Advice Regarding Advertising

Do You Want Success or Not?

by Pamela Geiss

I have been hearing from a lot of you that your advertising isn't working; you're out of money; you don't want to spend more money when you aren't getting anything out of your ads, etc, etc. I think it's time we had a "chat".

I think a lot of you expect more from the Internet than is possible. Sure, there are millions of people online. Sure, you can reach more people online in a shorter time and CHEAPER than offline. But the Internet has disadvantages, too. For example, you have no salesmen or saleswomen to greet your customer when they come to your site. Think about it. Every store in the "real" world has salespeople. Why? To answer questions, help people find things, make the business more personal, close on sales. Any of you who are or have been in retail will know there were times when you were able to talk someone into a sale because you were able to find what they wanted or encourage them in some way or other. If you hadn't been there, they probably would not have bought.

So, does this mean you can't sell online? No. But it DOES mean that it will take more advertising, more visitors, more work than it does offline to make up for it.

Most of you haven't allowed enough capital for your advertising. You expect to be able to pay your mortgage and bills out of sales, and if you are still trying to build your business, you need to keep putting money into it until it starts to fund itself. This is true offline and online. There are certain fundamentals that are true with starting a business and most of you do not know them. And at what point do you say, well I don't want to spend any more money trying to get results? The answer: when you reach the point that you are ready to quit and go back to your offline job. Spending money on advertising is something that never stops as long as you want your business to exist. Do you see Microsoft not advertising? Do you see Coke stop advertising? Do you see Pepsi stop advertising? Of course not. There are certain costs incurred with running a business, and advertising is one of them. You only have affiliate businesses, you say? Doesn't matter what business you have, the fundamentals are the same.

The advantage you have online is your ability to reach more people quickly, no extra building expenses, no staff expenses (until your business grows - and then it's a good thing!), a global business the first day your business opens! You just don't realize how much money this has saved you! This Internet has given you the ability to have a business most of you would not have had without it.

But like any business, it does NOT happen overnight; advertising results WILL vary; it won't happen nearly as fast as you've been hyped into believing or would like for it to; if you get discouraged and stop advertising, it will not be successful.

So your choice is - advertise or quit. It's that cut and dried. You are either willing to invest in your business or you're not. Those who do invest in their businesses and keep working at them will be successful and will eventually build a business they can depend on and be proud of. Those who expect it to happen in 6 months and give up, will have lost what they have already invested time and money-wise and will end up back where they started. Ever hear the saying, "It takes money to make money."? It's true. If you don't have enough to spend on advertising, then you quit too soon and you need to find a way to supplement your living expenses and business expenses until your business is taking care of its own expenses. When you reach a place that you are in a profit situation, THEN you can begin to think about retiring from the "concrete" work world.

Pamela Geiss is the owner of the successful LotsaPerks.com. She specializes in online advertising and traffic management. She also publishes a free ezine.

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