Many people who start out online have pretty limited budgets to work with. It’s kind of a catch 22. At some point, you need to invest some money into building your online business so that you can generate sales, but you need to generate sales to get money so that you can invest in your business.

Most people will jump into marketing online for a couple of reasons.

1. They hate their J.O.B., and / or
2. They need / desire more money.

The barriers to entry for an internet based business is much lower than starting a traditional ‘brick & mortar’ type business offline.

I remember wayyy back in the day when I started my electronics shop. It was a major deal to get set up. There was finding and renting the retail space, getting a business phone, an occupational license, utilities, FAX machine, Cash Register & the Point of Sale stuff to go with it, signs, inventory, equipment, vendors… I could go on for days!

All of this was not cheap, and on top of all that, you don’t even know if the venture’s going to succeed or not. An online business, on the other hand can be started literally the same day for around 20 bucks! Even zero cash if you’re a little creative.

Also, if you need free traffic, you can put in a little ‘sweat equity’ such as article writing, blog carnival submissions, etc and get free traffic right to your virtual doorstep. Yet even with this incredible opportunity of starting out on a shoestring, so many are still slammed by the challenges of actually succeeding in their business.

How is it that starting an internet business can be so darn cheap, give you exposure to a worldwide audience like never before in the history of mankind, yet be so tough for so many to succeed? It’s kind of mind boggling when you think of it.

As mind boggling as it may seem, the real answer is really pretty simple. Lack of focus. 98% start out online with the wrong mindset. The vast majority are not entrepreneurs, they’re opportunity seekers.

An entrepreneur has a plan. An entrepreneur will focus on one specific objective to generate revenue. He / she will create a business system of proven techniques that can be constantly tweaked and improved. They understand that success is arrived at incrementally through consistency. They know how to scale up their successes and shave off the failures.

An opportunity seeker will buy the latest and greatest method to making a million dollars overnight. They will learn all about it, try it, and when it doesn’t work the first time around, dump it and buy the next shiny object that passes their way. The opportunity seeker doesn’t really have any focused plan.

Like a tumble weed, they just drift from one opportunity to the next looking for that golden egg that surely must be out there somewhere. While the opportunity seeker is waiting for their ship to come in, the entrepreneur is building their own ship to sail.

While the opportunity seeker is spending money all the time (and getting little to nothing in return), the entrepreneur is making money. When something doesn’t produce an instant result, the op-seeker dumps it for another opportunity. The entrepreneur does their homework. They will tweak and test their methods for measurable results over time, knowing that some things need to build momentum before showing a positive result.

Do you have a plan of action? Do you follow through? Do you give yourself deadlines and meet them? Do you love improving the lives of your customers by selling them your products? If you can answer yes to these basic questions, you are very likely in the exclusive 2%.

If you find yourself in a constant spiral of info overload, surfing the forums for that elusive magic trick that’s going to make it all “click” one day, then I’m afraid that you are still in op-seek mode. You still have the J.O.B. mentality. Not to worry, there’s hope. You can turn it all around with a simple desire to act.

Here’s your new mantra to get you pointed in the right direction. FOCUS – BUILD – SELL

If you don’t have a website yet, then start one today! Right Now, and follow the mantra above. This will be your first step to success. Oh, and you don’t have to shell out a fortune to have it built either. You can get my complete course on how to build an awesome website using WordPress which is a FREE open source CMS. This blog is built on WordPress.

Creating a professional looking website will be the perfect start to developing your entrepreneurial mindset (focus & build). In the future, you can have others do it of course, but for now you need to build that mindset, grasshopper… FOCUS – BUILD – SELL.

You can get the complete Red Hot Mini-Sites with WordPress, course by clicking below:

http://www.declareyourday.com/redhotminisites/

A vast majority of us who venture into online business have one real goal in mind…

In the beginning, you may think that your desire is simply for extra money, or maybe its because you just don’t want to worry about money. Perhaps your goal is to be filthy rich. But is money really what you are after?

