Please Tell Us What Made Your Online Business Successful?

Knowing what business NOT to take on.

I used to spend a lot of time doing things which I should have outsourced or just not even done.

Trying to do everything yourself is fine as long as you can accept that it has limitations. I'm a bit of a control freak so I waited way too long before I trusted people enough to let go of some things and just rely on others for them.

So - now there's almost nothing that I can't do if I want to and it means I know what my costs are and what I should charge.

Because I like helping people I usually tend to vastly undercharge for things, so it took quite a long time for me to accept that it's not me that determines the value of things to other people and that to make great money you have to be able to feel ok charging what bigger clients need to pay.

An example is web design work - I can do it and have done it and I used to charge £300 a day for my time, but some people want to only pay a few hundred for their site, and others would feel insulted if you tried to charge them less than £5k for their site (they would see it as a sign that you either don't understand how important it is, or that you're not professional enough to charge a 'proper' price).

If I write a book - I don't try to do my own graphics. If I want a script I don't even try to write it myself. If I want to get links - even though I can do it myself I still outsource a lot of stuff, just for the diversity.

So - understanding value and how to deliver it without trying to do it all myself is what I think made the difference.

Andy

1. Accurate point of view.
2. Awareness of what to do and how to do.
3. Hard working, hard working, and hard working.

Good timeframe, honesty, lucky, expertise, dedication, willing, love for IM.

Getting off my ass and doing these two things.

1) building a list.

2) Selling stuff to that list.

There are a lot of stuff inbetween and I could be here all night telling you these. However, building a list just changed everything for us. Infact, if you are in the game and not building your list you are waisting you time I feel. The best time to build your list was YESTERDAY.

I know you will get some smart arses that say, oh i do not need a list, and blah blah blah...but seriously marketers with big lists, that have built nice relationship with their subscribers do not go POOR, and HUNGRY! I can assure you of that.

Building lists and promoting only things I'd happily recommend to my own parents.

1. Valuing my time a lot more than I used to.
2. Focus. One niche (or sub-niche), one target market (can't please everyone), one product.
3. Focusing on things that matter: marketing, product appeal and customer support. Focusing on those things helped me a lot.
4. Hard work. Actual work, lol. Lots and lots of work.