Step 1 Take the easy way out

Moneybookers.com is a simple and easy way to process credit cards, although it is not the cheapest. It offers a simple answer to those who wish to start dispensation of credit cards online apart from pharmaceutical and other e-commerce businesses.

Step 2 Get a range of services

Authorize.net Offers a full range of direct merchant account andhas a large catalog of merchant account resellers including the ability to process e-Checks.

Step 3 Be traditional

Payment gateway accounts provide the merchant with protection by authorizing each sale before it occurs. Consumers are barred from making purchases until their disbursement has been accepted.

Step 4 Join a wider network

United Bank Card offers POS as well as CNP transaction services since it is part of the United Bank Card Network.

Step 5 Get a sponsor

Marketing by Independent Sales Organization (ISO)/MSPs must be sponsored by a member of the bank hence the financial stability and sustainability of the company is required.

Remember, there is usually more than one way to achieve your goals. Please visit stepsto.com for more great business advice.

Listen: Your Customers Are Talking

There are a number of web traffic analytics companies, such as http://OneStat.com and http://StatCounter.com, that analyze your customers’ shopping patterns. They follow your customers’ clicks to and through your web pages and provide you with valuable info on how your customers experience your website:

Step 1. You see which keywords bring you, not only the most hits, but also the highest conversion rates. People often find the generic words they use bring them a great deal of traffic, but that traffic averages a shorter stay on the site. The longer people spend on your site, the more likely they are to buy something. Analyzing that data allows you to see which keywords are effective for you.

Step 2. You see the average amount of time users spend on your site. Due to latent conversion, this is a good indicator of how business will be in the coming months. If your users are taking their time, looking at things carefully, that tells you they’re really interested and will likely come back to complete the transaction.

Step 3. You see if your traffic’s leaving as soon as they hit your landing page—if they are, you know you have a problem. As soon as users get there, you want to reinforce to them they’re in the right place. Says John Marshall, founder and CEO of http://ClickTracks.com, “Make sure the keyword the user clicked is associated with, and strongly connected to the copy in that landing page, and throughout the experience… Just paying attention to that could probably get you a 20% to 50% improvement in your conversion rate.”

Step 4. You see where people are exiting your site. This is especially important when you have customers leaving in the middle of checkout. If you see a high rate of users, with full shopping carts, leaving on a particular page, you can pinpoint what’s costing you sales:

• If they’re exiting on the page where you explain shipping costs, you might see your shipping appears higher than your competitors’.

• If they’re leaving halfway through filling out the buyer’s information, you might consider that your buyer questionnaire’s too long.

Web analytics puts you in a position to see what’s working on your website and what isn’t. It’s a way to see where you need to make changes and then measure how effective those changes are.

There are two general types of secrets that Internet millionaires know which include external and internal secrets. We will discuss these secrets in detail in hopes that you will use them to your advantage and become an Internet millionaire yourself.

First, let’s look at the external secrets that Internet millionaires have in their tool kit.

Internet Millionaire Secret, Step #1: Internet millionaires recognize that strategy should be the foundation of any marketing plan. It is critical to have a marketing strategy and not just jump into marketing techniques. For example, we don’t have to use mass advertising anymore because mass advertising doesn’t have strength because consumers have choices. You would have wasted valuable time and money if you used mass marketing techniques without first strategizing about the state of the market.

Internet Millionaire Secret, Step #2: Internet millionaires are not generalists. They focus on selling their products and services to specific niche markets. The business market in general is going in the direction of niche markets because customers have more choices regarding places to buy their products.

Internet Millionaire Secret, Step #3: Search for and grab untapped markets. Seek out people that have not been able to have access to your product in the past. In untapped markets, you don’t have to deal with competitors which helps keep the marketing costs down. In addition, you will be able to establish a rapport and trust with your customers.

Internet Millionaire Secret, Step #4: Your back-end strategy is crucial to success. You want several profit centers that allow you to sell your products and services to more customers. The back-end part of your company supports these profit centers. It diversifies your business so you are bringing in money through many different areas. You can’t rely on retiring early if you only have one profit center.

