Previous articles discussed obtaining leverage by 1) re-using, and 2) re-purposing content.  In this article, we’ll discuss developing leverage by outsourcing repetitive, or non-value-add work, and any work that simply doesn’t fit our personal skills, experience and/or nature.

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman described some interesting findings from more than 25 years of research by the Gallup organization – initially in their book, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, and subsequently elaborating on those findings in later books.  Two of their findings, that are important for affiliate marketers and home-based business owners are these:  1) Emphasize your strengths, not your weaknesses, and 2) Hire workers for potential.

The world of online business has a large learning curve and requires many diverse skills.  But, not very many people are gifted at all of them – and even those who multi-skilled, may not be using their available energy and other skills to focus on areas that are relative weaknesses for them.

William of Occam, who developed “Occam’s Razor,” has noted:  “It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.” As small business owners, Occam’s Razor has much to teach us relative to our individual time usage.

Tim Ferriss, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek” is a big proponent of the use of virtual assistants to handle recurrent, low prioritiy tasks or those for which he does not have either the time or inclination to perform.

Contrary to popular opinion, outsourcing is not restricted to giant organizations, but recognizing the low cost of international virtual assistants, even small, home-based organizations can afford to outsource a lot of activities to virtual assistants.

One task that many internet marketers choose to outsource is writing articles.  They see the importance of article marketing, but either don’t like to write, don’t have the skills, don’t want to spend the time, so they release article authoring to freelancers. 

You also might want to consider outsourcing to a call center (or virtual assistant) all the phone and email follow-up required for lead generation and sales closings.

If you focus on your areas of strength, you can multiply your results, whereas, focusing on improving areas of weakness willonly incrementally improve results. 

Would you rather multiply your results, or simply see incremental improvements?

If you would like to learn how to leverage your efforts, sign up for the Online Success for Beginners course.

Technorati Tags: affiliate internet marketing, home business, internet business, leverage, online business, Technology

The following ten recommendations ought to help you get off to a good start. Try to create processes and systems that integrate thoroughly, and are available all of the time to take care of consumers and prospects.

Build a computerized system if you want to make your life simple and your bank account fat.

1. Computer & Peripherals

If you’re going to do internet marketing, you’ll need a computer – preferably one of your own, either a desktop computer or a laptop. Get one with lots of memory and processing speed. A broadband connection is preferred over dial-up. You’ll also need a printer. If you can, get both with wireless capabilities.

2. Your Custom Domain

Be certain to obtain a website name that you’ve purchased, so that you can begin~start} to develop your own personal or business stamp. Moreover, many providers will not permit you to refer to an affiliate website, but only a website name that you own. A respectable domain name will be succinct (30 characters or less), understandable when either heard or seen, and representative of your product or service. The most popular names end in “.com” and such names are favorite for most internet marketing companies, when available.

3. Communications

One more fundamental tool is communications, including an Internet Service Provider and a phone – either land-line, cellular, or VOIP, with or without headset – as you prefer. It should have both local and long distance capabilities, and if you intend to hold conferences for your downline, the ability to handle conference calls. If you’re going to do trainings, etc., you’ll doubtless want to obtain a teleconferencing service that can process many, perhaps hundreds or even a thousand, calls at the same time.

4. Web Hosting

You’ll want a web host to serve as a “home” for your website. There are many such services available to help home businesses and affilaite businesses. Their products do differ somewhat, as do their prices, so be sure to shop around before buying one.

5. Applications & Data Security

You’ll also need robust precautions for your systems and data. This includes physical security, plus software such as firewalls, and security programs like McAfee or Norton.

6. Systems & Info Backup/Restore Capability

Yet another requirement is for backup of your locally stored programs and info. In spite of the best security programs you might be able to implement, there will likely come a circumstance when you experience some sort of a system crash, with either partial or complete loss of information and crucial programs. Therefore you will also need a healthy backup and restore capability.

7. Goods

You’ll require one or more services to sell – goods that you have developed yourself, or ones that have been created by one or more third parties. If you provide your own products, then you’ll also have to worry about all the associated back office capabilities. If you get your products from third parties, then you’ll have to worry about supply relationship management, order fulfillments, customer satisfaction and that you get properly paid.

8. Affiliate Program Network

If you’re intending to market multiple affiliate products, you’ll almost certainly also want to join one or more Affilate Program Networks (APNs), such as ClickBank, CJ, or LinkShare, etc. to handle your commissions, sales statistics, and other back office functions for you.

