Thread: Sup bro's? What do you all need help with?

Originally Posted by Sky

Hmmm... You know, sometimes you have to be informed to be informed. I'll come back when I have sufficient information about where I am technically. Cause right now I'm drawing a blank page! Thanks for the input!

Where are you in the process right now? Let's walk you through this, it is helpful to learn!

Then I would buy some display advertising targetted to my target markets websites. (jalponik, car forums, mom forums, etc) If you get into the nitty gritty, everyone needs this product so you can buy cheaper media in those places.

How do i effectively find the proper places to run display advertising in bulk? An old friend who was excellent IM told me buy adsense ads, see which do well then create text banners and buy ad space directly from the sites that converted best with adsense. Do you agree with this, that advice is old, any strategy id appreciate.

Originally Posted by LightHouse

Where are you in the process right now? Let's walk you through this, it is helpful to learn!

I've always been the good with analogies, so its kinda like this:

It's like I'm walking into the gym for the first time again. I show up, knowing I want to work out, I have a goal set for myself, and I decided this is what I wanted to do. I have on a pair of dirty sweats and my reliable, comfortable pair of Reeboks, and though I'm alittle anxious, I'm excited I've finally moving towards my goal. Oh yeah, that cliched neon yellow headband.

Of course, I look around the room and see everyone pumping away, and I see the results of their hardwork. Muclse bound dudes, admiring themsevles in front of the mirrors, curling their varicose arms up towards their chins. Biceps so massive they could kiss them.

The ladies are sexy beyond belief, tight black spandex over iron buns of steel, slow motioning-ly swaying back and forth on the rows of stair masters. They almost speak in another language, I overhear things like plyometrics, calisthenics, and Zumba. All so alien to me. I quickly look away when one of them catches me looking at her posterior!

Not wanting to look like a total dork that I am, I walk over to the free weights, and begin curling a weight that clearly is too heavy and start curling with my back as leverage. Feeling even more out of place as my arms shake, I stop midway and proceed to place the weight back on the stand. I start to wonder if I even belong here.

Let's just say you, a trainer, take notice and walk over to me and ask If I need some help. I sheepishly say no, not wanting to look like a noob. Yet, you persist because of my bad form and my reluctance. So I ask the obvious question:

So if TLDR, my question to you is: How can I get to where you are? What are the first steps I need to take in order to succeed in this type of business, if I have no idea where to start. Based on your knowledge and experience, where should I direct my focus in order to take the most efficient course of action towards building a successful online business or generating revenue. In your opinion, what are the major pitfalls many people fall into and how to avoid them. I am also very resistant to taking any loans because I have no working capital to back it up. Just blood, sweat, and tears.

I'm not afraid of hard work, just tired of working hard for other people. I've owned a fast food business before (or thought I did) so I know how to run a brick and mortar business, PL sheets, stocks, costs, all that pizzazz. I'm set to meet with a SCORE consuler in January but I haven't fully conceptualized the business to which I want to pursue. I do know the internet is the vehicle I want to use to get me there. As you can see, my skills and talents aren't in business per-say, but I know it is the key to unlocking the freedom I need to pursue my lifetime goals. Any advice you can offer is greatly appreciated. Even a finger in the right direction is all I'm looking for!

Originally Posted by theBiz

How do i effectively find the proper places to run display advertising in bulk? An old friend who was excellent IM told me buy adsense ads, see which do well then create text banners and buy ad space directly from the sites that converted best with adsense. Do you agree with this, that advice is old, any strategy id appreciate.

There are many many ad networks out there. You can also utilize Googles adwords content network as well. I have seen a person or two utilize the content network to get extremely cheap traffic in bigger industries bidding for very longtail keywords.

You should have a good sense of communities in your industry already from when you were doing research on the industry, if you get involved in those communities you will typically see references to other smaller or more niche communities/sites.

You can get in and buy direct advertising, but you said this was a national level company. I somehow doubt 1-2 people will be able to manage buying, changing, and tracking display advertising 1 on 1 with tons of sites.

Originally Posted by Sky

I've always been the good with analogies, so its kinda like this:

It's like I'm walking into the gym for the first time again. I show up, knowing I want to work out, I have a goal set for myself, and I decided this is what I wanted to do. I have on a pair of dirty sweats and my reliable, comfortable pair of Reeboks, and though I'm alittle anxious, I'm excited I've finally moving towards my goal. Oh yeah, that cliched neon yellow headband.

Of course, I look around the room and see everyone pumping away, and I see the results of their hardwork. Muclse bound dudes, admiring themsevles in front of the mirrors, curling their varicose arms up towards their chins. Biceps so massive they could kiss them.

