Tag Archives | #businessesstart

Top 5 Best Ways to Become an Expert OVERNIGHT.

By Swapan Bairagi on February 16, 2023 in Blog

5 Ways to Become an Expert OVERNIGHT

Wouldn’t it be terrific if you could go from being Mr./Ms. Marketing Nobody to immediate “guru” status overnight? You’d enjoy instant authority in your niche and a high level of credibility with your potential customers as well as your potential JV partners. People would trust your opinion. You’d be quoted in blog posts and asked to do guest posts…
You could get interviewed. You could join lucrative joint ventures and mastermind groups. Your social media accounts would become magnets to followers and fans. Customers’ sales resistance would go down and your sales would go up, and so forth.

Becoming an ‘overnight’ authority in your niche shaves a few years off of your online marketing career path. You’re taking a quantum leap from being an unknown to being — well, KNOWN in your niche. And you receive all the benefits a known expert in your field gets, only without the years of work.
Sounds pretty good, don’t you think? Yeah, it’s cheating, but it’s not. Who ever said you have to take years and years to accomplish what can be done in a few days or weeks?

Here are 5 ways to do it:

1. Interview others. Oprah wasn’t an expert, she interviewed experts. And by doing so, she became associated with every expert she interviewed. In your case, you’ll want to go much more narrow and deep than Oprah, choosing your targeted niche carefully and then interviewing anyone and everyone in that single niche.

2. Buy named rights products and sell them. These are products sold by big name marketers that allow you to keep their name on the product when you sell it. You’re basically co-featuring with an established expert. At the bottom of the salesletter you can write something like, “From the desk of ‘your name’ and ‘guru’s name. Buyers will assume you have partnered with the guru in putting this product out. These types of resale rights generally aren’t cheap, but that plays in your favor as well, since it greatly limits any competition.

3. Create a product yourself, then let a big name marketer be the co-author and co-owner. This heightens your profile and generally brings in a lot of sales from that marketer’s list, as well as from affiliates who promote for that marketer.
4. Write/edit a book full of other people’s articles. Choose a topic and then find articles written by the experts on this topic. Ask their permission to place their articles in your book, giving them full credit and links back to their website. You do the editing, write the introduction, and also add notes at the beginning and end of each article if you choose. But the experts are still doing all the heavy lifting, while you get to associate your name with theirs. In fact, it looks like a collaboration between you and all these big names, with YOUR name on the front cover.

9. Do all 4, along with guest blogging and being active in social media. All of a sudden people will say that they see and hear you everywhere.

Some people take a lifetime to go from the mail room to the boardroom of a company. But this is your business, and YOU make the rules. Don’t wait years to become an expert in your niche — decide to become one today.

Best Blogging Advice — Ever

By Swapan Bairagi on January 14, 2023 in Blog

Best Blogging Advice — Ever

| saw a great piece of advice on Quora the other day about blogging

Someone wrote in and asked if they had missed the blogging boat — could they start now, or were they too late?

They received all kinds of advice, but this tidbit from Jeff Sauer was the best:

First Jeff advises him to take action immediately and get a free blog on WordPress.

Then Jeff says..

. “Write a post.”

“Write another.”

“Write 50 more posts.”

“Then delete the blog.”

“You will no longer be concerned about starting a blog. Instead, you will have an understanding of the commitment ahead.’

Jeff then advises to start a new blog ona domain name the blogger will own forever. Take note of mistakes made on the previous blog, and don’t make them again.

Now write 100 more posts.

And eventually you will become a good writer.

Now then…

You might be wondering WHY | like this advice so much, and here’s the reason:

It’s telling the reader to DO something, over and over and over again until they get GOOD at it.

And it’s showing the reader how to overcome fear by simply doing, and doing again.

Will it take you 150 posts to get good at blogging?

Probably not.

But if you’re willing to make that kind of commitment, then it’s just a matter of time and practice before you become truly great at what you’re doing.

So go ahead. Create a throw-away blog just for practice. Use a pen name.

Write for the sake of writing.

And each time you strike gold, sharpen and refine the post, and put it on your public blog.

People might think you’re an overnight SuCCeSS.

