How to Cut Through the Brain Fog and Start Succeeding!

Brain fog – what is it? It’s that feeling of not being focused. When the brain is so overwhelmed that it’s totally unproductive.

This is SO common in online marketing and one of the biggest reasons is the sheer volume of information that we try to digest. A lot of it totally contradictory, which doesn’t help!

Even longtime online marketers who know exactly what they’re trying to achieve, still get these ‘fogs’ or ‘blocks’ now and again.

Maybe you’re still trying to decide which route to take. Affiliate marketing, e-commerce or developing your own products. Just making that initial decision can be tough.

You can’t really move forward effectively and start getting results unless you’re 100% focused.

So…here’s my personal cure for brain fog 🙂

First, take a step back. For me, that means taking time away from the computer. Just getting away from the ‘noise’ allows our subconscious brain to kick into gear. That’s when the ‘magic’ often happens. My own best ideas and decisions have always come about when I’m away from my desk. Maybe I’ll be walking, driving, at the gym, or whatever.

Second, you must choose which direction to go in. You can’t go in two or three directions at the same time. Are you going to pursue affiliate marketing, or e-commerce, or something else?

You should like what you do. Rather than choosing an area that you have no interest in, choose something that you know you will enjoy. If you think that you would enjoy affiliate marketing much more than e-commerce, then go with affiliate marketing or vice versa.

Third, go back to basics! This step applies if you have been jumping around from one thing to another without ever really fully understanding anything. If you have access to training that you feel is right for your needs, then start at the beginning of that training. Even if you have already been through it once, do it again because, in any decent training course, there’s always another ‘layer’ of understanding to be gained on the second time around. Don’t skim through or cut corners.

Fourth, take it slow if you have to. Don’t set goals that you can’t achieve. Don’t put yourself under pressure to do things at a pace you can’t keep up with. Don’t put yourself under pressure to earn x by x date in order to pay your rent or pay an important bill! This kind of pressure is usually counter-productive.

Lastly, every time you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, step away for a short while. Get some exercise or do something relaxing (but not watching TV because that doesn’t allow your subconscious to get to work 🙂

Can we Really ‘Think and Grow Rich’?

You’ve almost certainly heard of ‘Think and Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill and the concept of ‘the law of attraction’ which states that:

“positive thinking can create life-changing results such as increased happiness, health, and wealth.”

Think and Grow Rich was a hugely successful best seller and there’s no question that Hill made (and lost) a lot of money throughout his life with his various business ventures. However, his wealth did not come about by practising what he preaches. He sold shares that didn’t exist, he bought goods on credit with the intention of reselling them and never paying his creditors, and much more. He was accused many times of running fraudulent schemes and had to go on the run to avoid arrest warrants.

Even his best-selling book (which brought him more wealth than any of his apparently fraudulent business ventures) – Think and Grow Rich, was said to have been not truly his own work. His 4th wife, Rosa Lee, played a big part in both the writing and the editing of that book.

Hill claims that he was frequently visited by spirits and by a ‘Master’ who spoke to him audibly to reveal secret knowledge. What’s more likely is that Hill knew he could cash in by passing on this ‘secret knowledge’ to those willing to pay for it!

If nothing else, he was a very accomplished salesman and the very same could be said about the ‘gurus’ and teachers of ‘the law of attraction’.

However, I’m a great believer in positive thinking and every accomplishment always begins with a thought. There is definitely truth in the saying:

‘If you think you can, you can, and if you think you can’t, you can’t’.

Mindset is very important in relation to success, which is why I invested a lot of time into my own ‘personal development’ and mindset back when I first started out in online business.

…but thoughts alone do not manifest into ‘things’. You can think as much as you like about being wealthy, about having a better lifestyle, about being healthier, slimmer, about gaining recognition, about anything you want, but it won’t happen – unless by some ‘one in a million’ random stroke of luck!

We can’t think ourselves rich and we can’t ‘attract’ what we want in life just by focusing our thoughts. The law of attraction teaches ‘visualisation’, which is a stronger thought, but it’s still only a thought. There’s also the notion that by speaking our goals and desires out loud and repeating them over and over, we increase the chance of them coming true. This stems from the science of sound and vibration and while it’s true that sound can alter things physically – that’s not quite the same as claiming that speaking our desires out loud, will cause them to manifest.