When you think about it, money is really just a tool. The more you have, the more that you can accomplish. It gives you to power to do what you want when you want.

It gives you the ability to travel, to purchase things that make your life more comfortable. It can allow you to spend more quality time with your family. It gives you the power to tell your boss to stick it where the sun don’t shine… It is liberating. And the list goes on.

Many realize (often too late) that their true core desire is freedom. Having this goal defined in the beginning will allow you to create systems in your business that will keep you out of the trenches, so that your business can grow faster while freeing you up to enjoy the finer things in life.

A prosperous business can ultimately give you freedom if you structure it that way. Your business can be your ticket to freedom, or it can be your master and jailer.

Way back in the day when I was living out of my car in Virginia Beach, I was able to wander around and walk the beaches, as if I was truly free. There was just one catch… this wasn’t the way that I wanted to live out my life.

Without money, my options were really limited. On the one hand, I loved the freedom of not answering to anyone or anything, but on the other hand, I was imprisoned by my circumstances. Scarcity was my mindset, and as a direct result, scarcity then became my reality.

Our business can become a prison too if freedom was our core desire, and we didn’t have this goal defined from the start. When you get started, really drill down and get in touch with your core desire, so that you can shift into the right direction from the beginning.

Are you working 16 plus hours a day trying to scrape a living out of your business? If so, you’re probably using the wrong systems (unless you enjoy working 16 + hours a day).

Don’t be a hero. You can duplicate the things that make you money in your business by outsourcing it to other people. Would you spend $500 in a month to have someone make you $2000 or more?. Would you then spend $5000 to make $20,000 or more?

Of course! Getting rid of the “no one can do it better than me” mindset, and stepping away is one of the best ways to really multiply your business.

The most you can work yourself is about 60 to 80 hours a week with a guaranteed burnout in the end. By outsourcing, you can get hundreds or thousands of hours accomplished in the same amount of time!

…Just a little something for you to ponder.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, then the first thing that you might be thinking after seeing the title is “yeah, I know Jack, there is no secret, no magic bullet, I’ve heard it before.”

Well, it seems that there IS a secret. This secret was so well hidden that even I never spotted it right away.

No, it wasn’t stashed in a secret vault deep underneath the Pentagon. It was actually hidden in plain sight.

I’ve taken many journeys through the net over the years trying to reverse engineer why one person would use a certain color in their headlines, and that person would use long copy in their sales letters while others used short copy.

Some have started using “video only” sales letters. Some videos start automatically and have no controls for the users to pause it, or skip ahead. Some videos have the controls left in so people can skip ahead, or pause.

I’ve seen the debates as to why this it the absolute WORST way to do it, while others staunchly defend their positions because their conversions have skyrocketed because of it.

So what’s the deal? Are those people that hate video sales pages in the majority, or simply a vocal minority?

Still, others have found that they get much better conversions with printed copy than they do with video. Man!, why all the conflicting information?

On the surface, none of this really makes a lot of sense. Maybe nothing works… maybe everything works. Okay, I’m not trying to give you a headache, and you might be wondering what this has to do with “the big secret”.

This secret actually gets more profound the more you think about it. Incorporate this simple philosophy into your mindset, and your business will love you for it.

The secret is that your business is as individual as you are. Your business is a reflection of you. When others view your sales pages, read your articles, forum posts, see your products & reviews, your personality is being ingrained into all of it.

You may, by nature be a little introverted, so maybe people relate to your hard copy better than someone who has the “video” personality. As a result, your copy will do much better than your video pages, because your true persona is expressed best via this medium.

As a result, it is a hundred times more powerful than your video pages. By contrast, the other guy’s personality may be oriented in the opposite direction and get a hundred times better results with video in the very same market.

So the key here is this: It’s always good to emulate successful marketers in order to understand the components of a successful website, BUT… and this is the “but” that nearly everyone misses…

It may not work for you because, not only do you not know the history behind that technique (why its being used), but you also have to ask yourself, does it fit in with my persona?