But you and | will know it was simply a matter of , practice and practice.

Because that’s how you reach success – through dedication and unwavering perseverance.

$4,000 a Month Selling OPA without Doing Any Work.

By Swapan Bairagi on January 13, 2023 in Blog

Case Study: $4,400 a Month Selling OPA without Doing Any Work?

You know those headlines that scream out you can earn XXX amount of dollars by simply “pushing a few buttons” or “sending a few emails” or some such? Well, this case study is actually about someone doing almost no work and yet banking close to $5,000 a month.

In fact, she might be up to that amount now. The $4,400 was how much she earned when we spoke, and she mentioned that her income is increasing every single month. Yet she does almost no work whatsoever.

And by the way, OPA stands for Other People’s Artwork.

Here’s how it works:

I’ll call her Sally because, well, when | talk to her she giggles a lot and sounds kind of silly. Sort of like a high school girl, and yet she’s in her mid twenties.

Sally has several different identitieson — Etsy and Ebay. Each identity sells a
certain type of artwork. One sells
paintings of animals, one sells
landscapes, one sells abstract art, one sells hearts (I’m not kidding!) and so ™ forth.

She has a real life assistant (we’ll call him Gorgeous George because as Sally tells it, in addition to working for her George also does some modeling and fitness instruction.) George makes all the listings for the artwork, gets the prints made from the originals, fulfills the orders and handles any customer service requests.

What does Sally do? She outsources
work to several artists who do all of her paintings for her. Just like hiring a ghostwriter to write a book which you then sell, Sally is hiring “ghost painters”. She has them sign a nondisclosure agreement that gives her all rights to the paintings. And she never tells her artists what she does with the paintings, either.

If I were doing this business model, | might consider giving the artists a percentage of sales, but Sally likes to simply pay one fee up front to keep things simple.

Sally chooses the styles for the paintings by finding examples and showing them to her artists. She then asks them to replicate the style and not the actual painting. She sells the original paintings for a good price ($300 to $1,000) and sells limited edition prints for a lower price.

Her listing snever claim that she or her persona is the artist. She’ll use generic language such as, “This painting was created May of 2021 using pastels on canvas.” She has her artists use several mediums, including acrylic, watercolor, pastels, ink, charcoal and so forth.

She also has a virtual assistant who has one job: Promoting the artwork through various social media channels. This is why her business is growing so fast, because word is getting out via social media. And she’s very good at picking her subjects, too, some of which are extremely timely and most of which prove popular.

As you can see she has expenses: Her real life assistant George, her virtual assistant, the artists and selling fees. But even after all this, she pulled in $4,400 in profit the month she revealed her system to me, and like it said, it’s increasing every month.

The real key here is to choose subjects that will sell. That’s why she likes animals, hearts and landscapes because they always do well. And her paintings aren’t super elaborate, either. An experienced painter can likely create one in a short afternoon.

One of her best-selling stores sells paintings that are somewhat cartoonish, including caricatures of real people as well as animals doing silly things. As mentioned earlier, one sells hearts. | suspect this artist probably does 4 or 5 paintings in a day because they are that simple. But they sell like hotcakes because people love hearts and bright colors.This business is easy to replicate and if you use assistants, it takes very little time at all.

The 3 Secrets to Landing Big JV Partners.

By Swapan Bairagi on January 7, 2023 in Blog

The 3 Secrets to Landing Big JV Partners

Such! You’ve got a great product. In fact, there’s never been another product like yours in the history of the world. Your product is going to sell like SANGBUSTERS because, well, 9ecause you just know it will. Because t has to. Because you just sunk the ast 6 months and several thousand dollars into building the product, but, t’s going to all be worth it as soon as these stupid, snobby, too-good-to-talk(o-you big shot marketers come down off of their high horses and promote it FOr YOU.

Whew.

Okay, maybe that’s not exactly how VOU see”

Sut you do believe you’ve got a great oroduct that will sell well, and you
Yeah. Right.

remember all too well how hard it Nas to get anyone to take a look at my offer, much less promote it for me nhen | was new. And do you know nhy? It’s because like almost every yew marketer out there, had it yackwards.

