Life on the Wild, Wild Net — Part Two

Model, Model, Model —Who to Model

In The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker encourages his readers to
“Model Rich and Successful People.”

But first, I need to figure out whom to model…

For those of us who want to establish or expand an internet based business, identifying the rich and successful Netrepreneurs to model, while avoiding the posers is an interesting exercise. I approached analyzing the various internet-marketing training sources as I would any other research project. I’ve documented my research process here, as most research projects follow the same basic steps that are applicable to any project you might want to examine for your own business.

1. Define your problem or question

• Identify the source of internet marketing training that best matches my personal style and business model.
• Determine the best way to learn the information I need to be successful.
• Develop an internet-marketing education budget and an internet business startup plan, budget and project time-line.

2. Determine likely sources of information and plan steps to acquire it

• Develop a list of the top ten internet-marketing companies as ranked by Google.
• Conduct an independent Google search, including blog entries for each Internet Guru or company.
• Note client satisfaction, indications of unresolved claims unfulfilled warranties
• Review each site to determine if site includes complete contact information
• Call phone number to see if a real person answers the phone and to test the customer support.
• If phone contact is problematic, delete guru or company from consideration.
• Check eBay and other secondary market places to see the amount and price point of the companies training materials.
• — If large amount of training material being sold for $5 or less, delete guru or company from consideration.
• Set-up separate email address and sign up for every newsletter, webzine and free offer available from each Internet marketing company.
• Set up a separate email folder for each Internet marketing training company, so all correspondence and offers are segregated by vendor.
• Review websites that sell e-books or other training materials in my niche market.
• Analyze the top five site to determine what I like and why
• Order product from the top three sites to judge the quality of the product verses price point.
• Analyze the delivery process, customer service and follow-up.
• Review SBA and other industry literature concerning probable start-up costs and applicable metrics for internet based business.

3. Start reading, printing, analyzing and making notes

• Not only read but, study every single page of all the materials received from of various Internet Marketing vendors
• Note the claims, offers and testimonials — if the testimonials include a name and URL, test the website to see if it is a valid business, then look up the contact information and call, see if testimonial is accurate.
• Read the newsletters carefully, is it how to stuff or just fluff.
• Does the vendor’s sales approach match your business style? (When I was reading some of the marketing literature, I kept hearing our Millionaire Mind Intensive trainer Doug, “Remember how you act in one segment of your life, is the way you will act in all the rest.” Lets just say in some cases, I just wasn’t feeling the integrity-vibe.)
• If they are free or low-cost, sit in on some of the teleconference or the webinares conducted by some of the Internet marketing guru’s.
• Use SBA and other industry sources to find the standard ratios for online marketing businesses. It is all about the numbers. No Numbers — No Business

4. Organize all the data you have, review, record your conclusions and make decision

I’m still gathering and evaluating my data sets. I’ll report findings over the next month.

5. Evaluate research process and product, look for lessons learned and what could be done differently next project

The last, but important step, all researchers are temped to skip it, but please don’t. It will help you refine your ability to acquire analyze and utilize actionable business intelligence in the future.

Why Bother?

This type of research is a time consuming, but critical process. Not only do I want to find someone who is rich and successful to model, I’m about to implement a business structure I would not have even considered before my Millionaire Mind Intensive experience. Basic market research and business planning are essential steps to success.

The laws of commerce apply whether practiced in a brick and mortar edifice or in the bits and packets of the Internet — business is business.

To approach any Internet enterprise without a ‘Bottom Line’ sensibility is folly.

Ask any of the dot.bomb survivors. Even businesses with sound economic models, like Amazon and eBay shuttered in the tech implosion, but with sound business fundamentals, they went on to flourish. Their more brash brethren, chasten by the very rude reality of loosing it all, approached their next sip at the golden cup with more temperance.

Wealth creation is the fruit of our money trees. Sound business planning, based on solid research, are the roots of our inner game of wealth.

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All writings here are copyrighted. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts. And remember, You Have a Millionaire Mind!