Comments (0)

By Ralf, November 17, 2011 8:02 am

Business Owners are often in desperate need of good advice or an expert to consult with, but rarely have someone to turn to. 

Reasons may be that:

• You simply don’t know anyone, you could ask in this matter.
• You are embarrassed to not be able to solve it yourself and don’t want to appear dumb and have people loose respect for you.
• It’s too expensive to hire professional help.
• You don’t know how to find a really good consultant who you can trust.
• You have no comparison of how high regular fees for a consultant are or if you are getting ripped-off.

What can be done about this?

Email consulting vs. traditional consulting

A “traditional consultant” will make appointments in your office and both of you have to set aside the time to work together. You will probably be charged for the time of your consultant and it doesn’t matter if you talked about business or how your weekend was.  Both might be legit subjects but if your budget is tight, you need to do things more efficiently.

With Email consulting you can:

• contact your consultant any time of the day (or night!) and write whatever your questions or concerns are and use as much words as you like without looking on your watch
• track back all your consulting sessions because everything is written down and nothing gets “lost” or “misunderstood”
• go back to the advice of your consultant and re-read those things that are important for you
• put your thoughts in words, which is in itself a very therapeutic approach: This sometimes helps to understand what one is actually trying to solve and reduces the amount of “mental clutter”
• and last but not least: It’s much more affordable!

Seeing this work, I highly recommend to take advantage of this new trend. I have added it to the services I now offer, too.

Where you would usually spend some thousand dollars you can now receive high quality, professional consulting from me for less then $500 per month. Ask me for more information by using my contact page and I will be happy to explain this in more detail.

Comments Off

By Ralf, November 16, 2011 2:12 pm

I am aware that I picked quite a controversial subject:

While some are chasing that dream, like a cat chases it’s tail, grasping every possibility that comes their way – hoping that it might be the golden opportunity they have been waiting for – there are those others, who laugh at the idea ’cause they’ve learned from experience: No pain, no gain!

You know me well enough by now to understand, that I genuinely belong to the second breed of people, namely those, who know that nothing falls into one’s lap – or – in other words “No sweet without sweat!”

Providing you have ‘done your homework‘ and have ‘been around the block‘ I have to honestly admit, that there are situations, where you can be successful – even overnight – just because you​​ are doing the right thing today.

This becomes especially clear, when one is observing a person, who is  skillfully using the Internet. (Which is why I am so eager to learn my trade and use the Internet to your – and my own – advantage!)

There are exactly two factors, which, if you can isolate them, allow you to quickly succeed and create continuous customer demand with leads & sales!

These two SECRETS to success are:

• Discovering and naming the precise niche market for your product or service – and
• Catering to this demand: Quickly and effectively!

A niche market is a small but highly profitable segment of a market that formed by the demand behavior (Online searches) of the consumer, and which is not yet being addressed by competitors.

He, who first discovers and responds quickly to such a demand on the Internet, can take full advantage of it and possibly become ‘rich overnight’.

But seriously now: Who has the time to look and keep “an ear close to the market” plus the ability to spy such a niche market and then respond properly?

To be able to do that, it takes:

• a certain passion, to find hidden “treasures”
• a proper knowledge of Internet tools and their skillful use and
• an ability of impartial and logical thinking to not let the shouting and screaming of the Internet’s razzle-dazzle distract oneself.

Like an adventurer and researcher, I like to engage upon every new Online research with an almost childlike enthusiasm. My goal is to extract a valuable jewel from the thorny scrub of the Internet jungle.

Locating lucrative niche markets on the Internet is my speciality!

Take advantage of my passion and grab …

My Thanksgiving Offer:
1. Until Midnight of November 30, 2011, every Online Research we perform to find a lucrative niche market on the Internet for you, will only be $849 – or – €670 for European residents.
Starting December 2011, prices will go up significantly to pay for the actual costs of this unique and valuable service.

