| |
| |
|
Entrepreneurialism Information |
|
|
|
The Magic of Float
If you've ever received a service today and paid for it in 30 days you've experienced the concept of "float" - the time difference between when you receive a service and when you paid for it. In most cases this time period is a convenience to you as a customer, but in the world of business marketing it can absolutely transform your business. In the last 18 months we've grown our marketing budget at Swapalease.com (the company that owns me) by more than 1000% by simply leveraging the concept of float. The reason we can grow our marketing budget so actively is because of a whole new breed of on-line marketing tools that allow us to actually make money faster than we spend it. And we're not the only ones. Thousands of companies are taking advantage of new on-line advertising models that are driving millions of qualified buyers to their respective sites on a shoestring budget. Let me explain the models and then we'll get back to leveraging the float. Google rocks Yes, they have a $50 billion market cap, but that's not why Google rocks. It's how they got there. Google helped pioneer a concept called "cost per click" (CPC) advertising. Google displays a handful of ads on each of its search results pages. Advertisers only pay for those ads when someone actually clicks on their ad (hence cost per click, get it?). Companies of all sizes have jumped on this incredibly targeted and efficient ad model to drive millions of visitors to their sites, and turn those visitors into cash. The beauty of cost per click is that you can start small (a Google campaign can start at only $5) and grow your budget over time. More importantly, you can use your credit card to pay for the service. At Swapalease we get thousands of qualified visitors per month that we turn into cash. Then we get a bill at the end of the month which we have 30 days to pay. The time period between when we got a paying customer (and collected our fees) and when we actually paid to acquire the customer is our float, and it makes all the difference. Google isn't the only company that provides such a great opportunity. Overture, Kanoodle, and FindWhat have nearly identical services that can drive even more traffic to your site and employ the same model. I would recommend that you leverage all of them. Collectively they can drive a massive amount of business to your Web site virtually overnight. Marketing Shangi-La Cost per click is just one example of the "buy now, pay later" model. An even better example is "cost per acquisition" (CPA). CPA is the panacea of marketing. Instead of paying publishers for the click, you get the click for free. Only when someone actually makes a purchase do you pay the publisher a commission for that sale. Smart marketers will sign up for this business every day of the week. Companies like Commission Junction and Dark Blue serve as proxies to connect interested advertisers to publishers looking to make commission revenues. Once again you have the ability to pay your fees by credit card and create a small float between the time you earn cash and the time you write a check. Your mileage may vary Each of these models, while wonderful, will only work if you have a business model that can turn site traffic into customers in short order. At Swapalease.com we collect fees immediately when customers visit our site and sign up for our service. This allows us to put money into our bank account faster than we pay it out. Ultimately we have the ability to roll the increased profits into each additional month to aggressively grow our marketing budget. Every business model is different and your mileage may vary. Grow baby, Grow You can profitably sustain your business by leveraging these and other on-line models to make money. But just sustaining your business is boring. To really grow your business you'll need to continuously re-invest a portion of the profits each month into your next month's marketing budget. The process works best when you allocate the additional cash into your next month incrementally, reserving a portion of the additional profits for potential mistakes. Beware, though, there is some risk in doing this. Spending too aggressively before you truly understand what works and what doesn't can absolutely sink you. The best approach is to start small, understand what works, and scale accordingly. The good news is there is enough traffic out there to keep you busy for a long time to come. Now just sit back and watch the checks roll in (boy that would be nice, wouldn't it?) - Wil Wil Schroter is a serial entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. Wil has been recognized as U.S. Small Business Person of the Year, twice as the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year (1999 & 2004), and is a member of the Business First Top 40 under forty. Connect directly with Wil at wschroter@yahoo.com. Visit http://www.goBIGnetwork.com.