Imagine a man knocks on the door of 4 woman he’s never met before. She »pens the door a crack to see who it is ind realises she doesn’t know him ‘rom an axe murderer. Through the srack in the door he says to her, “Hi 3aby, | have a fantastic deal for you! ‘m going to do you a huge favor by getting you drive me in your car to an =xpensive restaurant where you’ve nade reservations for us. I’m going to et you buy me dinner with cocktails and a bottle of wine, and afterwards I’ll let you take me to an expensive 3roadway show that’s booked six months in advance. And after that, I’ll let you an even bigger favor and let you sleep with me. What do ou say?’

Seriously, what do you think she’ll say 0 this stranger at her door? | suspect she slammed the door shut when he jot to the part about the expensive restaurant and reservations.

And yet new marketers take this exact same approach all the time when asking established marketers to act as heir affiliates or JV partners.

Hi Joe Marketer, | have a fantastic deal for you! I’m going to do you a vuge favor by letting you devote several days of your precious yromotional schedule to selling my oroduct to your list and followers. Sure, you don’t know me, you don’t
Jo for a total stranger, right?”

Now imagine receiving one or even several of these requests every day. Is t any wonder that seasoned marketers stop answering their email, and new marketers have trouble Jetting an one to eromote for them?

_It’s go back to the guy and gal analogy. What if that guy were to come up to the woman — not at her front Joor, but at work — and simply introduce himself and maybe thank er for something she did at her job? Maybe he comes back in a couple of Jays and comments on something she wrote or asks a relevant question. 4e starts following her on social nedia and engaging her there.

A little bit of interaction here, a little bit ‘here…

Then maybe he does something nice or her — shares one of her links, tells 1is Facebook Fans about her business – or he simply buys one of her products. She’s starting to take notice of him. He’s not scary and in fact he seems like a nice guy. What’s this? He’s got a website. She checks it out. 4mm… this might be someone north getting to know better.

The following month or maybe the ‘following year, what happens? She’s sromoting his product. Or maybe she’s Not, but maybe she introduced him to a friend of hers that’s an even better fit ‘or a joint venture.

You already know the point I’m getting 0 here — don’t pounce on strangers and expect them to do you a huge ‘avor when they don’t even know you. And yes, promoting your product is indeed a huge favor.

The 3 Secrets to Landing Big JV Partners:

1. Build the relationship before asking for the favor, whatever that favor might be. (You already knew that, right?)

2. Build your own audience through social media, list building and so forth. Then when your product is ready to launch, launch it to your list first. Take note of the click through rates, conversion rates and refund rates. Now you’ve got something to tell potential affiliates and JV partners other than, “I think this will sell well.”

3. Realise that not everyone is going to promote your product, no matter how good you are at building relationships first. Maybe they only promote their own products. Maybe they just dont think your product is a good fit for their list. Maybe they’re having a bad day/week/life. Don’t worry about it. If you build enough relationships with others, you’ll find that some promote, some don’t and it’s all good.

Become an Internet Marketing Detactive.

By Swapan Bairagi on January 5, 2023 in Blog

Become an Internet Marketing Detective

At the risk of stating the ridiculously obvious, Internet Marketing is changing. Just because you’re making money today won’t guarantee you’ll still be making money tomorrow. There are the obvious examples: Possum, Penguin, Fred and what not. But then there’s new regulations, new technologies, changing interests and priorities of consumers, more competition (sometimes bad, sometimes good) and so forth.

Without a doubt, the money is still there to be made — but you might have to get creative and expand your horizons to find it. And when you do find it, don’t rest on our laurels. Don’t think you can set a funnel up and just ignore it and it will continue to deliver forever. You might wake up in a month or two and be shocked to find your account balance hovering near zero if you do.

That’s why you’ve got to always be on the lookout for great ideas, and even mediocre ideas that are profitable. Make it a daily practice to write down at least 3 or 4 new ideas for making money and growing your business.

What happens if you don’t walk for a week? Your legs atrophy. And your brain works the same way. Either work your brain relentlessly and it will get stronger, or dont use it and it’ll harden into something useless.

