Today we’re going to move on to cover the basics of starting your online business.

Business basics

OK, let’s get started on the basics. Believe it or not, developing a business on the Internet is no different to building a business off the Internet. Both of them are actually very simple when you know how.

People tend to make starting a business difficult because they don’t understand, or choose to ignore, the basic rules. It is an unfortunate fact that you won’t find what I’m about to tell you in most books or courses on building a business or on marketing, which is why people are doomed to fail right from the start … and statistics show that most of them do.

OK, I know I risk losing some of you right there but stick with me. If you’re thinking this guy can’t know what he’s talking about if he thinks it’s that simple, stick with me! I told you that you almost certainly won’t have come across what I’m about to cover anywhere else before.

You see, most people start with the product. They get this idea for a product or service, often related to something that they’ve been involved with – like their job or the home, and are convinced it’s going to make them their fortune.

They then plough their hard earned savings into it or arrange funding for it and create a product or service related to it. Then they start to try selling the product and in most cases, within 1 to 2 years, the business folds.

If you think about it the very words ‘try to sell something to someone’ don’t sound right. They suggest that you are trying to get someone to buy something that they didn’t want before you approached them. Not only do you have to convince them that they now do need what you have, but that they should buy it from you.

Isn’t it so much better to find a market first, find out what that market already wants and then all you have to do is show them how much easier or better it is to get it from you? That’s what successful people do! …and remember, people don’t buy what they NEED – they buy what they WANT.

In most cases we don’t need the model of car we drive we just need something with four wheels etc. to get us from A to B. We want the car we drive for all sorts of emotional reasons which we then justify on logical grounds.

We don’t need enormous plasma TV screens or the top plan on cable TV or Caribbean cruises. We want them for all sorts of emotional reasons. We need life assurance but few people want it. We buy it when we have to, to get our mortgage or for some other reason. This is a crucial point so go back and read it again. People buy what they want not what they need.

Now although I said this method is simple, which I’m sure you can see it is, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. I would be the first to admit that it is not always easy. It does require some work, sometimes hard work, but by following the simple steps I outline here, it will be much easier than most people make it.

One of the best pieces of advice that I was given many years ago now was this – find someone that has been successful doing what you want to do and copy their success.

Whatever you want to achieve, find someone who has already done it and mirror what they have done. Find successful people and do what those successful people have done.

Irrespective of whatever it is that you would like to do, it’s almost certain that someone and probably a whole lot of people have done what you want to do.

Find out everything you can about how they did what they did and model yourself on them. Don’t be afraid to ask their advice if necessary. They can only say no and you may be surprised to find how many of them will help you out.

After all, if you wanted to become a world class racing driver wouldn’t you be better off copying the current world champion rather than your local driving instructor?

Would you ever consider going on a journey that you hadn’t traveled before without taking a map or programming your satellite navigation device?

It is hard enough to find your way sometimes with a map. How hard would it be if you tried doing it without one?

Yet, this is exactly what people do all the time in business, online or offline. They try to build their business without following a map, a clear set of instructions that is guaranteed to get them there, if they follow them.

Then, after months of trying this and that, chasing the latest greatest way to make money online, they become frustrated and quit. They are convinced that the Internet doesn’t work for them or their type of business.

The reason it didn’t work was because they didn’t pick up a map and follow it – all the way from start to finish!

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. In this series I’m given you ten steps to help you get started following the simple process I described above.

Please bear in mind that this is just an introduction to running your business on the Internet. It isn’t everything that there is to know by any means, but it will give you a basic foundation to build upon.

It is designed to be your beginner’s guide to operating any business on the Internet.

Ok, that’s all for this one. Next time we’ll look at choosing who your customer is by looking at markets, niches and why you must know the difference.

Until next time remember,

“Nothing Happens Until You Take ACTION”

Trevor

Getting Started

Of all the questions that I get asked relating to the Internet, the most common is “How do I get Started?”

