Today’s guest post is by long timeWebMakeMoney.com reader Jack Dawson of RemoteDBA.

Jack is a web developer and UI/UX specialist. He likes to share knowledge and points of view with other Oracle developers and consumers on platforms.

Take it away Jack…

Are you a budding entrepreneur and/or do you feel like you have what it takes to make it in the volatile world of business?

You most likely said yes and, this is understandable considering nearly everyone wants to own a business and become the next billionaire on Forbes.

Wait!

If this a simple task, why is everyone not creating a tech startup and moving on to becoming the next Zuckerberg or Larry Page? The cold truth is that succeeding as an entrepreneur is tough.

The United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (U.S SBA) reckons over 66% of startups fail within the first year of launch. What’s more, Entrepreneur’ Organization (EO) says over 50% of startups started in 2014 will not survive this tumultuous business environment up to 2016.

In order to survive then, you have to be open to failing and learning new things every day.

Over the last decade I’ve made note of the most important lessons I’ve learned on the way to entrepreneurial success and outlined them here.

From tips by the best in business, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, to entrepreneurial bodies such as Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization (CEO), Forbes, U.S SBA® and Entrepreneur’ Organization (EO), among others, the list is an invaluable comprehensive handbook.

Here you go:

21 Tips to Help You Chart Success in Enterprise

#1. Ask For Advice

Are you usually the smartest guy in the room? If so, you’re in the wrong room.

If you look at the most successful 20^th century entrepreneurs, it might seem like they are lone rangers but they aren’t. From Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, the late Steve Jobs and Victoria Beckham to Michael Jordan, mentorship is a fact they all mention and is what enabled them to get where they are. You can get advice from financial institutions, professionals and industry gurus, among others, but the bottom line is the fact that you have to seek advice before making major moves.

#2. Get Others To Do The Work For You

Just about every successful entrepreneur on earth utilizes the skills and knowledge of others in order to accomplish goals. An easy way to get other people check things off your to do list for you, is to hire a virtual assistant.

Here are the top sources to hire a great VA:

• AwesomeWeb.com
• EasyOutsource.com
• BestJobs.ph
• Odesk.com

What’s more is that just about every successful business in the 21st century has a web presence, even if it’s just a simple landing page.

If you need to establish your brand or simply improve your current website, hire the best developers and designers who could’ve started yesterday from AwesomeWeb.com!

#3. Admit Mistakes and Move On

To err is human, and as an entrepreneur, do not expect to be infallible. Successful entrepreneurs that you admire today made major mistakes in the course of their journey. What sets a successful entrepreneur apart from the rest is the fact that they are willing to admit a mistake and build on the lesson to become even better. SeaBear once outsourced its customer care and Mondello the owner had to cancel the deal after millions of complaints.

#4. Do Not Settle

Pete Cashmore of Mashable credits past mistakes for the success of the web-oriented news platform. When TechCrunch sold to AOL, Cashmore decided to hang on and today who is bigger between the two? Success in entrepreneurship doesn’t come if you want overnight success, even Zuckerberg had to ward off hundreds of mouthwatering offers; but just look at Facebook today.

#5. Keep A To-Do-List

Sounds easy enough, but before moving on, just ask yourself what you’re going to do in the next two weeks within your enterprise. If you have no idea, then your venture is fast hurtling towards failure. Planning isn’t easy as you have to analyze every business situation, research and compile data on what you’re about to do.

When Bill Gates decided to snub Nokia, what many never knew was that this was a decision the company had all along. Today, the company is laughing all the way to the bank with Microsoft Windows phones causing a buzz.

Here are the top 10 to do list managers for entrepreneurs.

#6. Maintain Positive Relationships

When it comes to business, your networking capability will either make or break you. At a glance, you might not think minor relationships matter, but a few down the line, like that supplier you treated badly, might end up as the only one who can bail you out one day.

In essence, make sure you don’t burn bridges as these relationships can open doors. 

“Quality relationships hold the key to the kingdom.”

#7. Maintain A Social Presence Offline and Online

Ever heard of Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger? Most likely not, but you’re likely using their innovative product which is Instagram. Yes, these genius entrepreneurs ensured that everyone could upload photos and share them in an instant and it wasn’t easy.

According to Forbes, their success rests in their efforts to be accessible, available and ever-present online and offline. To succeed today, connect with your community, provide social platform widgets in any resource you have and make sure everyone wants to know about your brand.

Social Media Manager PRO is a great tool to help you build and monetize your social empire.

#8. Improve Your Communication With Customers and Employees

Delightful customer and employee experience is the magic wand you need to succeed in business according to Tim O’Shaughnessy of the LivingSocial phenomenon. Uber’s Garrett Camp also credits their intensive communication campaigns all along the business chain as a major reason for the global success of the taxi app.

Whatever business you’re in, it is critical to ensure there are constant updates and responses to customer issues. Your employees must also be in the know about products and services in order to market them effectively.

#9. Be Kind – It’s a Sign of Strength

Success in entrepreneurship should not translate into coldness and apathy towards society. Just look at celebrities such as George Clooney who dedicate time and money to worthy causes across the globe. 

Your community is the source of your success and giving back is a sign of strength.

#10. Never Procrastinate

If it needs to be done, it has to be done now and there is no other way about it; this is according to David Karp who is the Tumblr entrepreneur. These are words that are repeated thousands of times according to U.S SBA. In all its mentorship programs, the organization says time wastage is cited 94% of the time as a cause of business failure.

#11. Devour Business  Books

Have you read Tony Hsieh’s “Delivering Happiness” or maybe Eric Ries’ “The Lean Startup?” If you think books are a waste of time, just give Bill Gates a call and ask for his opinion. Most likely the billionaire is devouring the latest release by investment gurus, yet he has already made it. Books open your horizon and show you new opportunities even where you thought none existed.

#12. Know Your Worth

This is where most startups get it wrong, according to Entrepreneur’ Organization (EO). Your skills are the biggest asset and so are your employees, business goals and all those strengths you listed in your business. As such, make sure you know what you are worth even as you continue accumulating assets and liabilities.

#13. Be A Present Listener

In 2012, Forbes invited readers to ask top entrepreneurs questions on success. From Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi of DropBox, Bill Gates, Larry Page and others, listening skills featured 92% of the time in revealing their main strengths. If you are a present listener, you are bound to learn more than when such information comes to you second hand. Customers also appreciate it more when you listen actively.