The economy has been having it’s own set of challenges for years and while it’s better now for many people, there are still millions of people who are out of work or not making the money they used to make. So what are they doing? Many are turning to Internet
Marketing. You might think this is bad because of increased competition, and it can be. But if you make a list of ideas on how you can capitalize on this, what will you discover?

First, these people will need training on how to do online marketing. That covers an entire realm of possibilities, including step-by-step courses and coaching.

Next, these folks will need help. They’re not going to be experts at everything from building websites to creating products to getting backlinks to designing product covers. So if you’re willing to perform services, there’s money to be made.

Remember the TV detective Columbo? He would be asking the suspect questions, always very polite, very nice, acting like he needed help in figuring out what happened. Only he was smart — he was playing the suspect right until the end. My favorite part is when he would be leaving the room, and the suspect would be breathing a sigh of relief. ‘Whew! Dodged that bullet’ the suspect is thinking. But then Columbo pauses at the door, or even walks out the door and then comes back in, and he puts his hand to his head like he just remembered something, and he says, “Oh, you know, | almost forgot, one more thing…” And then he’d nail the suspect with the real question, the one the suspect just didn’t have a good answer for.

This should be you. You’re a detective, always on the lookout for that “one more thing” that will make your campaign more profitable, that will increase your subscriber rate, that will double your conversions and so forth. Always be searching for the questions your prospects ask that lead to a breakthrough product. Always be asking, asking, asking “What do people want? What problem is keeping them up at night? What would they pay to fix, improve or eliminate?”

Get in the mindset of a detective and you’ll view the world differently. You’ll see things you missed a hundred times before. People will start to think you’re psychic or something. You’re not. You’re just asking questions and paying very close attention to the answers. And you’re using your brain — something a lot of people are too lazy to do.

Bottom line: Things are changing and they’re going to change a whole lot more. Fall asleep at the wheel and your business will crash. Rely on what worked before and you will go broke. Continue to provide the same old products and the same old solutions and you’ll find yourself standing still in the middle of a very fast race.

Be a detective like Columbo and you’ll always get your paydays.

404 Error Page Profits

By Swapan Bairagi on December 31, 2022 in Blog

404 Error Page Profits

No matter how hard you try to prevent it, sooner or later you’ll have prospectland on your 404 error page. When they do, they have a choice – try to find what they were looking for or give up. Care to guess what happens more often? They leave in frustration.

So instead of the usual “Whoops! We’re sorry but what you’re looking fo has moved” page, consider customizing your error pages to get these people to do something.

For example, you could give them an option to opt into your list with an offe that is different than your landing page. This can be highly effective. For example…

“Congrats! You just found our secret page where we give away __. Just tell us where to send it and it’s yours.”

Or you might make them an offer they can’t refuse, such as a great deal on one of your most popular products, or a combination offer for a super low price. Like this.

“Oops! You just landed on our error page, but we’re going to make it up to you. Here’s Sxx.xx off of our super hot selling _.”

For one reason or another, if you have your own website online long enough, youre going to start getting a stream of people who land on a page of your website that does not exist, and leads them to a 404 error. Plan in advance for this hidden opportunity and you can turn some of the strayed visitors into subscribers and customers.

Do You Have a Million Dollar Journal Yet?

By Swapan Bairagi on December 30, 2022 in Blog

Do You Have a Million Dollar Journal Yet?

One little notebook could be worth a
million dollars to you. Or more.

Here’s how…

Keep track of everything you do and especially all of your ideas. When you start something new, keep a running record of what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.

Two things will happen:

First, you’ll have more and more ideas, and better ideas, too. The simple act of writing ideas down drives your subconscious to create more ideas. Review your ideas weekly and find the gems. Test out the best ones, choose One and run with it. It could be a million-dollar business.

Second, teach others how to do that business. If you find an awesome new way to build an email list, build your own lists and then teach others to do the same. If you discover how to launch a product from start to finish in 3 days, teach others to do the same.

Keep your notebook with you at all times. Write in it when the mood Strikes, and even when it doesnt. Resort to an online journal only when necessary. There’s something about the brain and handwriting connection that inspires more creative thinking than simply tapping keys.

So, do you have your million dollar journal yet?

