What is Business Success Anyway?

Although we definitely do help new writers, authors, professionals and entrepreneurs package their knowledge into top selling ebooks, books, membership sites, and training courses through InfoMarketer’sZone building a business that is profitable with high growth potential,  we constantly run up against discussions, planning and testing against a person’s definition of “success” 

Do you have a clear picture of what success in your own online business would mean? 

Even more important, do you have a measure of success in the short-term (say 6-months out), medium term (1-2 years out) and longer term (3-5 years out?)

BUSINESS SUCCESS IS A MOVING TARGET

When I first speak with newbie internet marketers or infoproduct writers and publishers they have a goal of what they would like to be earning – for everyone there are different motivations behind these numbers, some have in mind paying off a mortgage or major debt while others want to replace a current job or career, still others have a big number in mind so they can secure their future years. 

Having long-term measures of success is a great thing – shooting to earn $100K with your own internet business to take the place of a current job is a terrific goal and could be quite realistic in a greater than 6-month scenario, but how do we stay motivated, focused and satisfied with our progress in the meantime?

UNDERSTANDING PROFIT…THEN GROWTH

When we start out, everything is on a small scale (unless we buy an existing business).

We have zero traffic, a brand new website, a new product, no or a very small following – sales will be non existent or at least very low.

In the first few months, as traffic builds, our sales process kicks in we can begin to make some early sales and draw some conclusions. 

Let’s say your weekly sales have reached $300, and to get those sales you have spent $250 – that is a $50 profit. 

Not bad to start with, because we could scale this model and turn $600 in sales into $100 in profit, $1200 in sales into $200 profit – and so on…

The first important point in building a business  is that we have found a profitable system, we can work with that.  In the beginning, focus on profit NOT on sales

The differences between those people making $300 on $250 investment and those making $3000 o on a $1500 investment are…

1. They have tried more things and found the right combination that produces 50% profit instead of $15% profit

2. They would have started with little or no profit, but continued to change, test and improve their process to triple or even quadruple their profits

3. They have learned something about their market that is much more fundamental – what their market values most which allows them to make $10 for every $5 invested.

4. Having found a system or generating traffic, converting that traffic into profits and improving profit margin over time, they can now scale their business to continually increase sales monitoring profit to make sure it stays in an acceptable range.  This what takes a part-time internet business into a full-time enterprise. 

FAILING TO SUCCEED CANNOT BE AN OPTION

Too many times the people we work with have given up when they make their first loss, when their profits are not as high as they expect or when their business remains at a very low scale…they have NOT made failure painful enough.

Nothing will happen if you don’t make NOT succeeding with your business more painful than succeeding.  It is not enough to say “I wish…I had my own business” or “I hate my job…” without constantly reminding yourself (each day) the implications of NOT succeeding with your internet business venture. 

If you are not absolutely convinced that you MUST succeed with all of your living matter…then you most probably will not.

People who try once or twice and then give up have not associated enough pain and unpleasantness with NOT succeeding, otherwise they would not have given up.

Look, we know that staying focused, keeping your faith, remaining motivated and working through challenges is not easy..if it was, there would be many more of us millionaires. 

A big part of why we made InfoMarketer’sZone so accessible was to not only provide a solid system, simple training and helpful tools for starting and growing your information product marketing busieness on the internet – it was also to provide a strong bridge over troubled dips in your motivation & belief. 

From initial planning through post-launch, we talk about what to expect when building a business, how to measure and examine your online business, how to interpret the results you are getting and how to really scale the more successful aspects of your business so you don’t lose faith and you DO succeed where many others have given up. 

Now that is as close to guranteed business success as you are going to get! 

How do you see success in your business or business plans…and how will you know when you have reached your goals?  Let us know by clicking on the “Comment” bubble top right of this message and leaving us your comment.