#14. Be a Keen Market Student 

Studying competition, marketplace, trends, innovations, global politics and other pertinent issues is an indispensible practice for a successful entrepreneur. It is an ever-ending process that makes you ready for change.

When Facebook snapped up WhatsApp for $19 billion, the market was shocked, but this was a decision Zuckerberg was making after studying the voracious nature of affordable messaging by internet users. It is a sure way to make judgment at the right time.

#15. Give 100% of Your Effort In All That You Do

Passion is what got my business where it is today. These are words from sporting billionaire Michael Jordan, also considered the greatest basketballer of all times. To make it as an entrepreneur, according to Katerina Gasset an online entrepreneur, you have to identify something you are quite passionate about and then go ahead and make it your business.

#16. Take Time Off and Get Sleep

They say all work without play makes Jack a dull boy. Well, in business, you don’t want to be dull in a world where competition is akin to the Amazon Jungle. You must make time for play in order to unwind and look back at where you have come from. 

This time is instrumental in recouping your fortunes and also bonding with family, friends and employees who can give incredible insight on your business. You will always come back more reinvigorated.

Here are 3 unknown tips to improve sleep.

#17. Pay Attention To Detail

Everything that goes into your business has an impact on your success. As such, make sure you have an eagle’s eye over everything that is going on. When negotiating, ensure you have legal and financial experts to extrapolate technicalities and make things clearer lest you end up in legal murk, which portends failure.

#18. Work In Chunks

Andrew Cravenho, CEO of CBAC Funding argues that an entrepreneur cannot be everything or do all at one time. To make it in enterprise, you have to do things in bits and accept your skills cannot cover the whole organization. Arranging business expansion in systematic chunks, for instance, is a sure way to success as opposed to doing it all together.

#19. Set and Meet Deadlines

Secret to my success? Setting and meeting deadlines even if it means staying awake for days; this is according to Adam D’Angelo of Quora who quit Facebook to start the Q & A platform. If you have no deadlines then you are bound to fail in business as you will be sailing rudderless on stormy waters.

#20. Focus On Helping People Before The Money

“Forget your wallet first” is a clarion call by most successful entrepreneurs including Cathrine and David Cook of myYearBook.com and Trip Adler of Scribd. You should focus on building a customer base, reputation, recognition and loyalty. Money, according to Warren Buffet, follows after.

#21. Get Involved in Your Business

Leaders lead through service, and to succeed as an entrepreneur, be ready to get your hands dirty. U.S SBA® reports over 47% of startups fail when owners rest on their laurels. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg goes to work daily as does Bill Gates of Microsoft, among other successful entrepreneurs. Why should you leave others to run the show?

There you are; all you have to do now is apply these skills and voila! You will be on your path to entrepreneurial success.

If you enjoyed this, than I’d definitely check out the 15 things you should give up to be successful.

The post 21 Tips to Make You a Successful 21st Century Entrepreneur appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

Whether your business is brand new or even if you’ve been around for a while, customer support is something that can always be improved.

Remember your customers are people who expect and deserve your respect, assistance and gratitude.

Here are 10 ways to instantly improve customer support:

Be Positive

You want your company to make people feel special. You’ll accomplish this by appearing eager to solve your customers’ problems.

Any type of snarky attitude, rude remark, or condescending tone may cost you a customer and future sells. It’s said that on average a customer is likely to share a stellar support experience with up to 3 people and up to 20 people if the support experience was poor… Make sure every experience is a pleasant one – even if it’s a refund request. 

Here are some ways to maintain a positive persona:

• Always greet your customers with a warm welcome and a smile.
• Help customers ask for help (ie: Do you have any questions? Is there anything else I can help with?)
• Love the unhappy customer. (ie: I am sorry for the trouble you’re having)
• Always say thank you.
• Be patient.

Set Expectations

Don’t leave your customer support to chance. It’s a good idea and beneficial for both your team and customers if there’s a level of expectancy.

There are several parameters of superb support to address with your team:

• Be polite.
• Have discounts ready for those who deserve it.
• Make sure every email is answered within 12 hours.
• If you use live chat, response time should always be under 1 minute. 
• Offer gifts (discounts, free products) to customers who become upset.
• Be present when interacting with customers. Verify and clarify the information you’re receiving before acting on it.

Offer Live Chat

This is something that builds a ton of trust and reputation and well as helps to increase sales. The very first week we added live chat to our sales pages, we had record sales. Our customers also started leaving positive reviews on forums that praised us for the convenience of the new live chat.

We use SnapEngage for our live chat. They allow you to set the chat box to appear after any amount of time and you can also set several different greetings to appear to your visitors which allows you to see which get’s the most interactions.

I also like SnapEngage because it shows you the location, time of day and weather of each person that interacts with you. This means you can personalize the experience with something as simple as saying “goodmorning,” or “goodnight” or “staying dry out there today?” when appropriate. This can put people at ease and disarm potentially confrontational customers. 

Clearly Display Working Hours

People need to know exactly how and when they can get ahold of you. Prominently display your working hours and customer support hours on your contact page, home page or any place that your customers are likely to see on their very first visit. 

Make It Easy To Find Support / Contact Page

If you’re a digital marketer your contact page should be clearly visible from the homepage of your website. You want people to know that you stand behind everything you offer and that you’re available to help. At the end of the day a business needs to make money, true, but it’s a service first and foremost, so serve!

Offer A Phone Number / Voice Message Service

There are still some people who don’t trust email or even live chat and strongly prefer to get in touch with somebody via phone. In the event that there is an urgent concern, an email response just isn’t quick enough for some people.

Offering a phone number or voice message service is a great practice for trust building and a strong sign of good faith for your existing and potential customers.

Have FAQ’s

Always include a FAQ (frequently asked questions) section for your business and products. People are desperate for answers and one way to satisfy this is by anticipating their questions. Gather as many Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for your website as possible.

Start by asking your team what common questions they receive about your products and services daily.

