Following my discussion on the Internet Marketing Mistakes I Made When I First Started Online, today I shall share with you what I did right when I first started online.

I hope my experience can help shorten your journey to online success.

Here we go…

1. Understand The Principles Of Success

I always find reading boring until I discovered a section called Self Help in the bookstore. Since then, I became a self help junkie, reading all kinds of books and attending all kinds of seminars on success, communication, sales, wealth creation, mind power, brain power and even spirituality.

All these readings eventually led me to quitting my job, starting a few brick-and-mortar businesses and failing at every one of them.

If I had given up my dream then, I may now be another skeptic of success philosophy.

But when I turned to online business, everything I’ve learnt began to apply. Be it the law of giving and receiving, the theory of delayed gratification, the concept of focus equals to power or the idea of think and grow rich, all the principles of success that I’ve learnt are now the foundation of my online business.

Personally, I think such foundation is very important because it keeps me focused on what is really important in building a successful business (or even building a successful life), instead of simply chasing after the money.

2. Learn Programming

Many gurus suggest that a marketer should focus on driving the business and should outsource other technical stuff such as website creation to others. For me, I prefer to learn and do it myself.

I’m not trained in HTML, PHP or Javascript, but I make it a point to learn enough so that I can communicate with my programmer at the same level and do minor programming or debugging work when necessary.

The advantages of knowing about programming are as follow:
i. I can save money on simple programming work, since I can do it myself.
ii. I can respond faster to any bug report and system improvement.
iii. The more I understand about programming and its strengths and limitations, the more ideas I can come out with.

3. Build Something

The idea of affiliate marketing sounds great - making money selling other people’s product, with no worry of customer support. Hence, many internet marketers started as an affiliate.

But what I do differently from other affiliates is I will make sure that in the process of promoting as an affiliate, I build something that belong to me.

The idea of building something is very broad. You can build a list, build a reputation, build a traffic funnel, build a network of people or build a virtual real estate.

For example, if I want to promote a forex product, instead of simply posting adwords to send traffic to the product or building mini site specially for that product, I will create a forex content site or even create a forex web service. I’ll promote my own website instead of promoting the affiliated product directly.

If the product that I’m promoting is discontinued, I can always promote other similar products. The most important thing here is I’m spending my time to build something that will give me traffic in long run.

4. Go Passive

Let me ask you a question. If you can spare 1 month of your time, would you spend that month doing something that will earn you $5,000 in one go, or do something that will earn you $200 every single month?

Some people told me that they’ll choose the $5,000 option, and they will repeat the process and earn more $5,000 every month. After one year, they would have earned $60,000!

But for me, I will go for $200 every month. I will repeat the process to earn more of such income. My first month may be merely $200, but if I spend 1 year to build the same kind of income, I would have established $2,400 every month by the end of 1 year, and $24,000 every month after 10 years. After 10 years, I can stop working and still earn $24,000 every month, whereas in the first case, once you stop working, your income stops.

You may think this is an ideal situation and things may change. You are right. There is no real passive income. However, with such income, I can stop working for weeks or even months and my income will still be pretty stable. More importantly, I don’t have to worry if I can pay my bills next month. This gives me peace of mind to continue building even more websites and earn even more.

Different people prefer different ways of doing things. What I’ve presented above is what I THINK I’ve done right. You may have different experiences. Whether you agree or disagree with me, leave your comments below, so that others can decide what is the right thing to do for them.

I’ve been thinking of what to write in our blog to welcome 2011. Finally I decided to talk about some of the internet marketing mistakes that I’ve made in the past, not last year, but since I started venturing out online.

I hope my experience can help you avoid some pitfalls and hence smoothen your online journey in 2011.

Without further ado, here are the internet marketing mistakes I’ve made.

Mistake #1. Not believing that internet marketing is for me

This has to be the TOP mistake that I’ve made.

Back in early 2000, I was already learning about internet marketing and trying a few things without any success. My mentality was “let’s see if I can make some money online”.

I was never serious about internet marketing because I had so many other options of making money at that time.

After a few years, I failed in ALL my brick-and-mortar businesses and I was $50k in debt with the bank. At that time, online business was my last chance, as the initial investment was minimal. It was a case where I either made it online or I would have to shelve my dream and get a job.

