When should I give up on online selling?

This week we had a question posted in the “Make ‘em Buy” e-learning area on “When should I give up on online selling”. At first I thought it would be a simple answer,

but really it’s not.

What’s worse, we found a few myths and basic business rules that seemed to be misunderstood or down right business misconceptions. It was such a good topic I decided to take the top points and summarize them.

Myth One – Online selling gives instant results
Ok, I’m sure you’ve heard or read somewhere about some instant millionaire crap. Well, those stories, besides often being rubbish, are far a few between. Like everything in life, you need to know how to do something and have the skills to succeed. This takes education, which takes time, which takes patience.


Myth Two – Google adwords or any PPC means instant success
Sheesh, if I only had a dollar for how many people think that’s how it works. If you’re new to marketing, you might think you’ll get instant results, but that’s just not reality. There’re many factors that affect your PPC success such as matching your ads to content on the page, having the product people want, having the right price, I could go on. Unless you have all those things in perfect alignment right out the gate, instant success isn’t your end result.

Online selling rule of thumb: Test, test, then test some more.

Myth Three – Build it and they will come
Sorry, there is no “field of dreams” here in the online business world (for those of you have seen the movie you will get my reference). Simply having a website does not mean people will visit it. You need to market, market and, you guessed it, market some more. Even blogging and getting people reading is a form of marketing.

Tip: any traffic to your site can be good for sales; traffic that’s interested in your wares is even better for sales.

So here is a quick review of the rules of business
(I’ve included some of my own rules too)

Rules of business
1) Things always take longer than you want
2) Things will always be harder to get right
3) There is always competition!!!!
4) Yes, you need a plan
5) Yes, you need skills
6) Yes, you need training and it may cost you (think tax write off!)
7) When you’re sitting doing nothing others are still competing
8) When you get comfortable – you’re on the down swing of your business life
9) 101 more rules, but not today…

My #1 golden rule of business
Do something you love; because there’s a good chance you will be doing it for a long time, even a lifetime. There’s nothing worse than getting up every morning to do something you hate, so you’d better like it!

So when should you give up on business? Only if it’s not what you love doing. Keep in mind, products and services come and go, businesses open and close, but if you love to do business then you just need to find your niche.

Remember every failure was a learning opportunity (if you learn from it). I was asked one day, “Have you ever failed at business?” I answered, “Yep, I have lots of business failures and I wear them proudly” Why? Simple. I won’t be making those mistakes again and that means it’s easier to succeed next time, doesn’t it?