Here are some questions you may consider answering in a FAQ section:

• How to install?
• How quickly will I see results?
• What are your working hours?
• List of steps to fix common errors.
• How to get started for the first time?
• How is ______ different from other systems?
• What requirements do I need for your product or service?
• Can ______ use the system? (Lawyers, men, women, students etc)
• Who is ______ (name of founder, owner or business) and where did ______ (name of system, name of service etc) come from?
• Can the ______ (Name of system, product or service) be used to ______? (Solve common problem of your users)

Include a specific location for FAQs such as a knowledge base or literally a “FAQ” page.

With PopUp Domination all of our frequently asked questions are found in the knowledge base. Everything from solutions for common errors to install instructions can be found in our knowledge base. Not only is this a convenient resource for our customers, but it’s also a selling point.

A well-thought FAQ section shows we care and puts people at ease. 

Have Resources Ready

You never want to feel or look like you’ve been caught off guard with customers. They want to know you have everything under control. The best way to exhibit this control is by having several resources related to your product or service ready to go.

For instance, great customer support preparedness means having:

• List of FAQs.
• Affiliate links.
• Links to related articles.
• Links to related complimentary products.
• Common phrases and responses ready to go (for live chat).

Make Sure It’s A Priority

If you want your business to be successful, you must produce happy and satisfied customers.

Customer support should never be put off – ever. From the CEO all the way to the new tech, customer service should be the priority of every person in the company. Remember that if not for your customers, you would not have a business. Your (happy) customers are the lifeline and best advertising for your company so be sure to give them the respect, attention and priority they deserve.

Use A Ticket System

With high traffic businesses the support requests can flood in, even when things are going “good.” We use Desk for our tech support system and love it. My favorite features about Desk are the easy ability to track down previous users tickets (via their built in filtering options) and the use of predefined response templates, which save a ton of time.

Having a ticket system in place not only makes things easier for your team and your customers, but it also provides security for your tech team when sensitive information is being exchanged. 

Practicing great customer support greatly improves your odds of closing a deal and gaining repeat business which means increased sales and profits. It’s much more expensive to acquire customers rather than retain them.

The customer experience is the next competitive battleground. ~ Jerry Gregoire

The post 10 Ways to Instantly Improve Customer Support appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

Either way, most online shopping carts aren’t very ‘marketer friendly’. Instead, the majority of shopping cart solutions tend to focus on eCommerce sites that are selling a range of physical products with a more conventional shop-front.

This is what makes SamCart so awesome.

First, it was created by internet marketers, for internet marketers and thus designed perfectly for helping you to create highly profitable sales funnels. If you’re selling an e-book or an online course through your blog, it will be perfect for helping you improve conversions. Better yet, it’s designed to keep things extremely simple so you can begin selling your first product inside of thirty seconds. After all, time is money!

Here’s another article I wrote showing you the 10 ways that SamCart increases your checkout page conversions.

SamCart Quick Start Guide To Setting Up Profitable Sales Funnels

Setting Up Your First Product

So how do you get started with SamCart?

1) First of all, you’ll need to get an account, which is an easy and quick process.

2) Next, you’ll log in where you’ll be greeted with a straight-forward control panel.

3) To get started, click on ‘Products’ which you’ll find in the menu on the left.

From here, you’ll be able to see a list of any of the products you’ve already made. For now though, the page will be empty seeing as you’ll be setting up your very first product now.

If you haven’t yet created a product, I’d definitely look into Web Domination. It’s my personal favorite internet marketing resource. Web Domination will show you everything you need to know about creating, running and outsourcing a successful online business.

If you do already have a product created, on the right, you’ll find a button that says ‘New Product’. As you might have guessed, this is what you need to click in order to get started with your new product.

From here, you’ll be greeted with an incredibly simple form with a set of fields.

These fields are:

• Product name
• Short description
• Thank you page redirect
• One time, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly (Billing options)
• Price

The product name of course is where you’ll enter the name for your product, the short description is where you’ll input some enticing information (benefits) about said product and the redirect is where you want to send your visitors once they’ve bought your product.

Click ‘One Time’ and you’ll find a drop down menu where you can choose between one time and recurring payments (of course you can also choose how regular your recurring payment will be). Right away, this is one feature that many shopping cart services lack and is perfect for marketers who are selling subscriptions, monthly courses and other informational products with recurring fees.

Finally, enter the cost of your product into the box with the dollar sign. Then just click ‘Create Product’ and your product will be set up. It’s really that easy!

Deploying Your Product

From here you’ll be taken to a page where you can see all the details you just entered. Here you can make changes and also add a few extra settings – such as an image to go alongside your product product name.

Get a professional logo or product graphic created cheaply on AwesomeWeb, because this can really help your sales.

As mentioned though, if you want to get your product up and running in a rush, it is possible to start making sales inside of thirty seconds. You’ll be able to come back and worry about all these extra settings later but for now just click ‘Deploy Product’.

Here you’ll find your new hosted checkout link on SamCart. In order to sell your product or service, all you have to do is send people that link. Add this link to your landing page or even embed it in an email to send customers to a well-designed and straightforward checkout page.

If you’re having trouble getting customers to view your products landing page, we have a great video where we teach you how we got over 10,000,000 people to visit our blogs – http://../www.incomediary.com/traffic-domination

All your customers have to do is fill out their details and click ‘Place Order Now’ and they can make a payment with any of the major credit or debit cards.

Remember, SamCart is designed by marketers so their checkout pages have been designed and split tested to combat cart abandonment – in other words they minimize the number of people who give up before entering their details, which can help you secure a lot more sales. 

Once your customer has placed their order, they’ll then be taken straight to the thank you page you entered earlier back on your server.

1 Click Upsells

One of the biggest differences (and one of my favorite features) between SamCart and other checkout services is they offer something different from everybody else in the marketplace – One click upsells. What this means, is that after visitors have purchased their first product, you can present them with a series of upsell products that take a single click to buy, without requiring any additional information.

You can literally setup your upsell funnel with a couple mouse-clicks:

• Click upsells on the lefthand side of your dashboard and then select funnels from the drop down menu.

• Click “new funnel”, add your funnel name and a short description, then click “create funnel”.

• Select how many upsell offers you’d like to add from your product list and then select “enabled”. You’ll have the option to add up to 5 upsells and 5 downsells.

That’s it, SamCart does the rest and even allows you to split test your new funnels!