Now it seems to be a blessing that I failed in all my offline businesses.

Mistake #2. Lacking marketing plans

Whenever I have a good idea, I’ll act on it. But there were not one, but two occasions where I spent months preparing and building a new website and when everything was ready, I realized that I had no idea how to market that website!

Of course, those websites are now sitting there collecting virtual dust, while serving as a reminder for me that I must have a foolproof marketing strategy for a new website even before I register the domain name!

Mistake #3. Hoping that there is a holy grail

There was one time when I bought a 100,000 email list from a renowned internet marketing guru, naively thinking that even if just 1% buy from me, I will be rich!

I prepared a good opt-in offer, since I knew I needed to convert it from a cold list to a warm list, and I also prepared a series of autoresponder to convert the opt-ins to buyers. Everything seemed ready, but when I massed mail to the list, I hardly got any click through, not to mention opt-in or sales.

I knew that things can’t be that simple. But sometimes you just want to prove yourself right and give up that hope!

Mistake #4. Being a cheapskate

When I first started online, I was really behaving like a cheapskate. I signed up lots of newsletters and spent time reading all the free articles I could find.

But when I started to make some money and gathered enough courage to invest in ebooks and video courses, that was when my internet marketing skills really took off.

Mistake #5. Using encrypted script

If you want to run a dynamic website such as a membership site, a forum or perhaps your own traffic exchange site, you’ll need to use a server-side script.

A big mistake that I made when I ran my first dynamic site is I bought an encrypted script, which means I can’t modify or even see the script as the developer is trying to protect its copyright.

It is very bad because whenever I experience a bug, I need to feedback to the developer and worse still, if I don’t like any function or want to add any new feature, there is nothing I can do. I even offered to buy the source-code from the developer, but was turned down.

One person’s mistake is another’s lesson. I hope you’ll find these lessons useful.

Though I’ve made some mistakes, I have also done something right during my early days. In my next post, I’ll write about things that I did right when I first started online. Stay tuned!

Sometimes I ask myself, “What would I do if I were a newbie in internet marketing?”. Let’s answer this question today. I believe it will benefit some of our readers here.

1) Build Adsense Income

Yes, the first thing I will do is to build my Adsense income.

Until today, I am still grateful that I added Adsense in my overall game plan.

The thing is, in the processing of building Adsense income, I would have mastered a few important skills, which include website building, simple server management and most important of all, search engine optimization.

I don’t have to know how to sell or promote things. As long as I know how to bring in traffic, I am likely to make money!

It’s truly a “Learn As You Earn” scenario.

When it comes to making money from Adsense, I will not start a blog, which most people will do nowadays. This is because blogging takes time. I want to spend most of my time learning more skills and exploring other ways to make money. (Note: When I say “starting a blog”, I don’t mean starting a blog filled with prewritten articles. I am referring to a blog where I need to personally write articles and post frequently.)

2) Explore Affiliate Marketing

The next thing I’ll explore is affiliate marketing.

There are many different strategies to make money as an affiliate marketer. For example, you can create different niche sites to sell different Clickbank products. But I wouldn’t do that. Somehow I don’t feel that it’s going to bring me long-term passive income. (I may be wrong.)

Instead, I will become a ‘guru’ type of affiliate marketer, where I build an info-rich website (not blog) and a list. I’ll get traffic through search engine optimization, advertising and viral marketing.

Once my website is established, I can sell many different affiliate products and I don’t have to worry about whether a particular affiliate product will disappear tomorrow because I own the customers.

When choosing which niche to get into, I will look for a niche where there is a lot of potential to earn passive income. For example, I may get into the stock trading niche where I can promote brokering services that earn me recurring commissions.

Through this venture into affiliate marketing, I would have learnt the art of copywriting, advertising and viral marketing. These are essential skills that will make me a powerful online marketer in time to come.

Did you notice that I said I will start an info-rich website (not blog)? Basically I will not start a blog until I feel committed to the niche.

3) Mess Around, Explore and Dream Of Big Ideas

In the process of building my Adsense and affiliate income (while learning all the IM skills at the same time), I will spend some time exploring different online programs and tools. While some of them may help me in my existing websites, the main objective of doing so is to learn more business models and marketing strategies that other marketers are using.

From time to time, I’ll also day-dream about big ideas and when a good idea strikes me, I’ll ‘ignorantly’ jump into it and never say die until I turn that idea into reality. The irony is what comes after a good idea is always a pool of sh*t and you’ve got to swim through that pool before seeing fruition of your idea.

Finally, throughout the journey, my mindset will be, “Though there is no guarantee that every venture will turn out to be a success, all I need is one successful venture to make a killing online.” The good thing about internet marketing is the downside risk is always manageable, but the upside potential is unlimited.

“I have gone to hundreds of these types of sites but still not making money. I downloaded these free ebooks and bonuses but then what do I do with them? Frustrated.”

This is a support ticket I received last week. Does this situation sound familiar to you? I’m sure it happened to you when you were a newbie.

For those of you who are still going through this phase of internet marketing, I’m going to share with you my advice on managing information overload.

Did you notice that I said “this phase” of internet marketing?

Yes, it’s a phase that every newbie will go through. Some survived through this phase. Some are defeated.

Ok, here are my tips on managing information overload:

1) Information Overload Is Good!

Always tell yourself that “information overload is good”.

You see, the truth is, there are only two things that separate you from getting what you want.

The first thing is INFORMATION. The second is ACTION.

So if you are overwhelmed with information, you should be thankful, not frustrated.

2) Get Your Feet Wet

With an overload of information, what you need to do is to TAKE ACTION.

As the old saying goes, you can’t learn to swim without getting your feet wet.

Information will forever be overloading unless you INTERNALIZE the information. And the only way to internalize information is to use it repeatedly.

If you don’t have a website, start one. If you haven’t started promoting any program, start promoting one. You’ll face challenges as you go along. This is when you dig out those pieces of information in your harddisk and see how to put them into practice. In other words, this is when you start internalizing the information.

You will waste some time. You will lose some money. These are just part of the process of getting your feet wet.

3) Mind Your Own Business

The more information you internalize, the more savvy you become. Eventually you will reach a stage when you start to “mind your own business”.

When you start minding your own business, you’ll begin to know how to filter information.

Imagine you being a train station where loads and loads of cargo (information) will reach your station. When you are new, you tend to take in all the cargo because you think they are all important and relevant. But as you start minding your own business, you’ll be selective and take in cargo that can help you grow your business.

As I said, information overload is GOOD. Imagine you being a train station with no cargo train passing by….. (Did you know that all successful people in the world convert themselves into a power train station. They want more trains to pass by so that they can have more selections.)

Note: Newbies can’t start minding their own business from day one. They have to go through the ‘information overload’ phase and the ‘getting your feet wet’ phase. Reason: they have too little information and experience to decide what their own business is. So if you are a newbie, get your feet wet first.

4) Always Take An Inventory Of What You Know / Have

My last advice for managing information overload is to make it a habit to take an inventory of what you already know or have.

If you understand how the universe works, you’ll know that everything happens for a reason and is intended to help you achieve what you want.

At any point of time if you feel lost, always look around you and see what is it that you know or have that can help you to move on. You’ll be surprised that the last piece of information you need is right there with you.

Again, that shows that information overload is good.

Most of the “How to make money online for beginners” articles on the web are either trying to sell a turnkey money making system or attempt to provide a huge list of a-z ways to make money online. But none of them have the answer I have in mind.

That’s why I decided to write my own version of how to make money online for beginners.

I started reading about how people made money online since 1999. Like many beginners, I opted-in to many gurus’ lists, reading their newsletters, trying and failing different opportunities.

At that time, information was pretty fragmented. Different gurus seem to have different ways to make money online. I was learning, trying, failing and confused.

Later I learnt that there is a technical term for this stage. It’s called initial perturbation. It happens whenever we are exposed to something new. It’s the beginning of a new learning process.

So my first ‘how to make money online’ advice for beginners is - be ready to learn, try, fail and get confused. It’s a natural process anyone will have to go through. During this time, you’re subconsciously building your industry knowledge, marketing senses and business acumen.

In 2005, I had an opportunity to help my employer at that time to build a simple company website. No one in the company knew about website building, so I volunteered to build one.

