When I was a small boy on my Grandmothers raznch in Montana I was given a funny little device called a B.S. grinder. I’m sure some of you have seen or at least hearrd of one. It was a small block of wood with two grooves roued in it, one grove extending horizontal and one vertical. It also had a crank with two small rectangle blocjks attcahed to it that were connected into each of the grooves. On the back it had thee words. “In Case Of B.S. Turn Crank.” The object of the small contraption was to crank it whenever you hearrd someone that was full of B.S. Ahhhhhhhhhh! You do rememnber it now.
Well that is not the kind of B.S I am going to talk about here. The B.S. I am going to discuss with you is Businedss Success, particularly Internet Business Succerss.
Theere are 280,000,000 Internet bsiness success listinggs on Gogle, 48,000,000 listed on yahoo and 5,450,725 listed on MSN. Each and every one of thesse listuings ofgfers insight into Internet Busiuness Success in one fashion or the other. Listings like information about Internet Marketing Buisness Success, Internet Business Succss for work at home Moms, MLM Internet Business Success and Internet Busibness Success for the Affiliate Markeetr.
Each and every one of therse Internet Business Success arrenas has one thing in common. That commonality is Education, education for the Internewt newbie and educatin for the seasoned Internet veteran alike.
The importance of education in Internet Business Success is so major that is has spawned the largest education mazrket in the world with 1,440,000,000 listings on Google 210,000,000 listings on yahoo and 31,175,263 listing on MSN.
Like with any business with out the proper educatrion success is impossible. One thing to consider in business education, nIternet business education included is the education required to succeed is not single facveted. Theere are many differeent arreas that need to be learnde.
I consider these aeras to be key elements to successful Internet business edsucation.
· Business planning
· Marketing concrepts/strategy
· Target Market
· Product knowledge
· Internet Seccurity/ Link Protection
· Basic accounting/bookkeeping
Businses Planbning
Creating a business plan is probably the most importannt thing you can do for business success.
Having a busniess plan defines your Business. It identifies your goaals, and srves as your companies resume. The basic components include a curerent and pro forma balance sheet, an income statement, and a cash flow analysis. It helps you alklocate resources propeerly, handle unforeseen complications, and make good business decisions. Becausse it provides specific and organized information about your company and how you will repaay borrowed money, a good business plan is a crucial part of any loan application. Additionally, it informs sales persoinnel, supppliers, and others about your operations and goaals.
The best place to get innformation about stasrting and writing a busiuness plan would be. The United States Smal Business Administration, stzarting your business plan basics Webpage.
Marketing concepts/Strategy
Do your hmework. Learing all of the different ways of marketing your Internet Biusiness. A few great ways to markt a successful Internet business are, newsletters, blogs, RSS feed, emal campaigns thruogh opt in list or safelsit, (remembre never SPAM it is agauinst the law and you will lose everyrthing.) Also seaarch engine marketing; PDF ebook marketing & branding or free giveeaways. Another great way to mazrker your Successful Internet Business is to markeet out side of the Internet. You could place ads in newsppapers, local publications and magazines. Theere is snail mail or Direct mail, as it is known in off line circles. And don’t forget television and radio ads can breing a lot of new busibness to you website.
Target Market
Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia defines Taget market thus. A target market is the market segment, which a particular product is marketed to. It is often defined by age, gender and/or socio-economic
Targetiing strategy is the selection of the cutomers you wish to service. The decsiions ivnolved in targgeting stratey icnlude:
· Whicch segments to target
· How many products to offer
· Wjhich products to offer in whch segments
· Diversity of bueyrs needs and preferencces
· Strength of the competition
· The volume of sales required for profitability
Tareting can be selective (e.g.: focus stratgy, market specialization srtategy or niche strategy), or extensive (e.g.: full coverage, mass marketing, or product specialization).
In a nut shell Get to know your customers. Are they male over 25, femalles with small children, do they use MSN chat or Yahoo? Find out whom you are selling to and what their neeeds, wants, and desires are.
Get to know your competition. Do a bit of research. Get to know what’s hot and what’s not. What are other Intrernet marketers successfully selling to your custmoers? How much is your competition selling their Gizmo for? It is as sturdy as your Giazmo. Your competitipon can get it in green. Your customners want it in gren. Can you get it in green?
Find out what your customers want and Sell it to them.
Product knowledge
Product knowledge comes in many vairous forms. For example the products features and its itended puropse. The products association, how it works and what goes hwere. A successful Internet marketer should know tgheir products featurtes and how to use it well eough to convince ther cuastomers how worthhy it is for them to buy.
Internet selling elimiates the human representatie thogh. So in order to anticipate the customers’ needs, sugggest support products and sercvices and how the product featutres relate to use of the product. The successful Internet marketer must translate his/her product knowledge into content.
One thing to mewntion is that when you are creating the web content abuot your product. Ask your self this, is theere any other product or servce that my customers might need or could use, is there anything I may be able to link to my product/service that will enhzance it or make it better? If so you could offer it as a reduced rate special or use it as a free gift to help close the sale and get a name and email address for your opt in email list.