Split Testing

Proper split testing is a critical piece in optimizing a sales funnel.

Most successful digital marketers split test every single thing they can. And now you can split test your checkout cart and upsells too. SamCart supports split testing on both your checkout pages, and your upsell funnels. And like everything else about SamCart, it’s very easy to setup.

How to setup a split test:

1. Once you’ve created and listed your new products, select the one that you wish to split test and you’ll see a screen similar to the image below.
2. Look for the option to “Attach Upsell Funnel” and select a funnel from the drop down menu.
3. Click “Split Test”

That’s it!

What this means for your business…

If you’re wondering, “Will a $97.00 product convert differently than a $197.00 product?”, you can split test the funnels. Meaning, half your traffic will flow through one upsell process, and the other half will use another. I discovered a powerful insight while doing this, and that was the fact that our $97.00 upsell had the same conversion rate as the same product priced at $197.00. This more than doubled the value of a single customer.

If your conversion rate isn’t quite as good as you’d like, check out the article I wrote, revealing the 9 things most sales pages are missing and why they’re destroying your conversion rate. 

In short, SamCart offers you the easiest interface in the world for setting up new products to sell right away. At the same time, there’s no approval process needed so you can start right away and there’s no limit on the number of products, orders or customers – it’s completely scalable.

SamCart is a fantastic tool for getting started selling products in a hurry and is quickly becoming a favorite among web marketers. 

I almost forgot, they also just set up affiliate order processing/tracking. Now you can have other people sale your products and services without worrying about payouts and refunds – everything is handled for you.

I highly recommend SamCart. If you’re a digital marketer who sells products online, you’ll absolutely want to install SamCart. You can grab your copy here.

The post SamCart Quick Start Guide: Setting Up Profitable Sales Funnels appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

Effective business owners know the importance of detailed scheduling, yet often don’t have the time to waste on complicated task managers. That’s why a software oriented solution for task management can be invaluable to a busy entrepreneur.

There are several high quality solutions available. We’ll take a look at the top 10 to do list managers that are perfect for entrepreneurs from all walks of life.

10 To Do List Managers For Entrepreneurs

#1. Wunderlist

Wunderlist is a mobile app designed to simplify task management for all areas of your life. It can be used to plan your personal life, covering things like grocery lists or your vacation itinerary. More importantly, it helps track your work tasks and merge them in with your personal life for seamless integration.

Some noteworthy features are:

• Integrates due dates and reminders
• Syncs with multiple devices in real time
• Creates shareable lists that others can access
• Integrates conversations over task points
• Helps break down tasks into smaller to-do lists

wunderlist.com

#2. Trello

Trello aims to provide a single solution to replace organization spreadsheets, sticky notes, paper to-do lists, complicated project management software, and even disorganized email conversations.

It uses a visual board to help organize your life, turning a boring list into something that looks more like Pinterest than a daunting task list. This visual approach makes Trello ideal for sharing to-do lists with a team, staff, or assistant to help communicate ideas to multiple people.

Trello uses “cards” to represent tasks, and follows an almost social media style commentary platform to allow mini conversations over individual tasks. Keeping this communication in one place helps simplify project management.

trello.com

#3. Moo.do

Moo.do is designed to be a simple as possible organizational to-do list system. It’s perfect for entrepreneurs who want an easy, no-nonsense approach to time management. It works on a priority method, placing important tasks higher than less critical activities that could stand to wait a while.

In this sense, it helps you make sure you accomplish your most important goals first, and take care of the rest later on. It uses notes and date planning, along with collaboration via social media, to keep your projects on time and on budget.

moo.do

#4. Todoist

Todoist is a free task manager that has over two million users at the time of writing this. It works on 13 different types of devices, so you can easily integrate your schedule in an automatically synced manner between your phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, and practically any other electronic device.

It features:

• The ability to choose to keep a task private, or share with your team
• Commentary to discuss task details within the application itself
• Simple, easy to use design to save time
• Set recurring tasks for regular events
• Multiple levels of color coded priorities

en.todoist.com

#5. Basecamp

Basecamp is one of the most popular project management solutions. It works on the computer, mobile phones, tablets, and even has email integration to work project management directly into your existing email communication platform.

It uses a combination of visual representations and basic lists. It is aesthetically pleasing, but in a minimalism way – it represents data and tasks nicely without being overwhelming to use.

As one of the largest corporate choices for project management, Basecamp has extensive customer support options, so it can be a very easy chose for a team who desires hands on support to get up and running.

basecamp.com

#6. Reminders App (iOS)

Another option for basic task management is the Reminders app that’s built into Apple’s iOS. This is more basic than a full-blown app, but it can be ideal for someone who just wants a basic method to stay on top of their tasks.

Simply open the app and set reminders for various tasks. You set the time of each activity, and when you’d like to be reminded (such as 5 minutes before a conference call). It doesn’t offer the advanced features of other apps, but it can be the right solution for some entrepreneurs.

support.apple.com

#7. Asana

Asana is designed to help teams stay on task when dealing with projects. The goal of this solution is to replace clunky email conversations with an easier solution. It details projects and unites team members through communication by segmenting conversations into specific tasks or sub-tasks.

asana.com

#8. Google Calendar

If you have a gmail account, you may find it easiest to use Google Calendar. It lacks advanced functionality, but can keep track of tasks by date and remind you via email or text before an event occurs.

google.com/calendar/

#9. Any.do

Any.do is nice because it’s available on iOS, Android, and as a Google Chrome extension. You can have your task list available as part of your browser, allowing for effective time management while staying on task with web based projects. It syncs to your phone, so when you walk away from your desk you can still stay organized.

any.do

#10. HabitRPG

This solution is a bit different from the rest. HabitRPG aims to turn your to-do list into a fun game. It gives you points for tasks successfully completed, and removes health for deadlines missed. It can be a fun way to turn your boring projects into a goal to “level up” as you complete tasks.

habitrpg.com

Don’t underestimate the power of to-do list managers. 

As my friend Clement Yeung elegantly put it,

“keep in mind that a platform is just a tool—the goal of the platform is to assist the organization and the staff to scale. Scale by implementing systems (a catalogue of processes designed to carry out repetitive tasks as efficiently as possible) and workflows (the resources required to carry out processes effectively). So, whether its Trello, Asana, Basecamp, Wunderlist or a piece of scrap paper, make sure you’re using it as part of a bigger system and workflow, and you’ll see a big improvement in the productivity and growth of your organisation—not to mention people will feel happier and lighter in your company.”