You could say “I will win the lottery” 1000 times today and 1000 times a day for the next year, but your chances of winning the lottery will still be 20 million to 1.

To accomplish something worthwhile takes effort, it takes tenacity, determination and often a willingness to really challenge ourselves and push through the obstacles and the failed attempts. Maybe it can mean changing the habits of a lifetime, which as we all know, is not easy to do. Sometimes we need to develop a ‘do or die’ attitude!

This is why most people dream about what they want, but never actually get it. Many people dream about winning the lottery – but actually, they’re dreaming about the lifestyle they could have if they had significantly more money than they have now.

It’s incredible that even though the chances of winning the lottery are something like 20 million to 1, many people see this as their ONLY hope of achieving their dreams. Therefore, they focus all their thoughts of prosperity on winning the lottery. Because of this, they will probably miss 100 opportunities to realise their dreams in another way!

Don’t dream, DO. Decide what you want – visualise it if it helps – and then take the necessary action to get it. Age doesn’t need to be a barrier either.

Sometimes a student will complain that they’re too old to learn something new, that they didn’t grow up with computers and the Internet. Well, neither did I. When I was in school we had typewriters and something called ‘Secretarial Studies’ for girls. I remember getting a score of minus 11 (yes minus) out of 100 in my final exam for that subject. Apparently, it was not only the lowest score ever, but I was the only student in history to have scored a minus in the exam – or at least that’s what they told me. It’s true that learning a new skill when we are older often takes longer than it would have done had we learned that skill as a younger person – but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it AND get really good at it!

The message is NOT to stop thinking about what you want –  but to think about it (not for too long!), decide how you are going to get it, and then take the necessary action. Because thoughts without action are nothing more than ‘dreams’ or ‘fantasies’, just like winning the lottery 🙂

Beginner Drop Shipping Questions

Earlier today I got some really interesting drop shipping questions from one of my new students and decided to post them here for the benefit of anyone considering drop shipping. I’ve not named the student for privacy reasons because these questions were posted inside the course Q & A area, but here are his exact questions, along with my answers:

1) Which e-commerce websites rely on the dropshipping model?( I’m asking because I’d like to see some online stores best practices which I can use as a model)

“Lots of them!  Even big online stores like Zappos, but you would never know simply by looking at the website.  Here’s another autoanything.com. I LOVE the look of that store!  Blinds.com was built entirely on drop shipping and made the owners very, very wealthy. In fact, they sold the store for something like $50 million.”

2) What are some failure points for beginning dropshippers? What are some reasons that people getting into dropshipping give up?

“Good question.  Cutting corners is one reason.  You can’t succeed if you don’t put in the effort to create a store that visitors would want to buy from.  Tenacity is another reason, but this is no different to any kind of business. You’ve got to stick with it. Resourcefulness is another.  That’s not to be confused with ‘resources’ because you could have two different people, one with $10,000 to start his business and the other with $100.  The person with $100 could easily be the one to succeed, while the person with $10,000 fails.  Resourcefulness is more about using what’s available to you in order to overcome challenges and find solutions to problems. We all have the Internet and we all have a brain. We can use these things to solve problems and move forward.”

3) What are some reasons that online drop shipping stores fail?

“There are many and some are listed above. Other reasons would apply to any online store, not just drop shipping. Not enough traffic is one, and in which case you just need to work on getting traffic.  Poor quality products, poor customer service. Again, these things apply to any online store.  I suppose the one thing that’s really different is that we are not in control of the orders being shipped out. This means that whenever you start with a new supplier, you need to be watchful. If you start getting multiple inquiries from customers about orders being late, that sort of thing, then you need to try and fix this with the supplier and if you can’t, ditch the supplier and find a replacement.”

Is it Still Possible for the Little Guy to Compete with a New Online Store?

This is a really valid question. I can almost guarantee that if you are thinking about setting up an online store, then you have at very least some niggling doubts about whether or not it’s possible to compete.

For most people, Amazon is the big beast and the one they feel most ‘afraid’ of. After all, Amazon have huge resources.  They can launch in a new market and afford to run at a loss in that market for years if they want to.