If not, get one and get started. Here’s one | found on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/MillionDollar-Ideas-JournalMillionaire/dp/1080419748/

Your future self with thank you for it!

Triple Your Sales by Writing the Copy First:

By Swapan Bairagi on December 28, 2022 in Blog

Triple Your Sales by Writing the Copy First

4 times out of 5, the answer is a resounding YES. Maybe you’ve heard this advice before. Maybe it sounded crazier than clown college to you. But… it works.

It doesn’t matter if you’re creating a lead magnet, a paid product, a video to share with your list or whatever. When you create the sales copy first, you think bigger. You get more creative. You find solutions you didn’t know you had. You’re more excited about your product idea, and the excitement shows in your writing.

You’re shaping a better product than if you had created the product first. You’ll have the best product possible because you sold it first.

But what if you write bullet points or sales points and then realize you can’t fulfill them? Simply remove that portion of the sales letter. You will need to revise and tighten up your letter when the product is done. But 90% of your letter will likely already b finished.

And here’s one of the best benefits of all – you don’t have to write the sales letter after the product is finished. Many marketers find they have just enough enthusiasm to get through the product creation and have none left fo the letter. But by writing the sales copy first, you don’t have to worry about that.

| learned this technique a long time ago, and every time | remember to do it, | not only have a better product Created with a lot more enthusiasm – | also make a ton more sales.

Using Emoji to Boost Your Marketing.

By Swapan Bairagi on December 27, 2022 in Blog

Using Emojis to Boost Your Marketing :

Emojis aren’t just for friends; they’re also dynamite at capturing your customers attention, increasing user engagement and even helping to close sales. The funny thing is that most businesses think emojis are best left to 16-year old girls: “We want to maintain a professional appearance to our customers which is why we will never use emojis in any of our communications,” said the out-of-touch company executive to the marketing team struggling to increase lackluster sales.

In the last 100 years of advertising, there has NEVER been a time when the personal touch didn’t increase the value of business to consumer communication. It doesn’t matter if it an email, a social media post, an article or a sales letter. Giving all of your communications a personal touch with emojis just makes good marketing sense.

What are emojis? ++

Emojis are small icons and images using Unicode Standard. They’re used in all forms of digital communication. Emojis can be yellow smileys or represent common objects such as food, animals, sports, transportation and more.

In marketing, the vast majority of the emojis you use will be emoticons – emojis that represent emotions with facial representations. @ And it’s emoticons we’ll be referring to in the rest of this article, even though we’ll still use the term emoji.

Why do emojis enhance your marketing message?

There are many reasons emojis improve marketing, and here are a few:

They capture attention. You receive a hundred new emails. 99 use 100% text in the subject line while one uses a smiley face or a heart. All else being equal, which one do you notice first?

They convey meaning. A text message that ends with a period gives a slightly different feeling than one ending with an exclamation point. Let’s see what happens if we use an emoji, too.

“I’m excited about this.”

VS

“I’m excited about this!”

Visual is faster than text. Your brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text. And since emojis are images, the brain can process emojis in a flash.

More likes, more shares, more comments. Based on multiple studies, emojis in Facebook posts lead to 57% more likes, 33% more shares and 33% more comments compared to Facebook posts with no emojis. Do you use emojis in your Facebook ads? If not, you might want to start.

Your brain sees emojis as an actual face. A study from the School of Psychology in Flinders University, Australia shows the brain behaving the same way regardless of whether it’s seeing a human face or an emoji. That’s why emojl user engagement is higher than plain text user engagement.

Human faces – and now emojis – increase engagement . For decades we’ve known that people will look at human faces longer than at almost any other image in an advertisement. And now that we know the brain sees emojis the same way it sees faces, it’s pretty obvious we need to use them in all of our written communications.

Emojis make your customers happy. €} Not only do your customers feel happier when they use emojis, they also feel happier and like the sender more when they receive emojis, too. And happy customers are almost always more likely to convert, whether it’s to join your mailing list, forward your message or buy your product.

“Humanizes your business. Emojis can be the perfect way to convey the fact there is areal live person sending the message, rather than some faceless company.

Better connections. According to the Emoji Trend Report, emojis help users better communicate their thoughts and feelings and connect to people.