Sometimes all we need is some added structure in order to maximize our potential to be highly productive.

The post 10 To Do List Managers For Entrepreneurs appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

If you want to start working for yourself, but haven’t got the resources to start big, then affiliate marketing could be the right avenue for you.

Take a look below at my 5 reasons for starting an affiliate marketing business over the next year.

5 Reasons to Start an Affiliate Marketing Business

#1. Low Startup Costs

Unlike other startups, you don’t need to spend 6 months raising a large capital investment from investors or crowdsourcing sites such as Seedrs.com, or even investing in stock before your business can function.

In fact, in affiliate marketing, you only need to spend $3/month on hosting plus $7 for a domain in order to launch a website (sometimes you don’t even need a website!).

Check out our full list of startup resources.

From then on, your only true costs are content (which you should be able to write yourself), choosing a nice CMS and website design (you can use wordpress, which is free) and then writing a blog to help generate traffic and sales to your site.

Even once you start earning an income with your site, your overheads will still remain low. You don’t need to hire an expensive office to meet clients in, you don’t need to hire anyone to deal with customer support (like you would in an ecommerce venture) and you don’t have live with costs such as chargebacks and credit card fraud, and if you use accounting software such as Quickbooks.com then you don’t have to pay for an accountant either.

#2. Earn An Income Relatively Quickly

WebMakeMoney.com is full of entrepreneurs’ stories of how they made their money. However, in a lot of cases people spent 6 months to a year before they started making a profit and re-investing in their business.

With affiliate marketing, you can literally start making money almost straight away.

If you work in niches such as igaming for instance, then you can earn $100-$500 for every customer you refer to a casino. You only need to refer a few customers every month to make $1,000. This is how I started my own affiliate marketing business around studying at college. I then kept re-investing and doubling my income to the point where I was making enough money to pursue it full time as a career. It really can scale quickly once you start to see your first sales.

Remember, you don’t need to provide any ongoing support or services to your referred customers. Once you’ve referred them, the operator/merchant will take care of the customer loyalty and upsell marketing campaigns.

You also have the freedom to choose and promote different operators in a given market. If you’re operating in a competitive market where operators are hungry for a listing on your website then you can even start to charge fixed-fee listings or distribute your own media pack. This also helps to automate the process of generating an income on your site.

#3. You Can Make Millions From Affiliate Marketing

One of the misconceptions of affiliate marketing is that it’s only for small businesses. However, there are plenty of cases where affiliates have gone on to build multi-million pound brands and ventures.

Mark Pearson launched MyVoucherCodes.co.uk in 2006 for example and sold it last month for £60 million. Mark, aged 27 at the time, set up the website linking to deals for different vendors. It was all set up as an affiliate marketing operation that quickly scaled into something incredibly successful.

There are many other cases of affiliates scaling their operations into million pound ventures such as Money.co.uk, OddsChecker.com, LatestCasinoBonuses.com (which recently acquired another site for $2.5 million) and the newer holiday booking sites such as Hotels.com and Booking.com.

One of the things that most of these sites have in common is that they jumped into an emerging niche early and focused on maximizing customer value to provide the best services possible. This is what helped establish themselves as industry leading brands that created more growth.

One of the lessons to be learned here is to launch an affiliate marketing business in a high growth industry or one where you can add your own unique value to your visitors. This is what will help you scale your site quicker and reach that dream of retiring at 21.

#4. It’s Easy To Scale An Affiliate Marketing Business

Many successful affiliate marketers have discovered that scaling their businesses into white label, drop shipping or whole sale operations was not a terribly difficult task.

An increasingly common thing I’m seeing successful affiliates do nowadays to scale there operations is to launch their own white label operation or skin.

Launching a white label is incredibly easy to do. In niches such as Forex, iGaming, Finance, Insurance and App development for example, you can launch your own white label brand in less than 2 weeks.

Use AwesomeWeb if you need a designer or developer who could’ve started yesterday.

Let’s use bingo for an example; You can launch your own white-label bingo site via the Live Bingo Network skin, which automatically includes a license to meet the necessary UK bingo regulations. Therefore, it’s almost exactly the same as being an affiliate except that you now have a fully functioning website to market.

The advantages of starting your own white label is that you can increase your conversions by reducing traffic leakage as well as recruiting other affiliates to promote your brand on your behalf.

It also is very easy to scale an affiliate marketing site in eCommerce by venturing into drop shipping or wholesale.

#5. Many Monetization Sources

Affiliate marketing lends itself really well to different marketing channels and sources of customer acquisition.

For example, at RightCasino we’ve managed to monetize traffic through industry and entertainment news, Twitter, PPC (we’ve just translated our site into foreign languages to take advantage of cheaper sources of traffic in other countries), email marketing and others.

Some brands even let you advertise your affiliates links directly on media and PPC networks such as Facebook. This means you don’t even need your own website to start affiliate marketing.

If you enjoyed this post, definitely check out the beginners guide to affiliate marketing.

The post 5 Reasons to Start an Affiliate Marketing Business appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

As an online entrepreneur, I invite you to get into investing early to secure your financial future and boost your chances of early retirement.

11 tips to help you make the most with your investment ventures:

#1. Learn Before You Get Started

First, if you want to succeed with your investments, you need to know what you are doing. The biggest mistake you can make as an entrepreneur is putting your money into an investment without understanding what’s really going on. You wouldn’t go skydiving if you didn’t know how to operate the parachute, so why would you invest without knowledge?

Finding information isn’t difficult in this era of the Internet. You have plenty of resources to help you out and even reading financial publications, such as The Wall Street Journal, can provide you with a bit more knowledge.

#2. Protect Your Assets

It is crucial that you protect your business, as well as your investments, from creditors. You need to structure your business and your investments properly to ensure that if something goes wrong, creditors won’t be able to access your assets.

Investing is a good way to guarantee your financial future is secure even if something goes wrong with your business adventure. Therefore, you need to make sure that creditors won’t be able to access your personal investments and savings in case things go awry. This ensures you sleep soundly at night!