Did I know anything about website building? Not at all. I picked up a book called Frontpage For Dummies, read it over a weekend and spent the next one week building the company’s website after the office hours. With the basic website building skill, I started building all kinds of websites. That’s when the real game started.

So my second ‘how to make money online’ advice for beginners is - learn the technical stuff. If you believe in those gurus who tell you that you don’t need to know anything technical, well, good luck to you. All I can say is, the more competent you are technically, the more tricks you can do and the higher your chance of success.

Like many of you who have your own website, the next problem I had was how to promote my websites and bring traffic. That was when I seriously learnt about SEO, copywriting, advertising etc.

So my third ‘how to make money online’ advice for beginners is - practice purposeful learning. Purposeful learning means you only learn things that you need to use now. For example, if you build a content website, you need to learn and practice everything about SEO. If you build a squeeze page, you need to learn and practice everything about copywriting and advertising. Purposeful learning will make the learning process fun and you are more likely to appreciate and internalize what you’ve learnt.

Finally, my last ‘how to make money online’ advice for beginners is - treat yourself like an employee. Apart from thinking of new money making ideas and strategies, all other things about making money online is boring and repetitive. For example, website building is boring and repetitive. Traffic generation is also boring and repetitive. If you treat yourself like an employee, set datelines for yourself and push yourself to meet the datelines, you are more likely to complete the boring and repetitive tasks and eventually get the rewards you deserve.

In summary, here’s my advice on how to make money for beginners:
- Get over the initial perturbation
- Learn the technical stuff
- Practice purposeful learning
- Treat yourself like an employee

If you can follow through these four advices, there’s no reason why you can’t succeed.

My objective of this article is to give you an overview of how to make money with affiliate marketing, so that you can make a better decision on how you want to kick start with affiliate marketing.

Generally, I can categorize the different ways of making money with affiliate marketing into 3 basic ways. Let’s discuss each of them……

1) First Way - Direct Promotion

The first way to make money with affiliate marketing is by promoting the affiliated product directly .

A popular idea that many beginners are taught is to find a good product from Clickbank, create an ad for it and advertise to get traffic and sales.

Or if it’s a business opportunity, one may simply advertise the affiliate link to get traffic and downlines.

This method of making money looks very attractive, especially among the newbies. Some marketers I’ve spoken to said that this is their preferred method because the money is fast and they don’t have to bother about customer service and site maintenance.

This may be the easiest way to start making money with affiliate marketing. But if you ask me for advice, I would suggest that you put in a bit more effort and move beyond this method.

Reason: If you’ve been reading my work, you’ll know that I don’t fancy quick money. My focus is always on ‘building’. For long term success, you need to spend your time building something, either build a list, a network, a website or a community. What I don’t like about this method is you’re sending your hard earned traffic away, without building anything for yourself.

2) Second Way - Build A List

A better alternative to the first approach is to build a list. Instead of sending the traffic directly to your affiliated site, you focus your marketing effort in building a list FIRST, promoting other affiliated products LATER.

There are many variations to this method.

The most common strategy is to create a squeeze page, give away some useful freebies, and entice people to opt-in.

Another smarter strategy is to create a product in your niche, design a big launch around it, get other marketers to promote it for you, and instantly build a huge list that you can use in the future.

It takes a lot more time to set up such a website as compared to the first approach. But you are building yourself a list and reputation in your industry. You can easily build upon any success you have established and earn more in the future.

But there is one important downside to this approach.

Other than your free gift or product, there is nothing much on your website. Once your visitors get what they want, they are not likely to go back to your website again. The only way you can build further relationship with them is probably through a newsletter.

3) Third Way - Build A Useful Website

The third way to make money with affiliate marketing is to build a useful website around your niche.

The easiest form would be a blog. You can build a list and then start a blog to update your list with useful tips, promoting other affiliated products at the same time.

Or you can create a service site that provides useful online tools that people in your niche can use. This will entice them to come back to your website again and again.

One of my personal preference is to create a content website that is full of useful articles in a particular niche. The articles will help me to attract free traffic from the search engines. The website will have several product recommendations from me and these are the products I am affiliated to.