I’ll cover the nuts and bolts of setting up your online business in a moment but first I want to cover something that I consider to be the most important step in setting up any business and that is what I call ‘getting your head straight’.

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to succeed at everything they do and yet others always struggle no matter what they do? Do you know anyone that seems to be ‘accident prone’? They drop things, they seem to have more accidents in their car, they tend to look on the ‘black’ side.

Many people go through their lives like this without ever considering that there may be very good reasons why this happens.

I believe that probably the greatest discovery of the 20th century was that we become what we think about. If you haven’t come across this concept before you may think it a bit strange to include it in a book about starting a business.

This concept isn’t new. Wallace Wattles described these principles 100 years ago in his book ‘The Science of Getting Rich’. These principles have been practiced by a small group of people over the years to create phenomenal results in their lives.

I have been studying these principles myself for 30 years now and the more I study the more I discover about the laws that govern everything we do in life and in the process have created a life for myself that is already beyond my wildest dreams of 30 years ago.

It’s all about attraction

Many of you will have come across the book and DVD ‘The Secret’ that has caused such a stir. The ideas that ‘The Secret’ explores are based on Wallace Wattles works and so aren’t new but they are as relevant today as they were when he wrote them all those years ago.

The basic message in The Secret is that everything we are experiencing in our lives currently we have attracted into our lives. If this is the first time you have heard this you will find it hard to take. You will think of situations that have happened in your life that you will feel you couldn’t possibly have attracted.

The fact is that whatever our lives are like we have attracted it, like it or not. The good news is that once you accept this as a fact your life will begin to change beyond anything you have ever experienced before.

These principles have been used to improve health, cure major health problems, develop substantial fortunes, build business empires and improve quality of life and personal relationships for the select few that have taken them to heart and made them a fundamental part of their lives.

There is no doubt that we attract into our lives the people and circumstances that harmonise with our dominant thoughts. If we think successful thoughts we will be successful, if we think negative thoughts we will attract negative, unhappy people and circumstances into our lives.

Just as important as our thoughts are our feelings. Our feelings are the guidance mechanisms that tell us whether we are on the right track or not. If we feel good about things our system is telling us we are moving towards our goals and if we feel bad about things we are moving away from our goals.

Good feelings include passion, happiness, belief, optimism, hope, contentment. If we feel any of these feelings then whatever we are doing to make us feel like that we should continue to do more of. Bad feelings include Boredom, pessimism, blame, anger, jealousy, hatred, revenge, worry, frustration, fear/despair, guilt. If we feel any of these feelings we are not on track and need to make an urgent change to move into the good feelings area.

Isn’t it interesting that we have more descriptions of bad feelings than we do of good ones? I believe the reason for this is because as many as 98% of people spend their lives concentrating on the things that they don’t want in their life.

The Philosopher and author, Thoreau, observed that the vast majority of people live lives of quiet desperation. How sad that is when it is possible for everyone on the planet to have, be or do anything they want once they understand and practice the basic laws of the universe.

Before getting started on any business venture I suggest you read ‘Think and Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill, The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles and look up some of the books by Bob Proctor, Joe Vitale, and James Arthur Ray to name but a few.

For many years I followed the advice of lots of the self improvement ‘Gurus’ and wrote my goals down. I made them personal, I wrote them in the present tense as if I already had them, I included minute details of my goals to make it easier to visualize them, in fact, I did everything I was being told I should do but still I had only mediocre results.

You see, what these experts weren’t telling me was that it is not just our thoughts but our feelings that attract results into our lives. What’s more this works whether our thoughts are positive or negative.

You see our mind cannot distinguish between positive and negative so if, for instance, we are thinking about getting out of debt, if we are constantly pre-occupied about all of our debt and are programming ourselves that we have no more debt, that we are debt free, we are actually not pushing it away. We are attracting more debt.