3. Create a Sound Strategy for Your Business

Naturally, your business also needs to have an investment strategy. In an Inc.com article on steps to take to grow your business, the recommended strategy is all about the 80/20 rule. This means that 80% of your resources should go to core business opportunities and 20% to new adjacency opportunities.

In practice, this means that you focus most of your efforts to your customer base and invest in maintaining their loyalty. But you also want to keep the adjacent opportunities in mind. These are new investing ventures and growth strategies to explore and which can help your business look to the future.

4. Make It Impossible to Touch Your Investments

One of the biggest investment mistakes to make is all about changing and tweaking your investments too often. You should have some of your investments tied into funds and portfolios that are almost unreachable to prevent you from doing this. This ensures that you don’t make decisions too quick and in the heat of the moment.

The truth is that majority of investments fluctuate a lot. If you withdraw your investments every time they go down, you’ll end up loosing a lot more than if you just stick to your plan. Of course, you want some investments easily accessible, but majority of your money should be kept away from reach.

5. Reduce Risk by Diversifying

You don’t want to put your eggs in one basket, but spread them around a little. Even if you are investing into something with a relatively small risk, like property, you still don’t want it to be your only investment venture.

Try to find at least a few different ways to invest. This guarantees that if one venture goes sour, you don’t end up loosing all of your money. The Money Advice Service’s guide to diversifying is definitely worth a look.

6. Understand Your Pain Threshold

Although there are many options that provide you a relatively safe way to invest your money, there are ventures that might just see your investments disappear. You need to, not only understand the risk of losing your investment, but also understand how much you are able to lose.

Investing is more about controlling losses than it is about making a profit. You need to set yourself clear limits for losses that you don’t want to cross. Sometimes withdrawing from an investment with a small loss might be better than sticking it to the end only to lose more money.

7. Get on Top of the Tax Code

When it comes to investing, you want to make sure you don’t end up losing a chunk of your profits in taxes. Tax efficient investing is one of the first things you want to learn about before you start making money with your investments.

It is also important to understand the taxation, as you don’t want to end up doing anything illegal with your investments. You can find plenty of tips from websites like MoneyWise, to guarantee your investments are tax efficient.

8. Learn From the Legends

There are some big names in the investment world that you need to know about. Giants such as Warren Buffet and Jim Slater can teach you a thing or two about investing your money and making it big.

But learning from the legends doesn’t mean that same as copying other people’s advice mindlessly. Even the big names make mistakes and provide advice that might not bear fruit. Don’t expect to look at their portfolio and then get rich by just copying it.

You want to read their interviews and understand their investment methods, but ultimately you need to learn to make your own choices. You are the only one who can make it work in your own circumstances.

9. Remember To Save

Naturally, you shouldn’t just invest your money to different funds and assets. You also must start saving your money as well. Saving is a great way to guarantee your financial future is secure even if your projects and your investments don’t provide the hoped end-results.

Saving for your retirement is one of the most important things you need to do as an entrepreneur. So, you want to look around for different ways to save and invest to ensure you have a comfortable pension waiting for you once you are ready to retire.

10. Find Your Niche

Although you want to diversify your investments, you should still find a niche in investing where you excel. Perhaps you are interested in commodities or maybe you’d like to consider private equity investing.

Having an investment niche helps you in two ways. First, it allows you to direct your energy into gaining knowledge in that specific field. For example, if you are interested in private equity, you can check platforms like the one at Dealmarket to find news and tips regarding private equity investing. As already mentioned, this extra knowledge is essential to guarantee you make the right choices.

Second, finding your niche can help you stay passionate. If you focus on investing things that you are passionate about, you are more likely to yield bigger returns. You’ll have more energy to keep up to speed with your investments, when you don’t just care about the amount of money you make, but you are passionate about the results as well.

11. Be Patient

Finally, the unfortunate truth is that you most likely won’t be able to hit it big overnight. As an online entrepreneur, you know that it takes time and effort to succeed in business and this applies to investing as well. Some investment ventures may be able to provide you quicker returns, but in general investing can take a while to truly start producing you the returns you want.

Patience is one of the key characteristics for making it as an entrepreneur, as well as succeeding in investing. You don’t want to rush your investments. Just focus on what you want to achieve and work hard to achieve it.

If you enjoyed this, you’ll really dig the 10 traits all successful young entrepreneurs have in common.

The post 11 Investment Tips for Online Entrepreneurs appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

It’s all about what you know, how you apply what you know, how consistent you are with the application of knowledge, and how much overall effort you put in.

I’ve been at it for a few years now and I’ve learned a lot about myself, business and other people in the process.

Today, I’m going to show you seven things essential to successful blogging; This is the good stuff, so pay attention!

You do want to be a professional blogger, don’t you?

And, by professional, I mean you make a very nice living from it.

7 Things Nobody Tells You About Successful Blogging

#1. There’s A Lot More To Blogging Than Writing

Writing is only half the battle. A lot of people who start blogs love to write, and they think blogging is a natural fit. They figure they can make money hand over fist – because all they have to do is write. There is a lot more to that component. 

Instead of thinking about it in terms of writing, think about it in terms of content creation:

• Adding pictures
• Adding captions
• Embedding videos
• Reviewing products
• Provide case studies / tutorials
• And then offer your unique perspective.

Search engines look favorably on blogs that have rich media content and a broad overview of a subject. Your unique perspective, however, is the finishing touch, and true essence, of your blog. That’s what will cause readers to follow you and search engines to take note of your popularity.

Be as authentic and transparent as possible, people will trust and respect you for it. Forget the fluff.

Tracy Raftl from The Love Vitamin is a great example of somebody giving her brand a very unique essence online.

#2. SEO Is Still Important

Even though you’re just maintaining a blog, and not an “official” website, you still need to keep SEO in mind. Why? Your blog posts can show up in Google search results just like specific web pages. Ideally, you want people linking to your blog posts.

You should never use black hat SEO techniques, which can compromise the long-term success of your blog. Instead, focus on creating awesome content and the keywords will naturally find their ways into your posts.

If people are linking to your blog posts, that’s a great combination. If you want to ensure your posts see some search engine traffic, create blog posts based around keywords – from doing keyword research. But never keyword stuff. Just write a natural blog post that happens to include the keyword a couple of times.

