Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

In my previous post about Starbucks reputation management we looked at how a few good customer service systems can be used as a marketing strategy to encourage word of mouth and result in a competitive advantage.

In the case of people like me and many of you, my readers, we operate Internet businesses that largely are a product of our own personal brand. We are entrepreneurs, bloggers, consultants, contractors or freelancers, and much of the customer service responsibility rests on our shoulders.

Being an independent operator or small business owner does not mean you can let the ball drop on good customer service. In this case reputation management is just as important since your business lives and dies on your ability to deliver what you promise and leave a lasting impression.

For a small business with a limited marketing budget, good customer service resulting in an above average reputation in the market, can result in acquiring new customers through existing client referrals - a “free” form of marketing.

During the start-up phase you have limited funds and one of the best strategies to survive this period of business growth is to use your existing clients as a marketing tool to bring in new clients (actually - this is a good strategy at any stage of business growth).

The cornerstone of achieving that outcome is good customer service, since your existing clients will not be willing to help you, nor will they feel compelled to talk about you and refer you to others, if they are not significantly impressed by - and benefit from - their interaction with your business.

Good customer service combined with a superior product can evoke a sense of reciprocity from your customers. They genuinely want your business to succeed, so much so that they go out of their way to endorse you. People like to spread things they consider valuable because in turn they enjoy the perception of being valuable as well. Most humans desire recognition from other humans - it’s a core human drive - and if you can loop your business into this motivation you have tapped the secret of word of mouth marketing.

Growing Pains As A Solo Business Owner or Blogger

I’ve worked independently all my life. Most of the first five years of my business experience were completely solo because I had the mentality that I needed to do things myself in order to save money.

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We’ve almost nutted out the bugs with the new design and I must say I’m very happy with how everything looks. I’ll talk more about the design process (and reveal who did my blog design) in a later post, now I want to tell you about a little free report I’m giving away to my RSS subscribers as part of the new blog design launch.

My First E-Book (unreleased until now)

Several years ago around early 2006 I had just begun blogging seriously and had spent the previous six months pumping out some of my early pillar articles.

At this time my proofreading business BetterEdit was my main focus (I sold it in 2007) and I was not a professional blogger. I don’t think I was making much, if anything from my blog yet, but my other business was doing well and I made a good living from it.

Those who have read this blog from the beginning might remember back during the early days I talked a lot more about entrepreneurship, setting up a business and general passive income strategies - and not so much about blogging (though I was starting to write about it even then).

It was around that time I decided to write my first e-book. I had no idea what I would do with it, but I felt with the several years experience running a few different businesses and I had enough content to produce a short book.

How to Start an Internet Business by Yaro Starak

Over the course of a couple of months I wrote a 50 page report detailing some of the key lessons I learned about starting and running my business and what I felt were the foundation principles necessary that all entrepreneurs understood and practiced.

The end result was a book I titled “How To Start An Internet Business…and stay happy doing it“.

For the new release today, I decided to change the tile to something a little more appealing to most people’s desires -

“How To Start An Internet Business…and make your first $1,000 online“.

The book is not about basic tutorials on the practical aspects like setting up websites, choosing domain names, etc. It talks more about mindset and business strategy, although I include 12 steps necessary to start an online business at the end which are quite practical.

The book is a companion to this blog. You can read it and gain a grasp of what you need to do and how you should think when starting your Internet business, and then use the content from within this blog to find information on the finer details about Internet marketing.

Create A Passive Income Business

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When I first started a “real” business I was already in a position of positive cash flow, but it wasn’t because I had inherited money or because my parents had funded my business project, it was because of two reasons…

1. I had successfully generated a few hundred dollars a month from hobby projects - these were not things I considered real businesses, just websites I loved to work on that made a trickle of money.
2. I had a casual job.

I was 19 when I first became interested in computers (before that it was all about console gaming) and by my early twenties I was capable of putting together a website. My sites were not well designed, but functional, just text wrapped inside a few tables and basic graphics. My beginner training was with the free hosting service Geocities, so just getting text and pictures to appear were you want them to on a page was a challenge.

What I did have during this period was ample time, and that was definitely my biggest advantage. I lived at home, had minimal expenses and was attending university. As many college students understand, your university days can be very flexible depending on how good your work ethic is, and my work ethic was not directed at my textbooks or assignments, it was focused on the Internet.

After a few years playing around online, I settled on a few projects long enough that I made money. As people who have read my business timeline know, my first “cash cow” website was MTGParadise.com. I used the income from this site, plus money from my casual job at a computer helpdesk at my university, to fund my next business, BetterEdit.

During this period I started several other businesses, including an English school called Aussie Tutor, and plenty of different website projects, all of which failed in a traditional sense - they cost more money than they made. I never borrowed money to fund any projects, I used my energy and creativity, income from my job and the steadily increasing cash flow from my website and went from project to project.

You Must Have Something You Can Leverage

If you are considering starting a business you have two resources you can leverage -

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Here’s a challenging question to ask yourself - If you didn’t need money, what would you fill your days with?

I’m not saying that you imagine you are super wealthy, at least not from a financial standpoint - but you are from a time freedom standpoint.

You can do anything you want with your days and you don’t need to worry about making money.

Some people would say they would go on a never ending stream of holidays. Others might claim a desire to “do nothing”, which I always find silly - how can you do nothing?

I’ve often asked myself, would I do what I do without there being a monetary incentive? Would I keep blogging, teaching and writing?

It’s actually quite hard to answer this question because the financial reward is so tightly tied into the motivation. It’s not the only reason, but it’s a strong factor. You enjoy the process, the intrinsic rewards, the people you connect with, but given how our society is structured, money is ALWAYS a factor, it’s part of our culture and our value system.

It’s scary to think that. Money is a part of us.

What Would You Do If All You Cared About Was Money?

Here’s the opposite question. If all you cared about was earning as much money as you can, what would you do?

Blogging is definitely not the best choice if you only care about the money. Compared to other means of building wealth, blogging is slow, the points of leverage aren’t nearly as strong as other methods and let’s face it - it’s hard work to be a blogger.

If I only cared about the money, perhaps Pay Per Click marketing affiliate products is a better choice? Or as I’ve said before, I’d probably spend my time just buying and selling websites, since the return is much higher given the effort required.

I’m pretty sure I’d be doing Internet business of some kind if I was going to focus on financial wealth only, but blogging would not be the first choice.

It’s Not Black and White

Ultimately this question is challenging because at the root of it is the fundamental question about your purpose in life.

Many people have different beliefs about why they exist but I don’t know many people who would say their purpose is to accumulate as much money as they can, yet that seems to be the driving factor for most of us in Western cultures.

So…what would you do if money did not matter?

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I’m not sure this will teach you a whole lot about Internet business but hey, you get to see what I had for lunch. Give a guy a camera and this is what happens…

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