Learn for Profit: February 2018

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

6 Ways to Speed Up Your Business Website

Slow websites will always be a chief complaint from customers and consumers. Abandonment rates for slow websites are faster than ever with more than 40 percent of consumers leaving a website that takes longer than three seconds to load. Patience for web page loading is getting even worse, with three percent of consumers saying that they’ll abandon a page if it takes more than one second to load.

If you’re losing customers because your website can’t keep up, here are some tips to speed things up.

Update Your Mobile VPN

A mobile virtual private network (mobile VPN) lets consumers access your content even if the point of network attachment, physical connectivity, or IP address changes. A good mobile VPN will allow a rapid refresh when connectivity is re-established, but legacy mobile VPN structures simply don’t cut it anymore.

“Application performance for roaming users often suffers from legacy mobile VPN clients,” explains Dave Greenfield, secure networking evangelist at Cato Networks. “Traditional VPN architectures add latency backhauling traffic across the public internet with its convoluted global routing and high packet loss to a company premise.”

For the same reason, Greenfield points out, they present problems when used with cloud data center services, such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, and cloud applications, such as Office 365.

“Companies will often have consolidated Internet access in or two locations. Traffic cloud performance suffers as all traffic is forced through a physical chokepoint.”

Updating to a smarter, faster mobile VPN will eliminate connectivity issues for your organization.

Minimize and Optimize Image Files

When you upload images onto your site, you’ll have the option to either resize your images or upload the original. Resizing your image using the website’s backend is convenient, but all the extra steps and storage will slow down your site.

Instead, use an image editing tool like Pixlr to resize your images before you upload them. This will reduce the steps your browser has to take and will significantly speed up your site.

Enable GZIP Compression

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files can require a lot of space on your website and make your browser work harder. Using GZIP compression to reduce these file sizes will save space and allow higher service performance.

“All modern browsers support and automatically negotiate gzip compression for all HTTP requests,” reads a Google help site. “Enabling gzip compression can reduce the size of the transferred response by up to 90%, which can significantly reduce the amount of time to download the resource, reduce data usage for the client, and improve the time to first render of your pages.”

You can research the necessary configuration for each file compression depending on your server type.

Use HTML5 to Eliminate Unnecessary Plugins

If you haven’t updated to HTML5, your website will likely be slower than necessary because you’re using third-party plugins like Silverlight, Java, or Flash to run audio and visual files. About 80 percent of a webpage’s loading time is spent downloading the different parts of a page, and plugins that aren’t native to your browser can increase session wait time or cause session crashes.

What’s more, mobile browsers don’t support many of these third-party plugins so your responsive design will be useless for your audio and video files. With the average user refusing to wait more than three seconds on their mobile devices for a page to load, you can’t afford to let your outdated system impede your website.

Switch to a Web Host Service That Can Handle More Visitors

Who doesn’t want a spike in customers, whether from natural growth or from a piece of viral content? But your website hosting package might not be equipped to handle the sudden influx of visitors. You can experience crashes and significantly slower loading times.

The simple solution is to swap your web hosting package for one that’s designed to accommodate more customers. Upgrading your server and allowing more visitors to your page will make your website faster than before and will grow with your expanding business.

Use a Content Delivery Network

Sometimes, the best solution for a website struggling with hefty file uploads and an influx of traffic is a content delivery network or CDN.

“Rather than starting with the difficult task of redesigning your application architecture, it’s better to first disperse your static content. This not only achieves a bigger reduction in response times, but it’s easier thanks to content delivery networks,” says a Yahoo help article. “A content delivery network (CDN) is a collection of web servers distributed across multiple locations to deliver content more efficiently to users. The server selected for delivering content to a specific user is typically based on a measure of network proximity. For example, the server with the fewest network hops or the server with the quickest response time is chosen.”

From the user’s perspective, a CDN will make the download much faster because it displays the items on the page before it finishes downloading everything.

Source: https://www.blogtrepreneur.com/6-ways-speed-business-website/

4 Helpful Tips for Growing Your Home-Based Business

The growth of the internet has given rise to many profitable home-based businesses in the marketplace. For every successful home-based business, though, there are a dozen others barely getting by. What’s the secret?