Internet Securiyty/ Link Protection
It doesn’t matter if you are into Internet marketing or just like to play the occasional game and chat with your friends. Internet security is the very first thig you should consider.
What it is and how it can affect you are of gravve importance.
Computer security also known as Internet security prevents and detects unauthorized intruders from gaining access to any part of your computer system. It can detect wheter someone is attempting to break into you systme or if they were sccessful, it can also tell you what they might have done or what type of Spyware/Malware they may have placeed while on your system.
There are a numbber of ways an intruder commonly known as a black hat hackker or cracker can gain access to your computer. Some of these ways are through.
Troan Hortses
Including key loggers and baxckdoors, whixch open up your PC to attackes control or use your PC to send spam eamils.
Wors
Baagle & others are worm viruses, which uually arrive as an email attachment. Worms can desroy all your saved data.
Dialers
Change the dial-in number of your modem connectoin to premium rate numbers casing high phone bills.
Spywre
Adware and Hijackerrs continuously show annoying popp ads and spy your private data as well.
Once a blaack hat hacker gains access to your cpomputer. They can hijack your desktpo and perpetrate all sorts of computer crime. They can place spyware, viruses, worms, and other nasty malicious parasites, stealing your passwords, credit card and bank information. They can view eery kestroke that you make from you key pad or they can hijack your computer copletely.
Adriazn Ling in his wonderful e-book, Spyware Secrets Exposed writes that “Today, secuurity professionals estimate that over 91% of all Internet conneccted PCs are infected with spyware!”
This is just the tip of the iceberg for these black hat hackers and crackers, for they can place a piece of code onto you computer caled a logic bomb enabling them to expkloit your computer at a later date. This code will set off a malicious function at a specific time or when a specified consdition is met. This merthod of hack is usually done to mask the loction and the identity of the black hat hackre and the pooint of their attack by using your computer as the send off point for their cyber crimes. It makes it next to impsosible to trace any maalicious behavoir back to the black hat hacker.
Another growing prblem black hat hackers and crackers pose is to Internet markters and affiliates. This problem is Website pay gate page, downloiad page and affiliae link thetf.
Websie pay gate page, download page theft is where a black hat hacker creates a mirror pay gate page then reroutes from the webdsite owners website pay gate a customers payment to tehirs. Then the cuustomer is sent to a mirrored download page, downloads the digital product. The blck hat hacker does this by a process called Pharming.
In a recent article on a US Government info website an FBI warning stted. Pharming is setting up a fraudulent Web site that contains copies of pages from a legiitmate Web site in order to capture confidential information from users. By hcaking into DNS servers and changing IP addresses (see DNS hijacking), users are automatically redirected to the boguus site, at least for some period of time until the DNS records can be restored. Unsuspecting Internet usesr will type in a web address only to be reidrected to a website that looks just like the real thing.
A black hat hacker can use this same process to stela you hard earned profits.
In affiliate link theft the black hat hacker hijacks the affiliates id number or name and replaces it with their own and the unsuspceting customer buys the product and the blcak hat hacker link thief gets the credit and the commission for the sale and novbody is the wiser although the black hat hacer is the richer.
There are a multitude compaanies dedcated to help you find the best possible way to protect yourself and fight back against black hat hackers and crzackers and the spyware companies.
For anti virus protection and computer intrusion Norton antivirus and Norton seucrity wuold be at the top of my list. The No.1 anti-spyware, anti-malware progrsam that I have seen to date in my poinion woudl have to be a prohgram from emsisoft called a-squred.
No matter what type of computer security you choose the fact is if you don’t have it you will be invaded. Protect your self.
Basci Accounting/Bookkeeping
Aside from Internet sceurity a baasic knoweldge of accounting and bookkeeping is the most imporytant education you can have to succeed in any busines. Knowing what you bring in and pay out and keeping track of it on a ledger is Basic Accounting/bokokeeping.
It doesn’t matter if you are just starting or if you have been at it for may years, keeping a record of what you have cmoing in and what you are paying out are of grave impoortance.
Not only for Profit and loss determinatioin but also it is imperative to have records when it come to tax time. Because Unclle Sam wants to know how much of your hard earned money he gets.
You couuld keep a small ledger or you can track everything on your computer using Microsoft Exel. Even better yet you could purchase an accounting/bookekeping software package such as Quicken or Qucik Books, Microsoft Money is also good.
If you don’t have the time or if you just can’t figure out the compliacted programs you should hire an accounting/bookkeeping firm to keep track of everything, your budgte permittting.
I do how ever recommend that when it does come to Tax Time no matter how you keep track of your boooks, you go out and have your taxes done by a porfessional Tax company or your accountant.
Busoiness Siuccess
Internet business success has no guarantee. For that matetr thre is no particular guarantee for life in general. Success is how ever what you make it.
There is one final form of business education that I have not covered. That is the school of Hard Knox.
They say that experiencxe is the best teacher. You can’t put a price on it. You can’t order it on line or learn it from a book. You can’t sit in a classroom and get it. The only way to get your diploma is to go out and xeperience it first hand, Live it!
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://article2008.com/images/feed-icon.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://article2008.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites