scottchan

What do you need when you decide to start your own business online?

To get the ‘goose’ that lays the golden eggs, you would, among other things, need things like:

an affiliate link, a website,

a domain name, hosting, software,

FTP clients, web editors, learn C-Panel, have links and backlinks,

a sales funnel, traffic, own products or PLR products, video and/or audio products,

learn to write valuable information rich articles (information products being the biggest thing since sliced bread),

social media, branding, training, learning the art of selling and marketing (the art of selling is never to sell?),

have some designing skills or software,

learn at least some rudimentary business skills, ethics and practices,

familiarize yourself with forums,

learn how to research properly on the search engines,

get to know KEYWORDS (oh, those dastardly keywords, the bane of all online existence ), advertise on mobiles,

and on and on….…you get the picture.

Yep, you’re so right, it’s exhausting just to look at it, n’est-ce pas?

BUT:

What else might you need? Are some things more important than others? Is there a particular skill or trait which you need which will make it easier for you?

The answers might surprise you. Because everyone is different, of course there isn’t one answer for all. But some things seem to be more universal than others (all things being equal, and all that).

Today on the internet, you will be coming into contact with people, most of whom you’ve never met and have never seen. You will not have a clue as to what their backgrounds, circumstances and experiences are, what their likes and dislikes are, who they support politically or what their economic situations are, what their education levels are, what they like doing in their spare time, whether they have families or not, and most of all – you will not know what they’re looking for online. It could be one of millions of things, from money making opportunities, to car information, to education, to health advice, to holiday destinations….eesh, the list is absolutely endless.

Soooooo, what a lovely challenge it is, and will continue to be, to find out which products to market, which articles to write and how to reach people across the great divide.

This conundrum (or difficulty) can be easier for some than for others. So: what is about YOU that might make you more successful – sooner than someone else?

A good place to start would be with these fun facts: the more you know, the more you know that you don’t know much. And the older you get, the more you realize that you don’t really know anything!

My favourite is PERSPECTIVE (a mental view of the relative importance of things, standpoint, viewpoint, attitude, position, angle, outlook or approach)

Why this one? Because it encompasses range and limits of view. How do you perceive the world and the people around you? Everyone has a different frame of reference, which includes their upbringing, customs, habits, predispositions, experiences, characters and personalities. What is your unique take on life? All your thoughts and your subconscious and conscious learned behaviour cause you to do things in a certain way, to act in a certain way and to feel in a certain way. Now mix that up by more than a billion people online and eeeeekkkk….you get a mumbled jumbled unintelligible noise of mental outlooks, stances, moods, temperaments, dispositions, ideologies, mindsets, norms, predilections, emotions, sense of humour…

Now, let’s confuse this further with PERCEPTION (the ability of the mind to refer sensory information to an external object as its cause, knowledge, intuition, insight, or in plain English: what you think is true).

Thus: your perception of the perspectives your customers bring to the relationship and business deals could be as false as the differences between a puddle in your front garden and the big blue sea. Look at this for example: a cubic zirconia and a diamond both APPEAR valuable and are both sold in jewellery stores, but they are soooo not equal! Your initial perception of both would be as 2 shiny polished objects, but only knowledge and study and enquiry would reveal that one is a fake and one is of sterling unmatched quality.

So it behooves you, (it is appropriate and suitable), to keep in mind your own perspective and that of your audience – and to respect both – not easy to do, no sirree! Good luck, I say!

Have a look at some more important traits (there are obviously more):

Attitude

- Attitude towards your online business: is it a little garage hobby thingey, something easy peasy to be tinkered with for an hour or two a day, and then you work on your tan at the beach or hang at Aunt Lulu’s?

- Attitude towards your potential customers: do you see them as village idiots who will fall for any old snake oil trick and you can exploit this naïve, trusting trait or do you perceive them as really valuable, potentially recurring customers with big social influences online, to be cherished for the long term? Today people talk ALL the time, ALL over the world, and you won’t get away with shenanigans all that easily – yeah!