4 Tips for Scaling Your Home-Based Business

There’s a notion that home-based businesses are always small, but this isn’t necessarily the case. While most start small, successful one's scale into fairly decent-sized operations.

If you’re looking to grow your home-based business over the next few months and years, here are some tips that will allow that to happen.

Avoid Scaling Prematurely

The worst mistake you can make is scaling prematurely. While you may want to grow, you must have the capacity to grow. Aggressively pursuing new customers before you have an adequate infrastructure in place to handle them will put unnecessary, unbearable stress on every aspect of your business. In the long run, this will damage your brand.

Use the Right Tools

“One of the keys for our business has been to align our operations with the right tools and automated solutions,” explains Occitan Imports, a home-based business that has grown rather significantly over the past few years. “With these tools, we’re able to compete effectively with bigger brands.”

Finding tools that allow you to scale without needing to grow your payroll/expenses is key. Many of today’s SaaS software solutions are incredibly cost effective when compared to older hosted versions.

Reinvest Profits

Most people aren’t running home-based businesses just for fun. While you may find enjoyment in your business, it’s something that requires a lot of energy. Naturally, you want to earn a healthy return. But when you’re trying to grow, it’s best to reinvest as much of the profits as possible back into the business. This speeds up the growth curve and gives you a chance to get ahead.

“The key is to reinvest based on a strategy, rather than a set percentage,” business owner Brenton Hayden notes. “Be strategic, and apply funds in line with your specific development plan and your business needs, but don’t invest to the point of cutting other aspects of your company short. Make sure there’s enough to cover all of your other expenses.”

Focus on Quality Over Quantity (With Products)

Every business owner has an idea of what it means to scale. Be careful that you don’t confuse growth with the number of products you sell. When your sole focus becomes introducing more product lines, things tend to get busier, yet not necessarily more profitable.

The primary goal should be on the quality of products over the quantity of the products. It’s much better to sell five incredibly high-quality items, than 15 average items that fail to live up to industry standards. With this approach, you’ll find that revenue and brand equity increase. And at the end of the day, these are critically important aspects of growth.

Always Think About the Next Step

While it’s important to focus on what’s happening at the moment, business owners don’t have the luxury of ignoring the future. You always need to be thinking one step ahead so you’re ready and able to make important decisions when they matter most.

Thanks to the availability of cost-effective tools and widespread connectivity, many home-based businesses can continue to operate out of the home indefinitely. However, if you find that you’re growing too fast and becoming too big for your house, don’t be afraid to move into a more traditional workspace.

Source: https://www.blogtrepreneur.com/4-helpful-tips-growing-home-based-business/

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Here's How to Level up Your Marketing Team (Without Blowing Your Budget)

Sujan Patel

- VIP Contributor

Entrepreneur and Marketer, Co-founder of Web Profits

As the barriers to opening a business fall, competition increases. We see evidence of this trend every day in new articles worrying about everything from the competitive threat posed by Chinese companies, to the need to invest in culture to maintain a competitive advantage.

We even see barriers failing in the illegal activities being undertaken in the name of success.

Staying competitive comes down to many factors, but one that’s often overlooked, in my opinion, is the ongoing need to level up your marketing team. You may have hired the right workers for the job, but marketing is evolving too quickly for you to assume that those workers are still equipped to produce the results you want.

Ongoing training can mean the difference between your having a company that falters versus one that thrives in this newly competitive landscape. Even better? That training doesn’t have to be expensive. Consider the following strategies:

Conference travel

Instead of: Sending members of your marketing team to expensive conferences, which can easily top five figures once you add in ticket costs, travel expenses, accommodations, and meals . . .

Try this: Buy conference recaps for your team to share. These days, there are people who actually attend conferences for the purpose of preparing, and then publishing, recaps that contain all the key takeaways for those who can’t attend.

Tim Castleman is one such writer who covers marketing conferences. You can find others by searching Google for “conference recap + [your industry].”

Coaching and mentorship

Instead of: Paying for spots in pricey mastermind programs, which can cost thousands of dollars a month for access to top coaches.

Try this: Form your own coaching and mentorship program based on your internal skills and expertise. If you’ve built a team of star players, chances are everyone has something he or she can contribute to a community learning program.

Start by assessing where your team is currently, and where you want it to be. Ask staff members:

What do you believe you’re doing well?
Where do you believe you’re falling behind?
What would you like to learn more about?
What do you do better than anyone else in the company?
What skills can you teach others?

From there, leveling up your marketing team comes down to playing matchmaker. If you have a team member who wants to learn more about analytics, match him or her with someone who’s indicated that data is a strength. Create small groups. Allow employees to shadow one other. Arrange “lunch and learns,” where exchanges of information can occur.

As information is shared, document it. DigitalMarketer CEO Ryan Deiss feels so strongly about the importance of documentation that it’s one of the factors his companies use when deciding to promote internal talent:

“Promote those who show an ability and willingness to document what they know and teach it to others. The fact is, processes are more valuable than products.”

Don’t forget to add your own knowledge to the mix. If you’ve been with your company since the start, you likely know a lot -- not just about marketing best practices, but about how each of those practices works for your business. That information can’t help your marketing team if it’s stuck in your head. Make sure you’re a part of any ongoing training or coaching initiatives.

Training courses

Instead of: Dropping thousands of dollars on premium training courses . . .

Try this: Look for free (or at least cheap) sources of information.

Start with books. Most business leaders will tell you that they make reading part of their regular routines. Back in 2012, I challenged myself to read 100 books during that year, and doing so had a huge impact on the way I’ve grown my businesses.

You can get books for free from your local library, or purchase enough copies for your team at a relatively low cost. Read them as a group, then meet to discuss the key takeaways from each of your selections. OptinMonster has a great list of 19 marketing books to read during 2018 to get you started.

Blogs are another great source of free information, though you need to consider your sources carefully. In order to use blog posts to level up your marketing team, make sure that they’re current, applicable and replicable. Avoid outdated information, suggestions that don’t apply to your industry or business model and anything else you can’t re-create on your own.

For more targeted, lower-cost training options, sites like Udemy, CreativeLive, and SkillShare offer regular sales and updated materials.

Got another suggestion for leveling up your marketing team on a budget? I’d love to hear it. Leave me a note in the comments below with your thoughts:

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/308691

7 Ingredients of Small Business Success Online

Suhaib Mohammed

- Guest Writer

Freelance Business & Entrepreneurship Writer at Cademica.com

Building a small business online is scary. Big businesses can easily outspend you with PPC, SEO, SMM and inbound marketing campaigns.

However, smart startup founders grimly pass around business battles on the blogosphere, charging low prices for the quality product, reversing their vision, failing to voice their opinion on their podcasts, showing contempt for our product, and disrespect for our craft.

And yet, look around at the World Wide Web jungle. It's watered by the services offered by small businesses. The technology to produce a product and convert customers exists because we create codes, design services, and write web pages, blog posts, and marketing materials that generate leads and close sales. And every 350-pound gorilla company uses our products or services to thrive.

If you're a small online business owner, you can chicken out and quit when you face your competitor in the marketing arena, or you can choose something better. Because there is something better.

In the time since I began building my content marketing business online, I've noticed some mindsets, traits, and abilities that make the difference between businesses that want to accelerate their sales, make a profit, and survive, and businesses that want to sell more and increase their ROI but don't seem to have the ability to do so.

Based on my observations, here are the seven most important things small businesses need to succeed online.

1. Passion.

This might sound too simple, but if you're a small business owner, you know what I mean.

There's no substitute for the love you have for your products or services. There's no substitute for the commitment of showing up every day. There's no substitute for the excitement of receiving an order or for the burning desire to work extra hours, to reach your prospect, to ship an order, and to make more money.

If you don't love entrepreneurship, your product or service, and the process of getting things done, none of the rest of this really means anything.

I could have just as easily dreamed of building another Moz, Kissmetrics, or Shopify, but I chose what I loved most. Whichever business idea you dream of, it's about refusing to do it just for the money. It's not only about making money; it's about changing your customer's life for the better.

If you want to achieve that, you have to dominate your industry. You have to be the go-to person for your products or services. Be super professional at your offerings so that your customers won't want to leave you for your competitor.

2. The attitude of service

Making money can be a tempting proposition, pursued the sake of your own interest of becoming rich and dominating the headlines.

However, as soon as the customer clicks to order your product -- the vitamin C pills, the Smartphone cover, the SEO or PR services you sell -- the product becomes the focus.

Professional founders work with an attitude of serving their customer's great value, yes, serving them with beautiful, durable, quality products. They also work to provide excellent customer experiences that exceed their expectations, that gratify rather than aggravate, and that are born out of the genuine attitude of serving the buyer.

Successful consultants, bloggers, and content marketers all live in service to our clients. No matter how stunning or super sexy we may find an idea if it doesn't serve our client, out it goes.

Why? Because we have deep love and obsession for our customers.

3. Obsession for the customer.

It has always struck me as odd that many of the most serious startup founders pay more attention to selling than to their customers.

It shouldn't be that way. Customer obsession comes first. It's like the engine that pumps cash into your corporate account. It comes from your company's culture, value proposition, mission, and overall vision to change your customer's world with your product or service.

Serious visionaries are obsessed with their customers. "If you're truly obsessed with your customers," Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, and CEO says. "It will cover a lot of your other mistakes."

You can't just sell your products. You can't just sell your services. You can't just advertise your brand.

You need to appeal to your customers first because they are your buyers. And you can't see a spike in your revenue unless you're obsessive about charming them with your brand and building quality products that will ease their lives.

4. Obsession for quality.

Many small-business owners imagine that if you have a great business idea and a great vision, you're qualified to be called an entrepreneur.

Not so fast.

Successful CEOs and entrepreneurs are not just creative; they're producers of quality products. They understand what type of products to create in the first place, based on the feedback they get from their customers.

They also understand that their products must solve their customers' pain points. Their products must add value to their customers' lives and must provide great experiences for them. You can learn more about how to build a solid product by looking at how great companies like Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks did it.

If you are obsessed with quality, you can incorporate what you learn from these companies into your business culture. Beyond your product or service, you can internalize quality packaging, simple usability, prompt responsiveness to customer queries, and even quality, compelling content on your company blog.

Because in today's digitally driven marketing world, quality blog content is king. It's crucial for your traffic, sales, and revenue.

5. Compelling content.

You may have a brilliant idea. You may have gotten the perfect product/market fit. But, if you don't devote yourself to the butt-in-chair time needed to produce a significant quantity of compelling content on your company blog, you won't get where you want to go.

To a great degree, writing compelling content is a skill that can be cultivated. As a small business owner, you can devote some time to practice the art, ingrain writing into your schedule, and write every day to master the craft or dig deep into freelance marketplaces to find a superb content creator.

Compelling content does more than just amuse your clients. Compelling content can change your life. After writing this viral post on this amazing platform, I received a dozen praises from readers across the globe. I also got a couple of writing gigs.

The blog post went viral not only because the story appealed to its intended audience, but also because the conversational tone and writing style are so engaging and entertaining ... the reader feels compelled to share it.

Writing compelling posts has nothing to do with your degree, your experience, or whether or not you're a native English speaker. It's about how you make readers feel. That's why every writer -- just like every entrepreneur -- must be creative, imaginative, and innovative.

6. Innovation.

Innovation is critical for your business growth for a number of reasons.

First, innovation develops customer value. Your customers are always in need of a product that will ease their lives, and once they get it, they move on to something else -- something easier, newer, or simpler. As Steve Jobs put it, "You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them," the Apple founder opined. "By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."

Second, innovation is vital to your traffic, sales, and revenue. New ideas, new products, and new stories are what always get the most attention. "The arrogance of success," according to William Pollard, "is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow."

Third, innovation-active businesses are more productive and generate more jobs than non-innovation-active businesses, according to a recent data by Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

But, building new products from your new ideas is risky. There's a good chance that you'll fail. Still, you must do it. You must double up on your experimentation. Bezos says, "If you double the number of experiments you do per year, you're going to double your inventiveness."

You'll see wonders if you consistently innovate.

7. Consistency.

One of the tough things about growing a startup is that the path you walk is one you make yourself.

There's no one to tell you how you should work, no one to tell you which direction to go, no one to tell you when to go for a break, no one to tell you when to work extra hours, and no one to tell you when to say no and when you need to be where.

That's one of the fantastic things about running your own business. But, sometimes Fantastic is also Difficult. You might open your e-commerce shop today, work for an hour, check your email, and retreat for the day.

But, can you come back to do exactly the same thing tomorrow? Can you do it again the day after tomorrow, and again the day after that, and again, and again? Consistently?

That's the difficult part. And that's where many entrepreneurs are getting it all wrong. Building a thriving business is not about working for extra hours today and not working the next day.

It's about doing the work that matters consistently. It's about showing up every day. It's about minimalism, not complexity.

So roll up your sleeves and keep working. "For the future," as Paul Wellstone puts it, "belongs to those who are passionate and work hard."

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/306130

Monday, February 26, 2018

To Make Money Online Do These 3 Things First

R.L. Adams

- Contributor

Entrepreneur, software engineer, author, blogger and founder of WanderlustWorker.com

Everyone wants to make money online. It's the proverbial dream. But, is this dream an achievable reality for most people who are just starting out on the web? I can tell you firsthand that it is. As long as you play your so-called cards right. Ignore the naysayers and stay focused. It doesn't matter what you want to achieve, with persistent action and determination, you can get there.

So, making money on the internet isn't just a pipe dream. You can do it. But, there is a path forward. It's not the one of least resistance. But, it does offer a gateway to online wealth. Yes, it's achievable. But, it won't be easy. After over a decade of marketing on the internet, looking back, I can tell you that there are three particular things you need to be doing if you seriously want to make money on the internet.

Do these three things, and you'll get closer than ever before. If you ignore these three things, the pathway forward will be far more painful and far more arduous. Now, that doesn't mean that these three things will be easy. They're not. They require work. But, everyone can do them as long as you stick to it and you don't give up. That's what it's all about.

How to Make Money Online

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways you can make money online. There truly are. Some are far more straightforward than others. But, they're all viable. Some require a bit of upfront investment, and others just require your sweat equity. It all depends on which avenue you choose.

But, here's some advice. Don't look for the path of least resistance. And if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Sorry to break it to you. All of these online gurus have a bit of a leg-up on you. They've been around the so-called block and they've collected and built a following as a result. When you have that, gaining traction on an offer is much easier.

But, don't let that get you discouraged. Keep you head up. Stay focused. Stay motivated. And charge forward. When you take a look at a lay of the land, first understand that there are two overall camps when it comes to making money on the web. You can either earn an active income or a passive income.

Active Income vs. Passive Income

The Holy Grail for online income doesn't reside in doing services on sites like Upwork or gigs on sites like Fiverr. Those are all active income activities. They require you to directly exchange your time for money once. Once. That's the operative word here. Passive income is different. Much different.

For me, passive income is the Holy Grail when it comes to making money online. It means exchanging your time once and getting paid repeatedly. It also means freedom. Freedom from the rat race. Freedom from the 9-to-5. Freedom from a boss or obligations. And the ability to live, work and travel at will.

I talk about the difference between active income and passive income so that you can get a lay of the land. If you're serious about making money, or getting rich by any measure, the first thing you need to do is stop directly exchanging your time for money. Now, that's hard if you have significant expenses. You need to eat and survive. You have to pay your student loans, car payments and mortgage or rent. Plus everything else.

However, the problem with living in an active income world is that you don't have the time to learn new things. You can't possibly absorb all the necessary skills to generate an income on the internet when you're so immersed in going to your 9-to-5 just to keep the lights on, so to speak.

So what's the path forward? Start small. Focus on passive income. If at all possible, your goal is to extricate yourself from the shackles of a 9-to-5. Now that I've made this distinction, we can cover the three things that you absolutely must do first if you're serious about generating some real money online.

1. Define your personal brand.

The absolute first and most important thing you need to understand before you can really generate any semblance of cash ion the internet is to define your personal brand. To some people, this is the most deathly feared thing that they could possibly do. It means putting yourself out there. Being subject to criticism and comments and that and then some is part and parcel of this process.

Now, can you make money online without building your personal brand? Sure. But, it'll sure be a lot harder. By building a personal brand, you're putting yourself out there. You're creating a place that you can call home on the internet. Whether that means you're starting a blog or a Facebook Page or an Instagram profile, you just have to get yourself out there.