How to Find Your Emojis

Because you can’t create most emojis using your text keyboard, you need to download or open a separate one.

Here’s how:

iPhone and iPads

iPhones and iPads have the emoji keyboard built into the operating system. To add the keyboard…

* Open Settings .

* Tap General > Keyboard > Keyboards

* Tap Add New Keyboard > Emoji

To access the keyboard, open your Messages or Mail. Tap the @ next to the microphone, which should change your keyboard. If you have any other keyboards added, you might have to tap the icon acouple times.

Android

Newer Android phones have emojis built into the keyboard. But older models require you to download a third-party app like Kika, SwiftKey, or Textra.

From there, apply the new emojis to your keyboard like this:

Settings > Language and Input > Virtual Keyboard > Manage Keyboards

Now select the keyboard you’d like to download.

Mac

On both Mac and Windows you can Google an emoji and then copy and paste it into your message. But there is an easier way to do it:

When you’re typing on your Mac and want to insert an emoji, simply tap Control + Command + Spacebar to pop open the emoji keyboard. @

Tap the emoji you want to use or drag and drop if it doesn’t insert automatically.

You can also turn on the emoji keyboard on your Mac by tapping the Apple icon in the top left corner. Then, open System Preferences > Keyboard and click Show Keyboard and Emoji Viewers in Menu Bar.

This places a shortcut in the menu bar, and with one tap you can access all emojis and symbols.

Windows

Again, you can copy and paste if you’re so inclined. You can also use the keyboard shortcut for Windows which is…

Windows Key + Period or Windows Key + Semicolon @

This shortcut brings up the built-in keyboard from which you can tap the emoji you want to use.

Most Popular Emojis and When to Use

Laughing Emoji @ is the most commonly used emoji on Twitter, and also the most popular according to Apple’s data. Use this in conjunction with humor, such as when you regale your readers on the stupid thing you did last night.

Red Heart Emoji & and Heart Eyes Emoji @ can be used when you are referring to something or someone you love as well as how much you appreciate your customers. A little trickier but worth trying: Use it to indicate just how much your prospect will love your product.

Embarrassed/Flushed Face Emoji @ can demonstrate your humility and gratitude when receiving praise or an award.

Side Eye Emoji @ is good to use if you want to show the playful side of your brand or if you’re making a joke and you want to indicate that you’re kidding.

Eyes Emoji «* can be used to draw attention to a link or image.

Thinking Emoji @ shows you are deep in thought, such as when you’re not sure about a controversial issue, or when you’re explaining the thinking process you went through to arrive at your conclusion.

Sweat Emoji @ is used to express a Close call. “Whew! That could have been bad”.

Hand Up Emoji @ is great for getting social media participation. For example, you could post, “Who thinks smooth peanut butter is better than crunchy? Give me a “@@” if you agree!”

Tips for Using Emojis in Business

* Let your customers use emojis to give you quick feedback. The preferred choice of customers to let a brand know they’re doing a good job is the thumbs up, @ followed by a star .+ or asmiley face. @

¢ Avoid anything cryptic or ambiguous. If the emoji doesn’t clearly communicate your intended message, don’t use it. @ (Pizza, anyone? You see what I mean.)

* Emojis are for complimenting your message, not replacing it.

– Since women @ tend to use emojis more than men 3, consider your target market when deciding how often to use emojis.

* Don’t think that only young people use emojis because they are popular at all ages, although the meaning of certain emojis can be slightly different for a 20-year old and a 60-year old.

« Use emotional emojis to break down barriers and humanize your brand.

* Consider creating your own emojis for your brand. For example, they might look like other emojis except they are wearing something like a hat or bowtie that identifies them with your business.


* Ifyou are communicating with an individual in business and you are unsure, use social mimicry for clues. If they are using an informal tone or if they use an emoji themselves, then it’s fine to send your own emojis.

« Use only common emojis that are easy to understand or already universal. The idea is to improve your communications, not bewilder your audience.

Know that a small segment of your audience will be totally clueless about emojis and another small segment will take emoji use to an artform. For example, Cosmo published a 2,200 word article on the importance of choosing the just right color and style of heart emojis for the right occasions.

