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.

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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/

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!