Welcome back! Staying active in the blog and community has been the key to success for many ProfitMart members.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

On behalf of all the staff at ProfitMart; Rick D., Jason P., and myself, I would like to wish you you a very Prosperous and Happy 2008!

Regards,

Ron Davies

I was going over an article that was published last year in Revenue Magazine. The article was the result of a telephone interview with Rick and I by the publishers of Revenue Magazine, where they explored our home business system. One area of particular interest was to identify the biggest mistake people make when getting involved in an online venture.

The answer to the interviewer’s question identified a problem I see every day, and although simple, the fact of the matter is that this issue still seems to elude an alarming number of opportunity seekers, and because of this these same poor souls seem to fail or struggle at pretty much every program or system they buy into.

What is the single most-likely-to-cause-them-to-fail mistake that they continue to make, killing all chance of success and litteraly befuddling just about every one of us that is involved in some capacity in consulting for small businesses?

• They jump from one program to the next, never sticking with any long enough to make it work!

Volumes of material has been pulished on this, and yet we see it every single day. Just about any half-decent program can be run profitably IF and ONLY IF you stick to it. MOMENTUM in the form of business inertia is not just a concept, it is a law of nature, and it is undeniable.

Each time you invest your money, time, energy, passion, including investments that involve an intangible, like being away from family or friends because you are working your business (you know who you are :>) or missing out on some other quality of life event, ask yourself if you are willing to make the sacrifice OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR NO REASON!

I say this because every day I consult to new entrepreneurs that do exactly that… they spend countless hours and dollars on a venture, work it for a couple of weeks, and when they don’t hit the lottery with it they dump the whole she-bang and start up the same futile process with the next program, often blaming the “system” for their frustration or failure to succeed.

Here is some harsh news, and my opinion on this one is shared by a few credible people, Bill Gates included;

• Only YOU determine how successful YOU are. NO OTHER FACTOR IS INVOLVED.

This is why we all know people that seem to succeed at everything they do. It is NOT a program that makes them successful, it is a METHOD. It is an APPROACH TO ALL THINGS.

Rest assured, that method DOES NOT include program-hopping and taking out the wallet over anf over again, telling your wife, husband or what have you that you are up late and cannot come to bed yet because you are starting over yet again.

So I ask that you think about the sacrifices you make in the pursuit of self-employed success. Think about what is wrong with what you are doing in the program you are in, any program, and figure out what you need to do to replicate what the successful people are doing. ProfitMart for example has the Member Forum that is for that EXACT purpose. Sharing. Community working together. It’s not just corny, it works!

Do yourself a favor. Value your time, your effort, your passion, and stay focussed. Do what you need to do. Learn what you need to learn.

You hold the key to your success, no-one else.

Ron

Just a few short months ago I set out on the course of many before me.I made the daunting decision to have a go at creating and maintaining an online business. When I began I knew how to access the Internet and how to search for topics and items I was interested in and I knew how to type home business into the search boxes.

What I didn’t realise was what a gigantic place the Internet is and did I have a lot to learn. I typed “home business” into Google and away I went. I tried one program after another,wasted a lot of time and money and became extremely frustrated and annoyed. It wasn’t long before I was ready to give up this outrageous idea of setting up an online business.

With the programs I tried, I began advertising. When I first began I had no idea what terms such as traffic exchanges,pay-per-click,surfing,spam,opt-in lists,blogging,E-zines ,article directories,linking meant. I thought I would never master this monster of an online business I was trying to set up. But I was determined that I was going to succeed.

Eventually I came across an advert for ProfitMart and thought “This is what I need”. So I plunged in and accepted a website.I thought “Wow,This looks as though it might just work”. The ideal online home business.

Imagine my joy when I received an Email telling me I had made my first sale. I had actually sold something on the Internet.Success at last. Then for a while I forgot about the site. I didn’t even bother to check out the various features of the Control Panel.Great work effort by someone trying to establish a successful home business.

Last week I discovered the Control Panel and its amazing features. I am stunned by my own inaction in getting to know the different aspects of this gem.It is so easy to use and there are so many features and so much help available.

Now I regularly review all aspects of my ProfitMart site and Yes,I still have a lot of work to do in polishing up the site and making use of all the amazing features. I wish I had done this weeks ago. Here really was the ideal online home business I had been searching for.

Yes,when I began the quest to start and run successfully ,an online business,I felt like a duck out of water. But now with each day that goes by I am becoming more confident and capable in different aspects of running an online home business.

So,with determination and an attitude of never giving up,you,too can be successful in starting up an online business.

justbren www.DontForgetYourShopping.com

To continue where I left off in Part 1 of this post, the incredible possibility of the web had Rick and I truly dazzled, and we tried it all:

• Domain name trading;
• Developed traffic sites;
• Developed cell phone accessory sites;
• Sold a major courier companies’ lost freight from a national warehouse on EBay;
• Dabbled in MLM sites.

…. but all these albeit wonderfully different opportunities had real downfalls as far as we were concerned:

• For the most part, they were less than 100% automated;
• Most involved shipping some tangible item, or some other form of logistical burden;
• They were cost prohibitive, and difficult to break into and establish leadership positions quickly and reliably (look at some of the Ebay Powersellers sales volumes to see what I mean here);
• Last, the markets were either regional, or limited in where we could compete.

Most importantly, they were NOT 100% AUTMOMATED.

So, Rick and I plunked away at all of them about half heartedly, all the while enjoying our comfortable National Defence payroll cheques coming in, and this other stuff was the “gravy”.

Seems a hundred years ago now. Let me tell you, with 3 kids and a wife depending on you, and a whole future to pay for, one of the toughest things I ever did was cut away from that government cheque! More on that later.

Rick and I knew we were going in the right direction, and when we learned about affiliate marketing at a seminar we knew we were on to something, but we needed some sort of guideline to keep us on track, a conceptual “compass” of sorts to make sure that the bit of time we had to spend on this Internet business fledgling was well spent.

In answer to that need, we decided that any business model we would involve ourselves in insofar as the Internet was concerned would have to pass our “litmus” test:

1. The business would reside entirely online;
2. It would have to be based on 100% intangible properties, e.g. software, ebooks, services, etc.;
3. It should require no more than 10 hours per person per week (Rick and I);
4. Once set up, it should approach 99% automation (we are huge fans of the E-Myth book);
5. The product could be marketed, sold, and delivered 24 hours/day, 7 days/week without any interaction from us.;
6. It would need to be easy to replicate so we could teach others to do as we have;
7. It would need to be international, and as much without borders or geographical limitations as possible;
8. The first revenue goal would be $300/month.

Yep, $300/month. That was our realistic expectation for the first 3 months of business. It sounds funny, but it wasn’t all that many years ago, and now anything under a $30,000 month means we went off the rails, and even then our realistic expectation of income rises quarterly ( we incorporated to help shelter taxes, etc.)

Needless to say, we were a fair way beyond $300/month when I left the Air Force in 2006, but Rick retired from the Air Force 4 years before I did, and things were a little more touch and go then.  The truth is that things can go “south” on you in any business, but being in business for yourself literally removes the limitations you put on yourself by being employed by someone else.

It’s 2:30 a.m. here now, ’nuff said for tonight.

To be continued…