Find out what my favorite online marketer is up to| Frank Kern http://ping.fm/m27Q2

Got A Great Business Idea? The Five Important Rules For Starting A Business

What's Your Big  Idea?

Starting a business, even a small, home-based business should follow five key business principles or rules, if it is to succeed.   The Small Business Administration  (SBA) suggests five business start-up rules. These rules apply to all business ventures, regardless of size.

• Find a need and fill it – you can’t succeed in business without solving a problem or filling a need that someone is willing to pay for.  What's your niche market and your customer profile?
• Develop a business plan.  This is a critical step required to get funding for your business. What's your business model, how will you reach potential customers?
• Understand the numbers – you need to understand the financial costs and be able to interpret the financial performance of your business.  Most importantly, you need to be able to generate a profit. What are your start-up costs; number of unit sales to break-even; how will you manage cash flow?
• Provide an irresistible offer and  incredible customer service. Happy buyers are your best form of advertising. How will you nurture leads, convert leads to buyers, and retain customers?
• Learn from others and keep learning as you grow your skill set and mindset as a business owner. You can't start and sustain a business alone. Establish a circle of advisers and form a Success Team early in planning your business.

The SBA website provides online training for new entrepreneurs. Go look around, there is a lot of  free information about getting started, getting funded, getting business advice from seasoned business owners. The website includes  a series of informational podcasts of presentations on a variety of business topics.

In the online training module called  Need a Job? Consider Starting a Home-based  Business, the presentation reviews each of these 5 important rules.   Register  today to determine if you have the characteristics of an entrepreneur and assess how ready you are to take action toward starting a business.

During the online training you will have access to readiness assessment tools and templates to help you document  each step of your business planning. Templates include: Business Plan, Start-up Costs Sheet, Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement, and a comparison of types of legal structures for business ownership.

When you have completed the initial assessment and business plan, form a support team and discuss you plans with your success team of business mentors, coaches, and advisers.  Use the guidance you receive to improve your plan, test concepts, form your business structure, raise capital, and build strategic business alliances.  

The economic global recovery will occur by nurturing entrepreneurial business development. One in five new businesses begin as a home-based business.  By investing, building and growing the  best ideas for small businesses, we all benefit from new products and services that fulfill a need and provide new sources of revenue to power the economic engine.  

The SBA website lists several pages on business planning, finding opportunities and contact information for technical assistance, Community Express Loan applications, and bidding on government contracts  in your state or region.  

You may be a diamond in the rough, but get out there and start networking.  Let the business community know of your new business idea. I encourage you new entrepreneurs to work with mentors to refine your idea until you have a viable, profitable business model. 

Got a great idea?  What's stopping you from starting today? Read Weekend Entrepreneur   written by Michelle Anton. She describes the start-up stories of 101 successful home business entrepreneurs. 

Weekend Entrepreneur: 101 Great Ways to Earn Extra Cash

Content Marketing Masters - Part One

  The Landing Page Secrets of the Marketing Masters

Launch Element 1 - Compelling Domain Names, Landing Pages, Call to Action to Opt-in: Notice how the expert marketers all use  natural language to select their  product website domain names. Even though they represent diverse business niche markets, they all selected great domain names to build their Brand Identify.  The landing pages displayed easy to read headlines of the offer, brief sales videos explaining the benefits, and opt-in forms positioned above the fold. Some of landing pages followed the winning formula of using red headline letters, marking the headline text in quotation marks, with a video justified to the left side of the page.  The conventional wisdom is to use natural language for product branding, so that the internet user can easily find these landing in an organic key word search. These experts demonstrate the power of search engine optimization by  selecting the key words that are salient to the psycho-social business needs of the prospective customer.

Examples of Compelling Domain Names, Landing Pages, Call to Action to Opt-in

• Frank Kern's Core Influence
• Kendall SummerHawk's Niche Breakthrough Secrets
• Eben Pagan's  GuruBluePrint 
• Mike Dillard What's Working Now  
• Norbert Orlewicz' Conquer The Internet   
• Jit Uppal's Getting Started Online Fast
• Jonathan Budd's MLM Launch Formula
• Mike Koenigs'  Main Street Marketing Machine
• Bill Bly's  Six Figure Marketing Consultant
• Perry Marshall's Google AdWords Renaissance Club

The whole point at the pre-launch stage is to compel me (a lead)  to enter my contact information into the subscription form giving permission to receive subsequent offer emails. The initial email communication may have included a preview pre launch teaser about an upcoming offer, a launch event,  and the link to the website.  These marketing masters all had compelling preview launch stories and call to action statements that created curiosity and anticipation in the email recipient and website visitor.  The visitor's willingness to enter contact information into the subscription form activates the pre-launch sequence of lead nurturing activities.