2. A NEW and very affordable Service, created on popular demand for those of you, who wanted to stay connected and be consulted on a daily basis. Our professional Email consulting service allows you to ask as many questions and send as many emails as you like and you will get a response within 24 hours, but often much more quickly. This Email Consulting is only $440 p. month.

Call us today or send your questions by email to info@establir.com. Your personal data will always be treated confidential.

—————————————————————————–

Comments (0)

By Ralf, October 25, 2011 10:23 am

A friend of mine from York, here in  England, sent me this wonderful autumn picture that he took only a few days ago in the famed Sherwood Forest! This is the wood that Robin Hood called his home.

Sherwood Forest is a National Nature Reserve in the UK and officially a Royal Forest. The wooded forest of today is a remnant of a much larger royal hunting forest, named as the “shire wood” of Nottinghamshire. Some trees are 800 to 1,000 years old!

I can assure you that England’s landscape is overall the way you imagine it from movies and tales that you’ve heard. It is genuinely lovely and very picturesque!

But this is not what I wanted to talk about in this blog. I’d like to talk about something that I have noticed here in England as well as in America: An ever increasing number of people taking the risk and becoming “their own boss”. The Wikipedia definition of an ‘entrepreneur’ is: “A person, who is willing to help launch a new venture or enterprise and accept full responsibility for the outcome.”

In recent years, we are experiencing a huge shift within the working population from being confident about their employment and future to realizing that things are not as bright as they once were.  I have read a lot about this and much has been published about this ‘movement’ and does not need repeating. Interesting here is that it’s a trend that has been largely influenced by the Internet.

Today what used to be a good income isn’t enough any more. Those individuals, who are not in the position to suffer from the economic crises, are few. Most of us, who live in America or the United Kingdom, have noticed it only too well. People work 2 or 3 jobs to pay their bills. Germany still seems to do pretty well… at least that’s what my German friends keep telling me and I hope it’s true and stays this way but I have my doubts.

I think it’s a very good idea to start establishing your own business while you are still on a payroll. From that point on, you have to invest your limited free time to establish something that will pay for your expenses and life in the future – and that’s all part of becoming your own boss. Once you start thinking in this direction, you start taking responsibility for your own future and are on your way to becoming an entrepreneur, by definition. If you want to stick to your goals I guess you have to have an entrepreneur-like attitude or you will not succeed.

I also suggest to invest a little bit of money in making sure that you are putting your time and money into the right effort. I am not talking about having a business plan for your bank. I am talking about a real prediction for your success and a do-able strategy.

However great you feel about your business idea, it’s only the customer’s demand that will determine your success. So do make really, really sure, that your efforts will not be wasted. This is not a step you should take lightly. This is the foundation of every successful business:

Know BEFORE you go!
Be certain, that there really is a market for you out there.
Your success depends on it.

An Online Market Research will achieve that. It’s well invested money for a long-term successful business venture.

In case you feel that you’d like help with that, contact me to find out more!

To your success!

Ralf

Comments (0)

By Ralf, October 17, 2011 11:59 am

I have been talking about the late Corey Rudl, Founder of the Internet Marketing Center in my blog and how he influenced my professional career as an Online Business Developer.

His viewpoint on professional ethics and especially on following your passion instead of settling for a nine-to-five job, was instrumental for me to actually stick with and pursue my own dreams and passion!

But just recently, yet another very influential entrepreneur has died and I felt it was appropriate to feature his vision and dreams, as they so appropriately fit with what is important and true for many that refuse to take the ‘convenient’ road and settle “for less”.

I am sure that you agree with me, that Steve Jobs, the Founder of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios was unquestionably a very inspiring figure for others in the business world and made a huge difference in everyone’s life. Even if you are not an Apple user, some of the technology he invented has influenced us all: Think Pixar and all the animated movies we enjoy today!

I saw an excerpt of Steve’s 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University on TV and was thrilled to hear his viewpoint on entrepreneurship. I am sure that many have seen or heard about this but I thought it cannot be repeated often enough and I give you just a small part of his altogether great and genuinely honest speech:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.
And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.”

(Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011)

If I can help you revive your own dreams and make them become a reality, I have achieved what I have set out to do.

