Most of us don’t think twice about what is involved in maintaining the platforms the Social Networking and Social Bookmarking potpourri of sites that we use each day in our online businesses.  These days, the focus is mostly on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.  Other useful sites are LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Flickr, MySpace, and Last.fm … to name a few.  Then there are he multiple free email accounts we have. 

When it comes to our home computing environments, we unconsciously manage disk space every day.  If we have self-hosted blogs, we look for and choose hosting vendors who permit us to have unlimited storage for our websites.  Yet, we take the storage of our Tweets and posts for granted. 

Every piece of content must be stored somewhere.  In the early days of email, I was part of a group who studied email etiquette with interest.  We discussed computing capacity issues, like storage, too.  A friend of mine, who worked for EMC, wrote a fascinating white paper about the exponential growth of data storage.  Her predictions have been exceeded by mounds and mounds and mounds of data.  None of us foresaw the advent of micro-blogging in 1985, let alone text messaging on a cell phone!   

Recent research by IDC revealed that our digital universe grew by 62% during the last year alone.  The stunning amount of storage online at the time of the study was 800,000 petabytes, a measure better described at this link.  In short, it is one million gigabytes.  By the end of 2010, it is predicted that there will be 1.2 zettabytes online.  A zettabyte, incidentally, is roughly half a million times the entire collections of all the academic libraries in the United States.  Whew!  And I’m worrying about a few gigabytes around here.   

Computers and the internet have made our lives easier, much more public and availed methods to get income online for some of us too.  Pages upon pages of material sifted and listed, categorized and presented for our reading pleasure with a few keystrokes and a button click.  Since our content is cached and stored online indefinitely, one begins to wonder if our content will outlive our grandchildren.  Who can say?

Perhaps I am the exception but it perturbs me that the long and predictable sales letter page is being replaced by an optin form leading to a long-winded video which has no details about its length and takes way too long to arrive at a point. 

This trend reminds me of a desert character that I met recently on an outing.  Although the dialogue was entertaining, this person spent an hour telling my friend and I what he was going to tell us AFTER he told us why he was going to tell us what he was going to tell us.  Of course, we were free to leave at anytime but he seemed to have a need to tell his story, and I wanted to give him a chance.  In the end, it was a circular and one-sided discussion and he never really told us anything.  :D

But it was interesting to behold… 

Time is a non-renewable resource

How we spend our time each day is one of our more important decisions.  An email or link sent through Skype sometimes elevates my interest .  When the destination turns out to be a video landing page that provides no text to scan, the journey is predictable.  Someone is going to try to sell me something. 

While it is entirely possible that what they have to sell is something that I want or need, what is the benefit of biding my time through more than 30 minutes of self-aggrandizing dialogue, waiting to hear the price and being forced to endure so much “ but wait … there’s more” yammering? 

deep discount or inventory liquidation?

People don’t like to be convinced of something’s worth.  Idle curiosity led me to computing the discount of the bonus items for the most recent Video Sales Letter so I could report it to you.  The add-ons for this particular Video Sales Letter offer were “conservatively” valued at $38,731.  Yet, this internet marketer was willing to “give” them to me for $1,997.  That’s nice, but is it believable?   

If you are quick with a calculator, you’ve already determined that this is a 94.8% discount.  I’m fairly certain that opting into this offer would have led multiple upsells and an offer to have a trial membership with on-going fees of $97 a month, or more.  I’ve seen it before. 

But here is my point:  Liquidation sales are not a new idea.   In fact, Russell Brunson just had one and he didn’t pretend it was anything other than it was.  I truly admired that. 

ambiguity, logic and the law of averages

During the dialogue, the marketer informed us that his secrets had only been released to a handful of people who had proven to him, during 8 months of trialing his methods, that what he had found was not a fluke. 

What is a handful to an internet marketing millionaire with a huge list?  If the handful of people privy to the software and techniques have an 8-month head start, is there a prayer that these “hand selected niches” can be still penetrated and leveraged? 

