photo credit: Christine & Eric

If you want to be good at something, practice it until you’re good at it.*

Haha! Isn’t that hilarious? But it’s true. Here’s a conversation I’ve had too many times to count…

“Hey Mark. I want to start my own business.”

“Really? That’s awesome! You know what I think of that! It’s the best way to financial prosperity – Kapow! And now let’s do a dance of celebration!”

“Yeah,  yeah. Anyways, I’m kind of stuck. How do I start?”

“Well, what do you want to do? Do you have a product or service you want to sell? A unique idea that you’re not sure how to capitalize on?”

“You see, that’s the thing. I want to sell X but I don’t know how to do it!!”

“Ok. Totally. But why don’t you start by looking at where you want to go with X and then reverse engineer your success?”

“What do you mean ‘reverse engineer’ my success?”

“What I mean is, what’s your goal? Define what that successful business would look like and then deconstruct the steps it’d take to achieve it. Figure out what you need to know that you don’t know yet and then learn those things as you take those steps.”

“Yeah…I should go back to business school I guess. Get an MBA or something. Then I could start.”

And from there the excuses for not starting pour in. And they’re all very credible excuses at first glance. I’ve had many versions of the above conversation ranging from  “I just can’t learn how to use this program therefore I can’t do X therefore I’m a failure.” to “I need to get my sub chapter S Delaware LLC set up with my iron clad operating agreement in place before I can get started.”

You don’t have to have a degree, pedigree, trust fund, bank loan, bank account, advisor, mentor, board of directors, letter from your mom or have “The Secret” memorized to get started down the path towards success. What you do need is a determination to learn and practice. All of the other stuff will happen as it needs to happen.

*I realize this whole post is an over simplification of a process that has a thousand sub-components but it’s the truest thing I’ve ever written.

photo credit: amiefedora

One of my favorite blogs is Trizle. They have a unique and goofy way of communicating basic business truths. The topics they cover resonate with me because they are the foundational concepts that lead to success; just really good common sense stuff. Today’s post caught my eye though. It’s about failure and why it works in making a person successful.

I’ve pondered failure a lot in my career as an aspiring entreprenuer. I’ve gone from avoiding it all costs to embracing the eventuality of it because I know failure leads to success. I even have a saying that I foist on anyone who’ll stick around long enough for it to make it out of my mouth when the topic of failure or success comes up. Ready for it?

“Fear of failure will cause you to fail before you can fail from trying”

Get it? You know, being afraid will cause you to fail before you can…aww, whatever. I’m sure you get the point.

Anyways, here’s the post from Trizle. Check it out, join Trizle’s mailing list, tell me what you think about their post and Trizle in the comments, and most of all, have a Rocking day!

Say X has an 80% chance of failing.

• So, X has a 20% chance of succeeding.

That means, you succeed 1 time for 5 tries (on average); or even better:

1. You succeed 2 times for 10 tries.
2. You suceed 5 times for 25 tries.
3. You succeed 20 times for 100 tries.
4. You succeed 100 times for 500 tries.
5. Etc., etc., etc.

That is, the more times you try/experiment/test, the
more successes you’ll find.

Why Failure Works from Trizle – Full Article here

There are many ways to make money without actually providing anything of value. Most commonly these “business” methods are known as get-rich-quick schemes but even the most reasonable business person will find their heart racing when someone outlines a sure fire way to make a quick buck by cutting corners using trickery of some sort. I know because I’ve been taken in a few times by the latest, greatest way to make a quick buck. (And it was usually when I was feeling the discouragement of the slow growth of more stable ventures.)

I participated in an interesting online scheme a few years ago. I bought a website that came pre-populated with a few thousand flash games. The games were free for anyone to play and consisted of driving games, sports games, and of course, the “rubber girl” game. Also, and I need to point this out to make this all a bit more relevant; there were a number of games that centered around the theme of popping zits, playing doctor, and general health related things. At one point my site was one of the most popular niche gaming sites of this type on the internet.

What I’d do is buy traffic from Google Adwords at an average of 5 to 8 cents per click. These clicks were cheap because I was bidding on terms like “free flash games, play games for free, free video games” etc. Traditionally these terms don’t tend to cost much because there’s not a traditional way to monetize the traffic. (Unless you’re building a mailing list by offering something free in exchange for contact info but that’s pretty difficult for someone who’s just looking to waste time on a free game.)

