The Silent Avatar Speaks

In this day and age there tends to be a thought that retirement is something you look forward to around 60-65 years of age.  I don’t know about you, but the thought of being able to retire a lot earlier really appeals to me.

How would you like the idea of re-defining when you retire? How about retiring and living off the proceeds of your efforts within the next 10 years?.. or 5 years? or even sooner?

Impossible?  Not if you are committed to your own business and you think like an entrepreneur.

Like most things in life there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and being successful enough to the point where you can retire earlier than most requires hard work and commitment.

I subscribe to “Early To Rise“, - The Internets most popular success, wealth, and well-being newsletter, and Michael Masterton’s newsletter gives some good advice about bringing your retirement forward.

Start a business (because it’s just not going to happen by simply working for someone else - unless of course you are a a crack property investor or share trader).

We all know plenty of businesses fail, (leading the list restaurants, “glamour sites” like travel, bed and breakfasts, and sports, along with retail stores), however the number of business successes far outweigh business failures.

When starting a new business you can drastically reduce your chance of failure by:

• Understanding everything you can about the product or services you plan to market.
• Become competent, and then a master of marketing your business.
• If you haven’t yet been in the industry you want to start a business in, then the best place to start is by working for someone else in the field you want to be in.

By learning on the job you will have an opportunity gather information about what works and what doesn’t. However don’t try and re-invent wheels. If something is working don’t try to change it.

• As you go about your work, have the attitude that you are on a “fact finding mission”.  Start to make notes about how a business runs and absorb as much information as you can. If it means working longer hours then so be it.  Michael says it takes around 600 hours of learning for you to know enough about a subject to avoid mistakes.

You’ll also be inspired to look at improving procedures and your marketing skills, however don’t forget that 80% of your business ideas and strategies will already be used by your competitors - because they work!

For further reading check out Michael Masterton’s 8 Important Things To Know About Business by subscribing to Early To Rise Newsletter.

Tags: Business Tips by the silent avatar
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Blogging has come of age! Hallelujah I say!

No longer content to sit back and be whimsical  musings of teenagers and bored housewives, blogging has become an essential tool for your business.

Blogs and blogging has become so commonplace a well designed blog can even take the place of a conventional web site!

Here are my top 7 reasons for your business to have a blog:

1. Blogs are a powerful marketing tool.
A blog is a simple, effective way to communicate with the public and your customers. Your blog is a means of communicating new product launches, business news, tips, and articles of interest. You can even have a photo blog of your products. It’s also a way of keeping your visitors up-to-date with what’s happening in your industry.

2. Blogs are the easiest way to add content to your site.
By adding blog posts which are relevant, interesting and compelling to your visitors you will be increasing the unique content of your site. Adding unique content to your site increase the search engine rankings. Of course this isn’t the only way to increase your site rankings, however adding fresh, meaningful new content consistently will always be rewarded with increased rankings. Every article you post is an opportunity for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

3. Blogging allows you to share your expertise with your visitors,
which in turn establishes ongoing trust and credibility to your business. A blog is an effortless way to share your knowledge. Blogs compel you to share more of your knowledge more often.

4. A blog allows your visitors to get to know you.
Sharing your knowledge through writing your blog uncovers not just what you know about a subject, but also more about who you are - it’s an opportunity to engage your customers (or potential customers) in personal dialogue. A blog humanises you and your organization.

5. It’s inexpensive
Setting up a blog whether you decide to have a stand alone blog (which doubles as your core web site), or a add-on to your business web site, requires nothing more than time to set it up. This blog uses Wordpress. I can’t speak highly enough Wordpress and it’s distributed under the GNU Public Domain Licence - so it’s free!

6. Blogs deliver instant feedback.
One of the best advantages of having a blog is the instant feedback you receive to your posts through vistors leaving a commeng to your posts.  If there is a problem you can adress it before it gets out of hand. Other times feedback will be positive - comments praising what you are doing right will keep you doing it!

7. Blogging keeps you focused.
Given all of the above reasons  for adding a bog to your website, or creating a stand alone blog, the nature of a blog means you have to keep updating your blog.  Now as you go about your day you can be thinking about your next blog topic. Simple!

No matter what your business or interest blogging  is a surefire way to market your business.

Got any comments you would like to share about your blog or blogging? Feel free to leave a comment.

Tags: Blogging by the silent avatar
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I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

Tags: Blogging, Freebies by the silent avatar
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In my last blog post I spoke about the value of giving good service, and the benefit of giving away something free to your customers or clients.

Today I am going to share with you some tips to reduce customer dissatisfaction and retain customer loyalty.

Often overlooked, one way to reduce customer dissatisfaction is to make it easy for your customers or clients to voice their concerns and complaints.

It seems so obvious yet often times a web site has a contact form, details of phone numbers and mail addresses in which people can very easily make contact with the site owner. However many times I have found it extremely difficult to find the link, and sometimes not at all.

Contact information is a show of credibility and in some way eases the emotion, knowing that their grievance can be at the least delivered or heard.

Many Internet marketing sites and “get rich quick’ web sites fail to address the needs of the customer by excluding completely any means of contact. This in itself would set of alarm bells - wouldn’t you think?

In a brick and mortar business, many, many business fail to advise a means of customer grievance. A simple sign outlining the grievance policy, located where customers could clearly read it, would encourage those who have a complaint to feel comfortable enough to come forward. And that’s precisely what you want.

Rather than recount their grievance to every second person they speak with, you have an opportunity to resolve the issue before it impacts your business.

A good idea is to have a well documented grievance “form”, taking all of the particulars - it shows you are interested in the matter.

Likewise a form on a website asking for similar details is a must. Even better you can add a component to your website to handle all your customer support.

Known as a “Help Desk”, this is an efficient add-on to a website which logs everything under a numbered “ticket”. The addition of system reports enable you to follow up disputes without loosing track, or worse forgetting all about it.

Ensuring your business addresses customer grievances or disputes before they happen will enable you to look at all of the possible reasons why someone would complain, and address those issues before they happen. Or in the event they do happen, you will have a well documented procedure to follow to ensure a satisfactory resolution.

Another way to avoid customer dissatisfaction is to ensure you don’t over-state the benefits of your product. Nothings worse than being led to believe that a product or a service made certain claims, and on those strengths you purchased, only to find out the product/service is far short of the claims. That’s just asking for trouble.

If you’re going to make a claim it better stack up.

By all means use persuasive sales copy, after all - the mere fact you are in an online business requires emotive, benefit driven sales copy. We’re not face-to- face.

Adding a 100% money back guarantee will also go a long way in increasing your sales online. A guarantee to give all their money back if they are not satisfied is as good as a “no risk” transaction, and your site visitors/customers feel a lot more at ease undertaking the transaction = more sales.

Anything less than a money back guarantee I would consider to be unacceptable if you want to do business online. The fact that you have the money before they have the product is the very reason why some people refuse to shop online.

If you have confidence in your product then it shouldn’t be an issue. The chances of someone having to claim on it are very slim.

The benefits far outweigh the negatives.

[Read more →]

Tags: General by the silent avatar
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