Money Is NOT The Problem! – January 2009
Hello and welcome to the first edition ofthe APD newsletter in 2009! Happy new year.
I’m sorry it’s a bit late this month… I have been snow bound in Vancouver– yes that’s right… snowbound.We went over to Canada for Christmas and landed in a blizzard (not recommended) and left many, many hours delayed with deep snow still on the ground.
Vancouver had 104cm (I think that’s about 3 and a half feet!) of snow while we were there when they norm ally only manage 48cm in an entire average winter.
Of course all of this bad weather played havoc with the flights,and once something goes wrong the knock on effect is devastating… ask British Airways.
W e had a nightmare journey hom e and ended up being awake for39 hours straight.
Now I know why sleep depravation is used as a method of torture!I have only just regained my senses! It was a surreal experience!
And, to cap it all just when you think BA really should do everything possible to make their customers happy after such a huge delay… they left us standing in baggage reclaim for45 minutes without telling us where our bags were… when, you’ve guessed it,they had been enjoying the ride on belt 11 for 30 minutes.
Nice as T5 is, I really just wanted to get home by this time!
This is not how to deal with customer service! Needless to say, BA probably got 50% more complaints than they would have got without this “final straw”.
M oving on… this month will probably be the last “formal” monthly newsletter as APD moves to a more “flexible” method of information delivery.
The new website is very nearly finished and the best way I can describe it is that it is like an “online newspaper”.
Alison, Lee and I will be making sure the information contained on the site is a “living entity” which will be updated regularly, as I said last month, hopefully on almost a daily basis.
The newsletter will become blog-based and you will just get a quick mail directing you to the blog when a new post is made. Blogging really does make the entire operation much easier to manage, so I envisage blog content (newsletters) on a far more frequent basis.
The whole ethos will be to get hot and profitable information to you far, far quicker than currently. That has to be good for both you and me.
The new form at will allow me to get better information, better product reviews and news to you faster than before and will make sure that all you need to do to ensure you are fully up todate in the IM world is to be subscribed here. Easy,eh?
O .K, so for the final formal newsletter, I’m going to talk about money not being a problem !
What? M oney’s notthe problem ?
Not a phrase one hears very often, is it? Particularly in these allegedly dark recessionary days.
In fact, I can remember back to my own dark days when there genuinely was too much month at the end of the money and life as a wage slave seemed a never-ending drudge.
Money very definitely was a problem when I got my first mortgage!
However, I’m not talking about life in general here. I’m talking about in business, and the point I’m getting at is that in most cases… money isn’t the problem when starting up your business.
Now, if you’ve hankered after your own business or tried and failed to get started,you will know what the problem is.
I’ll give you three guesses, but I think you’ll only need one.
Got it?
Yep, correct, the idea is the problem .
I read a quote from a guy called Ken Hakuta (he was the creator of some wacky products in the 80′s) and quite simply it was this,
“Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea IS an obstacle.”
This is so true.
I hear from loads of people who all want to get their slice of the e-business pie (and believe me it is a big, big, profitable pie, so why not?), but they all lack this one critical ingredient.
The bottom line is thatyou don’tneed to spend an awful lot of money marketing on the Internet if you’re prepared to put the bulk of the work in yourself. But… .how do you get started without an idea /product/service?
W ell, the first thing to do is to take a step back and consider some key points. Now this has to be done seriously, or it won’t work. And you HAVE to be committed to doing this, or again it won’t work. I hate wasting time, so should you!
So, take that step back, get yourself a pen and paper and start to jot down some thoughts on the following questions:-
1. What are you interested in?
2. What are you passionate about?
3. What topic(s) do you have in depth knowledge about?
4. What do people come to you for advice on?
5. What do you find easy (that others find difficult)?
It is vitally important that you take your time on this and fully consider the implications.
However, what I would say is that many of the greatest successes I know of come when people pursue something that they are passionate about.
Friends Reunited is a prime example of people with a passion making a profitable business out of it.
How much did this site sell for last year?
Think of YouTube, why did Google spend over$1 billion buying YouTube?
Of course, the best side effect of doing it this way is that it doesn’t feel like work, it will be fun.
I think the last statistic I read on this (back when I was in recruitment) was that less than 5% ofpeople enjoy their work.
How sad is that?
Now I have heard it said that this can lead to some obscure ideas and highly specialized products. If that’s what it leads you to, don’t worry.
The Internet is ideal for marketing to niches. Indeed, your marketing costs will be much lower if you only have to target one specialized market. Adwords costs are likely to be much less for a start if you go after one small, specialized niche. It just gets better, doesn’t it?
Anyway, moving on, just one more little tip before I close.
Did you know that most successful entrepreneurs get their business ideas from studying niche markets and then developing a product or service that solves a common problem or need.
You know it makes sense.
This is a beautiful model simply because people will already be actively looking for what you are going to develop.You will already have identified the market and therefore will be able to focus your efforts “laserlike” on those people most likely to buy from you! O nce you do this, I
guarantee, money will no longer be a problem for you either!
Now, having said all of that, I have given a fairly simplistic overview here. I mentioned last month that I am developing a major new all encompassing Internet Marketing product with Lee Brooker.
I have just finished another part of the course this week and it is an in-depth niche research and product idea development lesson. I’m rather proud of it and if you get your hands on it I am confident you will NEVER struggle for product ideas again!
Lee and I are now just over halfway through so we’ll be out to you later in January with the pre-launch,which you’ll want to make sure you get registered for.
W e’re going to be giving away loads of a azing info just for registering.
The pre-launch info will be just a small taster of what will actually be contained in the product itself.
This really will be a “no fail” option… just what this market needs to blow away the smoke and mirrors!
So, keep your eyes open, it’s coming… soon!
And, just before I finish this last “official” newsletter, some food for thought. I read today (in the London Telegraph) that retail sales were very poor during December and that 2008 will go down as a very bad year all round.
What they also reported, tucked away in a little corner, was that sales online were up 30% in 2008.
I have a friend who works for a major clothes retailer here in the UK, he told me shop sales were down 6% but that online sales were up 12% .
The message is clear. Online is the place to be in 2009.
And, finally, finally, we are in recession, big time. I’m old enough and ugly enough to admit I called this slightly wrong. Even having spent 15 years supplying into the City and with the inside contacts I have, I totally underestimated the magnitude of the current situation.
It is bad, very bad. But… the place that is bucking all the rapidly escalating downward trends in online.
I rest my case!
If you haven’t already seen it and want to know how close we came to meltdown, watch the
December 23rd issue of Panoram a… here’s the link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/program m es/b00gbds9
This is the BBC iPlayerlink, so Idon’t think you’ll be able to watch outside of Europe (or more than a month after publication), but try
anyway, it’s certainly worth it if iPlayer does let you watch.
O .K, that’s it for this month. Hopefully we will be blog-based by the time I next mail you about the newsletter!
Have a fantastic and hugely prosperous 2009.
As always… to *YO UR*success.
Cheers now…and, have fun!
Derek
Internet Marketing from APD
Turn Time Into Money
If you fell anyone else would benefit from this information, please feel free to pass it on