How can you, as a new small business with limited financial resources, even hope to compete with giants like Amazon?

You can, but not in the way that usually springs to mind first. Price.

In fact, you should never even attempt to compete on price with stores like Amazon because you will lose almost every time.

However, you can compete in other ways, and these other ways are generating billions of dollars in e-commerce revenue for the ‘little guy’.

Think about it this way; If it were impossible for a new e-commerce store to succeed, then why are there still many, many new stores going from zero to $10’s of $1000’s in revenue a month within a relatively short space of time?

You can succeed, but only by choosing a specific niche and making your mark on that niche.

How?

By making yourself an ‘authority’ in that niche. By providing value on your website – over and above the products you sell. This means you need to create content such as blog posts, articles, and anything else that will give value to your store visitors.

Let me give you an example:

Let’s say your store sells golfing equipment. Instead of just selling golf supplies, you could also provide a wealth of information on your store. Such as tips and guides on how to improve your golf, tips for complete golfing novices, best places to learn how to golf…

You could also have a live chat app running on your store. Even if you only have it running for a couple of hours a day, you will convert a lot of visitors into buyers that way.

There are tons of different ways to make your store stand out.

The main point here is that price is not everything and it’s certainly not the only factor in a customer’s buying decision. If it was the only factor, there would be no retail industry. It would be a constant ‘race to the bottom’ to sell at the lowest price and the whole thing would just collapse!

So yes, there is still plenty of opportunity out there for anyone with the motivation and determination to succeed with a new online store 🙂

Why You Don’t Want it to be Easy!

We’ve all the heard the saying ‘keep it simple stupid’, KISS for short. There’s a lot of merit in that saying because the simplest way is often the best way. The more we over-complicate a task, the less likely we are to ever complete or even start it.  But, simple is not the same as easy. We shouldn’t expect easy. We shouldn’t ask for easy, and the short video below shows you exactly why you don’t want it to be easy!

 

Ebay V Amazon for New Sellers – Which is Best?

It’s a great question and the first answer is going to depend on what you plan to sell. If you want to sell your used/new unwanted items just to get them out of the way or raise some extra cash, then Ebay is the best place for this.

However, if you plan to make a regular income selling new items that you source and then sell to make profits, Amazon is without question your best bet.

Here’s why:

Amazon has twice as many shoppers as Ebay. So more potential customers to tap into. 300 million to be precise!

Amazon customers buy and spend more than Ebay shoppers do. Figures show that Amazon buyers are spending at least double on average per annum, than Ebay buyers.

The average Amazon shopper has a higher annual income than the average Ebay shopper and is willing to spend more on an item.

On top of this, Amazon has it’s own loyalty scheme called ‘Prime’ membership where customers pay an annual fee in order to gain certain benefits such as free shipping. This brings Prime customers back to shop on the platform over and over again because they naturally want to get the most bang for their membership buck. According to recent reports, the number of Prime members in the US is more than 60 million!

Why is this good for sellers? Because these Prime customers are frequent shoppers and will often purchase several items in one session. AND, because of their above average annual household income, they will readily pay more for an item than the average Ebay shopper. This means that you, the seller, don’t need to sacrifice your profits by selling at ridiculously low prices in order to make enough sales.

In order to fully benefit from this as a seller, you should be selling via FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). This is where Amazon warehouses your items and ships your orders to your customers. In any case, you’d be crazy not to take advantage of FBA because it cuts your workload down and takes away the headaches of packaging and shipping orders to customers.

So providing you sell through FBA, all those Prime customers will see a little icon beside your item listings, letting them know that your item qualifies as a Prime purchase. Many Prime customers will ONLY buy items that qualify, putting you at an advantage over other non-FBA sellers.

There one really BIG advantage of choosing Amazon over Ebay if you plan to sell items regularly…

It’s less work!

When you list an item on Amazon, you don’t need to keep re-listing it. Nor do you need to take the payments for customer orders. Amazon do that on your behalf. FBA sellers don’t need to deal with refunds either, because once again, Amazon does this.

In summary, if you are in thinking about selling on one of the big online marketplaces, Ebay or Amazon, the only time that Ebay would be your best bet, is when you want to sell some unwanted personal items or perhaps a one-off lot of stock. Otherwise, Amazon is a much better option over all.

