Ipods have been all the rage for ever now, and many info-marketers have taken advantage of their popularity by loading their content on ipods and selling it that way.

But the security issues (meaning you can only sync your ipod to one computer at a time) and the price point didn’t make this a viable strategy for someone just starting out with information marketing.

But things are rapidly changing in the world of digital players. They are getting ever smaller and more affordable.

Here is just one example - a business card player I just got in the mail from Dan Safkow. Dan spoke at my Info Profit Intensive training program on the opportunity of making your products unique by packaging them in really clever ways. 

This player is as small as a credit or business card and only slightly thicker than two credit cards put together. It’s also very affordable to create.

It’s just too sexy not to use!

“Does Joining a Social Network Bring You New Business?”

That’s the question a friend posted on a Facebook discussion board. Because I just recently got involved in “social networking” and I’m evaluating if it could become an effective – and profitable - long term marketing strategy, I think my insights might be helpful to anyone spending hours of their time on any of the social networking sites springing up all over the place…

So here is what I learned from my first week on Facebook.

Utill about a week ago I’ve been a FaceBook retard. As a matter of fact, for the past couple of years I’ve been openly criticizing social networking as a viable way to grow a business.

But a few weeks ago, at one of my seminars I stated to a group of my students that “social marketing sucks and is a waste of time”. Two people in that group – Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff of http://www.blogsquad.biz/ – “strongly disagreed” with me. And they are largely a reason I’m now on Facebook and even writing this post on Sunday morning

I’m learning as fast as I can - and everything that I can - about this media. And the big question is can an average Joe Entrepreneur get a good payoff on time and money invested into social networking.

Frankly, for me personally, the jury is still out. Let me explain…

Lot’s of social networking gurus make great points:

• Don’t stop at announcing your presence on FB to your list,
• Don’t sell but be a resource,
• Build relationship first,
• Give it plenty of time…  

All of these are pure gold! And not just in terms of online networking, but in regards to many marketing strategies in general.

However, what’s missing from most of these gurus “good advice” is the answer this big question:

“How do all the social networking activities fit into your overall business growth strategy, and can you get a decent return on your investment of time?”

Let me share with you my personal criteria for answering these questions. And then you be the judge if social networking is for you…

Personally - as an entrepreneur, and with my clients – as a business development consultant, I look at many criteria before deciding a strategy is viable and should be engaged in.

Here are just three criteria against which I’m scoring my “Social Networking on FaceBook Test”:

1. Target Market Reach - ability to find and easily connect with a specific group of potential customers
2. Leverage – potential to transform an investment of time, money, and effort into a significant payoff
3. Scalability – possibility to measure, systemize, and automate the strategy and use it to rapidly expend my business

So let me share with you what I’m thinking so far (and I welcome your comments on this)

1. TARGET MARKET REACH.

Still not sure. I probably don’t know enough about FB (and I definitely don’t know enough about many other social networking sites out there) to make a conclusive statement.

What I observed so far (in only a few days) is that FB will work great for some but largely be a waste of time for others. While you can quickly make lots of friends, most of them are probably NOT very interested in what you might have to offer in terms of products and services for sale.

I noticed those who have something of interest to general population (i.e. grow you business using FB, make money using FB, make money online, start a business, etc.) do well.

So it appears that the strategy of social networking is great if you are a B2C type of business with a product that has a mass appeal. You might also do well if you want to find an audience of professionals and very small businesses who want to make more money but aren’t sure how to do this.  

But I don’t think this strategy is so hot when it comes to growing a B2B biz which targets larger companies as its customers. Again, this is just my initial observation.

For the most part, I think most people who connect with each other on FB are not what I would consider a super well targeted audience – at least not in the “direct marketing” sense. 

I also haven’t tested forming any “special interest group” yet, which might help in better targeting who connects with you on Facebook. But I have already received plenty of invitations to join other groups and I learned something from it. It’s this: Most of these invitations are just another version of spam!

So again, if you want to do this right, this is NOT a strategy that will build your list of prospects overnight!

2. LEVERAGE.

Overall this criteria scores low except for one of its components – BUILDING A HIGH-LEVEL NETWORK AND RELATIONSHIPS.

While it might be somewhat hard to measure the payoff from great relationships, I personally learned NOT to ignore it.

And in just a few days on Facebook I managed to connect or re-connect with a couple of dozen of people that I’ve been trying to get a hold of for a while now. More important, these relationships seem to quickly progress to a “higher” level. This actually surprised me (in a positive way).

In addition, over 200 more folks who have heard of me somewhere before connected with me and we became “friends”.

I have to admit, noticing this amazing ability to quickly connect and build relationships with others is probably what made me give social networking a try in the first place. It’s definitely what makes me stick around (for now ;-))

But in terms of payoff on my time I have to say so far I think FB will score rather low. And I would argue this to be true for most people here – with the exception for those who are selling something appealing to general audience like I listed earlier.

Because if it would probably take you hours and hours of participating in FB activities to generate one client at a time – that’s just not good business! And because this activity can’t be systemized and duplicated, the payoff on your effort is just too low…

For example, let’s say a business coach is building their FB presence and networks here to grow their biz. It seems like it’s a low-cost - or even free - way to promote their services. But it’s really not true. Just because it doesn’t cost money it doesn’t mean it’s free!

If it takes 10 hours to get one TRUE lead and only one in three leads becomes a client – that’s an investment of 30 hours. Assuming that most professionals should be putting at least a $100/hr value on their time, that’s a cost of $3,000 to get one client.

Personally, I can think of a lot of other ways where I can pay a lot less and acquire a new client – with a lot less effort and much faster.

Of course, the numbers I just quoted are made up – but I think anyone can easily see where I’m going with it.

One exception to this that makes me stick around is - again - the RELATIONSHIPS.

For example, sticking with the same number I quoted above, if I invest 30 hours of my time to “working the FB” and I make one REAL connection with a super-powerful strategic partner, and we end up working together and creating a cross-promotion for each other which results in just 25 new clients - each valued at $1,000 to $10,000 in the first 12 months – that would qualify as a good investment of my time.

OK, enough about leverage. Let’s move to criteria #3.

3. SCALABILITY.

This is where I think social networking really sucks. You see, because personally I’m interested in growing my business in ways that can be quickly duplicated and expended, and do not require my personal effort on ongoing basis – social networking can’t do this (at least I can’s how yet.)

Just in case the concept of scalability isn’t clear, let me explain this.

You see, each business must find a way to reach it’s potential clients, make the first sale, and then continue making subsequent sales to the same customer in order to be profitable and grow.

Most business fail because they can’t find a systematic way to do this and eventually run out of money, enthusiasm, energy, etc., and realize they work too hard to make a living. So they call it quits. You already know this.

Now, one of the keys to a successful business is finding such ways to generate the first sale that can be expended quickly with the use of more money.

For example, let’s say I spend $20 a day on pay-per-click traffic and test several keywords, ads, landing pages, back end offers, and so on.

After a month of testing I arrive at three combinations that end up immediately generating between $80 to $130 for each $20 I spend on that traffic. Now, instead of $20 a day I invest $40 – if my results hold, I go to $80. If the payoff remain the same – which in most cases it does, I start spending as much as I can each day – because the more I spend on this keyword the more I make. And this is NOT LIMITED BY MY TIME AND EFFORT – that’s a scalable marketing strategies.

As you can see, a strategy to be scalable it must be measurable and it must not be limited by my personal time and effort. This is where social networking falls short! And if you don’t believe me, notice the obvious lack of presence of really large companies here – except for their ads (which would be a scalable advertising strategy.)

Now, I already noticed a few big name gurus who somewhat openly have their FB lives managed by their assistants. It’s certainly one way that doesn’t require their personal time and effort (and could be considered somwhat scalable). But it misses out on the KEY BENEFIT – the close relationships developed through repeated connection with others.

So if that’s someone’s approach - what’s the point of being here at all? To build a list of fans who never buy? Again, I can think of a few other ways my assistant could help me do this faster and with less effort!

OK, I just realized that this post has tuned into a mini PhD dissertation on FB and social networking so it’s time to bring to an end.

So WHAT’S THE BOTTOM LINE?