Testing is the bottom line. You may find out that you have a knack for making video presentations. Maybe you think that you sound like a moron, only to find out that others who listen to you love you!

The same may be true for writing. Without testing, you would have never known, because we are almost always perceived differently by others, than how we perceive ourselves.

So in a nutshell – emulate others only to get the foundation of the basics, but be true to yourself as you build. Express your business by expressing yourself, and the results you get will be pure gold.

Running an online business can be challenging, especially in the beginning when you are trying to find your bearings as to where to go and what to do next.

Probably among the biggest mistakes that online marketers make is allowing too many non-productive tasks into their working schedule.

Here are 5 things that you should unload right now so that you can get on track to making that serious bank and growing a healthy online business.

Forums – Forums are a great place to interact with others in your market, form joint ventures, pick up valuable advice (sometimes), and to gain exposure in your market as an authority.

So why are Forums at the top of this list? Because during your working hours, you need to stay the bleep out of the forums and concentrate on the tasks at hand.

Don’t allow yourself into the forums during your working time! Unless there’s a specific purpose, surfing the forums must always be reserved for being outside of your working schedule.

How many times did you decide that today you were going to do a big push on driving traffic, creating a report, etc, only to end up checking in on the forums (“real quick”) to see what’s new?

Let’s be honest with ourselves, because we’ve all done it… before you know it, the day is half shot and now the momentum is losing steam on all those great accomplishments that were going to get done today.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day… or is it?

TV – Television is one of the greatest killers of dreams out there, especially when you are starting your new venture and developing your self-discipline.

This mindless programming does nothing but instill in you a loser mindset. TV exists as an advertising and propaganda medium to keep the sheeple in check and obedient to various agendas across the spectrum.

Don’t allow this electronic vampire to suck your precious life experiences out of you. You’ve been robbed long enough… and you’ll never get that time back again. Don’t watch life, live it!

Skip the TV for a week and see just how creative your mind starts to get. Your business (and bank account) will love you for it.

Email – Huh? But you NEED email to run your business, answer support inquires, etc. Yeah, that’s generally true, but there’s a time and a place.

Many will use “checking the email” every 5 minutes as a desperate attempt to escape the possibility of failure by floundering away their time, which ironically enough guarantees failure!

Maybe there will be a cool new opportunity… “inside info” on how some guy named Frankie made it big in MLM.

By investigating this, you’ll still be “busy” because you’re pursuing something… right?

Telephone – During our working times, we need to eliminate as many distractions as possible. The telephone can totally screw up your game when you’re trying to focus on something important, especially things like making videos, writing articles or sales copy, etc.

During these times, I turn off the ringer until I’m ready to accept calls again. If someone has anything important to say, they’ll leave a message.

Aunt Martha – If you’ve reached the point where you have left your J.O.B., or you are working on your internet business in your spare time, you may find that one of your biggest challenges is how to stave off the time vampires.

It’s great to have friends and family, and by all means, we need to spend time with them and appreciate having them in our lives. However, during our critical working hours, they must respect that you need this time to yourself so that you can realize your dreams of a better life for you and those you care about.

Let people know that during the hours of * and * on x days of the week you are not available for anything because you are working. Even though you are home, it is still your place of business.

There are more things I could rattle on about, but these 5 I especially wanted to touch upon.

The main point of ridding yourself of these distractions during your working time comes down to one thing… managing your time effectively.

Think of it this way, when you run a Pay Per Click campaign, you track what keywords convert and which ones don’t. You then eliminate the dud’s and ramp up on the profitable ones.

It works exactly the same way with your time. Track all the different things that you do during your working hours and see which activities are actually building your business and which activities amounted to nothing, costing you potential revenue.

Now cut out those dead weight activities and ramp up the ones that are really productive and actually build your internet business.

You’ll be absolutely stunned at how quickly your business turns around when you start feeding it a nice healthy diet of productive activities.