Even though I’m basically an optimist, this sort of talk makes me skeptical.  I learned in the racquetball court that timing and position are everything in life.  In other words, creating the money-making idea or being part of the cadre of founders is the place to be if you really want to be if you want to cash in on something. 

If you are invited through a mass mailing, you are not in that group.  Applying their techniques to your current tactics has potential to improve your sales but please stick with your own niches.  Those “hand selected” niches are highly likely to be saturated. 

Passionate Pursuits

My viewpoint is that wealth will follow the pursuit of something that you already are interested in and will enjoy working with every day.  Using that base formula, your marketing, whether or not it is a Video Sales Letter, will genuinely convey your enthusiasm and have greater potential to become viral.  Your time spent researching the niche is time that you would be spending anyway because it is interesting to you.  Your targeted list is easy to acquire and grow because you are interacting with people naturally already, through Twitter, Facebook,LinkedIn and your blog. 

Identify those things that you truly enjoy and focus on what you like to do anyway and don’t invest yourself in the outcome.  It will come to you without a struggle if you maintain focus and don’t allow yourself to become distracted by the noise around you and frivilos get rich quick schemes.

We’ve all been taught to avoid the truth if we fear that our news has potential to upset someone whom we like and respect, but being honest about your feelings doesn’t mean that you have to be tactless. If we understand and appreciate that everyone has varying degrees of skill with regard to handling feedback, and that they aren’t always in control of their emotional responses, there’s always a way to talk over any issue and reach a reasonable compromise.

Honesty is the best policy and, in my humble opinion, a lie by omission causes the most harm. The world would be a much better place if everyone was capable of directly confronting differences of opinion and, if these cannot be reconciled, choosing to disagree without the having the discussion escalate to an argument or parting of ways. Over time, I’ve decided that the culprit impeding this outcome is ego … and egos can be so demanding of respect!

So what can you do if you know you’re onto something and your ideas are repeatedly ignored by your business associates? Do you give up and become resentful or do you try to find another way to get your point across to them?

You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don’t let yourself indulge in vain wishes. ~ Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941)

In any business, risk is necessary but risks should always be meticulously researched and measured against your assumptions before making a change. Consider carefully whether or not your idea is too great of a leap to be considered at this time but, by all means, don’t give it up if you strongly feel it can work better than the track you are currently on. With just a little more thought, you may find a way to redesign your proposal that seems less risky to your associates. 

Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet. ~ African Proverb

Because the river moves around it, a rock appears to be stronger but physics have proven that moving water will prevail and keep its own course over time. After many attempts to dictate the route of the Mississippi River, The Army Corps of Engineers have learned that the river knows its own way and serves no man.

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins – not through strength, but through persistence.- Anonymous

Although the process that makes water stronger than a rock is erosion, we aren’t disempowering anyone by gently persisting about something that we know, in our hearts, is a better way to go. There are people who will not pursue any idea that they don’t feel is their own. With theses sorts of personalities, planting the seed of your idea and waiting for them to embrace it as their own usually does the trick, however, it does require that you don’t have a need to be recognized for it. Giving the idea to your business associates from the onset with phrasing like, “Have you considered …”, is an extremely non-confrontational assertion and somewhat of a subliminal command to for them to at least think about your recommendation.

Bodies of water also give us another metaphor for our business relationships. Many rivers open up to the sea but the sea is its own force and returns tides to the rivers. The mixture of salt and fresh water produces a brackish habitat where creatures from both worlds can adapt and thrive. Using this metaphor, when your original idea is improved upon through your business colleagues’ consideration, blending thoughts can result in a better plan and those who are capable of adapting can prosper more.

So it all seems to come down to being open and honest to learning and not being attached to the outcomes of your suggestions, doesn’t it? If we can keep our demanding egos out of the way, forward progress is always an option. Whether the progress is a business idea or a shift in how you interact with your associates, a positive change of direction is normally a sign of growth.