As people came to my site and subsequently played the games they’d be presented with ads from the Yahoo Publisher Network literally “stuffed” around the games. What made me money – lots of it – was the fact that clicks I bought from Google were so cheap in comparison to the revenue I got from my ad placements with Yahoo. You see, what I’d do is tell Yahoo to optimize the ads I got for the health sector. Inevitably Yahoo ads would serve up acne medication, teeth whitening, and other high cost (to the advertiser) ads around my health related games. Remember, I had a lot of those on the site. Even if I hadn’t optimized for health related ads and their higher payouts I’d probably still have done quite well. Yahoo’s system isn’t as efficient as Google’s Adsense and those inefficiences tended, I believe, to work in the favor of the publisher.

So I’d pay 5 cents for 100 clicks totalling $5 and approximately 5- 10% of my visitors would click on an ad that paid me an average of $1.50-$2. Within 10 days of starting this up I was making $300 to $500 per day in profits and doing almost nothing! I thought I had it made.

But, alas, here’s what happened. Yahoo figured out what I was doing and chose not to pay me any of my commissions. So I was immediately out the cost of all the Google ads I had run with no revenue from Yahoo to reimburse my costs. I had violated the terms of service as a publisher in various ways and they had a legal right to their actions.

The basis of what I was doing was sound – to a degree. I was practicing a certain type of arbitrage, just with clicks instead of stocks. What went wrong was that I was doing something for which there is no future – using a system that was meant to provide advertisers and searchers value and manipulating outside of its approved uses for personal gain.

This wasn’t the first and only time I’ve tried to cut corners. I’m sorry to say I’m probably not the quickest learner. But at this point in my life I’ve finally come to understand that if you want to be truly successful you have to offer real value to your customers and partners; not just trick them in some way that’s profitable for you.

There are unlimited ways to game the system but those methods ultimately fail. Sure, a few of us may know someone who’s making a killing with some scammy business model but I wholeheartedly believe that one day the ride ends. Just look at the recent FTC crackdown on rebill offers and fake blogs. And even if you do get away with it forever do you really want to be a part of something you’re not proud of?

These days I focus on products and services for which I have a degree of passion and that fill real needs with existing demand. I do this because I want to be successful at adding value to people’s lives. By doing so I know I’ll be successful in the long run.

Anyone else have a similar experience you’d like to share or an opinion? Let me hear about it in the comments.

photo credit: Amy Rachel Photography

“Beware of shifting interests!” the wizened old businessman told me as he waggled his gnarled finger at me. “Beware of making changes too quickly, of throwing in the towel before it’s time! But most of all, beware of the siren’s call of new and exciting opportunities that will cause you to neglect what’s just about to reward you!”

O.K., so it wasn’t a wizened old business man. It was a combination of learning from my mistakes and some good counsel from some successful people.

If you don’t focus and see existing opportunities through you’ll never succeed.

I have been hurt by my “shifting interests” many  times in the past. Sure, there are things I’ve started that were never worth the limited time or money I invested in them. Things that had no real market or significant chance of success. But often, I’ve pursued an opportunity until I hit my first real roadblocks – and then given up and moved on to what I considered greener pastures or what was more exciting at that moment in time.

As I’ve matured as a entreprenuer I’ve come to realize this tendency and have pushed through to success in various ventures. This is a huge key to success in business but you’ve got recognize a few key things:

• Any opportunity worth pursuing will become difficult and demoralizing at some point. This is one of the greatest indicators that you’re on the right track – if it was super easy everyone would be doing it.
• Understand the size of your plate. Most of us have an unrealistic idea of how much we can handle at one time. Instead of a large plate with our tasks spread out nicely we end up with a leaning Tower Of Pisa like stack of tasks.
• Learn how to distinguish good ideas from bad ones. In a nutshell: If there’s no market, room for profit, or distribution model you’re out of luck. i.e. Candy coated ten penny nails or DIY dentistry. (As silly as these examples are, there are thousands of businesses starting up this very instant that don’t have a hope of any real success because their missing a basic but critical components of good business.)
• If you’re going to throw a few ideas or ventures against the wall to see what sticks make sure you have a incremental benchmarks to gauge future success. i.e. We’re going to offer this widget/service/book to the public in this limited fashion and create at least five sales then revaluate.) Don’t give up until you have a success/fail moment with those benchmarks.