The ladies are sexy beyond belief, tight black spandex over iron buns of steel, slow motioning-ly swaying back and forth on the rows of stair masters. They almost speak in another language, I overhear things like plyometrics, calisthenics, and Zumba. All so alien to me. I quickly look away when one of them catches me looking at her posterior!

Not wanting to look like a total dork that I am, I walk over to the free weights, and begin curling a weight that clearly is too heavy and start curling with my back as leverage. Feeling even more out of place as my arms shake, I stop midway and proceed to place the weight back on the stand. I start to wonder if I even belong here.

Let's just say you, a trainer, take notice and walk over to me and ask If I need some help. I sheepishly say no, not wanting to look like a noob. Yet, you persist because of my bad form and my reluctance. So I ask the obvious question:

So if TLDR, my question to you is: How can I get to where you are? What are the first steps I need to take in order to succeed in this type of business, if I have no idea where to start. Based on your knowledge and experience, where should I direct my focus in order to take the most efficient course of action towards building a successful online business or generating revenue. In your opinion, what are the major pitfalls many people fall into and how to avoid them. I am also very resistant to taking any loans because I have no working capital to back it up. Just blood, sweat, and tears.

I'm not afraid of hard work, just tired of working hard for other people. I've owned a fast food business before (or thought I did) so I know how to run a brick and mortar business, PL sheets, stocks, costs, all that pizzazz. I'm set to meet with a SCORE consuler in January but I haven't fully conceptualized the business to which I want to pursue. I do know the internet is the vehicle I want to use to get me there. As you can see, my skills and talents aren't in business per-say, but I know it is the key to unlocking the freedom I need to pursue my lifetime goals. Any advice you can offer is greatly appreciated. Even a finger in the right direction is all I'm looking for!

Just so happens your gym analogy clicks well with me. What do you think the first question that trainer is going to ask you?


.. What is your goal?

For purposes of this thread, you are in the internet, so I as a 'trainer' cant tell your body type(background, starting position for business) et al.

What is it you are trying to do? Start another B&M business? Start an online business?

It sounds so far like you want to "make money online" however online is much like B&M, you still ahve to have a business and a purpose to make money from. Wether it is buying/selling[e-commerce], being a salesperson[affiliate marketing], providing information and advertising[adsense, CPM, PPV], buying and selling leads [lead-gen, CPA affiliate marketing], starting a business based on a membership or subscription like a gym or cable tv [subscription services, membership services/communities]


etc etc etc etc I could go on and on. There are many internet based counter parts which match up with B&M business'. But much like in the physical world you have to have a goal, and a purpose/need to fill.


Then you can work threough the "how to"'s and "do what"'s of getting there.

I am a teriible forum interlinker but i think there is a list of 'legendary threads' listed here and have several threads on figuring out what you want and where you want to go. I just urge you not to over read the internet and everything it has in it. Use your own sense of judgement of what is good advice and what is not.

I was hoping to lure some hopeful yet shy lurkers out with this thread and get people moving forward. Lurkers gunna lurk?!

Originally Posted by LightHouse

I am not denying there is tons of money to be made there, in fact I have had a few people give me plans to build a business from CB on the producer side and offer their lists. But i am just not a huge fan of the "IM" e-products arena. Possibly one day when i can get a talented writer I can take those folks up on their offers and launch some products, but I will never be on the affiliate side.

If you wanted to start this now would you look for that writer on elance? How come you are not a fan of the e-products arena?

Originally Posted by JayKim

If you wanted to start this now would you look for that writer on elance? How come you are not a fan of the e-products arena?

Hey Jay, I must have missed the email for this.

I suppose i could dig in elance/guru/odesk for a writer, ultimately no matter where i looked it would be like a normal hiring process. I am a terrible writer, to which my blog gets the blunt end of emptiness and a backend full of unpublished posts. I would need someone who can take my general ideas, and make them into a compelling story that people want to read, or a technical writer who can take my plans and make them actionable. I imagine it would be a task to find.

The e-products "make money online" is a snake oil shill market where the top "earners" are just the next gen infomercial marketers who make mediocre income of the the churn of glazed eyed new suckers rolling into the market. There are quite a few people who have come out on the market exposing it, but the newbies never really see it.

The thing is, there is a market for it, so someone has to fill it. I would rather be in a longer term market making a real difference(debatable) vs dealing with the "guru" types. The folks that i know that make big time incomes... most of them you will almost never see or hear from... They are very hard to get to know, but provide a wealth of information if you can.