Here is a comprehensive list of all the things that you can’t do or become in the next year:

Have a very happy & prosperous new year!

The Law of Attraction was in full swing a couple months ago when an old friend appeared in my facebook friend requests seemingly out of nowhere.

It was none other than the infamous Geltdrakken! As I learned once from one of the Three Amigos, “infamous” means “more than famous” of course.

I’ve known John since way back into the mid-eighties. Somehow we lost touch over the years & I always wondered in the back of my mind what ever became of John.

John is one of those rare people who has a brilliant mind and a bizarre, but really great sense of humor. In other words, he’s a heck of a lot like me.

If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, you’ll know that I tend to go off on tangents about the quantum nature of our perceived universe and how this directly correlates to your ability to create any future that you desire.

Here is an exerpt from one of his posts:

“comprehend a universe, that exists simultaneously as a singularity and an infinite space all in one moment. IT is impossible without a greater set consisting of an inner consciousness and an extant factor to withhold it in apprehension.

Right?”

Of course I had to throw in my two cents – “Consciousness is necessary to facilitate the illusion of infinite space…
And why does the universe appear to be exapnding? Because we are observing it!

-Jack“

His new blog is located at http://geltdrakken.blogspot.com and has nothing to do with internet business. John is an excellent writer and you may find his material interesting, bizzare, or it may simply piss you off depending on your current stage of evolution.

Welcome to the blogosphere John!

Often times I hear people tell me that they are working on building their online business. So many people are “working” on creating their product, but don’t have one. Many are “working” on their business, but don’t yet have one.

Others are in a perpetual planning stage. I know one person (That’s you Rob!) that’s been “working” on building a business for well over a year now, and still has nothing to show for it.

Either you have a business or you don’t. Imagine if you were perpetually “working” on getting a drink of water, but never actually took a drink? Within a few days you would end up as a dehydrated carcass sprawled out on the sidewalk with some stray dog gingerly picking at your good parts.

To get that vital life sustaining fluid into your body, first you get a signal from your body that says “hey, I need water!” Instinctively, we respond by taking an action to get up, walk over to a water source, pour it into a glass, and then put it to our mouth, and drink it.

The result is that our body is now satisfied and can continue to function in a normal fashion. It wasn’t rocket science. We didn’t spend all our time in some forum asking what is the best way to get the best glass of water in the shortest amount of time.

Are you were addicted to the rush of getting in on the latest & greatest money making systems, traffic strategies, internet marketing tools, etc, but never actually do anything with them? Maybe you try one or two of the nuggets that appeal to you, then when you don’t get the desired results, you totally abandon it and move on. Well, you’re not alone. At least 98% of new marketers out there do this time and time again, all the while building an arsenal of valuable, but useless information on their hard drives.

Remember, The value of information is directly proportional to its application. Consuming the info is only half of the equation. Think of it this way… everything you have ever accomplished, no matter how big or small started as a vision or an idea first. Locked away within you, it was pure potential which hadn’t yet manifested itself into the physical world. It was your conscious decision to act that made it reality.

Why did it become reality? Was it because you were focused on making it work? This could have been something as simple as putting together a jigsaw puzzle. When you tried putting the first two pieces together, no doubt you were putting the wrong pieces together many times before you found the one that fit.

Suppose after that first failed attempt to fit that puzzle piece with it’s matching piece, you gave up and tossed the whole jigsaw puzzle. Suppose you were halfway finished but you tossed it because the picture still wasn’t complete. Now you’re off to get a new jigsaw puzzle and start over again hoping for better, quicker results. Rinse & repeat this a few times. Look at all that time & effort that has gone out the window time and time again.

This is exactly what most do in their online ventures. If this is your conundrum, you need to break out of this cycle. Now is the time to start with that first piece and build your momentum. Someday is today!

Don’t have a website yet? Did you know that can build a professional looking website that search engines love in just a few hours without knowing HTML or using an expensive website builder?