What are the Fees for Selling on Amazon?

Amazon selling fees are quite low when you take into account the fact that as sellers we use their platform, leverage their trust and credibility, and make use of their registered customer base of close to 3 million shoppers.

Shoppers on Amazon tend to be prepared to pay a little more for items than they would on say, Ebay for example. Therefore we can set our prices that little bit higher, which helps to offset some of the fees.

That being said, we still need to know what these fees are so that we can work out whether or not it’s possible to make a profit on an item we want to sell.  Sometimes new sellers simply look at the wholesale cost of an item, compare it to the selling price on Amazon, and think they can make a great profit. They completely overlook the fact that Amazon needs to make money too!

Amazon Referral Fee

This is a percentage of the selling price of each item sold on Amazon and it’s usually 15%, although there are some categories where this percentage is a little higher or a little lower. Generally, though, you can expect your referral fee to be 15%.

For example. If you were selling a dog lead for $22.99, Amazon would take $3.45 (15%) from each sale.

FBA Fees

This only applies if you are using ‘Fulfillment by Amazon’,. This is where Amazon stores your items at their warehouse and then ships them out to customers as your orders come in. It’s a great service because it takes away the headache of packing and shipping out orders.

For most items this fee is around $2.60  If the item is large and bulky, it will be a little more than this and if your item is classed as ‘small and light’, it will be less.

If you are not using FBA, this fee does not apply.

Both the Referral Fees and the FBA fees are taken from your earnings. You don’t need to pay either of these fees from your own pocket.

FBA Long-Term Storage Fees

Again, this only applies if you are using Fulfillment by Amazon and these fees are very small unless you have stock at the FBA warehouses for longer than 6 months. Meaning, your stock is slow selling. There are ways to avoid this happening, but if it does happen, then you need to factor in around  $0.55 per item per month

Professional Seller Account Fee

As a seller, you can either open an ‘Individual Account’ or a ‘Professional Account’

There is no monthly fee for an Individual Account, but you will pay Amazon $0.99 per item sold in addition to the costs listed above

The Professional Account has a monthly fee of $39.99, but you do not pay the $0.99 per item sold.

Generally, if you intend to sell more than 40 items a month – which hopefully you do – then the Professional Account is the one to go for.

Conclusion

Even when factoring in the fees, there’s good money to made as a seller on Amazon providing you do your calculations first. Of course, there’s more to it than just making sure you can turn a profit. You also need to know how to choose the right items to sell, where to get them, how to create listings that convert to sales and more.  Even so, Amazon is still a great place to sell. New sellers can still make their mark and it doesn’t require a big start-up budget either 😉

Get More Sales by Adding a Simple Video to Your Website

Want to know a quick and easy way to turn more of your store visitors into buyers?

Add a simple animated video to one of your pages.

You could do this on any page, but it’s really effective on the ‘About Us’ page or the ‘Delivery Information’ page.

So what should your video be about?

If it’s on the ‘About Us’page, you could create a short video to inform visitors about your company/product line/customer service.  If it’s on the ‘Delivery Info’ page, you could create one that explains your delivery times/policies, along with information about returns and refunds.

Here are some ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’t’s’ for your video:

Do:

• Make it an animated video because these have a lot of appeal and can be created for less than $20 on Fiverr.
• Make it under 90 seconds.  30 seconds is often long enough.
• Add upbeat music to the video
• Use fun and interesting characters in the video

Don’t:

• Make ‘whiteboard’ videos.  Whiteboard videos have their place but can often end up looking ‘cheap’.
• Use ‘text-to-speech’. There is no ‘text-to-speech’ software on the market that doesn’t sound like a robot. In any case, voice may not even be necessary. Many short animated videos do a great job with just the animation and music.
• Make the videos longer than 90 seconds (unless you are making a product demonstration video).
• Spend days or weeks trying to make the video yourself. Instead outsource it for a few dollars by going to Fiverr.com
• Overdo it by adding too many animated videos to your website.  One or two will add a touch of professionalism to your site and help to engage visitors. More than that and it get’s boring!