To all the great minds of the world and our own success!

- Ralf

Comments (1)

By Ralf, October 10, 2011 10:35 am

For years I am working more than 50 hours a week on the Internet.. I literally ”live” in this world, like I live in the “real” world. But don’t get me wrong: I am not a computer nerd or an introverted person not willing to communicate with the outside world . I do lots of sports, love to be outside enjoying nature or my Italian espresso(!) at my favorite cafe downtown almost every day . But when I count it up I “traveled” at least a few thousand hours in that virtual world over the last years.

And what do you do, when you travel a lot? You take pictures to show your family members and friends.

In my case, as a professional Internet Business Developer (that is somebody who helps serious entrepreneurs to build a solid and successful Internet Business, which will make them a ton of money and will last for years, or even decades!) – I take tons of screen shots of all the things I see in the world wide web.

Why? Because I don’t try to re-invent the wheel but simply make copies of the things that other very successful companies do online. And the “folder”, where I collect all these screen shots e.g. images, is called a SWIPE FILE.

What exactly is a “Swipe File”?

“A swipe file is a collection of successful promotions, ads and sales letters you use to get ideas from. Swipe files are a great way to study the copy techniques (= HOW people write articles and adverts) and approaches that are working in a particular market.”

I think I have a few hundred “screen shots” in my Swipe File by now, collected over at least 8 years. All sorted by topic.

I can really recommend that for everyone. This folder becomes quite powerful!

Imagine, in your next meeting with your marketing staff (or even with your wife or yourself), you only have to look through your swipe file to get a new idea for your next marketing campaign: You see all these great examples of other companies, which might have paid thousands of Dollars to a marketing company … and you just “copy” it, i.e. adapt it to your own needs and – Voila! You have a great, effective promotion for you valuable services and products.

You know, things can be easy, if you have “brains”.

People often wonder what to write in their emails. Why not just write about positive changes within your company. No need to always promote the same products and their features. Tell them about you, your staff, and even your problems. You are talking to real people, so give them what is real to them anyway.

Okay, since I am a man of action, let’s leave the theory behind and look a good example out of my Swipe File. (See below screenshot)

This company “Joomlashack” (by the way, I am not affiliated with them … this is just a screen shot in my Swipe File), they wrote a great email telling their customers and prospects how they improved their support. Though you didn’t know that their support was not as good before, by reading it, you get much more comfortable and less apprehensive in dealing with them next time you need their services. I think, these kind of emails are more powerful then anything else, since they tell the reader WHO the PEOPLE are behind the fancy websites, and that there are real people who are taking care about their customers.

With this in mind, I think every business owner can profit from collecting samples of appealing promotion pieces whenever they come across one and use them to their own advantage when the opportune moment arises

As always, to you online success!

Ralf

What to write in your Email? Great Case Study

Comments (1)

By Ralf, October 6, 2011 9:23 am

Where do you go from here, with your Online Business Goals?

There is a general misconception floating around, that you can make “a quick buck” or become a millionaire on the internet (almost) over night. While there are definitely people who became millionaires by using the Internet to promote and sell their products, it doesn’t mean that they did it in passing or in a short period of time!

The real question seems to be: How did they do it – and others didn’t?

Let’s rewind here for a moment to get the broader picture: In 2004, when I first touched the subject “Internet Marketing” still living in America, I was thrilled by the outlook of employing this new and exciting way to promote, find customers online on a global scale and push sales into the millions! It sounded so easy to do!

I enrolled immediately onto an online training- and mentoring program by the best Internet Marketeer there was at the time: Corey Rudl, a Canadian and founder of the Internet Marketing Center. This guy, in his early thirties, was incredibly enthusiastic and always one step ahead with all his concepts and tools and a great inspiration for every entrepreneur. He had started out from a garage and became a millionaire by following his passion for cars, finding a niche, defining his target audience and strictly promoting and selling to those people, interested in his product, which happened to be a very small item, needed only for certain cars.