It’s all the people in between those two extremes that you are targeting with your emojis, so don’t sweat it if you don’t always get your emoji usage exactly right – almost no one does.

Emoji Pop Quiz:

One: What year were emojis invented? Bonus points if you can name the country that originated them.

Two: What year were emojis incorporated into and standardized by Unicode, which allowed them to be used outside of Japan?

Three: How many emojis are on the Unicode Standard list? (Hint: It’s probably a LOT more than you think.)

Four: What were the 3 most popular new emojis in 2020? If you can name just ONE of them, we’ll consider you an advanced emo’ user.

Five: Which emojis, according to user votes, best represented the year 2020?

Answers:

One: 1999 by acoder employed by NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese mobile service provider.

Two: 2010. Yup, believe it or not, emojis have only been worldwide for over a decade.

Three: +3,300. Seriously.

Four:

¢ First place: The White Heart.

. Second place: The Yawning Face. .
. Third Place: The brown Heart.

Winners were determined by which were most used on Twitter.

Five: The winner was the Raised Fist with Dark Skin Tone @

And the runner up was the Microbe %

Frankly, | thought it would either be the ‘Screaming-in-Terror’ emoji (if there is one) or the ‘Pile of Poo’ emoji. @

Top Online Business Questions & Answers:

By Swapan Bairagi on December 26, 2022 in Blog

Top Online Business Questions & Answers :

I get alot of questions about how to build a business online. Here’s some of the top questions and answers to help you get your own online business started and profitable.

Q. I keep hearing that I’ve got to get people to know me, like me and trust me before they’ll buy from me, but how do I do that?

A. You’ve got two choices, and | recommend you do both. First, position yourself as an expert in your field. If you’re not an expert, surround yourself with experts by interviewing them, letting them guest post to your blog and working with them. Second, be generous. Give away great content that instills confidence in your abilities and expertise that builds your reputation. Offer free tele-classes or podcasts, guest post on popular blogs with info-packed posts, and author a book or report.

The better your free contentis, the
more people will trust you and your
content. As an added bonus they’ll also be more likely to share your
content with others, thereby helping you to build your reputation and your following.


Q. Is there a way to reach a wider audience while simultaneously delivering more value to my current customers?

A. You might consider lining up some partnerships or joint ventures in your niche. First, make a list of the areas your customers are interested in. You’re not looking for direct competition here, but rather complimentary sub-niches. For example, if you teach how to do Forex with a certain method, your customers will likely be interested in how to trade on Forex with other methods, and even how to invest in other areas besides the Forex market.

Once you make your list of areas, choose an expert in each that you’d like to partner with. Go online to get their contact information and then approach them with a win-win-win reason of why they should partner with you. They should benefit, you should benefit and of course your customers need to benefit as well.

Do something together that you can offer to both your customers and your partner’s customers, whether it’s a free webinar with an offer at the end, or
creating a series of videos together, or
even creating a new membership with a free introductory period. This will
add value to your customers and
theirs, as well as expanding your reach to a wider audience.

Q. I’m just a newbie in my niche – how do I approach the “big dogs” and get their attention so they’ll partner with me?

A. Two words — help them. Comment on their posts, share their stuff through social media, ask if you can re-post their work to your blog, etc. Find a way to be of service to them so that you can get on their radar and start building a relationship for the long haul.

Note that the bigger the person you’re targeting (IE: The larger their following and the greater their influence in your market) the longer it’s going to take to attract their attention as someone they might want to work with. It’s recommended that you begin by targeting more accessible people and work your way up to the giants of your industry.

Also, consider writing a book, devoting one chapter to each “big dog” you are targeting. In this manner you can make friends with these players, and some of them will actually end up promoting your book to their audience.

Q. I keep hearing that I need to “have a story” to share with prospects. What does this mean?

A. In a marketing context, ‘your story’ is what led to you doing what you do today. For example, someone who teaches basketball techniques may have been a lousy basketball player themselves until they learned and mastered certain fundamentals and techniques that caused them to become an all star player. In a nutshell, that’s their story. Of course they’re going to want to embellish with details, such as how rotten they felt when they got laughed at for missing the easiest of shots.