How to Take Your Share of the Booming E-commerce Industry

Starting your own e-commerce store has never been easier – and more difficult – than it is today.
So what does that mean? How can be it be easy AND difficult at the same time?

Okay, let me explain . . .

It’s easy because you no longer need technical know how. Low cost, user-friendly and purpose built online store platforms have taken care of all that, and now almost anyone can set up a half decent store without too many headaches.

It’s easy because online shopping is a fast growing industry and the more money that consumers spend online, the more opportunity for new online store owners to make their mark.

It’s easy because many wholesalers are now willing to drop ship for online retailers. This means you can start and operate without ever investing any money in stock. In fact it’s more than possible to get going with as little as $100 – $200 in your pocket.

Sounds amazing right?

Yes it does and that’s the problem.  Because it sounds SO easy, it attracts hoards of wannabees who are under the misconception that all they need to do is throw up a website, list a bunch of products and hey presto, cash in the bank!

NO.

If it really were THAT easy, almost every new online store would succeed. But they don’t. In fact, 90% of them fail miserably.

But it’s not as bad as it sounds.  Most failed online stores failed for very specific reasons. The two biggest causes of failure are:

1. Not enough traffic (visitors) to the store
2. Not enough sales (visitors not converting to buyers)

To succeed, you need to master the art of getting traffic to your store and then converting that traffic into sales.  One without the other is useless, you need both.

Fortunately, you don’t need deep pockets in order to promote and market your new store online. Most of your marketing can be done without spending any money at all. Getting your visitors to buy from your website requires some ‘know-how’.  Some new online sellers think it’s all about pricing their products as low as possible.

Wrong.

In fact, you could charge higher prices than your competitors, but get more sales than they do. Pricing is only one small part of the equation and it’s way down the list as far as ‘what makes people want to buy from you’.

Want to learn more?

Enrol in our Udemy class and get lifetime access to full training.

Are You Suffering from a Fatal Flaw?

What exactly is a fatal flaw you may be asking!

The best way to explain is by relating it to works of fiction. Novels. Every novel has a hero/heroine and almost without exception, that hero or heroine has a character flaw. The flaw (whatever it is) prevents the character from getting what he wants (succeeding). But by the end of the novel, the hero has recognised his flaw, overcome it and ultimately succeeded.

Whether you realise it or not, this is the backbone of most novels. Whether that be mystery, crime, romance or whatever. Because people like happy endings. They like a good result.

Occasionally though, the flaw is what’s known as a ‘fatal flaw’. A fatal flaw doesn’t have to mean the hero dies – although he may do. It just means the hero never managed to overcome his flaw by the end of the novel and as a result, he failed in his quest… solve the crime, get the girl, kill the monster, whatever! In fiction writing this called a ‘tragedy’ and in fiction, they don’t happen too often.

In real life though, they happen all the time…

What are the potentially fatal flaws that prevent us from succeeding online;

• Fear of Failure
• Lack of Belief in Yourself
• Procrastination
• Cutting Corners
• Easily Distracted
• Shiny Object Syndrome

Fear of failure prevents us from taking action and without action, nothing can happen. This can be cured by…guess what…taking action!

Lack of belief in yourself can be cured by gaining the right knowledge and then acting on that knowledge. Even if you don’t get it right the first time, you will gain confidence.

Procrastination is a tough one and we all suffer from it from time to time. Yes even me 🙂 It’s all down to discipline and setting yourself a regime that you can stick to.

Cutting corners. This is a big one and I see it frequently with some of the students of my courses. It’s natural to be in a hurry to see results, but cutting corners is one sure way NOT to get the results you want.

Easily distracted. So easy these days with social media, YouTube, mobile phones. Switch everything off (if possible) while you are working and definitely close down all social media sites!

Shiny object syndrome is a real success killer. I suffered from it myself for a short while several years back. Decide on the method you want to use as your vehicle to start making money online and stick with it. Forget everything else and focus on ONE thing. If you’ve ended up on a ton of email lists, unsubscribe from them. Clear your inbox, clear your mind and focus!

Okay I know this is a not a complete list, but if you’ve been attempting to make money online for more than a few months and you’ve still not seen any success, grab a pen and be totally truthful with yourself. How many potentially fatal flaws do you have ? 🙂