My Red Hot Mini-Sites with WordPress course will show you how. WordPress is best known as a blogging software, but I will show you how to use it for making websites. Best of all, WordPress is FREE and its easy to manage.

Now you have the power to stop “working” on building a business. Now you can just build it. Next you’ll need a guiding hand to get your business moving. The Jack Keifer Newsletter will soon be available. In the newsletter, I will be revealing valuable information every month that I don’t share publicly. If you like the free information on this blog, you’re going to love the Jack Keifer Newsletter.

I will also be announcing some very valuable perks that will be included for all my newsletter subscribers. Okay, now you’ve got a plan. Get that website built or upgraded today, then join me on a virtual road trip via my newsletter on an exciting journey to a successful online business !

Everyday it seems that I just become more and more popular by the second. I have many prestigious people just dying to throw huge sums of money my way!

Its true, and not one of them is interested in my products or my businesses. They just want to endow me for reasons completely unrelated in fact, to my internet business.

Just today I was contacted by the great Barrister Sir John Charles himself who informed me that I am entitled to $10 million U.S. dollars which was left behind by a family of 6 who were all tragically killed in a car accident, rest their poor dear souls.

Since there are no family left to claim the inheritance, I have been lucky enough to have been chosen by the great Barrister, Sir John Charles to receive this most generous gift. Simply give him access to my bank account and its a done deal!

Then there’s Publishers Clearing House who chose my email ID for £560,000.00, The United Nations Compensation Board (10K a day), the 2010 World Cup Lottery for a cool million, Shell Oil is sliding 250k my way for a random lottery drawing, and the World Court is finally compensating me $5.5 Million USD for some injustices done to me in some previous lifetime. To you Mr. Thomas Buergenthal from The International Court Of Justice I thank you for all the time and effort that you have dedicated, making this your personal crusade to right a terrible wrong done to me, whatever it was.

In total, I raked in over $46 Million in a single day… In your face John Reese & Frank Kern!!!

I never realized how lucrative just checking my email could be. Maybe you really CAN make millions with no website, no product and no work!

Of course by now you’ve probably figured out that I’m referring to those infamous emails most commonly known as the Nigerian Scammers Spam.

Hopefully, if you receive this type of horsecrap in your inbox that you totally ignore these. Normally they go straight into my trash bin, but knowing that this stuff is all B.S., it was a great source of entertainment and got me laughing a number of times. I just had to share some of it with you. Up another notch on the blacklist filter, LOL.

Remember, NEVER reveal bank info, passwords or any sensitive information EVER, even if the email looks legit. Real companies such as your bank, Paypal, etc. will NEVER ask you to verify your password or Account info for any reason whatsoever.

-Just a friendly reminder.

It’s easy to dream that dream of the internet lifestyle isn’t it?

Picturing yourself walking the beaches of Hawaii on a gorgeous sunlit afternoon.

Or driving your new Porsche convertible down to your old workplace just to rub it into your ex-boss’s smug face…

Ah yes!… the list could go on for days and days.

But then reality sets in as you’re rudely snapped back into reality by a flick on the ear from your boss who tells you to stop dreaming & get back to work.

I remember back in my school daze, many times just as I was about to save the world from an asteroid strike, or escape from a Russian gulag to get those secret plans back to CIA headquarters, a teacher would rudely burst my dream bubble with a resounding “Keifer! Wake up and pay attention!” Hmmmpf! The nerve… really!

As an entrepreneur, my single greatest challenge even to this day is keeping that focus and self-discipline on building my business.

Here’s the dilemma that I see with most online marketers.

People want to start an internet business that will involve no work, but yield a huge payout, with the first million arriving by… oh let’s say next week. That’s pretty reasonable….NOT.

Okay, how about this? Work just a few hours a week and make $10,000 a month. $10k a month seems to be the standard buzz quote by the so-called gurus.

So is this one realistic? Well, yes & no. You can make a handsome income while working a small number of hours a week (or hardly at all if you do it right), but hardly likely in the beginning.

