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The 3 Most Common Startup Mistakes

May 1, 2014 by Marc Guberti 1 Comment

business startup

Millions of startups are being created over a year, and the rate has been increasing. The amount of startups being created now is higher than it has even been for more than 15 years. Although there are more startups, there is also more failure. In fact, 80% of startups end up failing. This blog post is not designed to discourage you from creating and launching your startup. Instead, this blog post is designed to talk about the 20%, and how they avoid becoming the 80%. The startups that fail often make these 3 mistakes. If you are making any of these 3 mistakes, then you need to get these mistakes fixed so your startup can move forward.

Not having any statistics. Do not play your startup by chance. You need to know when your startup is doing well or not so you can determine how to improve your startup. You need statistics that tell you about your demographics, customers, daily visitors, and clicks just to name a few.
Trying to do too much too soon. Many startups want to get themselves on the map as quickly as possible. The problem is that most of these startups give themselves unrealistic goals in order to get themselves on the map faster. The unrealistic goals end up not getting accomplished, and not being on the map simply adds to the frustration. Understand that it takes time to become successful, and although you need to put in the work to make your startup successful, giving yourself unrealistic goals such as going from newbie author to bestseller in 1 month squanders growth.
Trying to do it all by yourself. Most successful startups started as an idea, and the people who came up with the ideas hired assistants to make their lives easier. Although Oktay Caglar, Eren Bali, and Gagan Biyani co-founded Udemy together, contacting Udemy will result in an assistant answering your message. These three people needed each other to turn Udemy into a reality and needed assistants to keep Udemy running smoothly.

With startups on the rise, it is easy to imagine that your neighbor, friend, or colleague will think of a new startup idea. Whether you or someone you know created their own startup, it is important to remember these three mistakes that make most startups fall into the 80% category. By avoiding these pitfalls, your startup (or your friend’s startup) will be more likely to fall into the 20% category.

9 Ways To Get More Sales

April 30, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Increasing Sales

No matter what product you are selling, what niche you are in, or what your business is all about, you need sales in order to make a strong income from your business. However, many people are struggling to make sales let alone a single sale. There are books up on the Kindle have not been sold once. The main reason this happens is because the person who made the product does not know what to do in order to get more sales. I am going to provide the solution and share with you 9 of the methods I implement to increase my book sales. Whether you are selling books or toys, these methods apply to you.

How frequently you create something new. The most successful self-published authors tend to be the ones who publish 1 eBook every month or publish 1 highly detailed eBook every year. The rate in which you create new products and the quality you can produce in that amount of time will determine how many potential sales your product could get.
Market your product before it launches. If you want one of your products to get more sales, tell people about the product before it launches. I have mentioned my upcoming book Lead The Stampede in several of my blog posts. Each time I publish a blog post that references the book, people ask me when it will come out. To answer the question, Lead The Stampede will come out in Summer 2014.
Write a blog post about your product that sells. In order to get more sales, you need to write a persuasive blog post. Instead of simply writing a description of your product with the big “Buy Now” button, give people a reason to buy the product. Here is an example of a persuasive blog post that resulted in one self-published author getting thousands of downloads for his book in less than a week.
Build your credibility. An author who has written several bestselling books is going to get more sales for his/her next book than the author who started writing books a few months ago. In order to build your credibility, you need to get a strong following on a social network and have a popular blog. There are other ways to pull it off as well.
Have multiple products available. Having multiple products gives you the possibility of returning customers. Once a returning visitor buys three of your products, chances are that visitor will buy a lot of the products that you create.
Create a product that people would want to buy. Create products that people would want to buy. People only buy something for the quality. False! Fast food restaurants are not successful because of their quality. They are successful because of price and convenience. The three options you have are quality, price, and convenience (although all three in the same business always fails). I combine quality and price which means I produce quality products and sell them at much lower prices than the competition.
Spread the word about your product using social networks. Find people who would be interested in your products and introduce yourself to those people. Spreading the word on social networks will allow you to get more sales and interact with those customers so you can ensure they come back for your next product.
Get testimonials. The most successful products are the ones with good testimonials. Would you rather buy the product without testimonials, or would you want to buy the product with hundreds of positive testimonials? Most people would go with the product with hundreds of positive testimonials. When customers buy into the product, they are also buying into the testimonials about those products.
Become a public speaker. By being a public speaker, you will be able to talk about your niche and inform people about your product at the same time. People are more likely to buy an author’s book after listening to that author talk about something in your niche for 20 minutes or so. The author’s signature also entices more people to buy the book.

There are numerous ways to get sales, but these are the 9 methods that I have used and seen good results. What are your thoughts about the list? Do you have any additional tips that you use to get more sales?

Why You Need To Be On Twitter

April 30, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

If you are not on Twitter, then you need to get on right away. Twitter has allowed small business owners, authors, entrepreneurs, and others to interact with customers on a large scale. Twitter’s character limitations make the giant social network simpler to understand than other social networks.

One of Twitter’s big features is the ability to create lists. You can use lists on Twitter to read tweets from desired users. You can put all of your customers on one list, and you can put all of your sources on another list. You have the choice to make your individual lists public or private. Many small business owners, entrepreneurs, and others use this feature to connect with customers at a faster rate and learn more about their niche.

In addition, Twitter will allow you to build connections who you do not know yet. I have been privileged with the ability to make thousands of new connections just from Twitter. The people I connect with on Twitter are eager to join in on conversations and share my content.

