Getting On the Right Track - NOW!
(Secret Business Weapons that WILL make a DIFFERENCE)

From: Andrew Minalto  eBay PowerSeller  Registered TWF Seller  CEO of SpicyAuctionTemplates.com  Contact Me | FAQ

Hello & Welcome to the Easy Auction Business video newsletter!

Yes, you’re totally right – you haven’t heard from me for a long, long time, but trust me – it was for a reason. Last time our newsletter was published on 5th March, when the Easy Auction Business 2.0 video course was launched. Since then, I went underground...

Here’s the thing – when I’m really into something, I’m really INTO it! When work is your passion and hobby at the same time, it’s not that difficult to work 14 or 16 hours a day as long as you believe in what you’re doing.

I have a number of businesses and sometimes it’s just a little bit overwhelming and I can’t find time for the newsletter. However, as all of you’re aware, your e-mails are my priority Nr.1 – ALWAYS! I have never missed a reply or deleted an e-mail from my newsletter readers, past & future customers or business partners, so feel free to contact me if there’s anything I can help you with.

Back to the topic – there was no newsletters as I was working my butt off on a new, large scale e-commerce site. Large scale? Well, yes – a website with more than 1000 products spread across more than 70 categories. I started working on this website last September and launched it on 15th April, 2 weeks ago - so you can imagine the party we had in the office after such a huge project completion! It’s the best website I have ever built! Within the next couple of months, I’ll share a lot of information on how it progresses and other cool, insider information only EAB newsletter readers get access to. So stay tuned for some really great, e-commerce related content over next couple of months!

Of course, journey has only begun with the launch of the website as now I have to get buyers into the store and make sure they shop as madly as possible! This is something so many people do not realize and we’ll cover this in today’s newsletter along with some other important elements and problems blocking your way to the successful online entrepreneurship.

So it’s almost 2 months of absolute silence... But that can be a good thing as you had plenty of time to take action and grow your businesses, right? No?

Now – take your time and look back at those last 2 months and write down what you’ve done to bring you closer to the online millionaire status (nope, I’m not afraid of using that word – millionaire, as we all should have some ultimate, long –term goals in place).

Ok, so did you write everything down? Do you need more time? Or quite opposite – there’s not much to write about? Maybe your list looks something like this?

	Was browsing through Alibaba.com trying to find suppliers;
	Spent evenings on wholesale forums to find profitable suppliers;
	Searched for ideas on Google trying to figure out what to sell;

So, let’s get started with 3 common mistakes majority of “online business newbies” make on a daily basis - You’ll learn EXACTLY why you haven’t reached any significant goals as of yet. And by saying “online business newbies” – I don’t mean anything rude here, absolutely not! No offence! Just a few short years ago I was in the exact same situation and trust me – I made terrible, bad mistakes that cost me thousands upon thousands of pounds! So don’t be afraid of being a “newbie” at something and take ideas & knowledge from more experienced people in the field.

Problem Nr.1 – Lack of Planning

This may look like a visit to therapist on a lousy coach but trust me – without identifying problems that stops you from making any decent progress, it will be very difficult to make any difference in your day to day routine. You want to be successful with this entire selling online thing, right? You want to make bunch of money and fire your boss, right? Good! I just hope he didn’t fire you in first place as the recession gets really nasty as days go by...

Planning is the nr.1 reason for majority of people not getting even close to the dreams of their life. I have covered this topic in the last newsletter and will keep on touching it in the future issues as well – this is how important planning is to your business. And don’t tell me you don’t need planning as you can live just fine without it! I don’t know any successful business owner who doesn’t plan his time – no need to re-invent the wheel here! Just copy what successful people are doing and you’ll soon become one of them. Easy cheesy!

The system is very simple – you write down your goals and then plan step by step on how you’ll achieve them. Today, we won’t cover medium and long term strategies as we don’t have time for it but let’s take a quick example on how to plan small, everyday tasks to reach a particular goal – eBay Shop with 25 active listings. Here’s a typical “to do list” to reach that goal:

	Open up an eBay account & Shop;
	Register a domain name for the same name;
	Order logo & template;
	Write product descriptions;
	Take pictures of products and edit them in Photoshop;
	Create noticeable Gallery Images for each product;
	Write About Us, FAQ and Terms & Conditions information;
	Customize Shop’s colour scheme;
	Customize e-mails via Selling Manager Pro;
	Do keyword research on eBay to come up with best Titles for each product;
	Using Turbo Lister, create 25 listings using template, already written descriptions and edited pictures and gallery images;
	Schedule and list items!

Now, when you have a goal and the to-do list, the 2nd part of planning process comes into play – schedule all the tasks in a daily planner. It doesn’t matter whether you have just 1 hour a day or 10 hours to work on this! You have to schedule each and every task so that you know exactly what you have to do today, tomorrow and next week. You can download ready to go template from your Easy Auction Business bonus page.

