Successful Entrepreneurs


entrepreneurs3Successful entrepreneurs exude some common qualities.

  • Purpose
  • Patience
  • Persistence
  • Passion

Discover how to focus your energy to be the success you envision.

Discover the System to Success for Your Online Business

My first venture into online marketing started with the simple keyword search “online business.”

It didn’t take long until I was bombarded with a multitude of “opportunities,” each one promising an income that would enable me to fire my boss or live the life I’d always dreamed of.

My biggest initial mistake was that I continued to flit from one concept to another, never stopping long enough in any one area to become proficient or profitable. I tried dropshipping, MLM and a health food product, Clickbank affiliate marketing and online shopping malls.

Thankfully I found a blog called Ericstips.com that produced a focus through a series of FREE online videos that taught how to create a successful online business. Eric’s advice was both practical and philosophical, helping me learn many of the specifics of marketing, and also how to find the focus for the niche that was best for me. By the way, I am NOT an affiliate of Ericstips.com. I just highly recommend his blog as a great information source.

Even more critical than that discovery was finding and using SBI! which provides an outstanding SYSTEM that shows how to build a BUSINESS along with hosting and building your website.

This entire site was initially constructed with SBI! using the free video training provided and the hosting/development system they recommend.

Budget… rather a lack of one… has played a significant role in my efforts. Thus, most of my efforts have been guided by the word FREE.

Realistically, money needs to be spent on domain names and finding a reliable hosting company for a website. After that, however, I’ve literally spent none of my own money. Any paid advertising comes only out of the income that my initial ventures produce.

As I searched for my first niche, I listed the various possibilities; golf, writing, education, learning, backpacking, marketing my own book, etc.

Once more a state of mini-confusion arose, and I reasoned that it wouldn’t be possible to make reasonable profit in a realistic timeframe if I focused on any single niche.

Ethics enter the scene.

The other thing I faced was the philosophical and ethical dilemma present in selling information on how to profit from the Internet when I wasn’t yet making a profit on using the Internet.

So… after considerable internal debate, I decided to focus on diversification. It seems almost oxymoronic, but the more I analyzed my own situation, a multi-faceted approach seemed to provide the best opportunity to create a scenario that would provide a reasonable income and also give legitimate service to others.

My portfolio of online businesses now consists of the following.

  • two affilitate marketing sites – FREE
  • two online malls – FREE
  • a golf site – owned by me
  • an educational leadership site – owned by me
  • an educational communication site – shared ownership
  • several blogs – owned by me

By now I had learned some of the “secrets” of online advertising (at least as promoted by the self-proclaimed gurus) designed to work with little or no cost. They included the following.

  • article writing
  • free classified ads
  • traffic generators
  • writing blogs
  • participating in forums
  • social marketing sites
  • search engine submission
  • selected offline promotion

At first it seems chaotic when looking at doing all those events for multiple sites.

From chaos to control.

I’ve simplified the process, however, by creating my own online office. On that “office,” I’ve created links to all the places to which I write and submit. By doing that I can spend one day each week promoting one of my sites. First I do the writing of articles and ads that I plan to use for that site. Then I simply go to my online office and conduct the business of submitting the items I’ve written to the appropriate sites.

In planning for the future, I’ve already decided to keep really close records of which sites are being the most profitable and productive. Then, if one or two seem to be consistently outperforming the others, I will plan to focus even more effort on those performing sites rather than spending inefficient energy on trying to make them all equal.

Finally, at least for me, I’ve found it absolutely necessary to schedule well-defined times that are to be devoted to growing the business. For me that accomplishes two things. First, since I still have the day-job and am also currently writing two different books, the scheduling of the business time forces me to be efficient in the other realms… and still leave some time for golf! Similarly, by scheduling an ending time for working on the online business, I don’t get so engrossed in trying to become the next online millionaire that I neglect my day-job and other important things… like my family!