Twitter has allowed many people to put the “social” back into their businesses. In a world where there are too many automated telephone messages to count, the customer greatly appreciates it when they have a conversation with another person. Instead of listening to, “If you would like to schedule an appointment, press 1,” your customers will be able to read, “Let’s get a date for that appointment!”

Twitter is a powerful way to build your presence on the web. I have written multiple case studies about how Twitter has helped this blog, and I will write more as well. Most of the people who visit this blog came from Twitter. By sticking with Twitter and growing a strong presence on that social network, it will eventually be able to drive hundreds of daily visitors to your blog (then thousands).

There may be some people reading this blog post who have no interest in using Twitter for business. However, anyone can use Twitter to get real-time news. Twitter’s trending topics allow people to stay up to date with what is happening in the world. In addition, you can see what people in the world think and say about important events.

There are several other reasons to use Twitter as well, but know that if you do not have a Twitter account yet, you should get one as soon as possible.

How To Double Your Blog’s Traffic In 1 Month

April 29, 2014 by Marc Guberti 12 Comments

It is the question that every blogger has. Bloggers want to see their traffic rise exponentially, but most bloggers do not know how to make that happen. For some bloggers, doubling monthly traffic will be easier in some months than on other months. Doubling 100 views in 1 month is easier than doubling 1000 views in 1 month. However, both of those numbers can be doubled within 1 month.

After several months of consistently doubling my blog’s traffic, my blog went from 500 monthly views to over 10,000 monthly views. The rise of this traffic was because I was getting more targeted followers at a faster rate. My traffic doubled yet again when I decided to tweet every 30 minutes instead of tweeting once every hour. Now, I am going to try and double my blog’s traffic again. My goal is to get my blog to surpass 25,000 views in May. It is going to be a challenging task to implement, but at the rate I am moving in, it is possible.

My goal is to schedule pins every day of the month, continue growing my Twitter presence, and boosting my blog’s SEO. Something helpful to know is that a blog’s SEO rises as traffic from social networks rises. I calculated that I should be able to get over 6,000 extra monthly views just from this, so I am halfway there.

The big thing to know that social networks and how frequently you post on those social networks is critical to your blog’s success. I have not tried this yet, but now with HootSuite Pro, I may be scheduling some posts to go up on my Facebook Page. That can give my blog an extra 100 views every month. In addition, getting traffic from the Facebook page will boost my blog’s SEO.

If you want your blog’s traffic to double, look at your social networks. If you are tweeting every two hours, bring the rate up to one tweet every hour. Then, bring that rate to one tweet every 30 minutes. If you are not using a social network effectively, build a presence on that social network. When I started to use Pinterest, I was getting no traffic to my blog from that social network. Over 10,000 targeted followers later, people are regularly repinning my pins and visiting my blog.

It’s all in your social media presence. Your SEO improves as your presence on your social networks build.

How To Schedule Pins On Pinterest For The Lowest Price On The Market

April 29, 2014 by Marc Guberti 9 Comments

Millions of people on Pinterest have been searching for a way to schedule their pins for free. In the hopes of being able to schedule pins for free, many people clicked on outdated blog posts that either promoted services that are no longer free or services that do not work at all. Just like many of the Pinterest users out there, I was disappointed. However, after doing a lot of research, I have found a way to schedule pins for a low price, and in some cases (like mine), for free.

The answer is ViralWoot (formerly PinWoot). ViralWoot has been known for allowing you to follow users, repin, and like other people’s pins in order to get seeds (their point currency). However, one of ViralWoot’s features is the Pin Scheduler. The Pin Scheduler allows you to schedule pins to your boards. I tested out this feature, and it works!

If you created an account on ViralWoot back when it was PinWoot, you will not have to pay anything to gain access to the features. However, if you do not have an account on ViralWoot, you will have to pay $5 every month. If you have $5 every month to spend, you want to grow your presence on Pinterest, and you want to schedule pins, give ViralWoot a try. They also have a 7 day free trial so you know what you are getting.

The only problem with ViralWoot is that there is a limited number of pins you can schedule per month which can get expanded at a more expensive monthly cost. Regardless, ViralWoot will give you a good idea of the potential that comes with scheduling pins every day.

Why The Placebo Effect Works

April 28, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

When brought up in the middle of a conversation, the placebo effect can become very controversial. There are people who believe in all of the gifts the placebo effect has to offer while other people see the placebo effect as luck. The truth is that we all live under the placebo effect. In fact, numerous famous people such as Oprah, Henry Ford, Earl Nightingale, Zig Ziglar, Napoleon Hill, and many others have spoken about the placebo effect at some point. These people spoke about the placebo effect in the form of those inspirational quotes you see such as, “You become what you believe,” or “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.”

The best athletes are the ones who know and believe that they are good. The best writers are the ones who believe their content is remarkable. Although the placebo does not hide the truth (an essay with spelling mistakes is not the best essay in the world), the placebo is very motivational. By believing you can become one of the best, the placebo will kick in and give you the motivation you need to eventually become one of the best.

Whether you know it or not, the placebo has a big impact on your life. If you are wondering why you cannot accomplish a certain goal, think about your attitude towards that goal. The attitude was most likely a “cannot” attitude. If you are wondering how you were able to accomplish a certain goal, you probably had the “can” attitude.

The placebo does not substitute the work and effort you need to put in so your goals can get accomplished. However, living the life of the placebo makes putting in the work and effort much easier.