MORE RESOURCES:
Entrepreneurialism - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Six Steps to Guarantee Your Business Success Many of us slave away for years for one uninspiring company after another and dream of the day when we can sack the boss and go it alone.If you're contemplating starting your own business then I'm here cheering you on from the sidelines because the best decision I ever made was to walk away from my well paid but oh so frustratingly boring job and start my own business from scratch. Starting Up and Keeping Going So you had that fantastic business idea, the one that's going to be wildly successful and make you a fortune - and even better, you actually did something about it and started your own business. Good for you! Not everyone gets even that far. 7 Lean Marketing Laws For The Inspired Entrepreneur The following laws will provide guidance on how to act,think and work in a lean way. You can apply these laws toall areas of your life, work and business to get biggerresults from the time you invest. How to Become a Successful Entrepreneur on the Web Becoming a successful entrepreneur in the online world is no different than becoming a successful entrepreneur in the brick-and-mortar world. Both tasks require vision, determination, and hard work. The Fear Factor I recently conducted a lil' survey asking my colleagues what were their biggest fears when thinking about starting a business or running their business. The following are the top three fears that resulted from my survey and some ways to combat them. Surviving the Three Pitfalls of Business Ownership The morning sun sheds its brilliance and warmth on your sleeping face. 10:00 a. Seven Key Qualities of Successful Entrepreneurs A recent poll conducted by Forbes magazine shows that majority of its readers would prefer to become a billionaire rather than a Nobel peace prize winner, a great scientist or a famous athlete. There is no secret that most of the average people dream about getting rich albeit very few makes any real effort to become one. What Kind of Business Should I Start? It's not uncommon to reach your 30s, 40s or even 50s and still wonder, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" Few people are fortunate enough to be certain of their destinies early on and the rest of us are forced to do some soul searching.The desire to own a business is becoming more common as workers grow more frustrated with the economy and working in corporate America. Which Niche To Conquer? I'm sure that you've heard about how many start up companies fail when they first begin, and the reason that most (if not all) of their failures is because they don't create a good fountain to build on.If we start right, it is easy to go right all the time. Walt Disneys Failures Could Inspire Entrepreneurs You are a struggling entrepreneur and sometimes it feels like you are pushing a 3 ton boulder up a steep hill. Costs keep mounting and you are considering giving up. Part-Time/In-Home Business - Low Expense and Low Risk As a first time entrepreneur, there are a variety of franchises, dealerships, distributorships, and licensing opportunities available for purchase. Many of these you can start by working part-time from your home. Differentiation Strategies for Franchise Companies With the growing number of franchise offerings recently it is difficult for the smallest franchise companies to compete. They generally do not have the advertising budgets to pick and choose which markets the franchise prospects will be calling from. The Business and Life You Want to Build In the early days of my first consulting business, I knew I needed some sort of plan to give me the greatest chance at success. I took many a wrong step, yet in the end I managed to put a solid business together. Go Slow to Go Fast - Why Over 80% Of High Tech Startups Fail And What To Do About It With billions of dollars of venture capital residing down the street on Sand Hill Road, two Stanford professors are attempting to answer a fundamental question "why does it always take longer and cost more to build a hi-tech company than anyone ever expects?" For all the intellect, experience and graduate degrees in the venture capital industry, the sad truth is that 80% of venture capital investments do not pan out. While the reasons for this high attrition rate are too numerous to list here, a simple fact defines every successful investment - the company figures out how to bring in more money than it spends. Franchises - Emotional Fulfillment - The Challenge Does A Franchise Meet Your Needs?Do you look forward to Friday afternoon or Monday morning? Perhaps that's the true litmus test of happiness. If you're thinking about the fact that there's only one day to go before the weekend, when you just got back from lunch on Wednesday, it may be time for a change. How To Grow Your Micro-Business If you want to grow your micro-business (defined as a business with fewer than five employees), you might consider some of the findings of a survey by Statistics Canada.1. How Entrepreneurs Make Money Selling Global Brands On and Off-line Did you know that thousands of companies from all over the world are looking for enthusiastic individuals to represent their products overseas? That person can be you. From Chinese toys to Brazilian bikinis people are making money reselling all kinds of products for a profit. The Desire For Money, Do You Have Business Sense? For those of us who grew up with parents who worked for businesses rather than owned them, the world of business can be quite a mystery. Even more so if we've dared to try to start one of our own. The Boss is DEAD! Some of us are born into families with "it", some of us are just driven over the edge to "it", and some of us crave "it", but just haven't figured out how to attain "it." That "it" is an Entrepreneurial Spirit that is a powerful force that can be the key to your success, and yes?sometimes even failure. Do You Have What it Takes to be a Successful Entrepreneur? Print off this page, take the quiz and find out if you've got what it takes! See the scale at the bottom to mark yourself.Answer the following questions on a Scale of 1 - 51 - definately not 2 - not likely 3 - sometimes 4 - probably 5 - definitely--------------------------------------------------------------------------------1) Do you have many hobbies (besides TV viewing and playing video games)? ____2) Do you take a leadership role in group settings? _____3) Can you discipline yourself to finish a project, even if it means late nights and low recognition from your peers? ____4) Do you often think of new and innovative ways to do things? _____5) Do you enjoy meeting new people? ____6) Have you had success in the past in planning a project, and carrying it through to it's completion? _____7) Would you consider yourself a positive person? ____8) Even when things go wrong do you try to "learn a lesson" from the experience? ____9) Do you enjoy working alone? ____10) Do you manage your time well? ____11) Do you like to set goals and achieve them? ____12) Do you like to take calculated risks to achieve an objective? ____--------------------------------------------------------------------------------ScoringIf most of your scores are 5's you have a very strong "entrepreneurial streak" and should strive for your goals.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