To do this, decide on what platform you're going to stand on. Pick a market. The three markets you can choose from are:

Wealth
Health
Relationships

Once you have your market, decide on your sub-market. For example, if you're in the wealth market, your sub-market could be passive income. It could be flipping real estate contracts. And so on. Your sub-market is going to define your voice. What will you speak about? What will you preach? If it's health, your sub-market might be personal development or weight loss or something else.

Find your voice. That's what it takes. Before you can decide what you're going to use to make your money online, you have to find that voice. But, first, you need a market and sub-market. Stay in that sub-market. For example, many of the influencers you see online remain in their sub-market.

2. Find and nurture your audience.

The reason why most of the online gurus are able to step into an opportunity and almost immediately make money is because they've created and nurtured an audience. They've done this through email marketing. The money is most certainly in the list. You've heard it before. I'm saying it again.

You need to find a place where you can build that list. It can be through a variety of email marketing platforms. It doesn't matter which one you choose. Pick one and start. Tell your origin story. Make yourself vulnerable. Tell them where it all started for you.

Build your story inventory. The vehicle of a story is a powerful way to create a mass movement of people that are intrigued by what you have to say. It also helps for email open rates. It's not a simple matter. You have to get good at the story telling. Meaning, you have to nurture your audience.

Once you can overcome the initial resistance to this, you can ultimately make money in whatever opportunity you step into. Whether that means it's a passive income opportunity such as by writing ebooks or audiobooks, or it means engaging in active income activities like promoting your own course or affiliate offer or conducting a live webinar. There is real power in the list.

And when you communicate with that list, do it every day. Yes, every single day. You'll be easily forgotten online if you don't put yourself out there. While most people think that they'll upset their list by communicating every day, it's actually the exact opposite. Some people do it multiple times per day.

But, don't just email for the sake of emailing or to sell something. Tell a story. Get personal. Explain an epiphany you had or something you learned recently. Share your journey with them. And watch as some incredible things unfold. That's just the nature of how it works.

3. Add value with every exchange.

It's really easy to be short-sighted online. You think that people aren't really paying attention. But, they are. For that reason, you need to add value with every exchange. Yes, define your brand. Build your list. But, add value with every exchange and communication.

When you add value, and you don't just try to promote, people see you as more genuine. That's important. In effect, you're building a tribe. Don't think they aren't watching what you're doing. They're paying attention to what you're saying and how you're saying it. They're trying to determine whether or not you're just looking for a quick book.

Yes, you can make money online without doing this. But, it will be short-lived. And it won't be much. Instead, when people follow you and believe wholeheartedly in you, they'll buy whatever it is that you're selling. That will also help you become an authority in your industry or niche.

That's not to say that you can't promote what you're offering. You can. You should, in fact. But, make it an aside. A byline, if you will. A P.S. in an email. Concentrate more on adding value and the money will come. I liken it more to doing the most of amount of work for the least initial return.

You won't make millions out of the gate. But, you will start making money over time. That's the nature of the beast online. Focus on the long term, not the short term. Set yourself up for success by building a solid foundation.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/308180

3 Strategies for Growing Your Online Business Fast

R.L. Adams

- Contributor

Entrepreneur, software engineer, author, blogger and founder of WanderlustWorker.com

Jay Abraham is one of the world's leading business consultants and mentors to people like Tony Robbins, Daymond John, Joe Polish, Stephen R. Covey and Russell Brunson. Over the years, he's built and scaled eight- and nine-figure businesses, and is constantly sought after by some of the most successful companies to help grow their businesses fast.

I recently spoke to Abraham about the ways in which he grows an online business, and what he told me was that it boiled down to three primary strategies applicable to growing any business, whether it's online or offline. Most people who struggle with this know that it's hard to grow or scale a business.

They think that to grow a business, they need major capital or funding. While that might help, it's also a shortcut that doesn't always pan out. Sometimes, having the coffers filled can actually sidetrack you. Instead of looking for ways you can become profitable, you look for ways to grow by spending more.

The answer to growth is not in merely scaling out your spend. It doesn't equate to having more employees or a bigger office or any of those things for that matter. The best way to actually do this is organically by bootstrapping. If you're a solopreneur or running a small business, then this information is integral to your own growth.

Rather than trying to spend more, you have to focus on conversions. Conversions are at the heart of any business. If you don't have an offer that converts, or the cability to track those conversions, then you're wasting your time. You can't scale by any measure without a properly converting offer in your business.

Rather than spending money on the superficial, you have to spend it wisely to get that converting offer working. That means that if you spend $1 to acquire a customer, you have to ensure that you're making that $1 back and earning more. Otherwise, you have a business that's losing money, not one that's making money.

That's the premise and basis for building and growing business. You simply can't scale to any degree without that. There are many ways to actually do this. Creating a converting offer can be done through a variety of mediums. One of those mediums is the webinar.

Russell Brunson often tells the story about how a single webinar saved him from bankruptcy twice. Liz Benny and Kent Clothier have used a single webinar to generate millions of dollars in sales. It's a powerful medium you should be using to sell something.

There is a particular process to selling through the webinar. Most entrepreneursconfuse selling through a webinar as teaching. You shouldn't be teaching at all. You should be breaking down limiting beliefs through the vehicle of stories.

The truth is that most people don't buy through webinars because they have false or limiting beliefs. These beliefs are attributed to the vehicle, or offer itself, as much as they are to internal and external beliefs. Successful webinars focus on destroying those false beliefs. Once those dominos topple down, selling becomes almost effortless.

Abraham talks about three primary strategies for growing your business fast. Each of these strategies has several tactics tied to it. But, at the heart of it, there are really only three paths forward. If you can heed one of these paths, you can likely achieve your business goals.

However, keep in mind that the path from zero to seven figures is not going to be the same as the path from seven to eight figures or from eight to nine figures and beyond. The skills you need to use to get to seven figures in your business are not going to be the same skills you use to move you further up. And it's easy to get stuck in one cycle, often repeating your revenue year after year and not moving beyond that.

Anyone who's serious about making money online understands that there are challenges when going from one phase to the next. It can be frustrating to say the least. And without a proper sales funnel, actually growing the business will be difficult. You need the right systems in place in order to capitalize on the process.

What most people fail to focus on are the email sequences. How can you bridge that divide between leads who enter your world and those who become customers? The answer is through the email sequence. The email sequence is key for building a relationship with the lead by telling your story.

1. Acquisition

The first strategy for growing your online (or offline) business is through acquisition. How can you get more customers? Often, to do this, you need to setup a front-end sales funnel. You need to have some sort of offer that will bring the customer into your world, whatever that might be.

Abraham says that there are loads of different tactics that work here. Webinars are one strategy. But, there are also free-plus-shipping offers, other tripwires (which are low-ticket front-end offers usually from $1 to $37) and other lead magnets such as free ebooks, checklists, cheat sheets and so on.

When you sit down to think about how you can acquire customers, you have to envision their pain points and how you can go about adding some value to their lives. You might lose some money on the front-end. But, if you have a proper sales funnel, you can maximize the average cart value with up-sells and one-time-offers that will make your ad spend profitable.

2. Ascension

The second way that Abraham says that you can grow your business is through ascension. How can you get your customers to ascend a value ladder? What email sequences can you plan that will move the customer up the progression of value in your business.

With the proper sales funnel and email sequences in place, you can take a customer from your low-ticket, front-end offers up through your value ladder to a high-ticket offer. During each step of the ascension, you have to ensure that you're adding tremdous amounts of value in the exchange.

If you're not adding value, then the customer simply won't ascend and you won't grow your business (fast or slow). That's what it takes. Be sure that you're adding loads of value during each step of the process if you want your customers to ascend and make more money.

3. Frequency

The third way to grow your business is through frequency. How can you get your customers to buy more frequently? That's the big question. Can you do this through a continuity plan or through new offers or some other monetization? The challenge is doing this without zapping too many of your resources.

Some people struggle to understand how they can grow their business. Others have growing pains. When you grow, you need to scale out your infrastructure. You need more employees and systems in place. Again, the same strategies that took you to seven figures won't take you beyond.

Take a look at your product or service offering and figure out how you can get your customers to spend more frequently. How can you monetize your customers while still adding more value in the exchange. Don't just look for ways to extract more money from current customers. Look for ways you can get them to spend more often and monetize that.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/308019