Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

Yes, this is another rant against all you product creators who feel the need to make your customers jump through hoops to read your ebook. I’m talking about these miserable EXE ebooks that should, quite honestly, be made illegal. Why do I feel this way? Well, as a product creator myself, I am going to tell you EXACTLY why I feel this way. Keep reading to feel my full wrath.

Let’s start off with this. Many operating systems simply can’t open these darn things, either because they don’t have the right service pack or are just flat out not compatible. So you end up having a customer have to return the darn thing because he can’t do anything with it. When you mess with EXE books, you run the risk of losing a portion of your market because of these compatibility issues.

In addition to that, you have the inconvenience factor. EXE books usually require the buyer to remember some stupid password. They then forget it and can’t open the book anymore. They then have to contact the creator for the password and, in many cases, don’t get any response. They now have a worthless ebook that they can no longer use.

But the biggest reason of all to stop putting together these stupid EXE books is because there is ALWAYS a way around them. All somebody has to do is take screen prints of each page and paste them into a PDF. The technology is there to do this. You are NOT going to prevent theft if people REALLY want to steal your book. There are better ways to protect your ebooks such as using download management systems like DLGuard.

Point is, you don’t want to tick off your target market. People don’t like these EXE books. I don’t like them. And to be quite honest, if the sales page says it’s an EXE book, I won’t buy it. And, if I’m not told in advance and find out after the purchase that it is, I will immediately refund it and delete the darn thing from my hard drive.

Add to this the fact that many people are afraid that these things have viruses in them and you are really hurting your potential sales by doing this.

Okay, get it? Don’t make your customers jump through hoops to use your product.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

If nothing else, when you run a home business, you want to make sure you control EVERYTHING. Now, I realize that there are going to be some things that are out of your control, such as when you depend on search engines, article directories and other third party sites for traffic. But if something is within your control, make darn sure you control it. This article is written from personal experience. I strongly suggest you pay attention to it. The story is true.

Many years ago, when I didn’t have the brains that I have now, I bought a package from a site. The package was actually quite good. It came with a free domain of my choosing and hosting free…for life. Now that’s a deal you can’t pass up. So I took it. So what’s the problem?

Well, the domain, though mine, is actually registered to the site that sold me the package. Now, you might be thinking, so what? Well, let’s put it this way. What if the site goes out of business or the person running the site dies? The domain doesn’t get renewed. It expires at the end of the year. Ultimately, I have to hope and pray that I get to that expired domain before one of the vultures does. If I don’t, I could end up having to pay thousands of dollars to get that domain back.

Okay, get it? When you don’t control every aspect of your business, especially the property you own, you are risking being put out of business. Now, I’m currently communicating with this site to have ownership of the domain transferred to me. But what if they refuse? Heck, what if THEY charge me thousands of dollars to get the domain? After all, they know how valuable it is. They have access to all the traffic records since THEY are the legal owners.

This may seem like a trivial thing to some. Trust me, it’s not. When somebody else controls any aspect of your business, you essentially have your head in a vice. Like I said, I was young and foolish when I first took this package. I didn’t know any better. So I am warning you now, through my own experience, that whatever you do, make sure NOBODY else can take it away from you.

Now, having said that, what does this say about all those business in a box solutions where all you’re doing is getting a site that is being controlled by a main company? What if THEY go out of business? If that happens, YOUR business goes with it.

Think about that the next time you sign up with one of those programs that gives you your OWN website and ask yourself…is it REALLY your site?

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

Many people today have dreams of becoming Internet marketing heroes. Unfortunately, for many of those people, those dreams are turning into nightmares because of lack of direction, lack of traffic and lack of income. If you’re one of the few who haven’t given up yet, you might want to read this article. I think it will push you over the fence in one direction or the other.

Okay, the problem with dreams is that many of these dreams are not based in any kind of reality. And yes, I’ll blame some of the big names for this problem. Sales pages with hyped up claims, promising riches in no time with no work and no skills, are partially responsible for this mindset of people thinking that they can become successful at IM over night. But a lot of the blame goes towards the people themselves. The entitlement mentality goes way beyond IM. Just look at the lottery lines if you think I’m kidding. That’s part of the problem.

Another part of the problem is when reality hits dream land. A lot of folks don’t realize just how MUCH work is involved in marketing online. They think that because they don’t have a brick and mortar store to go to each day that it’s not a real business. You may not have the overhead of that brick and mortar store (rent, supplies, etc.) but it’s still a business just the same. It doesn’t run by itself. That’s another part of the problem.

Then of course you have crunch time. This is when you actually have to do the work. It’s kind of like in school. You listen to the teacher and watch as he or she does the math problem on the board. It looks so easy. And then YOU go to do it and you can’t. Why? Because it always looks easy when somebody does the work for you. But when YOU have to do it yourself, you suddenly find out that there is nobody to do the thinking for you. No, it’s NOT so easy.