9. Web 2.0 Features

The Web is constantly changing, so if you want to be successful in today’s internet world, you’ll want sites and services that enable blogging and interactive communities (i.e., ones that use Web 2.0 to enable a whole host of collaboration, using the web as the network platform).

10. Technical Support

Finally – again a often overlooked necessity – is the need for dependable technical support – for both your local hardware and software, but even more importantly, for any of your customer-facing websites and product systems.

If your customer-facing systems go down and you are unable to get prompt technical support from any/all your vendors, the resultant downtime can crash your advertising campaigns, you can lose or upset potential purchasers, and ultimately, your bottom line will suffer (and your brand, as well).

Technology is the lifeblood of an online marketing business, and given Murphy’s Law, you ought to prepare for the eventual breakdowns and system crashes that come about as well. Using all these basic technologies will help ensure the success of your online company.

I’m following my own advice and operating my own online marketing enterprise. I encourage you, too, to take control of your future and your financial security by launching an affiliate marketing company.  Request the FREE MaxPro Report and CD to discover how.

Technorati Tags: backup, computers, hardware, security, software, Technology, telecommunications

Leverage is often discussed in either monetary or mechanistic terms, but it has a much broader applicability, including the world of online businesses.

So how shall we interpret “any influence” for our internet businesses?

One of the best ways for a home business to leverage our results is by re-using accessible content.  I’m sure you’ve seen the countless ebooks currently advertised on the internet – most of these are examples of re-using content, although some may have been originally written as ebooks, most originated as a single blog post, or a response to a customer email, perhaps even one one or more FAQs.

Financially, the benefit gained from leverage is typically described as a ratio of some type, for example, a debt-to-equity ratio.  Such ratios are useful for bookkeepers, but that is not the audience I’m addressing here.

What advantage can we realize by leveraging our existing content?  Consider the following simplistic example (no rocket science here):   Assume that it takes you 10 hours to write a document for use with a single customer and then sell it to that customer for .00.  You have earned $50.00, but it took 10 hours of your time to earn that .00; effectively, you would have earned about $5 per hour (less than the current minimum wage) for your labor and made zero profit. 

Assume, however, you take that same document (customized to remove any proprietary info) and offer it as an ebook via the Web for $19.95, and that you finally sell 100 copies of your new ebook.  You have now earned $1995, and if you deduct the $50 to create the primary document minus another $5 to remove any customer/proprietary info, leaving you with a much larger profit of $1940.00.

This simple example demonstrates the leverage advantage, specifically the benefit resulting from re-using existing content. 

Once we become aware of the concept of leverage, we discover many different applications to our online businesses.  This article has addressed one of those ways.  Further articles will discuss other ways that home businesses can improve ROI by using leverage.

If you like what you’ve just read, and would like to learn how to leverage your efforts, and become a millionaire – get the FREE Infinite Income Plan report and put your income on autopilot.

Technorati Tags: affiliate internet marketing, home business, internet business, leverage, online business, Technology

Most of us were almost certainly first introduced to the concept of leverage as we explored the wonders of the Teeter-Totter in our school or at the nearest recreational area.  Initially, we played only with children in our same age group – and weight class – and we were perfectly content with the relationship of the board and the fulcrum being set.

However, as we grew and started playing on the teeter-totter with older and heavier children – we rapidly discovered that by changing how close to the pivot the other child sat (thus for practical purposes adjusting the length of the teeter-totter relative to the pivot point), we could easily lift bigger and heavier children.

When we merely re-use content, we target for all intents and purposes the same market niche and use essentially the same tools and media to reach them.

But, when we re-purpose the content, we change our focus to a different use, normally for a somewhat different market segment, and we may also swap the media as well. By re-purposing content we are effectively chaning the length of the figurative “lever” and the location of the figurative “pivot point”.

Many home-based businesses sometimes hold live events ; e.g., a workshop, seminar, training class, etc.  If we’re smart, we plan (from the beginning) to re-purpose available content and extend it to a larger target audience.  In the example of the workshop, seminar, training class, etc., it would be to our advantage to audiotape and/or videotape the event for subsequent distribution via audio or video files, CDs, DVDs, etc.

Re-purposing adds another dimension to simply re-using existing content – it extends our marketing efforts into additional market niches, thus increasing overall visibility of our products, and ultimately increasing the bottom line.

Discover how to leverage your efforts with passive income – get the FREE MaxPro Report and Audio and put your income on autopilot.

Technorati Tags: affiliate internet marketing, home business, internet business, leverage, online business, Technology