Category Archives: entrepreneurship

Think Outside the Box

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Did you see the Superbowl this year?  If you're like most people, even if you didn't want the Superbowl, you had to see the commercials.  They are everywhere now.  If you miss the commercials on Superbowl Sunday, you can find them on the Internet monday morning.

I want to mention a commercial in particular.  The Doritos Commercial.  Frito-Lay ran a contest.  They wanted to run two fan created commercials during the Superbowl.  They got 6,100 entries.  The winning entry scored one million dollars and instant fame.  (Check the commercial out here: SuperBowl Doritos Commercial )

Jonathan Friedman said it cost him $20 to make the commercial. It cost Frito-Lay a cool million to Friedman for all his hard work, and however many millions the Superbowl spot cost.  But they generated a lot of buzz with the contest and huge individual windfall. Heck, that may have even been a steal for what an advertising agency would charge to develop a commercial specifically for the Superbowl.

It's a little bit of a gamble when professionals aren't involved, hoping that something good would come from the thousands of entries, but it paid off well.

– Large reward (which may still have been less than they could have paid an agency to develop the commercial)

– Rags to Riches story (Jonathan Friedman made a significant amount of money in a short time)

– Company gets Goodwill / karma for helping out a little guy

It's a nice story at the end of the day.

People have taken to the Internet in droves.  We shop online, play online, work online.  We find miracles and dreams online.  The Internet has discovered and carried more and more people off to Hollywood.  Singers, actors, stars!  A YouTube video and a dream!  Of course, a lot of the people who get discovered on the Internet have spent a LOT of time getting themselves seen.  They have a TON of material—usually videos, usually linked in some fashion to current trends—and are hoping that if their name pops up in enough places that someone will notice them.

Marketing and promotional materials—either for products and services or for the people who are reaching for fame—are a necessary part of selling online.  You have to have materials out there, just the same as in the physical world.  Flyers, mailers, billboards, t-shirts.  Everything is going digital.  Think about your avatars and signatures in forums or discussion areas.  Think about all the YouTube videos you can be out there making that cross-connect and link back to your materials.  Did George Clooney just have a baby?  Do you run a parenting site?  Take a bit of his fame and do a video about why you think he would or wouldn't be a good dad and how your product could help him!

The moral of today's stories are, think outside the box and use tools that are available to you.  Here at the Internet Marketing Training Center we're here to show you how to think outside of the box and properly utilize tools in rewarding ways.

Do You Need a Consultant?

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While there is a LOT of information available on the Internet—some of it really good, some of it really bad—it can be a lot to sift through.  When you are just starting out, you don't know what you don't know.  It can be overly daunting without a roadmap. It's often a good idea to have a guide—a consultant, a mentor, an instructor—to set you on the right path.

New to the Field

If you are brand new to a field—be it Internet marketing, comic book illustrator, computer programming—you need a place to start.  Without any prior knowledge of the field you need someone who has been around the block a time or two and made the mistakes and had some successes show you the ropes and the tools. Having a mentor will shorten the learning curve as you can cut out time looking for information or experimentation.  The mentor will show you skills and techniques that work. Think of it like walking into a room of 100 people.  You need to find and talk to only one specific person, wouldn't it be better and quicker if someone lead you right to her?

Refining Tools / Skillsets

Another reason to seek out a consultant or mentor is to hone in or evolve a skillset.  You may be familiar with WordPress, but do you really KNOW how it works? Often times when we experiment on our own we are able to develop a general working knowledge of the tool.  But in the hands of a master, the tool is capable of amazing things we've never dreamed of.  This is the reason people frequently attend workshops of varying levels or have common industry groups, so that they can continue to refine their craft.

As an example, refining your skill set could take you from repair work, to custom work.  A broader base of knowledge will allow you to handle more problems or issues, including that of creative or customs works.

Don't Stand So Close….