However, it’s easy to be disillusioned by it all once you realize what’s involved. Maybe you’re at that stage. Maybe you’re beyond it and just can’t wake up from your coma to realize that this may not be for you. That’s right…this may not be for you. Not everybody is cut out to be an Internet marketer. They’re too wrapped up in the dream part and not connected enough to reality. And reality is a lot of hard work.

So, if you’re still dreaming and haven’t yet decided if this is a dream you REALLY want to go after, maybe this article has pushed you over the edge and has enabled you to make a decision.

For the sake of your dreams, I hope so.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

It’s amazing how much in a hurry everybody is in this world. Everything has to be done yesterday. Well, if you’re running a home business, that kind of attitude could land you in a lot of trouble. The last thing you want to do, when running a home business, is rush it. If you don’t know why, read this article. It will explain things in very clear English.

Granted, you don’t want to waste time. I know a lot of people who plan and plan and plan and never do anything. This isn’t good either. But, you want to make sure you DO have a plan and don’t just rush through things. One reason is simple. When you rush, you forget things. You leave things out. And sometimes, you leave something out that’s so critical that you have to start all over again from scratch. That’s the obvious reason for not wanting to rush things. But there are other reasons that aren’t so obvious.

Sometimes, when you rush through your work or your plan, you don’t make the most out of that plan. For example. Let’s say that you are starting a brand new advertising campaign and you rush through the creation of that campaign. Everything is fine. You didn’t forget any part of your ad in regard to what you need to relay to the prospect, but you didn’t word things in the most efficient manner because you rushed. There were things that COULD have been said better…maybe even in fewer words if you took the time to sit down and think about it.

What this does is it decreases your conversions because your ad copy isn’t as compelling as it could have been if it was more concise. Oddly enough, when you rush through something, you actually tend to be more long winded than when you plan it out. Why? Because your thoughts are more scattered and therefore, it takes you longer to actually get the point across. Yes, sometimes less is more, even though that is usually a terrible cliche.

So, when you work on your home business, do yourself a favor. Take the time to actually think things through so that you can actually end up doing LESS work. If that sounds crazy, it’s not.

I am speaking from a lot of personal experience.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this may be the most shocking article anybody ever read coming from me, a die hard article marketer. Well, one thing I’m not is a dreamer. I look at things quite realistically and call them for what they are. So that’s what I’m doing here. If you want to know the real truth about article marketing in 2010, read this. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Let me start off by saying no, article marketing isn’t dead. But it is certainly on life support. Shocked to hear me say that? Well, it gets worse. But in order to understand why, you need to get a little history on article marketing.

Up until about 2007 or so, very few marketers knew about article marketing. It wasn’t considered a really big way to get traffic. But the smart folks knew that content was, and always will be king on the Internet. So they wrote articles, put them on their sites and also started submitting to directories, like the one you’re at right now reading this.

Then Travis Sago came out with Bum Marketing, which is essentially a simple method for writing articles and making money from affiliate marketing…and the sky fell down…literally. Every marketer and their grandmother started doing Bum Marketing. Suddenly, article directory traffic started to skyrocket, which was great for the directories. Not so great for the other marketers.

See, one problem with Bum Marketing, no offense to Travis who is a great guy, is that it leaves a lot of room for abuse. What kind of abuse? Well, crappy articles to say the least. You should see some of the dreck that so called article marketers put out. It got to the point where the article directories with any standards at all had to change minimum word counts, ban certain categories and even get rid of many writers.

But the damage had been done. Look up just about any topic at all these days and you’ll find more articles on that topic than you can shake a stick at. The competition has gone through the roof. The days of writing an article, submitting it, and getting 300 quick views are gone. That same article, today, gets maybe 30 views before it dies a quick death.

Therefore, in order to get more traffic from their articles, ironically, article marketers have to generate traffic TO their articles. So all kinds of shady things go on that I won’t mention in this article because I don’t want to give anybody any ideas. Point is, the “by the book” article marketer is behind the 8 ball. He’s competing with countless of marketers doing whatever they can to increase those views.

If I had to start all over today, and didn’t want to stoop down to the level of some of these people, I’d probably be a total failure as an article marketer. Fortunately for me, many of my old articles still bring in a good number of views each month and account for my 10 to 20 opt ins each day.

I told you this article was going to shock the hell out of you. But that is the state of article marketing today.

Having said that, if you pick good niches, do your keyword research, write quality articles, construct killer resource boxes and have an offer that is close to impossible to pass up, you can still make some money as an article marketer.

As much as 4 years ago?

In my opinion, no.

The golden age of article marketing is gone.