On starting a new web based business that generates revenue from it's users...think redbeacon but for a local area that is not covered by any of the bigger websites. It's free to post a job, but I would charge service providers a fee to accept it.

I'm in the market testing/website building phase now and trying to weigh my options of which route to take. Do I outsource to a capable freelancer and spend $2000 to get a robust website built or should I start simpler with a modified Wordpress theme that would probably cost me less than $200?

What type of payment model do you think works best, subscription, commission, flat rate? In the service pro directory building phase, should I do a free offer initially to attract new providers or charge straight away?

Originally Posted by Gunmetal

On starting a new web based business that generates revenue from it's users...think redbeacon but for a local area that is not covered by any of the bigger websites. It's free to post a job, but I would charge service providers a fee to accept it.

I'm in the market testing/website building phase now and trying to weigh my options of which route to take. Do I outsource to a capable freelancer and spend $2000 to get a robust website built or should I start simpler with a modified Wordpress theme that would probably cost me less than $200?

What type of payment model do you think works best, subscription, commission, flat rate? In the service pro directory building phase, should I do a free offer initially to attract new providers or charge straight away?

Hey gunmetal,
I would start on something much less expensive until you prove the concept. There is no point in spending 2k and just putting it out there hoping it works. All the big sites started out small and cheap and modified with what their users wanted. I would modify an existing framework to do what you need it to do and be the middle man for the time being.

Get leads and hand sell them yourself. In doing that you will get a feel for your potential clients and pricing structures. You will also get a feel for what information they are looking for. If you have to hand some leads out or give them their first few leads for free to get them hungry for it, i would suggest doing that. That way your customers already know what you are providing is worth paying for. Pay per lead in this industry is probably going to be the best route to provide the clients the best possible value for their money.

My thread sucks... i am missing something here..... what is it?

Originally Posted by LightHouse

Hey gunmetal,
I would start on something much less expensive until you prove the concept. There is no point in spending 2k and just putting it out there hoping it works. All the big sites started out small and cheap and modified with what their users wanted. I would modify an existing framework to do what you need it to do and be the middle man for the time being.

Get leads and hand sell them yourself. In doing that you will get a feel for your potential clients and pricing structures. You will also get a feel for what information they are looking for. If you have to hand some leads out or give them their first few leads for free to get them hungry for it, i would suggest doing that. That way your customers already know what you are providing is worth paying for. Pay per lead in this industry is probably going to be the best route to provide the clients the best possible value for their money.

Thanks for your input Lighthouse! I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions.

I am trying to sell a GREAT product. MONEY. I am selling lower energy bills to businesses. What is the best way to sell more?

What objective data do you look for in an e-commerce niche?

IE: Exact Match Traffic / Margins / Etc etc.

Originally Posted by Kak

I am trying to sell a GREAT product. MONEY. I am selling lower energy bills to businesses. What is the best way to sell more?

Hey Kak, I suggest targeting smaller business' that have the owner on site. Depending on the way you are doing it, you need to make an efficient pitch to the owner and it has to make sense. Commercial building owners and managers have energy costs factored into rent and CAM charges so if it is anything they don't get or care about, they wont bother. Even if you are dealing directly with the energy company lowering the costs. They don't want to have interruptions of service or billing issues since they typically own multiple buildings and they are all pre-set up in a accounting system.

My advice is set up a way to pitch it correctly, and a system that is streamlined to where they need not change anything on their end. The other problem is since the costs are already billed out, they do not want to pay you half the savings of the bills because they can't bill that back and there is no benefit for the building owner, just to the tenants. So look for smaller business' that own their own building or are triple net and pay their own utilities

Originally Posted by ZDS

What objective data do you look for in an e-commerce niche?

IE: Exact Match Traffic / Margins / Etc etc.

traffic to a varying level of keywords from top to bottom
seo competition (competition age, branding, linkscape, deep linking, social, etc)
margins and availiblity of products
vendor services(people to call, API's or inventory updates, pictures and information on products)

I think there is more in there, are you coming to B&P?

Originally Posted by LightHouse

traffic to a varying level of keywords from top to bottom
seo competition (competition age, branding, linkscape, deep linking, social, etc)
margins and availiblity of products
vendor services(people to call, API's or inventory updates, pictures and information on products)

I think there is more in there, are you coming to B&P?

Thanks for the response! Good info!

I'm still working on figuring that out!

B&P is so close to SXSW and I know I'm going to swamped with stuff during it. (On a side note, if anyone is out this way during SXSW let me know!)

I'm going to see how it looks as we get closer to the date. If I come out it'll probably be Friday - Sunday!

Cheers,
Zach

Definitely try to make it out, We can chat about this when you get there.