Sometimes, you are too close to the trees to see the forest. Your own perspective can be inhibiting your growth or progress as a business person. You have done certain things a certain way as long as you can remember, but suddenly, it's not working anymore. How do you carry forward?

Consultants offer a fresh perspective and are able to assess details that you might take for granted. What seems like a good idea within the “inner circle” of your business, might have no real world bearings at all.  It might look good on paper and completely fall apart if there is no support structure for it.  A consultant might understand that while you look towards the future of an idea instead of how the idea has to work.

The bottom line is, it's important to remain open to opportunities to educate and evolve.  in some instances this might be a school or educational opportunity.  In others, it might be an expert perspective with fresh eyes.

If you're just getting started, consider the opportunity of studying with IMTC.  Learn the tools and skill sets you need to set yourself apart from your competition and shorten your learning curve so that you don't flounder directionless in the open water.

Email – Are you still in the 90s?

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Managing email is incredibly important for any business. When it comes to online businesses, you may have multiple email addresses for many uses. And, when it comes to email applications, you have many free and paid versions. But, not all applications are created equal. There are a few features that any email application should be able to provide you.

1) Access – Being able to access all of your email addresses in one place can speed up production exponentially. If you have an email application that can sync all of your email addresses into one easy to reach place, you will find the speed and ease of use make it difficult to ever go back to the ‘good old days' of checking a million email accounts.

2) Storage – Being able to store past emails that may or may not contain attachments is paramount to successful email management. If you have a mailbox that constantly gets full, requiring you to delete emails and shuffle around those you want to keep, it may be time to find another option.

3) Ease of use – Email applications that provide simple interfaces with easily accessible features will save you a lot of time and hassle with large and small tasks alike.

Changing email applications can seem daunting, but it's actually simpler than you think. You may just need to force yourself to change. But if you have any gripes about your current email, it's a necessary evil. If you still need incentive to change your email, take it from web guru Tom Antion:

If the big guys are doing it, so should you!

More secrets the big Internet marketing gurus are excited about. HERE!

Certified Internet Marketing Training Center

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Why the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia?

Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia | Internet Marketing Course and Training Program

Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia

These days there are many individuals looking to earn a living on the Internet by simply working at home on their computers. If your one of these people more than likely you've done exhaustive research on the Internet in search of a genuine Internet marketing program to enroll in to help you get on the right track with Internet marketing. If you landed on this page and you're reading this article I have good news for you!

The Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia is by far the most unique and best Internet marketing training facility in the world! Let me explain.

First, IMTCVA is the ONLY “CERTIFIED” Internet marketing training center in the entire United States, recognized by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

Second, the schools program was founded and created by Tom Antion, one of the most respected, top public speakers and Internet marketers in the world. Tom has dedicated his life to Internet marketing and training since the birth of the Internet back in the 90's.

Third, the staff at the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia is obsessed with staying abreast of all the latest Internet marketing techniques and resources of information in this constantly evolving business. You can be sure you'll learn the best “old school” techniques that still work, as well as the latest techniques that have proven results.

Lastly, each student can work at his or her own pace. Whether they're an online or campus student, the course can be completed in as little as 6 months, with an Internet marketing certificate upon completion. All students have the ability to interact with trainers and other students by phone, face to face, email, blog, wikis, discussion forums, text messaging, teleclasses and more, giving all students the best training experience around.

To learn more about this unique opportunity and how to enroll, please visit the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia – http://imtcva.org , and remember to download your FREE career brochure!

ePublishing – Tips on selling your Kindle book on Amazon

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ePublishing – creating and publishing your books online – is a great way to get massive exposure, build credibility, and make money online. But, just because the option is available doesn't mean you can go about it any which way you desire. I take that back, you can go about it any which way you desire but you might not gain any of the benefits mentioned before unless you follow some steps. In this post, we will cover tips on selling your Kindle book on Amazon.

