The Seductive Power of Online Myths

The Seductive Power of Online Myths

Having a successful online business is not that difficult if you build it right.
Any online businesses must have certain key elements:

• You need products and services of real value. Something that will be of benefit to people. Something that will make people want to return again and again. Any business is about the long-term partnerships between you and your customers.

• Your website must be based on customer-centered “cash copy.” Such copy must make it easy for visitors to see exactly what they will get from you, how it will benefit them, get them motivated to buy now, and make it easy to do so. It must have a customer contact form, so that you capture the visitors’ details and generate a steady flow of leads.

• Your website must have customer-centered design. This design must work right along side the copy so that visitors find it easy to navigate the site, see the benefits, the offers, the testimonials, and the response information.

Businesses following these sensible steps profit.
Businesses that do not, don’t!
For your business to succeed, for it is a business that must be worked, there are a number of myths that you must avoid or you, too, will fall certain victim to them and fail to realize the promise of the Internet, that is consistent, dependable sales and consistent, dependable profit.

Myth #1: Post it and They Will Buy

There are millions of sites that are the result of this concept instead of business principles. Owners who believed that just by being on the Internet was enough.
They believed all they had to do was “post it and you will buy.”
I’ll admit some pretty bad looking sites do work but Just “showing up” and throwing a website together, the way so many people have done, is not the way to do it. Internet visitors have over the years become increasingly sophisticated about evaluating websites and the businesses, which post them.
It’s not the fact that you have a website that matters. Websites come in all
varieties, good, bad, indifferent. Profitable websites are customer-centered in both copy and design; they are written and designed with the purpose of making it clear to customers just how you can benefit them. Websites are not so much about the businesses posting them, as they are about the customers for whom they should be written and designed.
Your website should not be egotistical “me-centered”.  That is not only an embarrassment to your business but is of no interest to customers or motivate customers both to purchase and to come back later and purchase again.

NO sensible business person, focused as they must be on the customers,
Believes that simply “showing up” online will produce profit. Instead, they spend their time developing a website that is packed with customer benefits, terrific motivating offers, and testimonials which show that other people have got good results from what they’re selling.

Myth #2: Email it and They Will Buy

Hundreds of million, perhaps even billions of perfectly legitimate email messages from perfectly legitimate businesses will be blocked by spam blockers and fail to be delivered today.

You cannot just email your way to success. You cannot just sit back, write a message, click a button and smile all the way to the bank. In the early days of email, when it was a novelty, people actually read their email and, in far  larger numbers, responded to it. However, that age is over.
Now I am not saying that email has no place in the development of a successful online business. It does. But you need to be realistic about what email can do and what must be done to get people to read it and respond. You need to realize that you cannot succeed online by simply purchasing a list (that’s always spam) and mass emailing a message to total strangers and hoping that it will generate a constant profit.
The key to using email is by building up your own email list, talking directly to your customers, and working with them, one customer at a time, the only sure way to profit from email and to build a profitable business.

Myth #3: All I Need Is Traffic & More Traffic To Succeed

Lots of Internet marketers have the crazy notion that if you throw enough people at your website you’ll make money because some of them will buy.
The people who believe this talk about “traffic.” They tell you that if you buy enough “traffic” you’ll make money. False!
Businesses that make money are businesses that focus on getting leads, not merely “traffic.” What’s the difference?
Say a person goes to your website and completes a form, providing you with their name and email address. This person is a lead, someone with a sufficient interest in what you offer to take the time to complete the form and contact you. Your job is to do what’s necessary to build a relationship with them (including subscribe this individual to your newsletter for regular online contact) and make the sale.
“Traffic” is not about a specific individual telling you of their interest in what you’re selling; it’s just about taking large numbers of people and throwing them at your site in the hopes that some of them “stick” and do something, anything to justify your investment in the “traffic.” Of course, this is the worst possible way to build a business and a massive waste of your money.
You build a business one lead, one customer at a time. You don’t just throw a mass of names at your website, hoping that someone, anyone will do something, anything. No, instead you generate leads one at a time. You contact them one at a time and help them one at a time, building the necessary relationship that can pay off for you and your business for years to come.
Building a business is, by definition, a slow, painstaking process. You have to talk to people. You have to work with people. You have to find out what they want, when they want it, and what their budget is. And you must always, personally, ask for the sale, since this is always the best way to get it.
Throwing “traffic” at your website is a certain prescription for failure and a complete waste of money.

Myth #4: So Who Needs Customer Service Anyway?

Now think for a minute of the last time you went shopping. Did you have to ask for customer service? Most of us rely on customer service when shopping; at least we feel better knowing we could access it if we needed to.
By contrast, take a good look around the Internet. Visit just about any site and see how that business has handled customer service and assistance.
You’ll find that it’s virtually impossible to reach a human being, ask a question with a reasonable chance of getting an answer (much less a prompt
answer) or get any customer service whatsoever.
Instead online business owners seem to reason thus: “give me your credit card and get lost. Or just get lost.”
Despite the fact that most people ask for some type of customer service when shopping, despite the fact that the most successful offline businesses in the world make a point of providing exemplary customer service, you to search the Internet high and low for good examples of companies with superior
customer service.
Now, how in the world do these businesses expect to get sales and build long term lucrative relationships without offering even the most merger customer service?
Businesses failing to provide customer service are doomed to fail.
People demand customer service and rightly so. Remember, all businesses have competitors and people will spend their money where the experience is easy, effortless, and hassle free.
Businesses that succeed online are no different than those succeeding offline; they provide exemplary customer service or watch their customers determinedly go elsewhere. Whoever thinks they can get away with substandard, much less no customer service are profoundly mistaken.

Myth #5: Who Needs Training Anyway?

You do. Most businesses need to provide some kind of training. You need to train yourself in all aspects of your business. No business is just plug and play. Find yourself a system that has “How to Videos”, that will show you how to set your system up and make it work. Cover all the things you need to know.
We have heard our entire life over and over again about the importance of training and on going education. Will it is true.

Myth #6: Lay Back, Do Nothing, Get Rich

How can you get rich without

• continually generating leads
• contacting individual leads by email, telephone, videos, etc.
• without talking to them, working with them, asking them what they want,
• inquiring as to their time line and budget
• working daily, without keeping regular professional hours
• contacting customers regularly through ezines and other email messages
• keeping up-to-date on online changes affecting your business
• bothering to learn what to do and how to do it to maximize your online success, and above all else
• asking for the sale.

In other words, do you expect to profit from an online business without
doing anything that that a business requires for success.
Indeed, some people seem to think that doing even the littlest amount of effort would threaten their world where certain success is the result of doing nothing, avoiding all effort.
The truth is, good businesses are the result of good habits. If you are not willing to employ them in the development of your online business, failure is a certainty.
The Internet is not a unique world of its own. It’s just another aspect of the work-a-day world we all inhabit, more or less comfortably. It’s not a universe; it’s a tool. As such, to maximize performance means approaching it with the same common sense principles and good habits which mean success in business anywhere else. Without such principles, without such habits your failure is certain, no matter how much you believe in the myth of maximum success without even minimal effort.
You cannot work online how you like, when you like, if you like. You must operate your online business the same way the successful business people in your neighborhood operate their offline businesses: upon the rock of good habits. Indeed, I would say such habits are the essence of online business success, because without them all else fails.

Parting thought
At this point you have a decision to make: will you enter a Fool’s Paradise and adhere to the myths or will you decide to run a real business, with its very real concerns, responsibilities and rewards?