business.

Every business has competition and as an entrepreneur, we should not worry about competitors or we should not fear about them.

Instead, Understand Competitors and see, what they are doing the market ? List down their strengthens and weakness.

Find out, how the competitor shows themselves unique ?

This gives you the better picture about competitor and you could find out their weakness. This way, you could take advantage of them by overcoming their weakness with your own strengths.

This is a general concept where you can improve yourself, by seeing what others are not doing ! All you have to apply a bit of common sense here…

In practical, go through the competitors web site and see, what they are offering the visitors ? how they are helping people coming to their site ?

Long back, i published an article on how to analyze competitors site ? explaining the practical elements involved, have a look on it !

Being Creative In Helping Customers.

Customers/visitors are the back bone of any online business. They are source of income and they are the wealth. Without customers, your business is nothing.

• When it comes to competition, people do trust business only when they are satisfied. This is a common fact.

We have to definitely accept this concept and focus towards the needs of customers. Yes, when you started helping customers, you are automatically growing your business. And when they are satisfied they will come back to your business and Trust your business.

Being creative adds even more value to your customers and that’s the “differentiation factor” of your business. Do small creative changes to your existing system, it definitely grabs the attention of people and they love to stay with you than a competitor. Being creative makes your business unique and it stands out of the competition.

You could go through the tips to stand out from competition which helps you understand the factors involved in standing out….

Address “Unaddressed” Market Problems.

One of the best strategy to dominate the market – directly addressing the problems around. When you are in a very big market/niche, you could easily find lot of problems that people are facing every day. You could not solve every problem in the market however, you could pick those hard or unaddressed problems which are in the market.

• Identify problems which has less solution or no solution.
• Pitch into such problems and provide a simple solution or show alternatives.
• This way, you could easily get into a market deeper and dominate to great extent.

Because businesses are focused towards problems and how you provides effective solution to those problems. This way, you could prove that you are a leader in the market and it creates TRUST on your business.

When you are able to gain TRUST from this world, no one could stop your growth and you will automatically dominate the market beating all the competitors.

Reach Top of SERP.

Search engines are the identity of Internet and it shows every web site available online. Search engnes are more intelligent that it lists only great web sites in the Top of SERP. This is also a big competition in business.

Yes, ranking on the top for a particular keyword shows that you are a leader in that market.

It helps your business a lot in sending targeted visitors. Hence as part of business competition, you have to take SEO seriously.

• SEO is a long term process and you have to constantly promote your web sites for search engines. The quality of your website and its popularity decides your ranking. Consider SEO and learn to dominate SERP at the earliest.

Check out SEO book which helps you to reach the top of SERP for long term….

Final Thoughts….

It is important to understand the competition as a first step. If you are not clear, do spend enough time to understand, what your competitors are doing and based on that make a strategic business plan. List down the areas of improvements and make a plan to improve them. Take 1 step at a time and don’t put your head everywhere. This way, you will be more focused and you could make a better strategic move so that you won’t miss the target.

Be focused on your goals and always keep an eye on competitors. Every one wants to beat the competition and to reach the top in market. Keep in mind that your activities are also monitored by other competitors.

If you are not able to follow all these steps, just do one favor: “work every time to help people better” – you will definitely dominate the market….

image: faith

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