My name is Randy Howard and my fiancé is Cathy. This is our Personal / Business web site.
We are entrepreneurs at heart and our greatest passion is to help, teach, mentor and work with others to become successful.

 

The Power of Business and the Right Way to Go About It.
Written by: Randy Howard.

Don't take action blindly based solely on the advice and information contained within this article.
It is provided to help you realize that there really is other options out there.
I encourage you to take this information and research it for yourself so that you will know that it is true before you take any actions.

 

1) – The number ONE RULE to success in any type of business is not to try and force people to do something that they don’t want to do. WHY? EVEN IF YOU KNOW THEY NEED IT, BECAUSE you will be wasting you time trying to convince them to do something. Focus on finding those who want what you have and are willing to work to get it. Spend you money and time on those individuals and you will see tremendous results.

2) The number TWO RULE to success is build relationship before sales. Get to know your prospects, customers, associates, partners, etc. etc. on a personal level. WHY? Because it takes the walls down and makes it a lot easier to find the people that qualify to have you work with them.

Let me give you a point of view – If you were to go out an sign everyone up into your business without getting to know them first you are guaranteed to find those individuals who you wish you had never got involved with in the first place. Now think about this for a moment and then ask yourself this:

‘Had I taken the time to invest in getting to know my prospects on a more personal level first before exposing them to my business I could have prevented all the wasted efforts trying to convince others to do something that they didn’t want in the first place but did so because they felt like it would help me but in the long run it actually was of no help to me because it wasted my time that I could have been spending with someone who actually wanted what I have.’

3) – The success of any business is sales. Without any sales whether it is for a product or service simply would not survive.

4) – Your product or service is not for everyone. While you may think it is, others will have a different opinion.

5) – Focused effort equals focused results! If you believe that jumping from one program to the next with the hopes of making money, you are only setting yourself up for disappointment along with wasting a lot of your time and money. There is no reason not to have multiple streams of income but you need to focus your efforts to get results. Focus on one or two programs and give it your all before saying that this does not work, it’s a scam, I’m a failure, what a waste of time and money. With focused effort you will get focused results.

6) – Business is a numbers game. The more people who are exposed to your product or service will eventually generate sales and the results that you are looking for. For example if you expose your product or service to 3000 people and only 1500 people wanted more information and out of those 1500, 750 actually bought your product or service and out of those 750, 375 re-purchased you products on occasion and out of those 375, 180 purchase your products or services on a regular basis and out of those 180, 90 want to sell your products and services and join your program and out of those 90 well say that only 10% actually do anything that’s 9 people out of 3000 that you will work with to help them produce the same results.

Using this same process, imagine if you only exposed your product or service to 100 people. Here’s the number crunch for you – 100 , 50 , 25 , 13 , 6 , 3 , 1.

Now again using the same process, imagine if you exposed your product or service to 10000 people. Again here’s the number crunch for you – 10000 , 5000 , 2500 , 1300 , 600 , 300 , 100.

As you can see the more your product and service is exposed the better the results are.

So in a nut shell it all boils down to one thing: business is all about numbers.

7) – So what business is best for you? I would have to say the one that makes you the most excited, has the decent products and or services at a fair price and provides a way to generate an income.

8) – Marketing – There are so many different ways to promote and market your business it is hard to determine where to start. I actually sat down with a pen and pad of paper and did some brain storming (A good practice to get into – you never know when a great idea will show up on your doorstep.) on different ways to promote and market my business. From the traditional to the un-orthodox methods here is my brainstorming notes and my conclusion on how and what I decided to utilize to build my business. I would like to point out that you get what you pay for. There is no guarantees that any of these methods will work for you or bring any results.
 

     a. FREE CLASSIFIED ADS – Places like Craigslist, Free for all advertising, etc. – Make these places a daily marketing function.
 
     b. PAID ADS – Magazines, Newspapers, Newsletters, etc. - If you can afford to follow this route, your marketing options are wide open. If you can not afford to do this type of marketing then wait until you can, then do some and test the results.

     c. BUSINESS CARDS – One of the best and most inexpensive methods of marketing is utilizing a business card.

     d. WEBSITES – If you have the ability to create a web site or web page you can take advantage of this benefit and stand out from the rest of the crowd. If you don’t have the ability, you can get someone to help you create one or if your business offers a team site or a replicated site for you, then you good to go.

     e. EMAIL – While this is a great method to market your business there are however some very important etiquette policies that are a MUST to be adhered to: DO NOT SPAM or SEND UCE – Spam and UCE for those who don’t know what they are it is sending your un-solicited ads or emails to people who has not requested information from you.

Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcasting media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. The most recognized form of spasm is e-mail spam however the term is applied to similar abuses such as instant messaging, usenet newsgroups, web search engines, blogs, mobile phone messaging, internet forums, junk fax transmissions, social networks, and file sharing.

E-mail spam is also know as unsolicited bulk email (UBE), junk mail, or unsolicited commercial email (UCE), it is the practice of sending unwanted email messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities to an indiscriminate set of recipients.

     f. MAILING LISTS – This is the best of all the best marketing methods. Promoting through your own mailing list. When someone requests to be put on your mailing list they are telling you that they want to hear from you, they want to learn from you, they want what you want, they are interested in learning more about what you have to offer. This is your targeted group that you are always hearing others talk about.

     g. TRAFFIC EXCHANGES – These do work believe it or not but it does take some daily effort though to make them work for you. The problem with traffic exchanges is simply the process that they use. You agree to visit other websites in exchange for credits that get used to display your website or webpage to others marketing their business. The key to using traffic exchanges is to present something from a different angle. You need to get their attention in order to get them to take action. Personal websites work best with this method.

     h. SAFE LISTS – Again these do work and like traffic exchanges it does require daily effort. The problem with safe lists is that you get so much email. A LOT OF EMAIL. You agree to receive email from the other members of the list in exchange that they agree to receive your emails as well. To help limit the number of emails that you get on a daily basis, safe list owners restrict how many emails that can be sent out on a daily basis. For example – if a safe list has 100 members then you can expect to get 50-100 emails from this list every day. The more members the more email messages you will get. Again personal websites work best with this method.

Heed my warnings – most safe lists that I have seen and are a part of have more than 100 members. Be prepared to receive a lot of email. I suggest that you set up a GMAIL Account just for your safe list use. I use Outlook with GMAIL to control every aspect of my email and marketing efforts.

CAUTION – THE MORE SAFE LISTS YOU JOIN THE MORE EMAIL YOU WILL GET!!!!!!!!!

Another downside to safe lists is that your message competes with all the rest of the messages being sent through the list.

The benefit with using safe lists is that you don’t get a spam complaints because they are a part of the safe list and one of the terms of service that must be agreed to prior to be allowed access to the list is that you agree to receive emails from the members on the list.

So why would you use safe lists? Because they do work.

     i. FORUMS-SOCIAL NETWORK SITES-USENET & OTHER MESSAGE BOARDS – These are great places to generate leads. There are some etiquette rules that apply here. You just can't simply advertise to these places. If you do you will most likely be removed from their systems and be banned from access them again.

The best way to use these types of places is to become involved with the conversations. It is ok to use a signature with these place however my suggestion is to keep it simple.

9)  Be a user of your product and services – If you don’t use your own products and services then why should anyone else use them? It is psychological that people follow and do what others are doing. I can’t explain it or why it happens except that is happens. I often tell others and this did not come from me I got it from someone else:

‘If you want to be successful you need to do what it is that those who are already successful do.’

It made sense to me and I use it all the time. Here is another one:

‘ If you don’t like were you are right now then you must do something to change it – if doing the same thing gets you the same results that you don’t like then you must do things differently to get different results.’

10)  YOU MUST TAKE ACTION DAILY – I can not express this enough. You don’t have to spend 10 – 15 or more hours a day, 30 minutes to an hour per day will get you results. You are in control of your results. The more effort you put in the more you will get out. It is as simple as that. If you expect to get results without any effort on your part then you are setting yourself up to be disappointed. Don’t do that to yourself nor does the work have to be long or tedious.

There is an old saying that again I did not create and that is K.I.S.S. – Keep It Short and Simple.

I personally complete these 10 activities and spend 1 to 2 hours each day Monday – Friday and 3 – 6 hours on an occasional Saturday but I take off Sundays and I produce decent results. You don’t have to do this you can work more or less. You’re in control of your success.

I hope that this has helped you and I encourage you to follow the advice given in this article to better your life. For some business ideas be sure to look around my website.

If you would like to earn some extra money working from the comfort of your home, let us know and we will be happy to get you started.

To your Success,

Randy Howard