Snatching Defeat From The Jaws of Victory

Written by Elena Fawkner


You may findrepparttar lure of an online business seductive indeed. And why not? After all, it holdsrepparttar 117633 promise of true independence - time and money freedom - fromrepparttar 117634 comfort and sanctuary of your own home. It tantalizes you withrepparttar 117635 promise of unlimited potential, a limitless market. With immediate results.

All of this is achievable. Exceptrepparttar 117636 last. There is nothing immediate aboutrepparttar 117637 results you will achieve when you first start an online business.

It's estimated that well over 98% of internet businesses bite repparttar 117638 dust after only a few months. How can you make sure you're one ofrepparttar 117639 2% who last throughrepparttar 117640 long haul? It's quite simple, really. Just hang on.

That's assuming, of course, that your online business is worth hanging on TO. If all you're doing is reselling someone else's products and not contributing anything torepparttar 117641 Internet community yourself, get ready to joinrepparttar 117642 98%. But if you've identified your niche, if you're making an original contribution to that niche and have quality products or services to offer that market, you can make it.

But you have to be prepared to stick it out because no matter how great your site, your product, your service, your ideas, your abilities, it will not happen overnight.

THAT'S why 98% of online businesses fail. It's not because they were also-rans, it's not because they did nothing but sign up for half a dozen affiliate programs and thought they were in business, it's not because they were dumb, or slow, or technically challenged or faced too much competition.

It's because they gave up too soon.

You have to allow forrepparttar 117643 lag factor. You have to be prepared to not only sow your seeds, but to giverepparttar 117644 seeds time to germinate, sprout and, finally, grow. Only then can you harvest. In other words, not only must you sow before you can reap, you must wait after sowing before you can reap.

It's what you do with that waiting time that's critical to your success.

Think of yourself as a farmer. You wouldn't just plant a quarter acre of corn and then sit back forrepparttar 117645 next three months (or however long it takes corn to grow) twiddling your thumbs, obsessively checking for signs of life every five minutes, getting more and more frustrated with every day that passes without being able to harvest.

No. Inrepparttar 117646 meantime, you'd be busy planting strawberries, potatoes, carrots and broadbeans. And you'd be busy *harvesting*repparttar 117647 broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts and asparagus that you planted four months beforerepparttar 117648 strawberries, potatoes, carrots and broadbeans. While you weren't obsessing about howrepparttar 117649 cauliflower, silverbeet, tomatoes and squash you'd planted three months before THAT were doing. And keeping an eye on your herb garden while you were at it.

Like working a farm, working an online business is a constant exercise in planning, sowing, tending, measuring and reaping. And patience. Lots and lots of patience.

When you "finish" your first website (you'll understand why repparttar 117650 quotes if you have your own site), you thinkrepparttar 117651 hard part's over. You think that it's simply a matter of uploading your site to your web host's servers, submitting your site to repparttar 117652 search engines, listing it in directories, negotiating reciprocal links with other webmasters, publishing an ezine and generating subscribers, placing paid ads (you'll figure out what free ads are worth all by yourself), writing articles and doing a hundred and one other things to drive traffic to your site.

How to Create Your Own High-Octane Info Products

Written by Martin Avis


Like most things in life, there are 'secrets' to being successful. Creating info products is no different. And like most things,repparttar 'secrets' are there for all to see.

The first problem that most people face when starting out as an 'info-producer' is in coming up with ideas to write about.

Initially, you have to be a thought recorder. Write down every crazy (or not so crazy) idea that fleetingly crosses your mind. Carry a notebook. This not only lets you capturerepparttar 117632 brilliant ideas that have a habit of disappearing, but also starts to train your mind into an opportunity state.

Opportunities are like cosmic rays: they are everywhere, but most ofrepparttar 117633 time we can't see them. Withrepparttar 117634 right training, our brains can easily become very sensitive opportunity detectors.

At some point you will start to notice that many of your brilliant ideas are rubbish. Don't worry. Keep on writing them down. Even a bad idea can sometimes be adapted later.