Internet Millionaire Secret, Step #5: Try to automate as many services as possible. This will allow you to sell services 24 hours a day 7 days a week online. Automate your service centers to cut down on costs and help your customers at all hours of the day.

Internet Millionaire Secret, Step #6: Set up your business so that you are replaceable. You can make yourself replaceable by branding. Branding encompasses yourself or the value that you provide. Branding yourself is lucrative, but it doesn’t allow you to take a break because you have to make every decision. Branding your value, on the other hand, sells your expertise and not your time.

Internet Millionaire Secret, Step #7: Don’t work alone; build a team to support your business venture. Create a team of marketing, business, a mentor and accountability individuals. Remember, two heads are better than one so you can discuss ideas and strategies you have for your business.

Internet millionaires also have internal secrets. An Internet millionaire has self confidence and believes in their product. They are able to make decisions quickly. They have learned the correct information and modeled others that have proven success. They are not afraid to make a mistake and realize that their job doesn’t define who they are. One of the most vital secrets is that Internet millionaires persevere and never give up no matter what obstacles cross their path.

There has been a saying in marketing for decades that “Half of marketing works, you just don’t know what half”.

The beautiful thing about web analytics is that it allows you to have more precise data and metrics which give insights into what is working and what is not with marketing and conversion on your website.

For beginners, it can be a bit overwhelming – but once you start making data driven decisions using web analytics, it is hard to imagine life any other way. I had a friend ask me how to use web analytics to improve the website for his business. Here are some very rough thoughts I had this morning.

Ten steps to use web analytics can improve your website’s business, in making data-driven decisions [keep in mind that certain web analytics vendors provide more on some of these features than others]:

Step 1 * Determine if you have budget for a paid web analytics provider (e.g. Omniture), of if you can only afford a free version (e.g. Google Analytics). Whatever you can afford is usually worth it in how it pays for itself in the additional insights it can give you – ONLY if you are using it well.

Step 2 * If you are tech savvy, you can install basic analytics, like Google Analytics on your own by simply inserting some basic code into each page of your website. Web analytics providers give detailed instructions on this.

Step 3 * Determine of all the data which you could monitor, what are the most important elements that you want to monitor on a regular basis. What is the ultimate goal of your website? (this will be very different if you are a merchandise store vs a news outlet) Determine what metrics will best indicate if you are reaching closer to your goals or not? Make sure you have accurately tagged the action points in the code that indicate if your site is accomplishing these objectives

Step 4 * Once you are live and collecting data, and have decided which data points are most important for your overall goals, you are ready to monitor, test, and improve your website to increase the quality of traffic, the length of stay, the ease of use, and the percent of conversions. Create a “dashboard” that allows you to easily see these most critical data points.
Here are some specific examples steps to improve insights into your website traffic and business.

Step 5 * Utilize exit page and fall-out reports to identify what parts of your conversion process are difficult or uninviting

Step 6 * Increase knowledge of where visitors are coming from (what search term, web-site, bookmarked, etc) – as an indication of what they are looking for and how to increase the relevance of your messaging.

Step 7 * In addition to monitoring who visits the site, also track and improve your understanding of when they come and what they do while they are there (time spent on page, pathing traveled, etc.). Also distinguish between first time and returning customer behavior

Step 8 * Maximize available data on marketing ROI – conversion rates from different referral strategies (natural and paid search engine key-words, affiliate marketing, viral marketing, banner adds, email campaigns, etc..)

