Thursday, September 6, 2007
I have often talked about the skewed parenting skills of my father, who, without ever realizing it, was quite the entrepreneurial genius. Though he never dabbled in business and it certainly didn't occur to me at the time, many of the lessons I learned from him about life can be put to practical use in your business today.
For example he would take me fishing and hang the dead worms on my hook and the lively wigglers on his. In business we call that, "Getting the competitive edge."
He would direct me to cast my line in waters that he knew were barren while he cast his line in waters teeming with fish. In business we call that, "Knowing your market."
He would turn to me every so often and say, "Look, son, I've hooked another one! That makes eight for me in the last ten minutes. How many have you caught? None? Gee, that's too bad."
In business we call that, "Creating a monopoly."
There were times I recall sitting in that tiny boat with he and his big string of fish on one end and me and my empty string on the other, that I imagined myself picking up an oar and giving it a swing to see how far I could knock him out of the boat.
In business we call that, "Customer satisfaction."
So let's look at a few of the lessons I learned from those fishing trips that pertain to how you should be doing business. First off, you may recall in the last column that I mentioned that the old man had surveyed every square inch of that lake and knew exactly where the fish were hiding.
In business we call that, "Conducting market research," and if your business is new or contemplating a move into new markets, failing to conduct market research could leave you sitting in the boat with no customers nibbling at your hook.
Why do market research? The most obvious answer is to verify that there really is a market for your product or service and to determine if the market will support your efforts. A market should be large, easy to reach, and have lots of disposable cash. A market should be hungry for and passionate about the product you are trying to sell. Otherwise you will find yourself trying to build a business that caters to a market of disinterested, broke people; like selling house plants to homeless people, not a good idea.
Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of giving consideration to their product first, without worrying about who will buy the product when it's done. They come up with a great idea that they are sure the world will love without bothering to ask the world its opinion. They pour thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars into their great idea only to end up asking, "Now who will buy my wonderful new widget? Hello? Anybody out there?"
The old man taught me that you should find a pond full of hungry fish first, then come up with the bait to catch them. Remember, you succeed by giving customers what THEY want or need, not by trying to sell them what YOU think they want or need.
Identify a market first, develop the product second. Never put a dime into product creation until you are sure there is a market that will give you a dollar or more for every dime you spend. Never go on instinct and never trust your gut. More often than not you'll find that the great idea you have churning in the pit of your stomach is just gas, and not the kind that will make you money.
Fortunately it has never been easier to conduct market research. Thanks to the Internet you can thoroughly research a market with a few keystrokes. Most industries have associations that publish statistics about their market. The government publishes enough industry data to choke a horse. You can use online directories and business research tools to gather data. You can also use search engines like Google and Overture (Yahoo) to search the web for market data and gather competitive intelligence. Visit forums and newsgroups to see what people in the industry are talking about. What problems are they complaining about? What needs do they have that are not being met? What itch do they have that you can scratch?
You should also research the competition in the market you are considering.
You can learn a great deal from your competitors, such as: what are the top product lines in the market, what is the demand for goods, what are the price points, what is the range in quality, what are they doing that you can do better, etc.
And if you find there are no competitors in the market take that as a red flag. A lack of competition usually means a lack of market. Rarely does a product come along that is so revolutionary that it creates an entirely new marketplace, so keep that in mind as you do your research.
At the end of the day business, like fishing, is all about finding a pond full of hungry fish and coming up with the best bait that you can use to catch them. He who reels the most customers into the boat wins the game.
Not exactly scams but a waste of time and money --
Taking Surveys Online for Money –
There are several websites that profess to lock you into an easy money making system by which you will at your leisure take surveys for which you will be paid money.
Sounds good but they leave some important information out.
The person who will be making the most money is the person you paid to give you the information.
You may make some money, but most surveys don't pay in cash but with some other type of gimmick. Some offer you a chance to win something. Others offer you points to be redeemed for cash later.
Most of these companies will have you fill out a questionnaire as part of the sign up process. When you do that they will have already accumulated most of the data they want without having to have paid you anything. The point of the questionnaire is to give them the right demographics so that they know whom to contact when they have a survey. For example they only want people over 60 or people with children who are teenagers for the next survey.
The company will contact you when they think you fit into the right category to take the survey. You can wait months (or forever) until such a survey comes along.
So if you think that by signing up with all of these companies you will be filling out several surveys a day and making huge amounts of money, think again.
If you think you want to try this system use this FREE link. This company has one of highest ratings of by those who sign up for this sort of thing.
http://www.globaltestmarket.com/
Notice that you will have to fill out a profile and then wait until they send you surveys.
You will only earn points but when you have 1000 points you can cash them in for money. The frequently asked questions say that the points you will receive per survey depends "two factors: (1) the urgency of the test -- more urgent tests will offer higher incentives, and (2) the length of the survey. The more time required on your part, the larger the number of MarketPoints awarded."
The FAQ goes on the say that "Each MarketPoint is equivalent to 5 U.S. cents." So when you have accumulated 1000 points you will have earned $50. How many surveys will you have to complete to make that much money? How many days will it take if you are only asked to fill out a survey once every week… month… several months? Still interested?
Believe me there are better ways to waste your time on the internet!
You can believe me as well when I say that there are also better ways to make money on the Internet.
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The Data Entry Business
Falls into the same category as the Taking Surveys for Money group of businesses – a waste of your time and money for next to no return on investment. It can't really be called a scam because it is legal, and it can pay money, but not nearly the money that you will put into it in most cases.