That’s why people who think they are scatty and accident prone continue to be scatty and accident prone. That’s why people work for years visualising that they are getting out of debt and yet stay in debt, and even get into more debt. That’s why we see the same patterns showing up in people over and over.

There’s a saying that the ‘Rich get richer and the Poor get poorer’. Why do you suppose that is? It’s because the rich are thinking about being rich so they get ‘more rich’ and the poor are thinking about poor so they get ‘more poor’.

Make another commitment to yourself now to think only of the life you want. Picture yourself living your new life every day as if it were already here. By picturing yourself living the life you want on a consistent basis you will be sending a message out to the universe, a positive vibration that will attract the picture into your reality.

This will be difficult at first but have faith that it will change, keep your mind on your goal and be happy and grateful for what you have in your life now, even if it doesn’t seem like you have very much right now. It’s amazing how quickly things can change when we practice an ‘attitude of gratitude’ as it is often called.

OK, that’s given you a small insight into some of the things that turned my life around and will do the same for you. Now let’s get down to some more details of getting started.

A good place to start with any business is to identify a few things about yourself. Ask yourself a few questions.

• Why did I decide to go into business?
• What are the underlying reasons for starting my own business?
• Do I need to earn a supplementary income?
• Do I want the freedom to do what I want, when I want?
• Do I hate my job and want to do something different?
• Do I wish for something better or am I determined to make a change?

• What thoughts am I holding in my mind?
• Do I have a clear picture of what my perfect life will be like?
• Do I feel emotional about it?
• Do I see myself in this situation as if it is already a reality?
• Am I in the picture or am I looking on as an observer?

If you are always an observer then your goals will always be in the future. You need to a part of your vision – taking an active part.

• What am I prepared to do to make my dreams a reality?
• How much time am I prepared to invest?
  • Hours per day or week
• What am I prepared to give up to make the time?
  • Television, pastimes, socializing etc.
• How much effort am I prepared to put in?
• Am I prepared to learn new skills?
• Am I prepared to invest/re-invest financially to make things happen?

• Am I suited to this type of business?
• Do I have the skills needed?
• Can I acquire the skills?
• Can I buy in the skills?
  • People that work ON the business rather than IN the business tend to be more successful
• Do I have the determination to keep going when things get tough?

Getting a clear picture about your motivation, your skills and your mental state will help you keep on track. The most important thing to remember is that whatever we keep in our minds on a consistent basis will determine our success or failure. Extensive research has proved that our success tends to have little to do with our education, or ability but everything to do with the thoughts we hold in our mind.

Some of you may feel that this chapter has little to do with starting an Internet business. You may be thinking that all you want to do is learn the steps to take to get your online business going now.

I can understand you being impatient, especially if you have tried lots of other business opportunities before. Hopefully you will take the points that I have made in this section to heart because they really are the keys to success in anything you do now and in the future.

Next time we’ll start working on our business basics. The simple steps you need to take to get your business off the ground

Until then, work on the principles I’ve outlined here and remember

“Nothing Happens Until You Take ACTION”

Trevor

I promised last time that I would begin taking you through the simple steps you need to take to get started, so let’s get going.

Being able to do what you want when you want is difficult to describe, especially when you’ve had to struggle for most of your life. That’s what I want for you and the information that I going to lay out here will set you on the right track towards achieving that.

Activate your dreams

Imagine for a moment that it is tomorrow morning and you are just waking up. If you were able to do anything that you wanted, what would your day look like? What time would you get up? Are you an early riser or would a long lie in be the way you would start your day?

What would you do with your day? Maybe you would go for a healthy breakfast followed by a light workout at the gym and mid-morning coffee break to read a book or newspaper for an hour or so.

Maybe you would choose something completely different. Maybe a morning’s golf with your friends is more your idea of your perfect day, or maybe a leisurely stroll around the shops with your partner would be your choice.

The important thing to realise is that it is your choice. The other important thing to realise is that this need not be just a dream. You can be, have or do anything that you want. By activating your dreams and using the potential of the Internet anything you can imagine can be yours. We’ll also cover more of this later.

