The rules for success, the 30 golden rules you need to follow

THE RULES FOR SUCCESS, THE 30 GOLDEN RULES YOU NEED TO FOLLOW

The rules for success, the 30 golden rules you need to follow in order to succeed as an entrepreneur

13. Be different. As a small company you may not have the buying power to be able to compete on price with large companies who buy in bulk. Your overheads may be lower so look at your margins compared to your turnover and overheads. It may be more profitable to have 100 happy clients than 1000 disgruntled customers. Don't try and emulate your competitors - copycats rarely succeed. Make your unique selling points clear, highlight the benefits of dealing with your company: personal service, higher quality, special offers and superior solutions.

14. Your reputation is how you will stand or fall as a business. A happy client will tell one person about your company. A disgruntled customer used to tell ten people. Nowadays they can publish their complaint on the internet and tell ten thousand people how awful your company is. Two things will go a long way to ensuring your customers recommend you: first class service and superior products. Word of mouth is the most cost effective way of building a business.

Build web pages and link them into your website here and drive traffic to your website
Advertise on this search engine and gain more links and get more visitors to your website
Join Boogami Life for free and make money

15. Internet marketing is not the same as offline sales where you control the pace and direction of the sale. Your potential customers are just a click away from your competitors. Make sure you provide highly visible contact details on your website and encourage people to contact you by every means possible: telephone, Skype, email and freephone.

16. It's an old cliché, but you only get one chance to make a good first impression. Your website is going to be the first contact a potential client will get. The person who answers your telephone can either put your client in a buying mood or make them decide that maybe you aren't the company to deal with. Courtesy, personality, knowledge and a willingness to please will help your client towards a positive decision.

17. Until you become a household name, the public will not know you from Adam. Scammers, fraudsters, hackers, cyber pirates, identity thieves and con artists pollute the internet and your potential customers will not have the same confidence in you as they will in the well known household names. Invest in your marketing and build your reputation using PR and search engine marketing. There is little point in spending money on advertising until your marketing is in place and working.

18. Strive to constantly improve your service and products. If you take the attitude that your way is best and it has always worked, you will almost certainly get left behind by your competitors.

19. Your customers are your most important asset. It is easier to sell to an existing happy client than to have to keep finding new customers. Make your clients feel important because they are extremely important. Small customers can become big clients and it is imperative that you listen to them because it is your clients that drive the market. Recommendation is the cheapest and most effective form of marketing. A happy clientele is a loyal customer database and your greatest form of income.

20. Return visitors to your website are a constant source of repeat business. If visitors bookmark your website they will come back. If people are constantly coming back to your site, you have to provide new content, services and products. Our websites are updated with new content everyday. This doesn't just ensure people keep coming back, it ensures that the search engines return regularly and new visitors are found through the search engines.

21. You need to be innovative to keep ahead of your competition and the copycats who will undoubtedly plagiarise your ideas and services. I suffered with this problem in the early years as unscrupulous competitors constantly tried to copy me, but I found that I had more energy and more ideas and more determination and most of these sly little irks ran out of steam. The public like innovators and many take exception to other companies who try to muscle in on another person's ideas.

22. Success requires hard work but it also requires working intelligently. Successful entrepreneurs tend to look far ahead and recognise business opportunities and openings in a market ahead of everyone else. Be prepared to change direction and reinvent yourself when something isn't working. This is not quitting or failure; you only fail when you stop working. It isn't just the amount of work and hours you put in. Successful entrepreneurs know that the quality of the work they do will pay the dividends.

Start your own business

Fantastic business idea

23. The internet is only one marketing and advertising medium; it is not the be all and end all of building an internet business. Newspaper and magazine advertising, TV and radio, PR, direct mail and telemarketing all have a role to play. I can't think of any large and successful internet company that doesn't use most of these mediums.

24. Most companies fail to respond to emails within 24 hours, and many don't respond at all. These companies have no business on the internet so don't make the same mistake.

25. Just because you own a website does not mean you have an internet business. The internet is a not a field of dreams where people will simply just turn up on your doorstep. Build it by all means but market the shit out of it and then they will come.

26. Don't try and do everything yourself. You cannot be good at everything. Trying to save money by not employing a specialist will cost you more in lost sales. If you don't have the money to invest, keep your hand in your pocket and wait till you can. There are no short cuts or simple solutions.

27. Write good internet advertising copy that grabs people's imagination. Most sales are based on emotion not reason. Make sure your website has high profile call to action buttons. There are number of factors that stimulate human emotions and can affect buying behaviour: greed, fear, pride, anger and relief, and a number of ways to stimulate those emotions: flattery, solutions, exclusivity, cost, evidence and proof. Your advertising copy should contain all relevant points.

28. There are a number of powerful words that you should use unsparingly in your marketing copy: increase, proven, you, cheap, effective, guaranteed, safe, rich, easy, save, profitable, free and wealth.

29. Traffic is the lifeblood of your internet business. David and I have provided a lot of advice throughout the Golden Web about how to generate traffic to your website. If it is not mentioned in the book, it isn't worth worrying about. We are constantly talking to people who have wasted their money on traffic generation systems that promised they would drive millions of visitors to their site. Most do little or nothing, and certainly don't do what they promised.

30. Finally, if you need advice about launching an internet business, or have an idea for the internet, or have a struggling website, then the best business decision you could make right now is to contact us.

You are reading an extract from

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

To buy your copy click here