But it was fun while it lasted.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

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I see a lot of questions day in and day out. Most recently was this one. “Why is my traffic going up and yet my conversion percentage is going down?” Well, there are several reasons why this could happen. This article is going to go over some of the more common ones.

At the top of the list is targeting. Usually, when traffic goes up it’s because the person generating the traffic is using sources they’ve never used before. And when that happens, there is always a chance that one of those sources isn’t going to be as responsive because the targeting itself is not as pinpoint. For example, if you’re promoting a generic make money online product, you’re likely to get article marketers and PPC users to buy it. But if you’re promoting a PPC product, and target article marketers too, your conversion is likely to go down because article marketers probably won’t be as interested in a PPC product. That’s one possible explanation.

Another explanation is the amount of traffic initially gotten. Let’s say you were getting 1,000 visitors a month to your site and your conversion percentage was 2%. Now let’s say, all of a sudden, you’re getting 100,000 visitors a month and your conversion percentage goes down to 1.5%. The reason could very well be because your initial sample was too small to get an accurate measure.

And then there is something that many people just don’t think about. Your site doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are constantly news sites in YOUR niche coming online everyday. It’s quite possible that a new site is taking some of your sales away because they have a better product. Maybe there is more than one site doing that. So while your traffic is increasing, because of the increased competition, it’s not as easy to make a sale. Prospects now have more choices so they don’t have to buy from you. In fact, maybe they’ve come back to your site far enough apart in time and from a different IP address to count as another visitor. This could actually artificially inflate your traffic.

Point is, just because you get more traffic doesn’t mean you’re going to get an increase in conversion percentage. In many cases, it WILL go down.

It’s just the way things are.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of busting your behind for peanuts online? Go to my web site and find out how I earn a monthly income that exceeds 5 figures and how I can help YOU do the same. Get your free report at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/report.html

I have to admit, the steam is coming out of my ears right now as I am writing this. Want to know why? Well, you’re going to have to keep reading beyond this paragraph to find out. The question I’m ultimately going to answer is this one. “Do business in a box solutions work?” However, before I answer it, I’m going to tell you why steam is coming out of my ears right now.

Today, on the Warrior Forum, somebody made a bold blanket statement that business in a box solutions, or template websites do not work. I wonder if he was speaking from experience or if he was just giving his opinion? Let me tell you something about absolutes. Absolutes will kill you when it comes to running a home business. Anybody who tells you that such and such a thing will or won’t work 100% of the time, is feeding you a bunch of bull. And that should give you some idea where I’m going with my answer. So let’s get to it. Do business in a box solutions work?

They can. Notice I didn’t say they do or will all the time. They can. A lot of factors go into whether these business in a box solutions work or not. I am going to go over the main ones here.

At the top of the list is competition. If somebody sells you a business in a box solution for a niche that has millions of sites competing in that niche, some of which are spending millions of dollars in ad money, your chance of success is slim to none. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but it’s going to be VERY hard. On the other hand, if you buy a solution in a wide open niche, you’ve got a very good chance of succeeding.

After competition, next comes your work ethic. No business in a box solution is going to work by you just tossing the site up on the Internet and doing nothing else. You’re going to have to promote that site. You may even have to spend a little money to do it. The Internet is a huge place, and nobody is going to see your site unless you let them know it’s there. Heck, even a custom one of a kind site can’t make money if you don’t promote it.

Finally, there is what you do with the business in a box to make it unique to YOU. Just because it’s a boxed solution doesn’t mean you can’t make some minor changes in order to make that site stand out from the rest. Also, you can add things to the site. A solution like this is not meant to really be a pull it out of the box deal. You’re supposed to make changes. The solution is provided so that you don’t have to do a lot of work…not so you don’t have to do ANY work at all.

So yes, a business in box solution CAN work…just like anything else in life.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want your own business right out of the box and cut your startup time down to zero? Check out my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/biab/ and get your own business in a box for literally pennies.

Michael Oksa, who is a really good egg and one of the most down to earth people I know, asked an interesting question at the Warrior Forum today. How many people in Internet marketing do you think are honest and hard working? And then, somebody threw in a real monkey wrench by pointing out that you could be honest and lazy or dishonest and hard working. Well, I’m going to give you my take on all this and then you can answer the question for yourself.

My view of the entire subject is a little different than most people’s. See, most folks look at the issue of Internet marketing. I look at the issue of human nature and life in general. I’ve been on this planet for over 50 years and I can honestly tell you that I have seen all the good and bad that there is to see. If you want me to give you a percentage of each, I can’t. If I had to guess, I’d probably say that for every good person there is a bad person. Otherwise, evil on this planet would have been wiped out by now.

