It's Not a River in Egypt

Written by Dave Balch


I admit it. I've made some mistakes. Oh, sure, I talk about all ofrepparttar things that went right and that I did pretty well with my home-based business, and that's true. But I would be doing both of us a disservice if I were to leave you withrepparttar 117715 impression that all is well in "Home-based Business Land", that I live in a carefree fairytale world of wealth and consumption, and that my bills are all paid and will continue to be. No, it's not like that at all. And it's only just recently that I identifiedrepparttar 117716 problem. It can be summed-up in a single word: denial.

My business is centered around software that is dependent on a technology that is slowly going away. I had a nice income stream (customers pay an annual fee), but as my customers drifted to new technologies my base of income eroded. I could see it happening. For years I said "This gravy train isn't going to last forever!" I chose to ignore it. Why? Denial. Although I wasn't consciously aware of it, I tookrepparttar 117717 attitude, "I'll worry about it when it happens." Suddenlyrepparttar 117718 revenue is alarmingly low, and now I have to deal with it. Had I dealt with it sooner, it would have been much easier to fix.

A friend of mine recently went to New Zealand on a speaking tour. She agreed to pay her own airfare andrepparttar 117719 organizer ('Peter') would pay for hotels and for her speaking appearances, plus she would be able to sell her books and tapes atrepparttar 117720 seminars. It was not until after she arrived that Peter informed her that most ofrepparttar 117721 seminars had been cancelled. After she arrived! He knew that participation was going to be low. He knew that they might have to cancel. He didn't tell her, though, because he was in complete denial.

In Praise of Thinking Small

Written by Elena Fawkner


All your life you've probably been beseeched to "Think Big!", repparttar idea being that if you think big you achieve big, while thinking small gets you nowhere fast.

That's probably good advice as a general rule but it shouldn't be taken literally when it comes to creating an Internet-based business. The Internet is one environment where thinking small generally leads to greater success than thinking big. In fact, thinking big inrepparttar 117714 wrong way can definitely get you nowhere fast!

The temptation when first starting out is to sign up for as many affiliate programs as you can. Somehow, you figure, repparttar 117715 more programs I have to earn a commission from,repparttar 117716 more money I will make. All you end up doing inrepparttar 117717 process, however, is diluting your focus withrepparttar 117718 end result being a web site that attempts to be too many things to too many people.

As urgent as it seems to get your web site up and out there and attracting as many people as you possibly can as quickly as you possibly can,repparttar 117719 smarter approach is to spend considerable time, before you even start, seriously thinking about what it is you want to contribute torepparttar 117720 Internet and repparttar 117721 market you want to attract.

Many people, for example, think there's money in "Internet Marketing". There is. But Internet marketing is not an end unto itself. It's a set of skills you need to master once you actually HAVE something to market.

Sure, there's a large army of so-called "gurus" out there who profess to be experts in Internet marketing and have made a tidy sum from people who believe them. But you're not one of them and neither am I. (Neither are they, actually, but that's another story altogether.)

So, when you think about "making money with my computer" or "making money onrepparttar 117722 Internet", understand that there's not some parallel universe out there that will allow you to generate an income simply by connecting torepparttar 117723 Internet. You have to create something of real value to a very specific audience to get them to visit your site inrepparttar 117724 first place. You have to continually add value to your site to keep them coming back. Only then can you even begin to think about maybe making money.

So, let's start withrepparttar 117725 basics. What is your web site going to be ABOUT? Hopefully you realize now that it's NOT going to be about Internet Marketing. It's going to be about something that you know something about, something you have a special interest in or passion for, an interest or passion that others share and in sufficient numbers that they constitute a good- size target market.

That's whererepparttar 117726 beauty of thinking small comes in. If you set out to create a site all about Internet Marketing, repparttar 117727 subject is simply too vast to do justice to. And unless you're an expert (and 99% of you reading this are not), you're not going to be able to create anything of true value to attract repeat visitors. The competition's just too great.

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