Step 9 * Easily find broken links – increase usability

Step 10 * Increase sophistication of segmentation and targeted messages – increase relevance

Step 11 * Use A/B and Multivariate Testing to derive data on hypotheses of how to improve any aspect of your site

Step 12 * Supplement the data of what is happening on your site (web analytics) with metrics that indicate your overall web presence. PageMass.com can give you a quick score in 6 vital areas of overall web presence which can tell you why traffic is or is not coming to your site in the first place. For a free score, visit http://www.PageMass.com

[Bonus: Steps for advanced users]

Step 13 * When using Flash – gauge other usability issues through more nuanced data (e.g. how many times did users scroll over an item with their mouse before clicking it, how much of the video did they listen to, how long did they wait before realizing they needed to click on something, etc…)

Step 14 * Leverage the power of the computer algorithms in taking into account wide variety of information about the user and predicting what is the best “creative” to serve (e.g. see Touch Clarity’s services – now acquired by Omniture)

What Gets Measured, Gets Managed

If you want to make sure that certain things get done, make sure that you have some way to measure and monitor them. Simply knowing that someone is keeping score can be a powerful incentive for those involved to measure up—and for your business to stay on track.

WHAT IT MEANS: Establish baselines and determine the data requirements to reference, measure, monitor, and verify your environmental performance and progress. Choose meaningful starting points that you can use to reference your progress. These baseline indicators may be things such as number of sales calls made per week, percentage of sales calls resulting in a sale, profit per item sold, total response to a particular direct mailing, et cetera. Make sure that your metrics are meaningful. For example, it may be nice to know that your customer service reps handle about twenty calls per hour, but that may not necessarily correlate with delivering excellent service, because some complaints or queries simply take longer to resolve.

ACTION PLAN: Decide what measurements might help you more effectively gauge the operating performance and fiscal fitness of your business. Your accounting people may be able to provide good counsel in this area—but also seek input from your staff and other managers, even those outside your company. What three things would be most useful for you to measure? What systems would have to be modified and/or implemented to track it?

EVEN BETTER: Not everything worth measuring can be boiled down to a simple number—but measure it anyway! Some managers have embraced the concept of the “balanced scorecard”—a report card that specifies and weights the various performance criteria for excellence. The worker is then periodically “graded” by his or her supervisor (and, if appropriate, his or her team colleagues). Simply making those performance criteria clear and relevant to all can be a big step toward encouraging people to walk the talk—because what’s measured is much more likely to get done.

(Excerpted from: 10 Clowns Don’t Make a Circus. . . and 249 Other Critical Management Success Strategies by Steven Schragis and Rick Frishman)

Don’t Lose Site of the Horizon

Meetings, decisions, things to do—there is no shortage of demands on your time. And many of them may well have the virtue of being urgent, thus requiring your immediate attention—but you don’t always want to have your nose so closely to the grindstone.

WHAT IT MEANS: As a manager and/or business owner, some of your most critical responsibilities are to think, plan, and invest long-term. Not only do you need a long-term plan to grow your business, but you have to have the vision and willingness not to apply a short-term measuring stick. In other words, some of your proposed projects—whether it’s customized database software or an e-marketing initiative or a new strategic partnership—may take a while to pay off. It may well be that some of your plans with the longest payback period may ultimately be most beneficial for your business. Many publicly owned companies are mismanaged because of this “planning myopia”—their shareholders expect immediate and continual results—but yours shouldn’t be one of them. If you truly want to guide your business toward long-term success, you have to think beyond the obvious, beyond your inbox, and beyond the current quarter.

ACTION PLAN: Devote at least two hours a week to “thinking long.” Where would you like to see your business six months from now . . . in a year . . . in three years . . . and in five years? Be as specific as possible. What will it take for you to get there? When would those things need to get done to keep you on pace?

EVEN BETTER: Get your senior management team involved. This can often be done by arranging a strategic offsite retreat wherein you can brainstorm various scenarios, address your most critical long-term challenges, and develop a consensus as to how to best proceed. There are many well-qualified consultants who can help develop and facilitate such a program, and many first-class resorts that can provide a suitably inspiring and out-of-the-box site.

(Excerpted from: 10 Clowns Don’t Make a Circus. . . and 249 Other Critical Management Success Strategies by Steven Schragis and Rick Frishman)

Wow – so many comments already, let’s move to the forums for more. We have copied the article there.