Personally, I’ll proceed with caution!

I’ve built two seven figure businesses by learning to leverage relationships. Because FB appears to be a powerful platform for facilitating the process of building powerful relationships – I think I will keep playing (at least for now.)

But, beyond the time I invested initially to figure things out, I think I’ll be super careful with my investment of time and energy that goes into this and would strongly recommend the same for others. 

Discover My New Secret Identity

In the last few days I went from a “social networking skeptic” to a “social networking junkie”.

I’m now playing on Facebook and letting people know what I’m up to through twitter - every day! If want in on my new secret identity, they are revealed:

Facebook —> http://profile.to/adamurbanski
Twitter —> http://twitter.com/AdamUrbanski
 

Now it’s your turn - I’d love to hear your views on social networking and using it to grow your business. Just enter your comments below

Every day I get calls from my clients asking me questions about doing business online. Each time they cite something they just heard from some “Internet Marketing Guru.” Unfortunately, more often that I care to admit, what people are told about building a profitable online business - specifically information marketing business - is little more than a bunch of crap!

If you’ve followed a lot of that crappy advice, tried your hand at building an Internet-based business and haven’t yet reached the success you want, these 11 deadly mistakes and tips how to avoid them are for you.

Mistake #1 - Not Treating What You Do as a Business.

The difference between a hobby and a business is that a hobby doesn’t make you money - it costs you money.

If you’re serious about starting a building a profitable online business approach seriously and focus on generating revenue.

Treat your online business as if you would any regular business.

Mistake #2 - Being Distracted by Too Many Good Ideas.

You can light up a room with a light bulb, but you can cut through steel with a laser beam. The same is true with your effort and ideas.

Too many Internet-Entrepreneur-Wanna-Bes lack the will power to stay focused on one business venture from beginning to end. Chasing too many ideas at the same time often leaves them exhausted, frustrated, and with little results to show for their hard work.

The key to success is to select one business idea and to develop it completely before moving on to another project.

Mistake #3 - Not Selecting a Specific Niche.

Perhaps the biggest mistake of all is trying to be everything to everyone. You can’t - so stop!

It’s very counter-intuitive to focus on a smaller slice of the market and most people are afraid to do it. But when you do, your business will grow faster, and you’ll be more financially successful in less time.

Mistake #4 - Falling in Love With the Wrong Idea.

Even the most experienced entrepreneurs fall into this trap and develop products without doing any research. Before you devote serious amount of time and effort to developing your new ideas make sure there is a demand for the type of product, information, or service you want to launch.

And just checking how many people searched for a certain keyword isn’t enough. After all, not all the searches result in people buying stuff, right?

Make sure you can ideantify a specific group of people (your target market) that’s easy to find and reach. Make sure you understand what specific problems your target market wants to solve, and that they have the money to invest in the type of solution you want to offer them.

If you would like more help with this, I devoted a good part of my Info Profit Fast Track program explaining how to idendify and research an ideal niche market.

Mistake #5 - Falling for the “Get Rich Quick” Scheme!

Remember the old adage “if something is too good to be true…”? It’s alive and well on the Internet.

Countless people buy into the idea of making millions online overnight. Sadly, they buy into programs hyped up with empty promises only to find themselves “out of cash and out of luck” a short while later.

Be aware of spammers, illegal money-winning scams, and buying “ready to profit from money-making businesses” that are “hot but will sell for cheap”!

Before you fork over your money investigate if those hot businesses have ever made a dime for their current owner.

No matter how “hot” and appealing the offers look, and despite the often present “urgency to act now or loose out” - always do your homework first. It will save you a lot of money and many sleepless nights!

Mistake #6 - Going Into It, Instead of Growing Into It.

While the Internet makes it easier to reach your potential clients, you’re still building a business - and that takes time.

So don’t tell your boss you’re quitting today because you started this hot new online business last night and you’ll be “rolling in dough in no time flat” until you make sure your business idea works and is profitable.

That’s one of the advantages of Internet Business - you can start small and step-it-up as your business starts getting sales and generating profits.

So first be sure your online business can consistently replace your current income before jumping ship and telling your boss to “beat it”!

Mistake #7 - Being a Copy-Cat!