1. Keyword rich title – You may have the greatest title in the world, but if it doesn't contain any keywords you are already hurting yourself and book sales. You may need to change your title. Also, a lot of people keep their original title (regardless of whether or not it contains keywords) and then include a subtitle that is keyword rich. This way, people know exactly what they are going to get. This technique works for fiction and non-fiction books.

2. Author Profile – Your author profile is a page for you to add information on yourself as an author. The author profile is different from an Amazon profile; it contains places to add your blog, insert videos, connect to Twitter, and promote all of your books in one nice, neat area.

3. Tags – On every one of your books, you have an option of providing tags that are relevant to the content in your book. Make sure you enter in as many tags as you can (there's a limit). Also, be sure one of your tags is your author name, this will help show your other works as related books. *Other people and reviewers can add extra tags to your books. Ask your readers to help you out.

4. External websites – Use the power of your own website or blog to promote your book, make videos about your book and post them on every video sharing site you can find, make status updates in Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and any other social networking site, and find forums and other blogs related to your content – post and respond to them.

Doing just these 4 steps will get you going in the right direction, there's many more as well. Get the skills you need to sell and promote your Kindle book on Amazon here.

Our World Is Changing

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The world is different today than it was yesterday.  Smartphones have a life expectancy of about 2 years.  They are designed to be disposable as the next better, faster, more amazing version comes out every year. Apple doesn't even allow you to replace the battery.  The smartphone is a supercomputer that is designed to be thrown away.  If not thrown away, then at the very least it's been designed to be retired from the initial owner after a year or two.  Computers are not much different.  The hardware may be designed to last a little longer, but software packages change pretty rapidly.  Internet Explorer already has version 9 out and Microsoft is trying to force people to retire IE 6. Cars aren't designed for a long lifespan.  A car loan is roughly 5 years.  It can almost be expected a car will be traded in after 7.  How long do people stick around in a job?

The point is, that the world changes and pretty quickly.  Smart phones, computers, tablets have made it even easier to be connected.  FaceTime, Skype, any of the handful of messenger/communication softwares capable of audio and video chat.  And with technology, business has changed as well.

Technology has Shrunken Our Borders

With the advent of instant communication, instant streaming, huge data channels on phones and in homes, we can get albums, movies, software packages at the drop of a pin.  We can speak with someone a world away as if they were standing right in front of us.  This changes our business practices.  We have to be “always on” which means we need a presence on the web.  We need to understand how to reach out (market) to potential clients.  We need to have an avenue of response, even while we are sleeping.  Taking orders, answering questions, troubleshooting problems all while we sleep and probably in a dozen different languages.  How do you learn all these things?  How do you create a web of connectivity, a hand of constant outreach to your customers?

Tsunami of Information

Almost everyone has Facebook, Google+, and Twitter in their pocket. We are constantly bombarded with text or SMS messages from friends, family, and loyalty programs.  You may not want to add to the din of voices screaming for attention, but if you don't, subscribe to at least one information stream, you may be completely alienating your customers and how they choose to get information. You need to learn the best way to touch base with them.  Everyone will choose their best method.  I have a preference for RSS, as far as information I want to gather and email for things I want to be informed of.  Your customers will pick their best method that they like, so it's important to offer them some choices.

We Are All Paparazi

The World is truly watching. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame.  Everyone wants to be a celebrity.  Everyone thinks they are on reality TV. We Twitter, we post, we +1, we Share.  There are so many pictures of us floating around, you'd think you were a celebrity. Whether or not this is a result of technology or the very thing that lead to that technology is a tough question to answer. But it has become a valuable tool.  There are places where cell phones are more prevalent than toilets, running water, or even electricity.

The point is, you can't ignore being out there using all these advertising channels to get your message out, your products seen.

Visit the Internet Marketing Training Center to find out how you can learn all this and more!

Your Own Business : Organized and Efficient!

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Many people think that having your own business is a dream come true.  They often forget that businesses work because of specialization.  Each team member has a specific function.  Accounting, marketing, production, engineering, IT, sales…. when you become an entrepreneur you will most likely assume those roles until things get rolling and the money is coming in.