It has been the dream of many of us over the centuries to be able to live the life we want without strain or pain. Unfortunately, a regular job is unlikely to provide the answer to that desire. The ‘system’ is designed to make the business owners and shareholders rich not the employees.

The only way to take control of our lives and develop the freedom to do what we want when we want is to run our own business. This has spawned a whole industry which is generally referred to as the ‘Business Opportunity’ industry.

Most of us are bombarded with an endless stream of ‘opportunities’ of one sort or another on a weekly or even daily basis. In amongst the scams there are many items that provide an excellent potential to create a good part-time or full-time income.

These opportunities include MLM/Network Marketing, franchises of all sorts, gambling/betting systems and products sold through direct mail to name but a few.

The development of the Internet has opened up a whole new area of opportunity for building our own business and increasingly over the last ten to fifteen years people have been looking at the internet as a means of providing them with a solution to their dreams of a prosperous and happy life.

There are just a few simple steps to creating your own online information business in the shortest possible time which I am going to outline in this and future posts as we work through the process together. What I’m going to cover is based on my own hands-on experience and will ensure that you avoid many of the common mistakes . The steps I outline here are the exact steps that I still use to contribute towards a regular income from the Internet, something that I have been doing for the past five or six years now.

If you follow my advice and work at it systematically and stick with it there is no reason why you shouldn’t be earning the equivalent of a full time income within 6 months. However, having said that, I can’t guarantee your results because I don’t know you.

It is a sad fact that as many as 95% of the people who read this or any other course, ebook or training workshop will do nothing with it. Having downloaded an ebook, many of them will save it to their hard drive and forget that they even downloaded it. A few more will print it off, put it on a shelf to read later and forget about it. Most people forget what they learned on a course or seminar within 48 hours and do nothing.

I can’t help those people unfortunately. Unless you take action on the help and advice that I provide, nothing will change. In 6 months time you will still be where you are now and that will be a real shame when things could be so different if you just take action.

I want you to make a promise to yourself now that you will not let this happen to you. In fact, go get a pad of paper and your favorite pen or pencil now, go on – this post will still be here when you get back.

OK, did you get some paper and something to write with? If you didn’t, go do it now because this is important.

Right, that’s better. Now starting at the top of the paper write;

I, insert your name here, do make a solemn promise to myself today, (insert the date here).

I will work through this valuable information step by step and take action on the points covered at each stage. I will continue to work on the system outlined here through to completion.

I will refuse to give up or let anything distract me or put me off until I have completed one income stream and started to see income from it. Only then will I consider starting work on a second income stream.

I will continue this process to develop multiple income streams until I reach the level of success that I deserve.

Signed; sign your name here.

OK, that’s it. You’ve made a promise to yourself that you will do this. You’ll stick to it until you make it work. There are thousands of people like you that have made a commitment to themselves to change their lives and are now living the Internet lifestyle, the life of their dreams.

Now I know that some of you will already have switched off because you want an instant solution. Don’t be one of them, this step is vital. I can’t stress this enough. Whether you believe it or not for anything to happen in our external world it first MUST happen internally. If we think of ourselves as a tree then our physical appearance, what’s happening in our life, our experiences are like the trunk, the branches, leaves and fruit of the tree.

BUT, in order for there to be growth above the ground, more branches, new leaves, fruit in season, growth from a seedling to a big oak – something has to happen at the roots, covered up where we can’t see them. If you chop off a branch, it will grow again but if you kill the roots the tree will die.

Similarly with us, in order for things to change in our life (the part we see) we have to change our thinking (the part we don’t see, the roots). Unless we change our thinking buying every ebook or course available won’t make a bit of difference. We will continue to sabotage ourselves over and over again.

Don’t wimp out on this, it’s vital. If you have any doubt’s about this head over to Amazon and get yourself T Harv Eker’s book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind – it will change your life.