Quickly - what is the most popular business on the Internet? You guessed it - it’s how to make money online!

It seems that everyone who has bought a course on making money online is credible enough to teach this subject a week or two later!

Don’t fall for the allure of easy money - because it’s only a perception. In reality your chances of having a successful online business are much greater when you are different from the pack. 

There are plenty of small, untapped markets to “get rich” in. Every day I find people making money on websites teaching things like juggling, bunny breading, making home videos, and a score of other “weird” topics.

Do a little soul searching and identify things you know a lot about and are passionate about. Chances are there is a group of people who would be willing to pay you to learn what you already know on those topics. And those are the business opportunities you should pursue online…

Mistake #8 - Wasting Time and Money on Developing Pretty but Useless Websites.

A bad idea is a bad idea - no matter how pretty you dress it up. Many people waste precious startup dollars on expensive but needless graphics, pretty logos and complex web design.

In reality, most businesses can be simple and inexpensive to get off the ground. In fact, a simple two, or three-page website with little or no graphics will often make more money than one with all the latest flashing bells and whistles.

Ask yourself what is the core concept of your business. Outline it on a single sheet of paper, then quickly implement it in its simplest form. You can always give it a makeover and spruce it up if it’s successful and profitable.

Mistake #9 - Not Building Relationship with Clients.

“Even though you don’t know me from Adam, I want you to take out your wallet and give me $20 - in exchange I’ll make you the King of the Universe!”

What!?

You don’t want to give me your $20?

What a surprise!

Most people think about starting an online business in terms of getting a quick sale - with no prior relationship with their potential clients at all.

In reality, you’ll be more successful when you make your first goal to collect contact information from potential clients and follow up with them on regular basis.

It’s much easier to “sell something for FREE” than trying to convince people to give you money at first.

Make it your goal to prove your credibility online. Make your business all about building relationship with prospects and clients and you’ll create a thriving online empire.

Mistake #10 - Calling It “QUITS” Too Soon!

If your new online venture isn’t making money at first don’t walk away from it too soon. Many entrepreneurs have multiple “failures” in their background - which in reality are lessons in what didn’t work.

Evaluate your ideas and get help with gaining a new perspective on what you’re doing. Sometime, with a few tweaks, you might find a new way to position your originally unprofitable idea differently and turn it into a real money-maker.

And don’t forget this simple truth - most ideas need enough time to germinate. So you simply need to give them time to gain the traction and momentum to get the payoff you want.

Mistake #11 - Being too cheap!

While it’s a good habit to be thrifty with your dollars, don’t confuse saving money with being cheap. Remember the price you’re paying for things isn’t always expressed in money. It’s also the time, effort, and lost opportunities you can’t take advantage off because you lack the know-how or are busy doing low-level tasks.

There are two things that consistantly differenciate smart and successful online entrepreneurs from those who can’t make it.

The successful ones surround themselves with a winning support team and hire mentors to coach them in gaining new business skills. They continually invest in their education. They buy marketing training programs, time-saving software tools, and systems that allow them to grow businesses faster with less effort.

So there you have it - my top 11 deadly information marketing mistakes. And I’m sure this is only a short list. If you feel compelled to do so, feel free to comment below and add more “deadly mistakes” or good tips to avoid making them…

Here is to your success… Cheers!

Adam

If you’re a coach, consultant, or your business is to provide some type of professional services to your clients, then information marketing is probably one of the best ways to stop selling time for money, attract more clients, increase your income, and even make money while you’re asleep.

Here are seven unique advantages an info marketing business has over any other business models.

Unique Advantage 1: Low financial barrier to entry.

When I was in the restaurant business, each store cost us about $150,000 to $200,000 in equipment and tenant improvements just to open the store.

It was a lot of money to put at risk, because you never really know how the restaurant will do until it’s open. We never knew whether the location would be a winner and we’d be able to break even and recoup our money. We could only hope to make a profit after a year or two.

And this high cost and risk is true for most traditional, brick-and-mortar businesses. But you can start an information marketing business for just a few dollars and begin profiting within your first 24 hours.  (I will share with you exactly how to that in one of my future tips).