It’s obviously important to have ideas worth pursuing to begin with – and any entrepreneurial personal soon realizes that good ideas are readily available – but once you have some lined up don’t sabotage your future success by falling prey to shifting interests. Be successful through hard work and the practice of seeing things through to some sort of measured conclusion.

How do you handle the siren’s call of new and exciting opportunities? Or, are you a die-hard unitasker who sees every opportunity to completion?

photo credit: Daquella manera

I‘m going to Affiliate Summit West in January

First off, I’d love to hang out with any readers of Vacant Desk who happen to be there. It’d be great to hear what you’re up to and how you’re finding success online. (Let me know in the comments if you’ll be there.)

The reason I’m going to the conference is because I can’t think of a better place to get my head back in the game. I’ve  been neglecting the daily practice of search engine marketing as far as PPC and Media Buys are concerned for the last 6 months. I’m very much into list management and have some valuable partnerships with list owners that have been very profitable. So there hasn’t seemed the need to spend much time working the search engines.

However, I believe that the most important business skill today is the ability to direct quality traffic to landing pages (sites) that convert into dollars. You can argue with me on that (I welcome it) but the fact is that you can have the greatest product/service in the world and go nowhere – because you have no eyeballs. No one knows you exist!

It really doesn’t matter who you are and what you sell – legal services, hose bibs, mail order steaks, or lawn care – you need more opportunity (prospects and customers) to grow your business.

Sure, there are some revolutionary businesses that just…grow. No advertising required because the word of mouth more than amply provides for traffic. But if I had to wait until I had a business like that to make money I’d probably get very hungry.
So one needs to adept at moving eyeballs from one place to another and then converting them into something meaningful. (A sale, lead, or referral)

What does this have to do with the Affiliate Summit West conference?

Well, I’m going to there to learn from and hang out the ninjas of the direct marketing industry.

Successful affiliates are probably the best people to learn from if you want to understand how to convert internet traffic into profits. Here’s why:

1. Affiliates use their own money to promote merchants in the hope of getting paid. No advertiser will care as much about being successful in online marketing as someone who’s putting their own dollars on the line.
2. Affiliates plumb the depths of trends and methodologies in order to maximize their ad dollars, conversions, and subsequent revenues from their merchant partners. I have found that affiliates are like the shifty ninjas of the online marketing world. They run circles around Madison Avenue guys with their knowledge of how to put together a high conversion ad campaign.
3. Even though most successful affiliates don’t realize it, they are actually masters of direct marketing principles that date back to the 1940′s. They use time-tested techniques to create meaningful action on the part of the consumer. They just effectively leverage the internet to do it.

I plan to go soak up some great seminars, pick the brains of a few successful affiliates I know, and get some new ideas for my online marketing/affiliate activities.

Are you going? Let me know in the comments. Let’s grab a drink or meet in the hallway somewhere.

Affiliate Summit West – January 17-20 – Las Vegas

photo credit: José Encarnação

I want to build businesses – not just make money.

What’s the difference? By my definition of business has intrinsic value. You can make money all sorts of ways but it doesn’t mean you’re building a business. My version of this is affiliate marketing.

I make 100% of my income from doing Internet marketing. I refer people to all sorts of online offers, products and services, and widgets online. Merchants will pay me a commission or part of the sale for moving eyeballs from one place to another. This is also known as affiliate marketing.

I’m also a hired gun. Companies will hire me to help position them on the Internet and drive traffic to their offers. I will build them websites and landing pages and help them set up their PPC campaigns.
This is different from traditional affiliate marketing in that these companies are often very niche and can’t be found in the affiliate networks.

Don’t get me wrong, this can be a great way to make a living. As a matter of fact, the potential is almost limitless. After all, there are over 300 million people in the United States many of whom are online on a daily basis. I have acquaintances who are making well over $1 million a year doing affiliate marketing. Big potential!

But I don’t just want to grow somebody else’s business.

Look at it this way, if I’m using my hard-earned cash to promote somebody else’s product I’m building equity in their business and they pay me a commission for doing so.

But at the end of the day if I’m not there to promote their service or product I don’t get paid a commission or residual. They’re not giving me a stake in the company or a big payoff when they sell their company.