His own success prompted him to make his knowledge broadly available for everyone. I watched him speak on stage in London on a video presentation and there was an undeniable honesty in his approach to help others and a passion to teach what he knew. What he developed has revolutionized the Internet since and also set a high standard for “white” (= “ethical”) Internet Marketing on the globe. Something, I have always appreciated. Unfortunately Corey died in a car accident shortly after. Corey’s dream was continued by his colleague and friend.

However, one thing became very clear: People loved and understood the technology but they could not apply or implement it themselves. There was a huge gap between the presented information and the entrepreneur sitting at home or in his office, trying to make it all work. Why was it so difficult?

They even spoke of a staggering 90% of people that were not becoming successful after buying their Internet marketing training. What was wrong?

This is where I started to become very curious. Obviously I wasn’t the only one having admittedly a hard time with it!

I realized, that I had basically only three choices:

1. Either I employed somebody to implement all this wonderful technology for me or
2. I hire an outside marketing company that hopefully knew what they were doing or
3. I learn it all myself from scratch!

I opted for the last choice (which made me what I am today) and was eager to make it a quick ride. I knew that if I didn’t know the technology myself, I would never be able to control and understand anyone, who might do the work for me in the future. I had to bite the bullet, however overwhelming it seemed.

So I bought and read more books, courses and trained myself in every way possible to be able to establish a solid online business, which creates tons of leads and sales for the years to come. During this period of work and training I had a fundamental realization, which helped me understand what it really takes to start a successful business online. I mean: It suddenly became so obvious and so easy to overlook, too. (I am sure that this will pop some people’s bubble and it definitely brought me back down to earth!)

BEFORE you begin with a business, you want to examine your possibilities, don’t you?

• The current market and it’s actual size to predict sales
• Your competition
• Your customers and which exact niche you are going for.

All the best tools in the world will not help you have a successful running business online if you don’t do your homework before you start. You better know your exact target audience, how they feel and what they respond to and how to reach them. If you feel that you know all the answers to that, then I am sure you can respond to the following questions spot on:

• Who are you going to sell to on the Internet?
• Where will you find your customers?
• How do you reach them?
• How do they find you?
• Is there any competition on the Market? I bet there is and so:
• What are you up against?
• Why should people buy from you?

Stumbling into this head-over-heels is not a good idea. It is really costly.

Then, there are people reading this article right now who don’t have a product or service yet, that they can advertise. Some need to first establish what they are passionate about, what they like to do because if they put their energy into that, they are most likely to become successful.

You possibly have an ability. One, that might be considered only “worth a penny” but is in fact valuable for others . Things like drawing cartoons in your free time, inventing games for children, speciality cooking, flying kites, all sorts of things, that people enjoy doing and are good at. More and more people are now looking for ways to make a living by working from home and doing what they LIKE to do, rather then working in an office for someone else.

Good news for all of you guys and welcome to the 21st Century and the Internet!

I present: The undercut and solution to a successful business start!
By using the power of the Internet you can find out if there is a market for your talent, your passion, your time-honored product or just your hobby-horse! You can predict what it will take to enter that market and if you will be able to make big bucks or just an extra income on the side.

An intense Online Market Research is going to help you FIND an already “hungry” market for your product or service.

My reseach will find the people, that are already looking for someone like you and the products that you like to produce. With the knowledge I now have and the skills I obtained over the past 7 years I can assure you that this takes all the guesswork out for you. You will find:

1. Your niche market and
2. Your target audience/consumer and
3. Know who your competition is and what they are doing successfully so you can learn from their success to get a head-start.

After that, I can also help you to get started and stay on the road to success. If you want to use your money wisely and not spent it on some untried projects I highly recommend to invest in a thorough online research before you start with any new business idea.

Call us or send me an email today to discuss how we can help you achieve this.

As always: To your online success!

- Ralf

PS: If you want to know more about Corey Rudl and his dreams you can use this link.

Comments (0)

By Ralf, September 29, 2011 12:09 pm

A local Butcher selling successfully on the Internet!  ”What are you talking about??”