The purpose of having your own story and sharing it with your readers is to make a connection. Someone having trouble making the junior varsity basketball team wants to know you went through some of the same trials and tribulations they are experiencing. This bonds them to you and causes them to be far more receptive to your message. Remember, “birds of a feather flock together.” Once they realize you’ve been through the same struggles they’re currently going through, and that you not only persevered but overcame, they’ll want to know exactly how you did it.

Q. But isn’t that manipulating them?

A. Not at all. You are showing that you have indeed walked in their shoes, experienced their problems and found a solution that works.

I heard a story once that illustrates this beautifully. Imagine you’re in a foreign country and you don’t speak the language. For days you’ve been struggling to understand and be understood. Then all of a sudden someone says hello to you in your language, and asks how you are. How would you react? No doubt you’d rush up to that person and start talking, feeling that you finally are making a connection with someone. imagine the relief you would feel, finally being able to communicate, to understand and most of all to be understood.

Telling your story does the same thing – itcreates a bonding connection that lets the prospect know that you understand what they’re going through because you’ve experienced the same problems they have.

Q. If I want to create a product or success system based upon my own personal experiences, how do I go about that?

A. If you’ve become really successful at something, you have a ready-made product you can sell to others who want to master that same skill. Here’s how to get it into product form: Recall where you were at the beginning of your success. What was the first thing you did? The second? Write down everything that you did and put it into Step-by-step form.

Now you’ve got the __ number of steps to accomplishing __. Name it something appropriate, get the domain for that name and start marketing it. You could do it as an ebook or audio/video course, or you could offer it as a series of webinars or even one-on-one coaching. Each step will represent one chapter in your book, or one webinar, or one coaching session.

HOT TIP: You can use this exact same process to partner with anyone who’s mastered a skill others want to learn. Interview them extensively to discover exactly how they reached their success and then create the product based on the interviews. Split the profits with the expert and rinse and repeat with more experts or the same expert and different topics.

Q. I avea rien an e owmar eter who’s continually writing posts for other people’s blogs. | think she’s foolish because she’s giving away her valuable info on other blogs instead of using it on her own to boost her standing in the search engines. She Says it’s worth it because she’s getting new prospects through her guest posts. Who’s right?

A. You both are correct, to a degree. While it’s true that placing her best content on her own blog may help to get her site ranking in the search engines, SEO is always a gamble. On the other hand, guest posting on popular blogs practically guarantees exposure to new prospects as well as new alliances with the blog owners.

When your friend guest posts, she’s hopefully targeting blogs that already receive plenty of traffic interested in her particular niche. This will help her to gain exposure to new audiences and get her endorsed by leaders in her field (the blog owners).

Q. I’ve contacted blog owners about being a guest blogger for them, but because I’m new in the niche | don’t get much response. What can I do?

A. Begin by posting repeatedly in their comments section. Join in the conversation, add relevant comments, ask good questions and answer other people’s questions. Hyperlink your name to your website to get new visitors (this is automatic when you fill out the comment form – just be sure to fill out the website URL box as well as your name, and your name will become a hyperlink to your URL.)

Use a catchy, memorable photo on all of your posts. Register your email address along with your photo at: http://en.gravatar.com

By taking part in the community, the blog owner will likely notice you and will be far more receptive next time you offer to do a blog post. In addition, visitors to the blog will also begin to recognize you and visit your blog as well.

Q. I write a newsletter, but lately I get the feeling that no one is reading it. What am I doing wrong?

A. You may need to get back in touch with your market to find out what it is they want to know. Go to forums and watch social media to find out what they’re talking about and especially what they’re asking. Ideally you should be answering their questions and helping to solve their problems, because when you do that they will read every word of your newsletter.

Q. I HATE writing headlines and subject lines, and | don’t like using headline templates. Any ideas?

A. Interestingly enough, your best headline is often buried inside your copy or your email. You already know all the best selling points about your product, how best to present it, who your target market is, and how to craft the best call to action. So forget the headline, write your copy or email, and then go back and reread what you just wrote. Oftentimes you’ll find your jewel of a headline right there inside your copy, just waiting for you to pluck it out and place it at the top.

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