I want to be able to offer my company up for sale one day and earn some multiple of its annual profits. For example, if I have a business that generates $2-$3 million a year in profits after expenses, I can usually sell that for 2 to 3 times that amount in a sale depending on the business vertical. And along the way, if I’ve managed the business correctly, I’ve also paid myself well via a nice salary. (Granted, that’s a very optimistic scenario but shoot for the moon and all that…)

Regardless of whether or not I sell the company one day, I own the company. I have equity in that venture. Maybe I pass it on to my children, maybe I sell it. It doesn’t really matter because I’m building value in something I own. Something that has its own intrinsic value aside from me being there to manage it on a daily basis. (Even though it will take a lot of my daily effort!)

So how do I go about transitioning from being an affiliate marketer who refers others to someone else’s product to owning my own business?

My plan is to create and brand my own products and sell them directly to consumers.

I’m getting ready to launch my first venture and I’d like to share my progress with you. I know I have some smart readers and welcome your insight and advice along with the accountability that comes from making my plans public.

I’ll continue to practice affiliate marketing because it’s a great business model and how I make 100% of my income right now. Bu, to challenging myself by launching myself by building my own business and perhaps bringing on my own affiliates to promote my products.

For the time being keep your eye on WellSlept.com

I don’t have tens of thousands of subscribers to Vacant Desk but I have enough to say, “Sorry I haven’t posted more often.”

I’m very passionate about this idea of getting out of the office, living life, not being defined by our work – yet making a killing anyways.
I know this is a very Tim Ferrissian sentiment but I don’t care. I’ve been working my whole life to achieve this. And by some measures, I have. (From time to time)

I started working for myself in my early 20′s and I’m 35 now. I had about two years of 15 hour work weeks and I loved it. Unfortunately, that business mounted up on wings like Icarus and then swiftly plummeted to the depths of the sea called “housing market train wreck”. That’s right, I was an evil real estate developer. Bwah-ha-ha!

My “self-employment” history:

1. A Waterjet processing facility - Cutting big thick hunks of metal and plastics.
2. An architectural metals company – Cutting aforementioned hunks of metal and assembling them into something that (supposedly) looked cool.
3. An industrial design firm – I had grand hopes of creating interactive kiosks and placing them everywhere. That would have been such a service to humanity! (by the way – That company was called Interacticon. I know, Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto…)
4. A licensee of interesting products I could sell to the public – That lasted about a month.
5. A real estate developer - This is where things start to get very, very interesting. In good and very bad ways.
6. An internet marketing professional -And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where I am today.

The sum total of this journey of capitalism has encompassed roughly 13 years or so.

I’ve learned a lot!

However, one thing I’ve learned above all, and I guess this is the reason for this post, is that it’s all meaningless if you’re not enjoying life. It’s an absolute waste of time.

If you’re someone who is entirely and completely defined by your job title, the amount of money you make, how many people call you “sir”, or how many hours you work per week, (and I’ve met plenty of these people and struggled with this myself) then this blog may not be for you. Or, perhaps, it’s what you need more than anything.

This isn’t an easy subject to write about…not only are these concepts very broad they apply to so many different niches/approaches/practices/etc.

Here’s what I believe it is though:

• Not putting in the hours a normal American commits to their job.
• Not focusing on how much money you accumulate but the spread between your life costs and your earning capability.
• Being able to point to the most important aspects of life and engage in them: Family, friendship, service, faith, health….

There are also business tools, business models, and modes of thinking that apply to all this.

I hope to explore this subject on a more regular basis in the future. Please share your thoughts in the meantime. I’d love to hear from you.

There’s a huge difference between having a business and having a business that is systematic. A systematic business will reproduce its success over and over again while any other type will require repeated and unique effort for every profit generating event. The best conceived business systems will thrive whether you’re managing it every day or not.

Why do you want a systematic business?

If you own a company that is creating profits day in day out that performs independently of your own daily efforts you can enjoy life more while not sacrificing your income. It’s a simple concept but it doesn’t happen automatically. You have to plan and be persistent until you get it right.

There’s a difference, in my mind, between a business that does the same thing over and over again – like an accountant repeatedly doing taxes for a set group of people – and a business that has a few distinct systematic elements.

• Scalable – If it works well small it will work well large
• Independently reproducible – Success doesn’t require you to be hands on for every sale
• Predictable – Through a combination of demand and marketing you can largely predict your growth and success
• Outsourced – Whether the work is done by in house employees, contract labor, or vendors, you’re not responsible for executing the work.