That said, since you will be wearing so many hats, you will need to be as organized and efficient as possible.  With a little planning it shouldn't be all that difficult.

Plan for Failure

I don't mean that you should plan to fail, but this IS one of the best learning tools out there!  Something didn't work?  Try something else.  No, what I mean to say is, plan for your TOOLS to fail.  For instance, that wonderfully LARGE harddrive in your computer?  How OLD is it?  How much STUFF do you have on there?  How much stuff do you have on there that you would HATE to lose?  How much stuff on there would completely DESTROY your business if it disappeared?  Welcome to the world of the “backup” plan. I'm not going to get into what sort of backup software or hardware to use, but you do need a backup plan in place.  You can back up as much or as little as you need to.  Currently, on my Macbook Pro, I've got an external 500GB harddrive that is running Time Machine.  Every hour is runs to make sure all the information on the backup is current.  I have seen some dual drive systems use a RAID system so there is some additional security. It would be terrible to have your backup and your main drive both fail, but that's almost getting a little carried away.

Organize for Efficency

Everything needs a place. So be proactive. Plan to have a digital place for all your files. Organize them in a manner which makes sense.  As web designer, I have a folder for clients.  Inside that folder each client has their own name.  In each client folder are more folder.  One for supplied information, one for working files, one for accounting.  I know where I can find any information I have about a client in these folders.  The structure makes sense for me.  More importantly, if I every hire employees I have a system in place that will be easy to understand.

I also have tools in an easy to find place.  Things that I use regularly  are easily accessible.  For tools that I use rarely, or procedures that I use rarely, I have created “How To” documents that explain the idea, so that if I forget how I did something, I know where to easily find out where to go—my how to library—so I don't have to go searching or wrack my brain to try to recreate something.  Believe me, it seems like a simple silly little thing, but the first time you have to use it you will pat yourself on the back.  AND, it makes training (new employees) a breeze as well.

Right Tool For the Job

Another important aspect of business is to have the right tool for the job.  You don't need a tank when a bicycle will do. Free is great, but it's not always the right tool for the job. Don't be afraid to research a little bit.  Do you need to edit graphics?  Photoshop is the first thing that pops into most people's minds, but Photoshop is NOT cheap.  There are some cheap alternatives, there is even some free alternatives out there—GIMPSHOP, Online Image Editors like Aviary.com—so don't believe that you need “the best, most powerful tool” if you only have one task that you need to accomplish. You don't need a chainsaw to remove a splinter.

All in all, the important concept to remember is planning.  Planning—right—will allow you to setup to succeed and avoid unnecessary failures.  If you are interested in planning to market on the Internet, or create your own digital products to sell on the Internet, you should check out the Internet Marketing Training Center. It's an online school that will help you plan for your future on the Internet.  Pop over and check them out.

Money for Nothing?

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“Any thing worth doing, is worth doing for money.”

So often I think we forget or look past that idea.  But we all have hobbies that we pour insane amounts of money into.  Through these hours pursuing these activities or pursuits, we develop a fair amount of knowledge on the subject.  So why not take something you love doing, and seeing if you can make some money off of it?

People pay for knowledge, in one form or another. If you have knowledge that you are giving away, someone will pay you put their endorsement—or more truthfully, their advertisement—in front of your captive audience.

You can sell your knowledge in the form of digital—and physical—products.

You can recommend other products that you may use or favor and get a commission for each sale.

There are lots of components to running any sort of hobby site like this and you will need some good instruction to make it work.  That's exactly what the Internet Marketing Training Center is for. It will help you with the knowledge necessary to start making money on the Internet.  Build a website? Yes.  Shopping Carts? Yes.  Digital Products? Yes.  Affiliate Programs? Yes again. Everything you need to know to carve out a little niche for yourself and your hobby on the Internet you will learn in the IMTC programs.