Here are 16 keyword research resources for total niche domination.

#3. Inconsistency Will Cost You Followers

One of the main goals of blogs is to generate followers. However, if you don’t update your blog on a consistent basis, readers will never know when to expect new posts. They’ll have no reason to check back if they don’t expect to see something new. Having an army of loyal blog followers is like money in the bank. Make sure you update on a daily, every other day, or weekly basis. However, you decide to update, be consistent about it.

If you’re consistent with your updates and still need/want more followers, check out the top 10 traffic tips straight from Michael Dunlop.

#4. Build An Email List

Most blog owners don’t actively solicit the opt-in emails of their followers. If you do, however, you’ll be ahead of the curve.

Every month or so, send out an email to your list with a really great blog post. This will remind your subscribers that you’re still around and updating the site.

If every search engine visitor that comes to your website is just lost (and nobody puts in their email), then you have no way to follow up unless they choose to come back and keep reading again. They might forget, though – so emailing them periodically remind them you’re still alive.

If you struggle to build an email list, PopUp Domination is my favorite list building resource as it’s proven time and time again to increase subscriber optins by over 500%

#5. Social Media Isn’t A Choice

If you want your blog to be successful, make money, and retain followers, then social media is essential. The goal is that your social media accounts point at your blog and your blog points at your social media accounts.

This way, visitors coming from either source will find the other one. Make sure every social media account uses the name of your blog, or your website.

If you’re struggling with your online presence, I’d definitely check out the 10 reasons why you suck at social media.

#6. Create Shareable Content

Go above and beyond the call of duty.

If you’re not creating shareable content, then people aren’t going to share it. You can ask them to share it, but they won’t if it’s not worthwhile. If people aren’t sharing your posts, then search engines like Google aren’t going to rate them favorably.

You can’t just write posts – you have to make them great. That said, these are my top 10 writing tips for more engaging content.

#7. Creating Valuable Content Isn’t Enough

We all remember when we were little kids and our parents tried to tell us to do something. We didn’t listen, and now that we look back we realize that often times they knew best. The same is true when creating valuable content on the web.

You can provide great information that’s intended to help people, but unless you make it palatable to your audience, no one will like or share your blog posts. You have to imbue your posts with excitement, images, and catchy headlines – and you have to get them shared on social media!

If you liked this, you’ll love my post on the 20 mistakes bloggers are still making.

-David Aston

The post 7 Things Nobody Tells You About Successful Blogging appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

Here’s our list of the five biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when looking to get media coverage for their company… and how you can avoid them like a pro.

Five Biggest Media Coverage Mistakes Of Entrepreneurs

Mistake #1: Having No Idea What To Say

It’s important to remember that news outlets are businesses too; businesses that trade in valuable and important information: News.

In that sense, PR is largely about convincing writers and editors that the information you want to give them is information their audience will find interesting and important.

The benchmark for news should be,

“Why would this piece of information matter to anyone not already a customer?”

If there’s no ready answer to that question, you may have something to say, but it’s not newsworthy.

Media coverage doesn’t come down to who you happen to know. It’s achieved, overwhelmingly, through concentrated, well-planned campaigns to attract attention.

As a starting place, think about,

“What do I have to share about my business that is interesting?”

Here are some examples of announcements that you can use:

• Launches – you’re starting your business or releasing a new product.
• Fundraising – you’ve just raised $10,000 on kickstarter.
• Milestones – your company turns 5!, surpasses 10,000 users, gains 50,000 followers on Twitter, etc.
• Acquisitions – your company acquires, or is acquired by, another company.
• Joining a cool club or receiving an award.

Don’t forget that social media is still media and here are 10 reasons why you suck at it.

Mistake #2: Being Shy 

Most of us understand that if you send your pitch to 200 journalists who have been carefully selected by geography, news outlet and general area of interest, you’re much more likely to get press coverage than not.

But telling people about your business doesn’t stop there.  You can also:

• Contact journalists on Twitter or LinkedIn
• Send your pitch through to the “info@,” “tips@” and other general tip lines too.  For example, at one time, major tech news site VentureBeat got half its pitches via the “tips” line.
• Go to events like trade shows, where you might get to meet journalists in person.

Also don’t be afraid to politely follow-up a couple of days later with the same person. Sometimes journalists miss stories that they’d otherwise like because they get upwards of 200 emails a day.

Mistake #3: Being Rude

Good media coverage is a partnership made between two businesses, not an entitlement gifted to businesses or PR firms by some separate entity called “the media.”

In all your interactions with journalists, a little politeness goes a long way. When you consider that journalists receive dozens of pitches every day, you’ve got to stand out from the crowd… Use phrases like,

“If you’re too busy to reply, please don’t worry about it.”

This seems like common sense, but the sad reality is that you can stand apart from the crowd by being very polite and going out of your way to make things as easy as possible for the journalist.

There’s nothing that will turn a journalist off your story faster than starting to argue why a story is “actually news.”  If you haven’t managed to convince them already, no amount of phone calls or emails will make them “see reason.”

Mistake #4: Not Putting Time Into Your Pitch Email

When contacting reporters, remember that you’re not speaking to a computer – there’s a person behind the email, which is easy to forget when you are sending out dozens of emails at a time.

You are going to get the best results when you address a reporter as you would a friend, and emails that appear spammy are ignored.

As much as possible, emails should be personalized, cordial, and professional. Reporters want to write about serious entrepreneurs with promising futures.

Generic emails like the following off-put journalists and relegate your post to the trash:

“To whom it may concern, we thought this might be of interest to you.”

The formality and lack of personalization is off-putting. An email with the following beginning is much more likely to resonate:

“Hi Joe, Andrew here, I saw that we have a mutual acquaintance and she thought this story might interest you.”

The following email is a template to use when contacting journalists. The information will change depending on the announcement of the company. If you decide to use a similar format, remember that this should be personalized as much as possible.

Hi “Individual’s Name”,

My name is “Your Name”. I founded a (Ex: Boston-based) tech startup called (Company Name) that’s launching today, and am emailing to see if you would be interested in writing an article about the launch.

“Company Name” was created to help people discover and promote live events with others. Our product, which is an iPhone app, is free for users on the iTunes App Store. I have below our Press release and I am happy to follow up with any information over email or by phone.