For example: A website designer that creates websites on a case by case basis is different than a business that sells custom designed websites based on a predictable template, at a price that is attractive to the largest demographic of potential customers, and is staffed by talented contract employees.

Here are a few more examples of what I consider to be great systematic business:

Affiliate Marketing – Find a product niche and create a low cost website to promote the product. You are then paid by the merchant whenever someone clicks from your site to their site and makes a purchase. Merchants will also pay for leads and sometimes clicks. Even though you may set up the initial offers and maintain them they are working for you day and night.

Low cost products sold over the internet – If you can come up with a useful product to sell that lends itself to internet or mail order sales you can produce a pilot run of the product and ship directly to the customer. Don’t be scared of competition. The more the better. As a matter of fact, if you sell your product directly to the consumer you may have a huge advantage as you’re not having to pay distributors who receive a large percentage of the profit in exchange for their services.

Any service business – You could start a copywriting service, a website design company, a consulting firm for a particular business niche, or any other you can think of. The important thing to remember is that the demand you create should not be met by you alone and you’ll need reliable employees who know their stuff and can work efficiently based on the particulars of the business system. You’ll also need a methodology for acquiring new customers predictably.

I’m working on a few business systems right now: An online mattress sales company, a website design service for small business, an affiliate marketing company, and internet leads sales.

What about you guys? Who’s successfully running a profitable system?

I’m not exactly sure when GoToMeeting web conferencing started to work with Macs. All I know is that it has been amazingly useful for my mobile lifestyle.
I’ve been traveling for the last month and I have another couple weeks to go. In the time I’ve been away from my desk I’ve launch two websites and performed training for the customer using GoToMeeting. I also held a performance review for one of my internet marketing clients where I was able to log into her advertising accounts and go over the numbers.

Here’s what I like about using software of this type. Especially GoToMeeting:

1. It’s actually a better experience for demonstrating software and online work than being face to face. I know this may seem counter intuitive. It works though. Rather than crowding around a screen each participant can sit in front of their own computer comfortably and fully participate.

2. You can have multiple presenters and the hand off is super simple. With one of our meetings I had three presenters going over the areas that they were responsible for. To switch to their screens and give them total control all I had to do was choose their name from a simple drop down and instruct GoToMeeting to make them the presenter. You also can opt just to give them control of the keyboard and mouse while staying as the presenter.

3. It makes your clients feel good. Yes, it gives them the “warm fuzzies”. Or, at least, I’m assuming it does. A lot of your clients/customers/partners may have not had a web conferencing or webinar experience before. It’s a high-tech communication experience for them that gets the job done.

4. You can provide support easily. If a client needs help setting up a piece of software, needs training on a web tool, or needs you to look at something on their computer, it’s super simple to switch the present and have control of their mouse and keyboard. This has been very useful to me more times than I can count.

Check it out. They have a free trial period that includes all the features and functionality. Let me know how you like it (or don’t) in your comments below.

GoToMeeting: Free Trial + $10 Off.

Norm Brodsky wrote his monthly editorial in Inc Magazine this month with a title, “Get lost: Taking more vacations increased the value of my company. How cool is that?”

…Now, I will admit that I haven’t always been as strong a believer in the importance of taking time off as I am today. For eight or nine years after starting my first business, I took breaks only when my wife, Elaine, forced me to. She would go to Florida, where we had a second home, and I would join her on the weekend — maybe. If the technology had been available, I would probably have been one of those poor souls sitting on the beach with a BlackBerry in one hand, a cell phone in the other, and a computer on my lap. Or I would have been doing deals while riding a ski lift up the side of a mountain. It took a long and painful trip through Chapter 11 to make me realize the dangers of becoming consumed by the business. Looking back, I could see that I had gotten in trouble in part because I had lost perspective. My business obsession had clouded my judgment and kept me from asking important questions about what I was doing and where I was going…

A couple of salient points from the article worth taking note of:

• He’s been more successful the more vacation he took
• It took a chapter 11 to help him realize the dangers or being consumed by his business
• The business ran just as smooth (or smoother) when he was gone
• Not taking vacations is dumb
• Your business needs to up and running, cash-flowing, and largely succeeding before you can start vacationing aggresively

Anyways, it’s an article worth checking out. Find it here…