The Golden rules for success

THE GOLDEN RULES FOR SUCCESS

The Golden rules for success, how to succeed in business and become a successful entrepreneur by developing the qualities needed to win

By the time you get to this chapter of the Golden Web you should be gnashing at the bit in order to get going. My golden rules for internet success are designed to give you an overall picture of what it takes to succeed on the internet and keep you focused on your sales target.

Your sales target should be whatever you decide to set yourself. Don't try and conquer the world; make the target realistic and achievable and keep moving the target as you hit it. Break your sales target down into daily, weekly, monthly and annual targets as this will allow you to manage them more easily.

Success is success in any business or life activity whether it is working on the internet or running a high street business. The same factors that govern the rules of success apply to everything we do: online, offline, and in our personal lives.

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Despite the fact that it apparently seems easy to set up an internet business, more people fail (in percentage terms) when setting up an internet business than those who set up businesses offline. If you haven't grasped this whilst reading the Golden Web, I would suggest that you either go back to the beginning and read the book again or quit whilst you are ahead because you obviously haven't grasped the fundamentals of what David and I have been telling you.

If you are still intent on launching an internet business, here are our golden rules for internet success. Success is not a destination. It is a continuous journey that requires constant planning and re-planning and monitoring.

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1. Do your research. Look at your competitors. Research every company that you may need to do business with and check if anyone is publishing anything negative about them. The odd negative comment may well be a disgruntled employee or client, but if there is a lot of negative reporting, find another supplier. Research your market place. Check the water by building web pages on Utopele to see if you get much of a response. If you don't get enquiries through Utopele, you will never get them through having a website built. Better to lose a couple of hundred quid rather than a few thousand by diving in without doing your research.

2. Write a business plan. If you don't know how - learn. You will need to include set up costs, overheads and running costs, sales targets, cash flow projections and all other relevant information. Constantly monitor it to ensure you remain on course.

3. You must remain disciplined at all times. Sticking a sign on the door saying "Gone Fishing" is the same as sticking a sign on your door saying "Gone Bankrupt." You have to remain focused on your sales targets and hit them everyday. There is no such thing as tomorrow. What you fail to do today will simply increase the next day's burden.

4. Avoid any website that claims to provide instant success and guaranteed wealth. It will be a scam. Success on the internet comes from hard work and dedication; never, ever let anyone persuade you otherwise. If you are stupid enough to fall for one of these scams just accept the fact that you really are stupid and will never get rich. There is no alternative to hard work. You have to do a lot of research, a lot of reading and one hell of a lot of writing.

5. Don't try and start your business on a shoestring. Success on the internet requires investment in professional website design, search engine optimisation, online advertising and marketing and a hell of a lot of other activities. If you don't have shed loads of capital but have a good idea and are determined to succeed, talk to us.

6. Remain focused on what you are trying to achieve and don't try and diversify until your core business is working and profitable. Give it time. You have to be persistent; don't be prepared to give up too soon. If you throw in the towel when the going gets tough, don't try something else: you obviously don't have the qualities needed to succeed as an entrepreneur.

7. Manage your time properly. Concentrate on the things that will make you money, not on tasks that will simply fill your day. You are not saving money by trying to do the jobs that someone else can do quicker and better than you. Don't put off the tasks that will earn you money. Often this will mean doing things you find distasteful, like dealing with difficult clients - just pick up the phone and call them.

8. Look for business opportunities. They exist within every conversation you have with everyone. Even a client complaining about a problem offers an opportunity to put things right and do more business.

9. Avoid doing business with any website that does not provide an address and contact telephone number. If these are not highly visible on a website it is because the owner does not want to be contacted or found. The reason for this is almost certainly because they are running a scam and are hiding behind the anonymity of their website.

10. Unless you have a few million in the bank, don't try and conquer the world. Find a niche in a market and concentrate on building this up before moving onto another sector of the market. Build a reputation for doing one thing really well rather than trying to be all things to all people. If you try and compete on too wide a target market, the bigger competitors will eat you alive. If you are offering holidays for example, concentrate on one area in one country and don't try and offer holidays all over the world. This is a highly competitive market with millions of websites all competing with each other. A new website would stand no chance unless it was concentrating on one small area.

11. Start small but plan big. When you are having your website built, your developers will need to take your expansion plans into consideration from the outset. If you start by offering holidays in Brittany for example, they should know that you will be adding Normandy and other French regions in the future. This will enable them to construct the site in a way that it can be easily adapted, rather than having to rebuild it from scratch at a later date. If you build up a happy clientele who have enjoyed your holidays in Brittany, when you expand into Normandy they will be confident to book with you again. As your database of clients increases, so you can increase your regions of France.

12. Small businesses, or big businesses with a small business mentality, have significant advantages over large companies. They have lower overheads, can be flexible and are able to respond quickly to market conditions and, most importantly, can provide a personal service. Unlike large companies who have call centres where you never speak to the same person twice and who don't know their clients, you can give your customers a contact name so that they always have a person to call who knows them. Personally, I never deal with any company which has a call centre, including my bank.

You are reading an extract from

The Golden Web - The Internet Entrepreneur's Definitive Guide to Making Money Online

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The rules for success