The disadvantage of this approach is of course the time and effort required to create and (for some) to maintain the sites. But the benefit is obvious. Once the initial traffic is built, you are likely to see continuous traffic to your website and hence consistent affiliate commissions to your account.

Although this third way is my preferred way of making money with affiliate marketing, it may not be the best way for you. There are many success stories in each of these approaches. You need to try out the different methods and see which one you are most comfortable with. Hopefully my discussion above can help you kick start with your preferred method right away.

This is part of our Tuesday With Kenneth series, where I reply our members challenges in internet marketing.

Today’s question is from David Nuzzi. Here’s his question:

“LeadsLeap is the only program that seems to be working for me. What is the best way to utilize your program to it’s fullest?” - David Nuzzi

To answer David’s question, let’s first look at how LeadsLeap helps our members to generate leads.

How LeadsLeap Helps You To Generate Leads?

LeadsLeap helps you to generate leads through a 3-pronged approach.

#1 - Leads Building Network

The first approach is our leads building network, where you refer people to join and build your network at LeadsLeap.

You may ask “Kenneth, isn’t LeadsLeap supposed to send me leads? Why am I sending leads to LeadsLeap?”

Fair question. Let me explain.

The people you refer to LeadsLeap are your ’seed’ leads. Remember that your ad will be shown to 10 levels of your network, for life. (Read our homepage again if you don’t know about it.) As your referred leads bring in more leads, you’ll see your network grow. Over time, more and more people will see your ad.

To illustrate, say if you refer 20 people to LeadsLeap, you may end up being able to advertise to 100s or even 1000s of people, for life.

That’s the leads building element of the system. (Note: In addition to building leads, you can also earn recurring commissions on sales made from product order and/or membership upgrade.)

#2 - Text Advertising On Our Website

Some new members ask “Is it possible to generate leads without referring people to LeadsLeap?” The answer is yes. This is done through the 2nd element of our system.

Besides being able to advertise to your LeadsLeap downlines, your ad will be posted in our members area and LeadsLeap blog. Our blog receives tens of thousands of traffic every month from external sources such as the search engines. This means you ad will be exposed to fresh leads months after months.

Sounds good? Yes. But there is a catch……

To have your ad shown in our network, you need to have excess credits in your account. I’m not going into the details of how to earn credits. You can read about it in your account. But I have one advice for you - try to focus on methods that can earn you credits on autopilot in the long run. You may need to work harder in the short run, but in the long run, you’ll not have to worry about credits.

Alternatively, you can become a PRO member of LeadsLeap, where your PRO ad will be rotated in the system indefinitely.

#3 - Leads Generation Tools

The last element of the system is more for advanced internet marketers, where we develop top-notch tools that you can use to generate more leads on your own, outside of the LeadsLeap system.

Two examples are the Affiliate ID Manager and M.Y.O.B List Builder Script. Even our Advanced Link Cloaker can be used as an advertising tool that you can use to get traffic from forums etc. Again, I’m not going into the details. You can learn about these tools in your members area.

More tools are in the pipeline. The next one will be released real soon!

So, what is the best way to utilize LeadsLeap to it’s fullest?

The answer is to make full use of all three elements of the system. Build your team at LeadsLeap, earn advertising credits on autopilot and check out the free tools that we offer and see how you can make use of them.

Last but not least, if you are new to LeadsLeap, check out some of our older posts in LeadsLeap blog. If you experience any internet marketing challenge, it is very likely that I’ve covered that topic in my previous blog posts. If not, you can always send your question to me (details in our email to you on every Tuesday).

“How to build a list of people, if I do not have the funds to do this? I have tried some free advertising companies but nothing yet.” - Jay Rossi

If you are in the same situation as Jay, I hope this article can help you.

First thing first, stop dreaming!

Many marketers promote internet marketing as a lazy way to make money. To a certain extent, it is. But if you talk about list building, it’s definitely not a lazy way to make money.

If you think all you need is an opt-in form and people will flood into your list, you’ll be wondering why your list building effort is in vain.

First of all, you got to ask yourself the following questions:

- Is your sales letter powerful enough to get people’s attention?
- Is your offer appealing enough such that people bother to opt-in to get it?
- Is your sales letter convincing enough to get people to take immediate action?

