Most bloggers start writing because they have a strong interest and passion for a specific topic. They either are already subject matter experts (SMEs) or develop in that direction over time. This is of cause essential as readers will be able to find useful information on the blog and they will like to come back for more. However many SMEs tend to provide information as they see it from their perspective and one of the biggest mistakes they often practice is writing about themselves, their expertise and experience. Internet Marketers in contrast does not talk about themselves that much and have learned to focus on providing solutions to problems other people desperately need to solve. They have also learned that understanding the needs of the customer and talking their language is essential. In many cases this requires you to put away the proud SME you have inside and keep your solutions very simple and basic for e.g. beginners. Use your deep knowledge and experience in you SME field to pick out what is important at a given stage and hold back advanced stuff until you know that your audience can cope with it. Another key element of this shift is to really understand the driver potential customers have. Some marketers work with the terms surface desire and core desire. The surface desire is what people think they need and the need they communicate. However there is typically a core desire to which is a lot more powerful and essential the key to making customers take action. Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you are a active angler. You have decided that you just need the new fancy super powerful bait for a fishing competition in the weekend. The surface desire is to get the bait but the core desire probably is to pull in a monster size fish to make everyone in the club think you’re good. Trying to understand and provide solutions that address the core desire is a powerful way to make an income online. This can be by selling other peoples products as an affiliate or by selling your own products.
Shift Your Mindset from employee to entrepreneur
Starting any kind of business is challenging and requires a lot from you also if you choose to build your business around internet opportunities. e.g. a blog. A very important personal things you need work with is shifting your mindset from thinking as an employee and learn how to think like an entrepreneur. Why is this so important? Because you will not be able to work your way through unless you put away the habits and expectations that employees typically have. The hardest part is probably to get used to create a lot of value for others while not necessarily getting anything back in the beginning. The employee mindset is used to work x hours and then get the reward. This is not how it works for an entrepreneur. Results may be huge for those who are patient, but it is really hard to accept if you’re in it simply for collecting quick money. If you produce high value because it is your passion to do so this is a reward in itself. However is you deliver true value money will flow your way. Another key point is to focus on the results you create. It is of cause good and necessary to work hard but it’s not the work itself that will make you wealthy. Note that working hard without reaching your goals will be complete waste of your time and efforts. You need to have a strategy and be aware of your short and long term goals e.g. 30 days, 3 month and a year. Planning and measuring your ability to reach your defined goals is critical for any business even if you are just you and yourself…Shift Your Mindset from Perfectionist to tester
OK this is the last mindset shift I will cover in this article. Going online with anything puts you in front of millions of people and I know it can be scary. However being a perfectionist because you are scared that people may not like what you are doing is one of the worst blockers to success. You see it is a dynamic market and you just have to jump in and learn. Working on your project for too long to make it perfect may risk that it is obsolete when it is finally ready. Therefore you need to become a true tester and constantly figure out what works right now, what makes your ideas and products profitable.
Keep it simple and fast and see if the concept works. If it does you may want to improve it and invest more of your time in areas like automation. Finally you have to accept that you cannot do everything yourself. Again it can be hard to give responsibility away and delegate important tasks to others e.g. outsourcing. However it is one of the most important elements in being able to scale your business and therefore to make it seriously profitable.
Hope you can use this advice and that it will make you more profitable in year 2011+. If you have other tips and ideas for becoming a successful online businessman I strongly urge you to leave us a comment. To your success!
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