Alan Bechtold has released the latest issue of ‘E-Wealth Report’ Newsletter. The featured article is titled “The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma”. [Newsletter]


Alan Bechtold has released the latest issue of ‘E-Wealth Report’ Newsletter.

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The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma

Here’s a dilemma for you: the surest way to kill your business before it ever gets off the ground is trying to focus on too many things at one time. But, trusting just one marketing method to carry you reliably forever forward is also a perfect path to disaster.

What’s a reasonable entrepreneur to do?

I see clients far too often trying to juggle overly ambitious product development plans and systems as they launch a new business that also demands the owner wear all the hats, doing everything that’s required to run a successful business.

Every stinking little minute thing.

When you’re just starting up, the worst POSSIBLE thing you can do is overly complicate your plans for moving forward. You’re already dealing with customers yourself, shipping products yourself, working with your suppliers personally, meeting directly with clients — literally doing everything required to keep your company rolling (including my all-time favorite most-hated task — paperwork and bookkeeping).

Entrepreneurs, eager to make a huge splash from the beginning, often start out with grandiose plans to introduce new products to the market every month. Or they try to develop two or three products at once. Or they roll out complex coaching systems and membership programs that require far too much of the owner’s time and energy when he or she is already doing everything else.

I still fall victim to this, too.

I churn out a lot of products and newsletters and marketing — but I also have a staff to help me with the phones and technical issues that arise, and programmers who work with me to create what I need to automate my business. Still, I very often paint myself into an opportunistic corner, then wonder how on earth I’m going to get everything done and miss the mark getting things done now and then.

Starting out, most entrepreneurs don’t have the budget for a staff or to hire outside help like I have. I understand that — and I also understand that you ordinarily don’t need any additional employees or outside help coming in when you’re brand new.

Some of the confusion surrounding this issue probably arises from the oft-repeated wisdom we hear that entrepreneurs should never, ever put all their eggs in one basket or they risk losing everything when the seas shift or the winds change in the marketplace.

The above is absolutely true. It SHOULD be repeated.

Consider the E-mail deliverability issues I’ve raised often in this newsletter, recently. Or the widespread panic caused by every shift Google makes in its Adsense and Adwords programs or algorithms.

Any business built relying entirely on E-mail marketing or pay per click advertising or adsense revenue is left hanging out to dry on the vine when changes like those I listed above occur.

With every turning of the screws that the E-mail service providers make these days, I hear screams for mercy from online entrepreneurs all over the world. With every “tweak” to Google’s algorithm, or change in Google’s programs, I hear more moans of dismay.

So — you must never put all your eggs in one basket, but you should also never try to juggle too many eggs at one time. How are we to manage this without growing extra arms?

The answer is fairly simple.

You simply must start with one product you really care about. Make it the very best you can. Concentrate on it fully. If you don’t have the time or energy to create a product of your own, find ONE quality affiliate product that you can sell.

Then, concentrate ALL of your efforts on SELLING what you’ve created or that you’ve decided to sell as an affiliate. And focus on every possible way you can sell that product.

When we say you should never put all your eggs in one basket, we’re not talking about the products that you sell. Once you get ONE product selling reasonably well — and the system that is making the sales is automated — THEN you should definitely focus on adding new RELATED products. This will enable you to take advantage of those wonderfully easy second and third sales to your current customers.

That’s a given.

But, first you need to investigate and test every possible way of making sales with the one product you’ve chosen to focus on.

This means you need to set up a sales Website. Then set up a blog to drive interest from the search engines — and traffic — to that sales Website. Then perhaps you need to consider an E-mail autoresponder to attract the attention of people who visit your site. Or you should test some pay per click advertising, while you work on optimizing your sales Website and blog for the search engines.

Then, you need to consider testing some print advertising. Possibly postcards. Or a sales letter.

Then you should try some E-zine ads — free and paid. Then, possibly, some small print ads, in a few selected magazines that are focused on your selected niche.

Once you get a sales system or two in place and sales are converting from your sales Website, track the numbers. Note the percentages of sales versus visitors and tweak the site until you’re happy with the results. Then you’re ready to go to some JV partners, show them your conversion results and get more people helping you make sales.

Still, always, you must do each of these things ONE AT A TIME!

It might look something like this (depending on which route you choose to follow):

1. Develop or locate a solid product

2. Write sales copy for the Web to sell the product

3. Set up a sales Website to generate orders

4. Set up a blog serving the niche your product fits

5. Test pay-per-click ads within your budget

6. Write some E-mails for your auto-responder

7. Set up your auto-responder to reach out to Website visitors

8. Optimize your blog and sales page for natural search engine traffic

9. Design and test a post card

10. Set up a joint venture offer

11. Attract joint venture partners and affiliates

12. Develop or locate a SECOND product

And so on.

It looks overwhelming in a list like this, but each of the above should be treated as SINGLE STEPS. You do one thing, get it going as well as you can, then move to the next, in a logical series.

This is actually very basic stuff. But, it’s basic stuff I see being ignored so often it’s apparent to me that most people are simply blowing it off as TOO basic to worry about. In fact, it’s the ONLY way you can reasonably expect to set up a home-based or small Internet business of any kind and succeed.

Everything else is details. Because there are a LOT of details involved in each of the above steps, you want to take them on one at a time until you have things working, then move to the next.

That’s why it’s so important that you focus. One step at a time. Inch by inch until you’re up and walking — then break into a run.

Now — I’m going to go back and re-evaluate my own plans and systems. I can see, after writing this, that I have some changes I need to make, too.

This week, I bring you a really cool, full-featured, absolutely no-cost HTML editor that doesn’t require that you know HTML at all to design spiffy sales Websites.

It’s called Alleycode HTML Editor 2.21, and you can find it at: http://www.alleycode.com.

There is also a no-charge system on this same site for optimizing Websites that you design with Alleycode so that they are search engine-friendly and start attracting visitors automatically.

These two pieces of the puzzle, combined, should knock out about 40% of the marketing steps I mentioned above.

Have fun and I’ll see you next week.

Alan R. Bechtold

President/CEO

BBS Press Service, Inc.

‘E-Wealth Report’ Newsletter

*IMNewswatch would like to thank Alan Bechtold for granting permission to reprint the latest article.

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