Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

2 “Ah-Ha Moments” That Boosted My Business Past $100k

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 10:32 AM PDT

Jeremy is out on vacation this week, so I thought I would jump in and share 2 big “Ah-ha moments” with you that helped me go from “down and broke” to having a very successful 6 figure online business…

These were a few of the “eye-openers” that I was always missing out on, but once I realized them, a lot of stuff changed for me…

1. Your traffic methods have to be congruent with your goals…

If your goal is to make $1 million this year, then article marketing and blogging are probably not going to get you there.

However, if your goal is to make an extra $1000 per month on the side, then both of those methods will definitely work.

If you want to do a high volume of revenue, you’re going to need to do one of the folowing…

PPC
Facebook ads
Media buying (online & offline)
Direct mail
SEO

Now, you might be thinking “Shoe makes a ton of money off his blog”. And that’s definitely true… but it’s WAYYY down on the profit scale for him in terms of the time he puts into it.

I don’t have a clue how much Shoe makes a year from all of his businesses, but I’m willing to bet the revenue they bring in from the blog is equal to less than one month’s revenue from all of his other sites.

What you need to realize is, there are certain traffic sources and certain strategies that you need to be doing to hit your financial goals. Make sure they’re in line with each other…

2. Being busy isn’t the same thing as being productive…

Truthfully, writing on Shoe’s blog is not really the most efficient use of my time. However, I enjoy helping people and it helps me to pick up affiliates for our product…

You really have to FIGHT to make sure the time you are spending on your websites is actually productive and the highest value of your time.

So for example, I used to always edit blog posts for my site, make banners, install new WordPress updates etc…

Basically a bunch of stuff that had to be done, but it DID NOT have to be done by me. If I know my average hour of productive work is worth $400, then doing stuff like designing banners and changing the WordPress theme are a waste of my time.

This is a big problem I used to have (and still do once and a while). A lot of this stuff is more emotional than anything – most entrepreneurs are scared to give up control of the business. They feel like they have to always have control over every aspect of what’s going on…

This is a fatal mistake.

In the beginning when you don’t have any money, you’ll still have to do the “busy work” type jobs. But as you make more money, you need to find a way to outsource those, and always focus on the 1-3 things that directly make you the most money.

This is so simple, yet most people NEVER do it. It’s one of the most crucial parts of running a successful business.

Let me know some of the big “ah-ha moments” you’ve had with your business – leave me a comment below…

- Justin

Interested in advertising on Facebook? Check out my latest post on Facebook Advertising

Traveling and learning

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 10:18 AM PDT

I am traveling from yesterday until the 20th of April.

On the way out here I read Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki. What a great book for marketers. Especially list owners. I highly recommend it.

I also started reading the Greatness Gap by Michael Sprouse. Super inspirational. I have known Sprouse for many years and its great to see his inner thoughts on success on paper.

I will write more on these in the future and my exact bullet point takeaways.

I already started re-writing some followup copy after being inspired by Enchantment.

Good stuff.