Unique Advantage 2: Tremendous leverage.

You can use technology to automate a lot of manual, repetitive tasks you would traditionally have to do yourself, and delegate almost all the tasks of running your information marketing business. And the best part is people who assist you with your business can be thousands of miles away from you, operating from their own offices, and it makes no difference to you!

For example, think about hosting a teleseminar. You can register online and receive the information how to participate via email – all automatically.

How about selling a digital product? Again, the sale is made online, product delivery is automated with autoresponders, and customer service can be outsourced to a Virtual Assistant who operates his or her own business and specializes in providing this type of support.

In fact, the more mature and sophisticated your business becomes, the easier it will be to handle most of the tasks of running it totally automatically.

Unique Advantage 3: Low amount of customer interaction.

You can create an extremely successful and profitable business and impact a lot of people by packaging your information into info-products and working with groups of customers at once instead of one-on-one.

Chances are there are some topics you’re really passionate about and you love sharing with others what you know.

When you begin to “package your knowledge” you’ll be able to share it with more people faster without having to deal with the typical demands and strain of taking on individual clients.

With an information marketing business you can decide if you want to take on individual clients, and how many of them you want to work with. You’ll also be in total control who qualifies to become your client so you can choose to only take on the most fun and engaging project you really enjoy.

Unique Advantage 4: You don’t need a staff.

While most successful information marketers eventually hire virtual assistants and employees and build large teams that allow them to grow faster and run their business without them, you can start by working by yourself.

You can start in your spare time with just you, and only hire independent professionals to help you as your business grows. Because most of the work can be done remotely they don’t have to work with you in your office so you can always keep your costs down.

Unique Advantage 5: You can start your business from your kitchen table! 

When I first started my business, my most comfortable place to work from was my couch. I used my laptop to write new content or record audio programs. In fact, that’s how I ran my business for the first year or so.

Picture me sitting on my couch in my living room just enjoying my environment and creating something that, to this day, generates revenue. I didn’t have to get up and go to work, drive in traffic, deal with unruly coworkers or rude and demanding bosses. It was all out of my home office.

I still run my business out of my home office in Irvine, California. Today my in-house team consists of my wife and myself. For us our business is our “full time” work. We also have an almost full-time executive assistant who is working with us out of our house, as well and a team of virtual assistants and web designers.

Our business grew very big and more sophisticated, but it didn’t start this way. It started very, very small. My goal is to provide you with tutorial articles and tips and show you exactly how to do it – even if you don’t know anything about information marketing, don’t think you can write, don’t consider yourself an expert on any topics, have limited resources and you don’t know much about websites and technology. With my help with each tip and article you’ll be learning a new step to grow your business.

Unique Advantage 6: Huge profit potential.

In most situations it will cost you very little to create your products giving you very high profit margins.

Information products and programs have humungous markups. Something that costs you $1 can be sold for $10, $20, $100, and in some cases even $1,000.

We used to call my restaurant a “penny” business because the profit margins were so slim. Even small mistakes could be very costly. You don’t have to worry about this in information marketing because of the big profit margins. That’s a huge advantage.

Unique Advantage 7: Scalability.

Once you find profitable ways to attract clients and generate sales, and put in place systems to automate most of your business activities so they are not dependent on you, you’ll be able to skyrocket your profits to unbelievable levels with little or no additional work on your part. It’s called scalability.

If you currently run a small business or professional practice, I’m sure than on more than one occasion you said something like, “I wish there was another me. I wish I could somehow clone myself.”

But in a traditional business or practice that means hiring employees or finding another professional of your caliber, education, personality, characteristics and skills – something very difficult and expensive to achieve. Information marketing doesn’t have those barriers so you can grow it much faster and keep it very profitable even in the early stages of growing the business.

That’s why, when you combine all these benefits, you realize information marketing is as close to being a perfect business as you can get.

And when you set it up the right way, you’ll be able to replace selling your time for money and working with individual clients with massive passive and leveraged revenue. In short – you’ll be making money while you’re asleep! 

 If you’re looking for a good, comprehensive course on how to start your own information marketing business consider my Info Profit Fast Track program. It will provide you with all the information you need to get started fast.