Tomorrow we’ll take this to the next stage,

until then remember,

“Nothing Happens Until You Take ACTION”

Trevor

How do you eat an elephant?

You may have heard that one before and maybe not. Either way it does have relevance to what we’re going to be covering here.

In my last post I asked how prepared you are for tough times. Too many people are only one pay day away from real suffering if that pay day was suddenly removed, something that is happening to a growing number of families at the moment. But it needn’t be that way. People all over the world are discovering some very simple ways that the Internet now provides for adding some extra income and even replace that 9 – 5 merry-go-round that they’re on.

Today I want to start you on the road to financial freedom so that you are not reliant on a regular paycheck coming in.

So, why am I asking you the question ‘how do you eat an elephant?’ and what the heck does it have to do with your financial freedom? Well, I’m going to tell you but first we need to cover some key points that most Internet Marketing coaches shy away from. The reason that the majority of teachers of Internet Marketing do not cover these points is because people don’t want to hear them. They are often feeling acute pain from mounting bills and diminishing income and want a magic bullet, a cure-all pill to take the pain away.

… and I can understand them feeling like that, I’ve been there myself not that long ago so I know how it feels. What I found though was as soon as I changed my approach, my attitude, things started to change for me and I haven’t looked back since.

So to begin with I want to talk about mindset, your mental attitude. Now bear with me here, I know this isn’t sexy like social networking or driving traffic or the latest greatest way to get on the first page of Google but it is crucial to your success in anything – online or any other way. I know it isn’t included in most Internet Marketing courses that you buy and I believe that it not being there is responsible for the many failures online.

So what am I talking about here. When you start any business there are some key things that you need to identify right at the beginning.

What do you want to achieve?

It is really important to have a very clear picture of what you want your business to look like when it’s done. How much income per month does it need to provide. If it needs to replace your current income identify what that is and write it down. If it needs to provide some additional income alongside your job write down what that is. Some people enjoy their job and don’t want to give it up but some additional income would provide a better lifestyle. The most important thing here is that you need to be specific. ‘More money to pay the bills’ isn’t specific, ‘I want to be rich’ isn’t specific. How much you need to pay the bills is, it needs to be $x per month (or pounds or whatever your currency is). If you want to be rich, identify what rich is, what does that mean in terms of income, money in the bank etc. what is it.

When do you want to achive this by?

Having decided how much money you want to generate the next stage is to identify when you want to achieve it by. Now I know if you are struggling you want to achieve it by NOW. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen despite what many of the emails you receive tell you. It can happen very quickly but I don’t want to sell you a line that it can happen overnight when the truth is it will take some time if you’re starting from scratch.

Set realistic goals and you will achieve them quicker than you could ever imagine.

Stay focused

The biggest problem we face today is overload. We are bombarded with one offer after another of the latest greatest thing that’s going to make you money overnight. When you need money NOW it is very difficult to stay focused on one thing. So you identify a product or system that will provide you with a route to making money, buy it, download it to your hard-drive and are determined to get going with it.

Then you get another email that promises faster, better results and off you go again. All too often I find people who just end up going round and round this money-making merry-go-round like a hamster on a wheel, and 6 months, 12 months or years later they are still where they started but more broke, more dissolutioned and sick and tired of trying.

Too much to do

The volume of email that we’re getting now all telling us the techniques we must use to be successful have another impact. … and that brings us back to our elephant. How do you eat an elephant – well one bite at a time is the answer. Faced with a mountain of things that we feel we need to do to be successful it’s too easy to do nothing. We freeze like a rabbit in the headlights of an on-coming car and put off getting started on our road to financial freedom.

Getting started online is actually very easy, if you take it one step at a time. When I coach my clients I teach them the one-step at a time method.

Next time, I’ll begin taking you through the simple steps you need to take to get started.

Until then Remember,

“Nothing Happens Until You Take ACTION”

Trevor