It takes a lot of work to get your business to that level. Oh, there’s that word again. You know, the “W” word.

The turning point in my business came on the day that I decided to treat my online business like a business.

Really, until you stop thinking of this as a hobby, or that “side thing for extra money”, you’ll likely never get to where you would like to be.

You see, it’s easy to stay in your comfort zone and just work that J.O.B. everyday while at the same time wishing that you had the lifestyle of the online entrepreneur.

It’s easy to ‘dabble’ in the magical arts of IM while keeping on the cuffs for the man.

When you’re ready to really build that online business, and really commit yourself to a focused plan of action – then you have to be willing to remove those cuffs and dive straight into the rabbit hole.

That’s right, once you take that dive there’s no looking back. It’s into the vortex of a new reality, a new future.

C’mon down! It’s an amazing journey you’ll never forget.

One of the biggest online business killers that I know of is the “infinite doodle loop cycle”

We’ve all been caught in this, myself included. Your’re caught in writer’s block, or maybe you lack solid procedures in your business, so you don’t know what to do next.

As a result, instead of accomplishing anything constructive, you’re surfing the forums hoping that someone is going to share that magic formula that just made them rich overnight with no effort. By the way, don’t count on it.

Other common feedback loops include:

• constantly checking your emails for something… anything.
• Checking your web stats every 15 minutes
• Taking long time-outs to watch TV, hoping your mind will be fresh with ideas when you come back (if you come back).
• Going back into the forums again… maybe that “secret sauce” has been revealed since you checked 10 minutes ago.
• Making paper airplanes & throwing them out the window, hoping that your business will build itself.

You can keep yourself very busy with all of this activity. Most marketers even deceive themselves into thinking that something is actually being accomplished. Perhaps in the name of education.

So, how do we break out of this cycle?

The first basic step is to identify why you’re not doing anything to begin with. Is it because you are lost as to what to do next? Maybe you’re frustrated because what you are doing is not working. Perhaps you’re disorganized, or overwhelmed.

When you understand what category you fall into, then it’s time to make a quick action plan to break out. This doesn’t have to be complicated, it only needs to take a few minutes to work out.

Let’s say you’re overwhelmed from information overload. Take a step back and see what you have done so far. Don’t try to do it all at once. Just define your next step and then do it. After that, repeat.

The most important thing you can do is develop procedures in your business, and follow them. I know, this sounds complicated, but it really isn’t.

Just write down (or make a video of) anything that you currently do in your business. Write them in a way that anyone else could follow if they were reading or watching them for the first time.

Are you using Pay Per Click to test out campaigns? Document how you do it. Are you submitting articles to various directories and getting results? Write down how you do it and where you are submitting to.

Make everything you do a documented procedure, right down to approving blog posts or posting to forums.

You’ll be surprised how many procedures that you come up with, just from what you are doing right now. From here, you need to make a schedule of when to follow each procedure.

Some of them every day, & maybe some once a week, whatever the case may be. If you have a set of procedures, then you have a proven set of techniques that you can follow every day to constantly build your business.

You should always be tweaking your procedures to give you the absolute best results. This will compound itself when practiced across all your procedures.

Now that you have systems in place, you will be perfectly positioned when you are ready to outsource your more tedious tasks. The systems will already be in place, so that members of your team can easilly follow them without the need to be bothering you every 5 minutes for direction.

To get the best out of building your business, you should follow a proven plan. I would recommend getting an experienced mentor. This is without a doubt the quickest & most sure way to build your business while avoiding the common and often costly mistakes that go along with internet business.

I’ve often been asked about offering mentoring. I’ve often considered offering this service, but the puzzler has always been how to give my clients the best value and the best results.

I’m currently in the process of re-structuring my online businesses, and within the next few weeks, I’ll be offering various forms of mentoring.

Interested? Stay tuned…

In the mean time, follow my tecniques above and you will be armed with the firepower to blast free of the infinite doodle loop and get your online business back on track.