Again, the person making the money is the one who signs you up. The one you paid to get access to the information will be the one who makes all the money. Just like the survey sites you can access this type of plan without paying someone to do it.
The ad for this type of job puts it forward that you will be paid to fill out forms. That sounds easy and straightforward, but in reality it is not that simple. The forms you will be filling out are really advertisements. Moreover, you will be the one paying for these advertisements. Why would you do that? You would because you are being promised that you will get the money back in spades. To quote one of them: "You do not need to do any selling, because these websites will handle all the orders and split the profits with you. All you have to do is type the ads online for them! These companies pay up to 50%- 75% commission = to about $15- $50+ Per Transaction you generate." Sounds good right? Well, lets see how it works out in practice.
These are the steps that you will be asked to go through:
Sign up for a Clickbank account. This is a free account. It is where you will receive your money from your sales. Yes, I did say sales, because you are doing the marketing, for these companies so they are sales.
Clickbank also has the list of merchants "needing your services". This list is also free. These are basically anyone who wants and is willing to pay you to generate sales for them. In other words do their marketing for them. Now, why would they want to do that? Why not place their own ads for themselves? Good question and you'll see why.
Next you need to open an Adwords account with Google and/or an Overture account with Yahoo. It is not exactly free to open these accounts because both companies want you to deposit money in your account to cover the cost of the ads you will be running.
Now that your accounts are set up you need to place some ads. That is the data entry part of this process. You will go to Overture, for example, login, and write a short ad. These are the ads that appear at the top and on the sides whenever you do a search for something on the web. The website will help you through the process of writing the ads: a title, description, and then keywords.
The keywords are crucial to the ad. It is the words that people will use in their search. If your keywords show up then your ad will appear on the page. They will see your ad and click on it. That's the idea anyway.
So let's assume you have the ad and it's a good one, and the right keywords. Now you have to enter your bid amount. What is this? Overture makes you bid on the amount you will pay to put the ad in. The lowest bid is 10 cents. Overture will show you the highest 5 bids. For very used keywords these bids might be very high. For example, if you were putting an ad in for work at home mom business one of your key words might be "work at home" or "mom work at home". Since a lot of searches are done on these words the bid amount will probably be very high like $1.25. That means that if you want to be at the top of the page (the first ad seen and the one usually clicked on first) you would want to bid a penny higher than the highest bid or $1.26.. What that means is that every time some one clicks on your ad you must pay $1.26.
To quote the data processing advertisement again: "These are people like you making money entering data. They are paying 5 - 10 cents per click but making $20+ for every sale." That is very misleading because only a few keywords will go for 5 to 10 cents a click, and also it takes many, many clicks before someone actually buys. How many times have you done a search and bought from the first ad you clicked on. Many people click, read, see that it isn't what they are looking for, back page and click another ad, and so on. You may have to pay for many clicks before you make one sale. When I tried this I ran about 100 keywords. The bids ran from .10 to $1.00. Only 6 of the keywords got clicked that day. One was clicked 75 times. I spent over $100 in advertising. How many sales did I make out of over 150 clicks? One sale of $23.50. That is not a lucrative business.
Think about it. If they are sending people to put ads in for many of the same businesses that they are running themselves (and those they tell you are the most high paying), all anyone is doing is running the bid rate up competing against each other. How could you expect to make money that way? The only who would would be Clickbank, it's affiliates who are paying you a commission on the sale while you pay for all their advertising (a great deal for them), and Overture.
But if you want to try this for yourself you can go to Clickbank (www.clickbank.com) , clickbank MarketPlace (http://clickbank.com/marketplace) and Overture yourself (http://www.overture.com/) and try it. Here are the websites for free. You'll need all the money you can get.
Copyright © Mary John
http://www.Online4Profit.org
Does Your Company Need Professional Translation?
Does Your Company Need Professional Translation?
Do you currently own or operate your own business? Maybe you are thinking about taking your company global; however you do not know exactly what you need to do in order to do so. In making this jump professional translation is definitely something you need to give thought. Your products are important to you, and the message you send to others needs to portrayed as so. The right company can give your product or service the credibility you need.
The selection process shouldn't be a tough decision; however there are many companies that would like to offer you this important service. In the selection process there are a few items which should be considered. Obviously getting the company that can offer competitive pricing will be at the top of the priority list. Many companies can boost their pricing and your final result may not be what you had in mind. With that said, being sure to select a company that has completed excellent work for others will need to be taken into consideration. Remember, the message you want portrayed to your international market is one of trust and credibility. If the professional translation offered is completed incorrectly your business could suffer and the whole project could be a flop.
Many credible companies which offer translation will have native workers who understand and work well with the chosen language you need.
Something which also may be helpful is to check out testimonials of pleased clients who have worked with the translation company of your choice. In doing so you will be able to follow up with those companies and see how their experience was with your desired translation service provider. Often time's companies will build themselves up to look a lot better than they really are; don't be fooled as your company could suffer from this type of decision.
You may also want to look into the credibility of the employees who work for the translation companies. Even if they can translate from one language to the next, can they do so in a grammatically correct manner? Some companies will allow you to know what credentials their employees hold, giving you the buyer a more trusted and at ease feeling when hiring them as your professional translation company.
Obviously going global or taking your products and services into other countries can be a complicated process which involves many difficult decisions. Be sure to select carefully and do the research, it always pays off in the end.
Mike Allen is an Internet Marketing Consultant for 10x Marketing. To find out more about which professional translation company you would like to use in taking your business to other countries, please visit Multiling.
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