We all know there are times when it is necessary to have a conversation that has potential to become awkward. If you are a good communicator, you can usually find a way to avoid arguments but there are times when the only option available is to agree to disagree. If you are capable of speaking your mind, in spite of any fears, and managing your emotional response to having your ideas rejected, you’ve risen above the constraints that your ego can create.

It is too bad that most Internet Marketers don’t understand the mechanics of a human-to-human sales relationship. If they actually had to talk to their prospects and customers, rather than dwelling in a two-dimensional world, would this improve their income potential or diminish it?

Building relationships takes time and attention, no matter which way you spin things. Developing rapport and gaining an understanding of each other ought to be a mutual effort or the equity of the relationship becomes uneven. Just as an expert should not condescend to a customer who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of their area of expertise, a customer should not condescend to the expert and treat them as a servant.

It is quite satisfying when there is cooperation and mutual respect in a business relationship. In this scenario, the customer appreciates the expertise that the professional is bringing to the table and respects the fact that such expertise has a value for which they are being paid. The professional appreciates the fact that the customer has chosen to work with them, in spite of the fact that they had other choices, and values their customer through responsiveness and, most importantly, through listening to the customer’s concerns and ideas. To that end, the most important tool that any entrepreneur has at their disposal is their ability to listen.

Listen, Learn and Earn

Listening is an active skill. People who are communicating with you need to know that they have been heard so it is important to acknowledge them, whether or not you agree with what they’ve said. In addition, if you are not clear about what you’ve heard, asking questions that explore the issue in such a way that no conclusions are assumed can lead your customers to telling you much more about their needs. This has potential to grant you further sales, if your products and services are aligned with those needs. If not, you may be able to refer them to a colleague of yours who specializes in that niche.

Today, while conferring with a new client, they were expressing discontent about another person in my same field who came to her expecting a retainer payment to commence work. When the prospect informed this website designer that they had questions, the designer’s response was: “I know all your questions and I have all the answers.” It didn’t surprise me that this prospect has continued to look for a website designer. That sort of reply totally invalidated this nice lady, making her feel as if her feelings and questions were completely irrelevant.

Communication is an art, and the most important aspect of communicating with anyone is listening to what they are saying. While a college degree isn’t required to enter any entrepreneurial arena, effective business people will educate themselves in the things that will further their business and increase their referrals.

Have you ever been repelled by communication with people or stopped reading content due to the overuse of acronyms which mean nothing to you? In a former life, when I took a position in a Honeywell division that had a lot of specialized language, I was impressed, and will never forget, the pamphlet that they gave me at employee orientation to help me expand their frequently used acronyms. It wasn’t like I was going on vacation in a foreign country or anything!

It is true that instant messaging and technology have introduced a lot of new words and acronyms into our vocabularies over the course of the last few decades. When email was new, I recall how spell checkers challenged my usage of the word messaging. (Their suggested revision was massaging, which always caused me to chuckle and think of a Pink Panther movie skit with Peter Sellers.) Being at the forefront of early email adoption, I was involved with think-tank groups who explored the casual nature of email communications in business. People like me, who are moderately obsessed with proper language, railed at the prevelence of shorthand that seemed to be “dumbing down” written communications but, in a recent National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast, a panelist remarked that language shorthand used in written communication was centuries old and provided several examples.

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In this instance, the business person and prospective client are communicating well but the point is that your written and spoken communications should not leave your audience struggling to understand. I’ve learned that NOT understanding something can cause people to stop listening or reading because their minds wander off as they try to imagine what what they don’t know. That isn’t the effect you want to create, is it?

I’d like to provide an example for you. If you are writing an atricle about online marketing and use the abbreviation CPA, you should immediately expand the acronym by either putting the phrase Cost Per Action in parentheses or vice-versa. This will keep their attention from getting stuck on what they may not know.