If your answer is ‘no’ to any of the 3 questions, you should first brush up your copywriting and marketing skills, before even talking about where to get the traffic.

I hope I’m clear on this point.

Why free advertising doesn’t work?

I probably say this hundreds of times. The key in advertising is finding targeted traffic. So long as the traffic is targeted, it doesn’t matter whether the advertising is free or paid.

So instead of questioning yourself whether free advertising works, you should ask yourself whether the advertising traffic is targeted to your niche. If it is, the problem is not with the advertising media but with your skills in converting the traffic into your list.

So, how to build a list, if you do not have the funds to do it?

Well, there are many ways to build a list without having to spend a dime in advertising.

These ways include exchanging traffic with other marketers (provided that you have an initial list), building a list through your blog (provided that your blog is getting free traffic from the search engine), starting your own affiliate program (provided that you have access to a list of affiliates), as well as other standard free traffic strategies such as forum marketing, article marketing, traffic exchange networks, list building networks and social networking.

But instead of limiting your option to free traffic strategies, why not think of how you can earn back your advertising cost?

My preferred way, of course, is to use the MYOB list builder script that I’ve developed for my own use and given free to our LeadsLeap members. If you do not know what this script can do for you, you better check it out. At least you know what are the options available to you.

Don’t keep thinking of how to build a list for free or how you can get free traffic. Instead, think of how to design a good sales letter and a good marketing system, so that you can profit from your advertising effort. This was what I did when I first started marketing online without any resources (read the full story at My Best Kept Secrets To Increase Web Site Traffic From Scratch).

In response to our discussion last Tuesday, one of our members, Reveuberg, posted a follow-up question.

Here’s his email to us:

Hi Kenneth,

It’s always wonderful to read every one of your blog post. Each of them has a great content rich in values. I truly enjoy reading it.

In the most recent post on April 14, 2009, in response to Ms. Jane you wrote:

“From the look of your website, it seems that you are not too competent in web programming. It’s okay, but you must keep in mind that if you want to grow, you must take one of the 2 paths:
- Master web programming yourself
- Outsource web programming and learn how to manage programmers
That is something you need to keep in mind and work on consistently.”

Even though it’s well said, It cannot be well done by a debutant…

Would you please elaborate more in providing free or paid reputable resources that you could recommend to the reader to learn it online? We may have tons of them on line, but to know what’s good or not require not only your take but your expertise.

Also when it comes to outsourcing that web programming job could you recommend some reputable free or paid sites online that are useful for achieving growth or success in web programming?

I’ll answer his question in 2 parts:

1) How to start learning web programming from scratch

For beginners, it can be pretty boring to learn web programming. I believe no one enjoys reading programming books or tutorials.

My way of learning web programming, such as html, is “purposeful learning”. The idea of “purposeful learning” is to set a goal to create a particular website and then simply ‘learn ENOUGH’ to serve that purpose.

It will be more fun if you do so.

For example, if you have not created any website before, you set a goal to create your first content website with an aim to make money from Google Adsense.

With this goal in mind, your next job is to start asking questions.

After all these years, I slowly believe that Google has all the answers, as long as you know how to ask the right question.

Some of the question you may start asking may include:

- step by step website building guide
- how to build a content website
- html tutorial for beginners

As you start learning and building your first website bit by bit, your question will become more specific and technical. Soon, you will be asking more technical question such as:

- how to add an opt-in form
- how to create dynamic navigation
- how to add a hyperlink

“Purposeful learning” can be fun, challenging and addictive! The more you know, the more you realize that you don’t know. The more you learn, the more you need to learn.

Besides googling for an answer, if your question is too specific, you may also get help from other programmers. One website where I frequently post question to is stackoverflow.com.

2) Where to outsource web programming

There are several freelancing websites where you can engage programmers to work for you. Some of them are guru.com, elance.com, scriptlance.com and getafreelancer.com (my preferred site, no particular reason, just get used to it).

Engaging web programmers is easy, so long as you have money. The tough part is in managing them.

That’s why I said you need to learn how to manage programmers.

Most freelance programmers are “GIGA” programmers. GIGA stands for Garbage In Garbage Out.