- Attitude towards yourself: are you committed, determined, confident, and humorous, with the ability to laugh at yourself, to forgive yourself, to believe that the world won’t immediately cease to exist if you make mistakes? And do you have the necessary grit and moxie to keep at it, to overcome inevitable humiliations, failures and setbacks? Yes, dash it – some of it is supposed to be FUUUUNNNNNNN!!

- Attitude towards learning: ach, this is true: many new would-be online marketers and networkers do not start out with business IQ’s of over 200, and have to take at least some time to learn at least some of the technology and the psychology needed to interact with others online in a mutually beneficial way.

Innovation to come up with new products and then tell everyone about it

Determination (realize that you CAN do this, you are perfectly capable)

Passion (really be enthusiastic, really LIKE what you’re doing and why you’re doing it)

Perseverance, tenacity and persistence (never ever give up, keep trucking…….don’t you quit!)

Empathy and understanding (you have to be able to feel what your customers are feeling, to put yourself in someone else’s shoes)

Focus (focus, focus and more focus, don’t lose sight of your purpose and destination)

Being goal oriented, devise strategies and short-, medium- and long term goals, then stick to them!

Integrity, honesty and the real desire to help others (believe you me, people are very savvy and will sniff out insincerity, self interest and greed lickety split, yes, really quicker than you can blink)

Being moral and ethical, reliable, principled and honourable (you deliver on your promises, or else!)

Being genuine and being genuinely YOU (there is only one of you, might as well make a big deal out of it, capisce?

Being a skilled communicator (this is probably the greatest skill of all, seeing as you are trying to communicate with so many different types of people – it reminds me of standing on a great big stage, facing a massive hall swaddled in total darkness, knowing there is a huge audience out there, but not having any idea who or what they are, or even where they’re seated, speaking your piece earnestly and sincerely, unable to tell whether they are receptive or hostile to what you’re saying. It is immensely disconcerting to have no immediate feedback in body language, eye contact or the subtle nuances in communication when seeing someone face to face. You could miss the target by miles and be blissfully unaware!)

Being organized and taking action, rather than being a procrastinator (which would probably ensure your failure faster than any other thing. Ask me how I know J)

Independence (you’ll mostly not have a boss, employees or other colleagues to keep you to your deadlines and commitments (you have to do this all on your ownsome)

Have a success mindset (no negativity allowed, you walk, breathe, talk like the successful entrepreneur and business owner you want to be – envision it so powerfully that you cannot but help become so)

Emotional Intelligence (you have to be able to control your emotions when dealing with people, be more objective than subjective – the better you are at keeping instinctive emotional triggers and reactions under control and being mature and rational, the better people will be able to trust you and believe you – THINK before you sprout your individual wisdoms to everyone and his dog J)

Knowledge and learning (you have to get to know at least something about your subject matter before you can pretend to be the expert on it, surely? Research or learning would benefit you as well as your clients. It’ll comfort you to know that it is quite difficult to unlearn something or to take your knowledge away from you, haha)

Finding the right mentor or coach - very difficult to do if you’re new or don’t have money to buy into these schemes. And just when you need it most, you’re more likely to not get it…..sigh…..

Read here for some interesting takes by Mitch Myerson and others on what they call Guerrilla Marketing:

Look at this direct excerpt from this website:

Saras Sarasvathy, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, set out to determine how expert entrepreneurs think, with the goal of transferring that knowledge to aspiring founders.

Sarasvathy concluded that master entrepreneurs rely on what she calls effectual reasoning. Brilliant improvisers, the entrepreneurs don’t start out with concrete goals. Instead, they constantly assess how to use their personal strengths and whatever resources they have at hand to develop goals on the fly, while creatively reacting to contingencies. By contrast, corporate executives—those in the study group were also enormously successful in their chosen field—use causal reasoning. They set a goal and diligently seek the best ways to achieve it. Early indications suggest the rookie company founders are spread all across the effectual-to-causal scale. But those who grew up around family businesses will more likely swing effectual, while those with M.B.A.’s display a causal bent. Not surprisingly, angels and seasoned VCs think much more like expert entrepreneurs than do novice investors.

To read more, just click here and zooooooommmmm…….you’re there