During these days of short-attention span, information overload, and constrained time, isn’t it important that you make things easier for your followers to understand? Statistically, you have less than 30 seconds for them to make up their mind whether or not they are interested enough to stay on your website. Thus, there is no sense in communicating in a way that might be frustrating for them because you are speaking in a foreign language. As the communicator, you know what the acronym means. If you don’t, you really ought to.

And while I’m pondering one of my favorite subjects, launguage and words, I have another question. Why in the world would anyone feel compelled to abbreviate the word June to Jun? Sheesh!

At a recent networking meeting, the presenter included bullet items of methods they used to enhance their business lead generation on their slide presentation. One of the items on the list was to watch TV. This is a tactic they use to become part of the social conversation.

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, watching television during prime time hours is not strictly a waste of productive time. Your prospects and customers watch TV. While they are going about their daily lives, they chat with others about what they’ve seen. Some even look up information on the internet during or following a program. Why not leverage these facts to build your business?

Established companies in all vertical markets are able to invest in television advertising and those ads can give budding entrepreneurs great information about consumer interests, and possibly new ideas for how they might create a product for their own business. Most of us are aware that prime time advertising comes at a premium price. If you have already identified your niche market, tune in when those programs are airing to find out what is being advertised and how those campaigns are structured. If you haven’t identified your niche, sample prime time programs on various stations to gain an understanding about what is being marketed to various segments.

Let’s take some obvious examples. Identity theft is perceived as a huge problem with the expansion of the internet for shopping and record keeping. Banks and credit unions advertise their security while also promoting their ease of use. Credit repair affects younger people. The clever ads with the minstrels at the Renaissance Fair, on a roller coaster, or leaving the car lot in a clunker make this crystal clear. With the growing population of Baby Boomers in their 50s, who are trying to avoid aging or pain, advertisements for potions and pills which answer these concerns are prevalent during dramas and documentaries.

To become part of “the conversation” for your market niche, your content could leverage titles for popular television shows, either in your product name or articles you are publishing. About a year ago, this theory was validated by writing an article about Big Foot when the creature was a hot topic in the news. It works.

Maybe you really hate the thought of watching television. If so, you can visit your local magazine rack and buy periodicals targeting various niches to see what is advertised within. From inserts to smaller text ads, clues about the interests of that niche will come clearer. You can also take a stab at finding websites which target market segments but the relevance of Google Ads is based upon on page content and not actually a good predictor of visitor interests, especially if the content is free.

The upshot of this post is no revelation to some but it may be the missing puzzle piece the causes things to come together for another. As always, I conclude with a friendly remainder to perform due diligence on any business decision you make and, if this bears out, have some sort of market plan to guide your movement forward into the fast lane.

It’s true; I came of age during the 60s. While this places me in some people’s stratospheric age groups, my age is merely a number to me and I’m thrilled to have grown up in such interesting times. Being a Baby Boomer surrounded by Hippies and other sorts of rebels brought many ideals to my purview … some more palatable than others but each of them born from a cry for freedom by my generation.

After recently re-theming my GetIncomeBlog.com, my interest in writing to it has been renewed, along with the traffic that comes to my site. I use several tools to determine how you all get here and, during the past month, the viewership statistics that I’ve been monitoring inform me that there are folks out there who appreciate my articles. Seeing what keywords you’re using is also fascinating.

I don’t write any of my articles to obtain your admiration, however. I write them because of a conversation I’ve had with newer online marketers or offline business owners has reminded me of something that will help them and want to pass along this information to you too. Whether or not you are a grizzled veteran, reminders about how things work in business and the entrepreneurial world is helpful.

I read such an article myself today at Yaro Starak’s blog. This young man is brilliant in his writing and has really done well for himself by blogging. I was unaware of this site until today when I was evaluating a competitor’s backlinks. Even though the article I read at Yaro’s blog wasn’t brand new, it spoke to many things that I’ve been writing about lately.