What I mean is if you are not specific in the result that you expect to see, you’ll end up getting garbage from them.

Many marketers are disappointed by freelance programmers because these marketers have a vague idea of the final product that they want and they expect the programmers to think for them and magically create something that they desire.

Here are some tips you can use to better manage freelance programmers:

- Learn programming yourself!

This is how you can speak their language and communicate your needs effectively. You may ask “why outsource when you already know how to do it?” My answer is “because you can use your time to do other more profitable tasks or tasks that cannot be easily outsourced.”

- Use existing website as an example and for comparison

You can say “I would like to create the same effect as blar blar blar website, except that ….”

- Be specific and avoid creative work

Remember, don’t expect magic. Your instruction to programmers should be as specific as possible. You should leave as little room as possible for their creativity. Most programmers are poor marketers. If you give them too much room for creativity, your end product may not be marketable.

- Frequently ask for progress report

Programmers like to show you the product ONLY when it’s completed. It’s dangerous because they may misunderstand your requirement. In order to save everyone’s time, do your best to pester your programmer to show you any thing he has completed so far. This is especially important for big projects.

Recently I’m getting more friends and relatives asking me how to start an online business. It’s not rocket science, but it’s not easy maths too.

Starting an online business is pretty much the same as starting a brick and mortar business, except that the cost is much lower and so is the risk.

When I say it’s pretty much the same as a brick and mortar business, I also mean that you need to be entrepreneurial, to be able to ’smell’ the needs in a market and to have a vision. Are entrepreneurs born or breed? I don’t know. What I believe is, if you think you are, you are.

So, if you are entrepreneurial and want to learn how to start an online business, read on……

Step 1: Never reinvent the wheel

Believe me. Almost all the smart and innovative ideas you can think of are already done by someone else online, in one way or another. If you think you’ve a unique online business idea, it just means that you’ve not done enough research.

So, if you have any online business idea, the first thing you need to do is head over to Google and type in some keywords related to your business idea. Thoroughly check out all the top websites that provide similar product or service. This means you may have to try out their products/services and find out their pros and cons.

Next, you have to evaluate those pros and cons and come out with a BETTER idea.

Remember, the job of an entrepreneur is not to invent things. His job is to seek proven business ideas, improve on those ideas and get a piece of the pie out of the market, preferably a bigger piece.

Step 2: Think of the marketing system

Most newbie entrepreneurs have one problem. They spend too much time trying to perfect their products.

Having a good product is important. But what’s more important is the marketing system.

Without a good marketing system, no matter how good your product is, it’s going to be hard for your online business to grow.

Regardless of what you sell, your marketing system should answer 3 important questions:

- How can the system attract and capture a list of potential users and/or customers?
- How can you make the system viral, such that users will refer more users?
- How to convert prospects into customers?

For example, recently I developed a great online tool (I think) that can help me to manage all my stocks (I’m talking about the stock market). I believe if I roll this service out to the market, someone will be willing to pay for it. But before I even think of developing the tool for the multiple users, I first have to think of the 3 questions above.

Here’s my thinking process:

I probably have to develop an online system where stock traders can subscribe for free and manage limited number of stocks. This will answer question #1. If they find the service useful and want to manage more stocks, they will upgrade their account for a monthly fee. That will answer question #3. The tough part is question #2 - how to make it viral. I’m thinking of developing a system where users can allow the public to view their portfolios or their watch list and sign up followers to their watch list. It’s something like the Twitter effect. This will make the website viral.

That’s how I apply my theory in practice.

Step 3: Work

Once the idea is formed and the marketing system is well thought out, the last step to start an online business is to work.

This is the overwhelming part because there are so many things to be done, yet you can only move one step at a time.

First you have to build the website. You can buy a ready script if it’s available, use the free MYOB script that I’ve developed for our members or get a freelancer to develop the website for you, either from scratch or by modifying existing scripts.

When the website is ready, you have to promote it and keep promoting it. And that’s only the beginning……

That’s how to start an online business. After it’s started, to maintain it is another challenge. But if you start off on the right foot, things will be a lot simpler in the future.

By the way, I recently came across a good article on getting clients for your business. It’s worth reading. You may get a few ideas for your business.