“>

Baby Steps Still Move You Forward

If you’re calling on fifteen customers in a week, can you call on one more? If you’re manufacturing 300 widgets per day, can you make 10 more? Before you leave at the end of the day, can you cross off one more thing on your to-do list?

WHAT IT MEANS: Small incremental gains can add up to huge improvements over the long run. In Pat Riley’s first season as coach of the Lose Angeles Lakers, he faced a challenge: how to motivate a team that had already won a championship. He did it by evoking a call for a “one percent more” performance improvement. If everyone on the team could improve their field goal percentage by one point, if everyone could improve their rebounding or assist average by one point, and so on. Now it may be purely coincidental, but I don’t think so—either way, the Lakers went on to have an even more phenomenal championship year, with several players on the team achieving career highs in numerous statistical categories.

ACTION PLAN: First, you need to establish your benchmark—what is the measurement unit of what you’re doing and how much of it are you doing? And then do one more!

EVEN BETTER: Strive to be the Pat Riley of your organization (the slicked-back hair is optional). Get others to buy into the “do one more” mind-set. Coach it. When possible, facilitate it. And, of course, reward it. Any organization whose people are constantly striving to do a little bit more is an organization that is far more likely to prosper.

(Excerpted from: 10 Clowns Don’t Make a Circus. . . and 249 Other Critical Management Success Strategies by Steven Schragis and Rick Frishman)

Wow – so many comments already, let’s move to the forums for more. We have copied the article there.

“>

Translate Numbers to English

Learn to understand what the numbers mean—and what problems or opportunities they suggest. Companies are in business to make money—and the financial reports are the way that everyone keeps score. Without being astute in this area, you are flying blind—not a good way to travel at all.

WHAT IT MEANS: Financial reports speak their own language, and your competence in business requires that you have a basic understanding of them. Make sure you know what’s in your company’s financial report, how it’s assembled, and how your actions affect the numbers. If you are uncertain about what these reports mean, make it your business to find out.

ACTION PLAN: Regularly review your financial performance with your boss and those reporting to you. If you see performance slipping in an area, analyze why and take action. If there’s an overall performance problem but the cause is unclear, look for a financial breakdown. As you analyze the report, ask yourself, “Is there any other information that would help me?”

EVEN BETTER: You don’t have to become a CPA, but there are various ways you can get up to speed. Take a class, read a book, or ask someone in finance. By and large you’ll find that people really do like to teach about their specialties. Always ask for the reports you need to manage your business better, and ask for help with anything you don’t understand.

(Excerpted from: 10 Clowns Don’t Make a Circus. . . and 249 Other Critical Management Success Strategies by Steven Schragis and Rick Frishman)

Let Your Customers Show You How to Use Your Product

Your customers are telling you things every day, not necessarily by what they say, but by what they do—what they buy, what they ask, what they complain about, et cetera. Although there is value to surveys and focus group sessions, there is always some disparity between the way people think of themselves or present themselves and what they actually do. For example, people who think of themselves as healthy eaters may be consuming far more junk food than they might imagine—or would ever admit.

WHAT IT MEANS: Listening to your customers is worthwhile, but don’t overlook the hard evidence of what your customers actually buy from you. Try to identify buying patterns and preferences and fine-tune your marketing and product mix accordingly. Marketing well requires having the knowledge and capability to cater more effectively to the needs and demonstrated preferences of different customer segments.

ACTION PLAN: Most companies have some kind of customer database. Take a close, hard look at yours. Does it reveal buying patterns? If not, fix it. If it does, begin to develop strategic ideas or initiatives directly driven by customer spending data.

EVEN BETTER: Develop a wish list for your ideal customer information management system and determine how much of it you can practically implement. Your customers are voting with their dollars and purchasing decisions every day—what are they telling you? By answering this question as precisely as possible, you will be able to make smarter marketing, product development, and customer service decisions—and be more on the money about your product/service offerings to various customer segments.

(Excerpted from: 10 Clowns Don’t Make a Circus. . . and 249 Other Critical Management Success Strategies by Steven Schragis and Rick Frishman)