Most people I talk to aren’t aware, that they are jumping ahead too hastily focusing mainly on their leads and sales and thus missing out on a very critical step BEFORE they can be reassured to sell in volume:

• I am talking about avoiding that you or your Marketing Department “shoots in the dark” with their promotion.
• I am talking about putting an end to thousands of marketing dollars wasted and hundreds of hours of work going down the drain by not-targeted advertisement.
• I am talking about doing your homework before you start to jump into the big game.
• I am talking about something, that used to be solely available to big corporations (’cause they had the money to pay for it. Yes, it used to be very expensive!).

After 7 years of online-entrepreneurship and hundreds of hours of Internet research I can say with total confidence that you need to firstly perform an Intense Internet Research to build a solid foundation for your website.

Otherwise, all the work you do later might be wasted.

Here is a real-life example:
A friend of mine, Ali, is a butcher and had specialized in selling fresh, organic meat. His business was going OK but he wasn’t selling enough and was frustrated about it. He usually ran some advertisement in a local newspaper, some fliers but mainly word-of-mouth. I performed a local Internet research for this specific product (since he dealt with fresh meats) and found out that … Continue reading 'Case Study: How a local Butcher had a real shot on making it BIG on the Internet.'»

Comments (0)

By Ralf, September 27, 2011 3:26 am

(Homepage screenshot of our featured online store this week)

Since we are in the middle of our “Oktoberfest” season in Germany and recently published the story of my friend Ali, the butcher, I thought you might like to read about this extraordinary company and their amazing success selling online.

I have been observing this company for the last 2 years. It struck me, that someone with such a niche product - German delicatessen - would be so successful in America and especially on the Internet! These guys are driving over 35,000 (!) visitors to their website, every months! They do this in addition to their actual brick-and-mortar store near Dallas/Texas.

What a brilliant concept!

Below you can see the graph of their actual traffic over the last 12 months (the trend was similar when I first looked, 2 years ago):

(Even though the graph goes down in August, they still have over 35K = 35,000 visitors every month.)

What we see here is yet another example of a company, that utilizes the Internet to generate tons of leads and sales AND has build a solid (Internet based) business, which will last for many years, even decades to come. (- I think, I should get paid in yummy sausages and pretzels for this unintentional promotion for them!)

In conclusion I’d like to add that this expansion was not done overnight: In fact, this company bought their website domain on November 4, 1998! Every serious business owner knows that building a successful company like this Deli takes years and a lot of determination.

Thus: A solid and thorough Internet strategy is always recommended when you start out.

Contact us, when you have questions or need a strategy for your own business!

To you online-success!

Ralf

Comments (0)

By Ralf, September 6, 2011 10:27 am

“Ideas are one thing and what happens is another.”

John Cage (1912 – 1992)

It’s wonderful to dwell on ideas about the things one wants to accomplish, to market, to sell – and that is indeed the first step to achieve anything.

However, when you begin to step into the Internet world with your plans and business ideas you want to have a strategy.

Nothing more heartbreaking than to see all those marvelous ideas turn into dust – or rather – never making it beyond being presented on a website, which ends on the so-called “website-graveyard”!

Yes, there is absolutely such a thing as a ‘website graveyard’:

In fact, conservatively speaking about 90% of all websites reside there and the estimated number of unreported sites are around 95%! Not bad websites. Not unattractive websites. Not even websites …. Continue reading 'How do you promote for less?'»

Comments (0)

By Ralf, September 1, 2011 2:25 pm

One of the most important factors in my professional Internet marketing researches is to understand my client’s market terms myself, including the specific products and services his company offers.  How can I perform a thorough research when I can’t understand a word people are talking about in their niche market?

I once did a research for a money collecting company and believe me, I am far from understanding a lot about bank and accounting terms . But looking up every word and concept I didn’t understand in an easy-to-use dictionary gave me the basic understanding of that market, and thus I was able “to read their language” and perform a …. Continue reading 'New Internet Marketing Trend: Post-click marketing'»