Let me also address the point one person made about being honest and lazy or dishonest and hard working. This is spot on. The two things are not mutually exclusive. To be perfectly honest, there are times when I am lazy as heck. But I’ll never cheat anybody…not for any amount of money. In fact, I’ve lost quite a few sales because I’ve told people they didn’t have what it takes to make it in this business. Yeah, I can be brutally honest at times.

But none of this matters…not really. The only thing that DOES matter is you. Can you look at yourself in the mirror and honestly say to yourself that you’re working hard on your business and that you’re being honest and ethical in the process? And more importantly, do you even care? Cause let’s face it, people who are dishonest and lie and cheat to make a living online DON’T care. They have no conscience whatsoever and would even laugh at this article…if they even bothered to read it.

I’m not here to be your conscience. What you do with your marketing efforts is YOUR business. But you may want to know what others think of this profession. Judging by some of the responses over at the forum, some people don’t think too much of it. I can’t say I blame them with some of the stuff I’ve seen. So, here is the REAL issue. And like it or not, it is.

If we continue portraying ourselves as shady used car salesmen (sorry, best analogy I can give) eventually our target market is going to tire of us and go elsewhere.

Thus, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Think about it when it comes time to market your next product.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to know what the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing are? Get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/7deadlysins/7deadlysins.html and save your business from going down the tubes before it even has a chance.

A lot of people are going to read this article and scratch their heads because to them, it’s obvious. But a lot of people, believe it or not, do NOT do what I’m about to reveal. And the reasons vary. I’m going to go over some of those reasons in this article. I think you’re going to want to read this.

Okay, let’s start off with the main focus of the article, which you should have gotten from the title. Work when you can. Now before you start sending me poison pen letters, hear me out. See, I know a lot of people who aren’t in the best of health or have other commitments and they try to sit down and work on their home business at times that are less than optimal. In fact, they work at times when they really should be doing anything BUT working on their home business.

For example, I was a bit under the weather this morning and afternoon. Now, I could have forced myself to work, but given how lousy I felt, I probably would have just ended up making a lot of mistakes. Instead, I waited until this evening when I felt a LOT better and ended up getting more work done than I would have gotten done had I tried to force the issue earlier.

Sometimes you just have to know when to say the heck with it and do something else. The work is always going to be there to do. But doing it when you’re not anywhere near 100% or you have other things on your mind (like your kid just got arrested or something) is not smart. Your business is too important to let it have anything but your best effort.

Now, I understand that some people never feel 100%. I know lots of folks who have chronic health problems and are always under the weather. If they wait until they feel “good” they’ll never get anything done. I understand that. Those are not the people I’m talking about in this article. I’m talking about your typical person who has their good days and bad days. The good days, get as much done as possible because those are the days you have to take advantage of. The bad days…leave the business alone. Otherwise, you run too much of a risk of messing things up. Believe me, I am speaking from experience.

Life is too short. It doesn’t all have to be done in one day. Learn to pick your spots and you’ll be a lot happier for it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!

One of the biggest problems that Internet marketers have is that they don’t sit down and figure out their priorities. Each thing that you do is going to bring you a different result or give you a different kind of benefit. so if you don’t know what your priorities are, you might end up doing things that aren’t going to bring you the results that you’re looking for. This article explains in the best way it can…with examples.

Let’s say that your priority is to build a responsive list. You feel that the best way to make that income is to get a number of people who trust you and trust your opinion on products to buy. Okay, so given that is your priority, what do you have to do in order to make it happen? Many marketers will say that this is a simple question to answer…you create a squeeze page and drive traffic to it.

Wrong…and that’s why so many people fail in this business.

What you have to do FIRST, before you even get to that point is figure out who your target market is and what it is you’re going to offer them that is going to even make them want to opt into your list. Just tossing up a squeeze page and hoping you can get people to opt in is shooting in the dark. Today, people need a darn good reason to give you their email with so many marketers fighting for their time. In other words, you have to position yourself first in the market, or you don’t have a prayer.

Here’s another example. Let’s say your priority is promoting an affiliate product. Your priority is to pick a product that has at least a 75% commission, pays at least $25 per sale and is in any niche other than the make money online niche because you don’t want to have to worry about other marketers inserting their affiliate links and taking the sale away from you. Great, so what do you do first? You would think that the first thing you do is look for a product that fits your criteria.

Wrong again. The first thing you do is figure out if you have the skills to sell that product. See, a lot of affiliate marketers think that all you have to do is put up a link to a sales page and you’re done. Sorry, that’s not enough anymore. You need to understand the product you’re selling so that you can write a convincing review of that product. So, that requires that you’re able to write to begin with and THEN, you need to understand that type of product so you can write about it intelligently.

I could keep going but I think you get the point. Whatever your priorities are, you need to make sure that the steps you take to carry out those priorities are the right steps or you’re going to end up with more failures than successes in your marketing.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.