The goal of the IMTC courses is to make you an expert with the tools you will need to take your idea from a spark to fun way to make some extra money—or to build yourself a money making empire! It's easy to make some money on the Internet, but it requires lots of work and knowledge to build a money making machine! The knowledge part is easy.  The Internet Marketing Training Center is perfect for your needs. It's the “work” part you will have to provide.  But the point of making money off of your hobbies and interests is that it doesn't quite FEEL like work if you love it, right?

Writing about games or comic books, sharing secrets of your tennis game, or even just household cleaning tips, chances are people are out there looking in your field of interest for information.  Why not give it to them? Why not make a little bit of MONEY giving it to them.  Heck, if you want to, why not try to make a LOT of money doing what you love?

Head over to the Internet Marketing Training Center for more information on what the courses cover, check out some of the success stories to see how learning valuable skills helped transform their lives.

Start Your Own Internet Business – The Skills To Own Your Future

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You hear thousands of commercials and get inundated daily with email ads about starting your own online business. Yes. There is a lot of money available to make online. It is the new frontier of business and advertising, especially geared towards people just starting out in their own business or work from home venture. The reason is the affordability. Compared to opening your own physical retail store, the investment of which is far out of the reach of average people, the Internet provides a low-cost alternative to any traditional business venture.

That's not where most Internet businesses fail, however. The problem is with people buying into work at home programs without the proper training in running an online business.  Regardless of what some work at home program touts, it takes a degree of skill to effectively sell products and services to others online. If you have purchased work at home programs before and have been disappointed with the results, there were probably fundamental skills missing that would have helped you succeed.

These are the skills that the Internet Marketing Training Center teaches:

* Using videos to brand your business

* Using social networking to inexpensively reach millions of your potential customers

* Writing effective web copy to motivate viewers to buy

* Using an e-commerce system to seamlessly deliver your products

* Interactive marketing using autoresponders, blogs, forums and newsletters

Very few, if any, work at home programs teach you fundamental marketing skills. That's why so many people fail. If you are really serious about starting (and succeeding) in an online business or just want to get a job working for someone else, IMTC has the skills you need. Come check out our site and see what we mean.

Mobile Marketing: The Next Untapped Resource?

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If you want an audience, you don't stand in the middle of the woods shouting.

If you want an audience, you have to go where the people are.

Each time a new trend or technology develops, the spam follows. We can see this in Facebook, we can see this in Twitter, heck, I think email is just another way for us all to collect junk mail now. But there are a great number of new tools that have been picking up steam the last few years that you may want to take note of.  One in particular is Mobile Marketing, or “text message (SMS) marketing”.

People just don't have the time anymore to be checking email all day, Facebook and Twitter have so much noise now that it's easy to get lost.  But everyone checks their phone when they get a text message.  It's so incredible easy just to pull the phone out of the pocket and take a look at what you got.

Of course, this is a precarious area.  You don't want to spam people, especially as a business, there's not quicker way to get on your customer's bad side.  We use the same principles we did we email.  We have to have the customer “opt-in” to receive messages and then be careful what we send them.

What's the Point of Mobile Marketing?

Mobile Marketing is not the tool to make the hard sell.  It's not a tool for selling at all.  The focus should be complete and utter brand loyalty and recognition. After all, those people who don't have the unlimited text plan have to PAY to receive your texts, so it better be something good! Radio stations are making effective use of mobile marketing with contests that get the audience to actually text in during a special time. Doing so gives the audience a chance at a prize. Periodic discounts sent out en masse can trigger an influx of targeted business, especially if the audience has opted in to very specific lists.

You want your audience to be excited to hear from you and Mobile Marketing is the perfect medium for that. Discounts, contests, and very specific, targeted communications are the strength. And what business doesn't want those tools in their tool belt?

The point is, that there are many ways to market.  Trends will come and go. A captive audience is hard to beat, especially when they have asked you to be the captor.