A colleague recently opined that a blog was nothing more than an online diary. Network marketers, BizOp chasers, and another group of business people whom I will lovingly refer to as “Elitists” tend to say that blogging is not important. But people like Yaro convince me and others who are determined to establish an Online Brand image that having a blog with high-quality content is essential. I can’t think of one reputable top gun marketer who isn’t using a blog as a component of their branding strategy.

But let’s get back to the statistics on my blog. On a “bad day” here at GetIncomeBlog.com, I am getting about 5 – 10 times more traffic that I used to get on a “good” day and I’m just beginning to ramp up. On a “bad” day, I spend very little time thinking about the “low” traffic volume. I merely smile and tell myself that everything is relative … a canon of my youth.

Leadership is a topic of interest when one is working for a wage.  In that context, a leader is defined by rank, company holdings or some other arbitrary definition of success.  When the transition from wage-earner to entrepreneur occurs, leadership takes on a little different connotation.

The life of an internet entrepreneur varies by their interests, passions and motivations.  It is entirely possible to build a lucrative business that requires no more than you, an internet connection and time.  If the product is not digital, you certainly will become embroiled with inventory management, packing and shipping.  Maintaining a high level of customer service is critical to your success.  Digital products or services are a less labor intensive way to be an internet entrepreneur but your responsibility to support questions or concerns from customers is still a factor.

If you are a wise entrepreneur, you are building a solid relationship with those on your list.  Because you have gained their trust, people will begin to follow your advice and forward your recommendations to their friends.  This brings more conversions and income your way.    Your reputation will be enhanced by consistently introducing high-quality products and services that you know your followers will appreciate.  Congratulations,  you’re a leader!

As your visibility and reputation gain momentum, new opportunities will present themselves that can be fun and lucrative.  If an entrepreneur has an established list or has grown a support team, veering off to a new interest before laying appropriate groundwork with your group can cause confusion and discontent … and affect your reputation in a not-so-good way.  This is not the sort of visibility that you want as an business person.

Leadership involves communicating clearly with all the stakeholders affected by the decisions that you make.  If you behave rationally and responsibly, your fans will always sing your praise.

There is little doubt that times are tough.  Personally, I know many people who have been out of work for extended time periods, have been forced into bankruptcy, or have lost their homes through foreclosure.  All their stories are all very different but, in every instance, the root cause was attributable to the fact that they held onto some belief that doing things the way they’d always done them would continue to work … a definition for insanity, in some circles.

Personal belief systems can keep us stuck so why not turn that to an advantage?  Believe that change is critical in order to thrive in the face of adversity.  Granted, basking in the things that we are familiar with makes us feel more comfortable but isn’t it time to confront the awkwardness of change and try something new? 

Orchestrating a significant change in your life takes some amount of confidence along with a dash of creativity and perseverance on the side.  But there may be more important ingredients that you must NOT include in your career shift recipe, which would be to subtract your mental image of what you do along with the ideas that your family and friends have about what will work for you. 

Recently a friend of mine, who has been a nurse for over 40 years, offered this bit of profundity while ruminating about a career change in her 50s.

“The more that I let go of, the closer to no thing I will be”

When we hold onto roles, like having a job or being jobless, our freedom to choose a new life is limited by the belief of what we are.

Why not try an experiment at your next social outing?  When someone asks you what you “do”, answer their question by listing the things that you are passionate about doing, rather than providing the rote answer that they are expecting.  It might give them pause but it also might expose you to a like-minded person who is interested in one of your passions that they have considered turning it into a source of sustainable income. 

As for the people that say “Uh huh…” and walk away, let them rotate in circles of  small talk with less passionate people.  This experiment is not about making anyone feel comfortable that you are a “normal” person.  It is about shifting your own mindset and visualizing the possibilities of your passions as a possible source of future income.