Thank you for your time and energy.

Cheers,

“Your Name”

Founder, “Company”

Mobile: “Your Phone Number”

Make sure your emails get read – here are 12 powerful tips to increase email open rate.

Mistake #5: Forgetting To Connect

Remember to always be respectful of a journalist’s time.

Under no circumstance is it a good idea to email a journalist with an open ended question that requires a long response.

If you don’t know the journalist personally, do not immediately ask to meet for coffee. Coffee takes more than 30 minutes and disrupts a person’s day.

The best way to connect with journalists is to show that you understand their time is valuable and that although you would like to meet, you do not want to be a burden.

Although most of this is common sense, these are mistakes made every day by smart, savvy business people. Now that you’ve seen five of the top mistakes you can make when pitching to journalists, you can avoid making them.

How do you get media coverage for your startups? Help empower fellow entrepreneurs in the comments below.

The post Five Biggest Media Coverage Mistakes Of Entrepreneurs appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

If you read the book “Built to Sell” by John Warrilow, which I highly recommend. He talks about a 1-2 year exit process. While this is necessary for larger companies, it isn’t always necessary for online businesses. However I do recommend you start thinking about an exit 6-12 months before selling.

To get the highest selling price do these things:

Extract the owner

When a business owner is the linchpin to any business, what a buyer is essentially purchasing is a job. Without the owner, the business would likely not operate, or operate poorly.  It is a fact that the more automated the business the higher the multiple. See: What makes up a million dollar online business for more tips on extracting the owner. This is because larger business, rely more on staff and systems than smaller businesses and generally they take the role of what the owner used to do when the business was in it’s early stages.

Extracting yourself as the business owner from the day-to-day operations is the key to obtaining a higher multiple when you sell your business.

 Strive to improve profit and cash flow

Buyers are more enthusiastic about buying a business that is growing. When there is upside potential people generally get emotional about the deal, and emotion is what drives buying decisions.

Not only that, but a larger profit produces a larger multiple. Let’s say you are making $200,000 in net earnings per year and a buyer offers a 3X multiple (3 times the yearly net profit) that is an offer of $600,000.

If you can squeeze 10% more margin out of your business and improve profits to $220,000. That same offer then goes from $600,000 to $660,000 at $60,000 improvement.

For Example.

We had a client that came to us with a business that was on a slight decline. It was in the technology niche. The site at it’s peak had done $60k in revenue however the month they were looking to sell it did $25k. Now if they sold the site at that time they would have receive about $400k for the business. However waiting 4 months to improve the earnings they ended up receiving $585,000 for the business, a $185,000 dollar difference.

Look for what’s recurring

In most cases the value of a business is based on what’s recurring. This can either mean recurring customers, or it can mean what the likelihood of future earnings is going to be for the business.

It is smart to identify any recurring element in your business and then highlight that in the sales process to prospective buyers. You will maximize the value of your business like this.

Standardized systems and processes

An investor see’s a business as a set of standard systems and processes that produce a product or service that is then sold for a value exchange (money), which then generates a profit for the owner.

It’s not a hobby or a job, it is a cash-generating asset. Buyers place higher value on companies that run themselves and spit out cash.

I was at a conference recently and Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary was talking about the best performing stocks on the stock market, are those that produce a dividend. This goes to show if you can get the systems in place to produce profit consistently you will attract higher end buyers and investors.

Get your financials in order

Haven’t finished that tax return? Still have bills overdue? Now is the time to get all that in order. Clean and orderly financials firstly make it easy to put together information when you are thinking of selling and secondly show’s the buyer how much the business is earning. The main method for valuation for an online business is a multiple of earnings, hence being able to prove profitability and higher profitability will equate to a higher sale price when selling.

Get external advice

Let’s preface this, I provide third party brokerage services so I am going to be bias. However logic says you use an accountant for your taxes and a lawyer for your legal work, a realtor for your real estate then you should probably be using a website broker or exit advisor when valuing and/or selling your company.

(Also see: Sell with a website broker) It is generally going to be easier and more profitable if you hire a third party service to advise on your online businesses value.

The post 6 Ways To Maximize Your Online Business Valuation appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.

#1 Profits Don’t Come Right Away

Since young companies need time to develop, they often require hours of labor with little monetary reward. Time is just like any other investment: if it’s well-spent, it will pay off.

In the case of Coca-Cola, John Pemberton lost $20 in his first year selling the syrup. He wasn’t making any money then, but he was laying the foundation for the next year’s profits (and the 100+ years after that).

#2 Failures are Stepping Stones

Every time you make a mistake, that means there’s one fewer mistake between you and success. The best way to learn how to do something is to totally fail at it – and then reflect on what you could have done differently.

There’s no point in feeling discouraged. Simply learn and change.

#3 Don’t Resist Change

Pemberton’s brain tonic was supposedly a cure for horrible-sounding ailments like, “Neuralgia,” “Hysteria…” and “Melancholia.” But there’s no way that Coca-Cola would be the huge corporation it is today if they hadn’t started marketing their beverage as a soft drink.

As an entrepreneur, don’t let carefully-laid plans blind your eyes to better opportunities.

#4 It’s Never Too Early to Start Branding

By sticking with a tasteful, timeless image, Coca-Cola has turned their logo into an icon. Your brand starts on the same day as your business – so be deliberate and consistent from the get-go.

Even if your business doesn’t have a logo or color scheme, you still have a brand to maintain. You’re building your brand every time you talk with a client or type out a tweet.

#5 Brand Big

Brands like Nike, Apple, and Coca-Cola have permeated the collective subconscious by embodying big feelings and ideas.

Of course, those companies also have multi-million dollar marketing budgets and you probably don’t. But if you have a firmly set vision for what feelings and ideas you want people to associate with your business, it will show through.

The Biggest Brand in the World

Today, Coca-Cola is widely considered the biggest brand in the world – but it has something in common with even the smallest start-up: it began with just an entrepreneur and an idea. How will you apply the story of Coca-Cola to your own business?

Do you agree with Interbrand that Coca-Cola is the biggest brand in the world — or have tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple surpassed the Coke brand? Sound off in the comment section below.

The post 5 Things Every Entrepreneur Can Learn From Coca-Cola appeared first on Young Entrepreneurs.