You will notice that a lot of your ideas fall into patterns. This is your subconscious mind's way of pointing you inrepparttar 117635 right direction. If it keeps on returning to a theme,repparttar 117636 chances are that somewhere, buried deep inside you, is gold. Now go digging.

When your notebook is growing, start thinking about your ideas bank. Be objective and ask yourself, "If this wasrepparttar 117637 only project that I could ever do, would I be happy?"

Take all your top scoring ideas. Take a little time and expand each one. Write a broad synopsis of each so that you have a concrete idea of whatrepparttar 117638 final product will look like. Don't try to write it - just outline it.

What do you put in your outline?

Rememberrepparttar 117639 old adage: 'I take advice from five wise men: Mr Who, Mr Where, Mr What, Mr Why and Mr When.'

Add to those two more: How and How Much.

Make every section or chapter answer one of these seven questions (and you can ask each of them in different ways) and you haverepparttar 117640 outline of your book.

Now you should have a shortlist of realistic, doable projects - any one of which you would be happy to run with.

Next comesrepparttar 117641 most important step of all: do your homework. The best product inrepparttar 117642 world is worthless unless there is a market for it. So how do you find that out?

1. Take your shortlist and talk to 5 good friends. See what they have to say. Do they all favor one overrepparttar 117643 others? Why? What is it about it that captures their imagination? Would they buy it? Who do they think would buy it?

2. Pay attention to their advice, but don't even think of acting on it. Even if they all think every one of your ideas stinks, it could easily be them that is wrong: they may simply berepparttar 117644 wrong audience.

3. Write a very detailed description for yourself of exactly who you think will buy your products. Really try to get insiderepparttar 117645 mind of someone who could use what you have to say.

4. Write down at least ten words (or 2 word phrases) that most sum up each of your possible products. Define your keywords, in other words.

5. Get yourself online and search every search engine you know for every one of those key words or phrases. Check out as many sites as you can thatrepparttar 117646 engines throw up (and don't just look atrepparttar 117647 first page of listings either). Get a feel forrepparttar 117648 market. What you are doing here is trying to find out if there is already a market for your product, and whatrepparttar 117649 people searching for it are being offered.

6. Be brutally honest with yourself. If google only comes up with 10 sites for one of your keywords, and none ofrepparttar 117650 sites are particularly relevant, then you can bet that right now, there isn't much of a market. If this isrepparttar 117651 case, ask yourself honestly if you haverepparttar 117652 staying power and specialized knowledge to carve a completely new niche. And where would you go to reach them?

7. Find newsgroups and forums that are relevant and lurk. Are people asking questions that your product will answer? Can you discern a need?

8. If you can, you may haverepparttar 117653 next super-niche product all ready to be written. Congratulations!

9. If you can't, move on torepparttar 117654 next project on your list and repeat.

This might all sound rather long-winded - and it certainly flies inrepparttar 117655 face ofrepparttar 117656 proponents of 'create a product fast' philosophy, but it needn't take all that long.

Atrepparttar 117657 end ofrepparttar 117658 day, you will have achieved three things. You will KNOW which project to work on, and why. You will KNOW who to target. You will KNOW what your future projects (and backend sales) will be.

And, as a by-product, you will have become a super- powered opportunity magnet inrepparttar 117659 process.

As you can see,repparttar 117660 real secret is taking action. But if you are like 99.9% of people, you will find excuses for not taking action.

Every single excuse is 'getaroundable.' For example:

"I don't know if anyone will be interested."

It certainly helps to write about your passions - if only because your time spent in research will be minimized. But it isn't strictly necessary. Do you really think that people who write fascinating fact- filled articles in magazines are all passionate about their subjects? No, they are just writers who are given an assignment.

If you can't find a subject that YOU are passionate about, find one that SOMEONE ELSE is passionate about. Maybe that someone else is a friend or family member - great! Start a joint project.

Or maybe you don't have friends who are passionate about anything (hard to believe, but possible). Then go and find a subject that a lot of people are trying to find out about. Do a search onrepparttar 117661 most popular keywords. I just did that and these seven all came inrepparttar 117662 top 50:

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