Remember – don’t use PC or any electronic planner! It’s essential to write everything down on a paper and once the task is completed, mark it off! There’s no better feeling than to see that all scheduled tasks are completed at the end of each day. But don’t worry if you fail to complete a task or two! Just carry them on to tomorrow and continue work.

So my advice nr.1 for you is – start planning your daily work routine by setting goals, writing down “to do” list to reach that goal and scheduling tasks in your daily planner. This is a sure way plan for you to get on the right track as soon as possible! This definitively changed the way I work, think and do things online. Planning has increased my productivity tenfold and made all the workflow so much simpler and more effective!

I recommend you to start with small goals and daily planners and only after few months move to weekly, monthly and yearly planning. We’ll cover medium and long term planning in one of the up-coming newsletters.

Problem Nr.2 – Lack of Concentration

Now, when you have a plan in place, goals to reach for, no problems would arise, right? I wish it would be so simple.... As you know, we – human beings, are pretty complicated creatures, with lots of weaknesses. For some people it will be easier to stay on the track with scheduled tasks but for others – it will take some time while they learn to stay focused and get rid of distractions.

It may surprise you but I’m from the 2nd group. In school they called us hyper-active children or whatever, the thing is - for me, it’s very difficult to stay on the track and concentrate on one thing for hours, not talking about months or years. Well, I have worked with myself a lot lately and can clearly see that this is changing and I’m slowly but steadily moving closer to the first, distraction free, people group.

As with the time management and planning, when we talk about lack of concentration, we have to look at it from the short term and long term perspectives. Short time problems are usually associated with your everyday work, trying to complete scheduled tasks for that day.

Yes, I’m talking about checking your e-mail every 2 minutes, login into PayPal account every 10 minutes, checking forums every hour and so on. At the end of the day, you’re sitting with un-completed task list and wasted time and energy. But you can get rid of these habits for good if you’re willing to work on this! Here’s an exact plan I use to over-come distractions and lack of concentration on a daily basis:

	Put in your schedule when exactly you’ll check e-mails and merchant, such as PayPal, accounts. In the beginning, don’t try to be too strict – you can still check your e-mail every hour or so as long as it’s scheduled in your daily plan. When time goes by, try to reduce that number to 2 or 3.
	When working on any task – like writing an article or product description – close down all the windows, messengers and notifications. You just need to open the software – Word for writing or Photoshop for pictures and WORK with it! Don’t let other things disturb you when you’re in process of completing a task from your to do list!
	If possible, get rid of any 3rd party interruptions – if you have a spare room in your house – work there. Turn off the mobile phone and let your relatives know times when you’re working on your business so they don’t un-necessary disturb you. You could even put a fancy door hanger so that everyone is aware you’re in a productive mood.
	Turn off TV, radio if necessary. For some people, music is totally ok and even helps working while for others – it may cause lots of interruptions. Personally I do like listening to instrumental music and Jazz while working.

In long term, things are no different. In fact, this was the reason why I wasted thousands upon thousands of pounds on dozens of different business ideas. I’m not kidding here! The list of ideas I have had over the last 5 years would be 100 +.

I started one project, invested money in all kinds of things just to leave it behind next week when a new, much better idea crossed my mind! But the problem is that ideas won’t make you rich, actions will do the trick instead! And you can’t reach huge goals if you can’t concentrate on one single business idea longer than a month!

That’s why I strongly recommend you working on ONE, just ONE, online business and make it as good as you can. I’m also planning to shut down some of my current businesses this year to concentrate on just 2 things – information publishing and the new shop I just launched. You’ll soon realize that this is the ONLY way to reach ultimate goals!

Problem Nr.3 – Lack of Patience

Finally, the 3rd problem I want to talk about is – lack of patience. It’s kind of related to the long term concentration problem but revolves around lack of results not the idea itself. So for example, when we’re referring to the long term concentration problem, we’re talking about changing our mind quite often and jumping from one idea to another one. This is typical for entrepreneurs, like me, who see business opportunities on every corner!

When we talk about lack of patience on the other hand, we refer to another type of issue causing problems for majority of online business owners to reach their goals. To put it simply – they expect to see magnificent results instantly while in reality it takes some time to see any results at all! A good example would be a person opening an online shop but after 2 weeks giving up as no one has bought anything... C’mon people! Do you really think it all happens magically, you just press the button and money starts rolling in? Dream on!

In the real world, you have to work on tasks to get results you’re after. That’s why you need to plan your time and schedule your daily work routine! Ok, so you opened an online shop. Now – your first task should be to get, say, 100 people to visit your site so that you can see what’s the conversion rate, what the visitors are doing on your site, analyze their behaviour and so on.

But so many people just open an online shop and wait for miracle to happen. You have to work hard to get those people visiting your site and buy something! Building a shop is just the beginning, the real action starts when you seriously work on traffic generation, conversion, customer support, repeated sales & customer relationships.

Don’t know how to generate traffic? No probs! I can give you plenty of resources, even free, where you can go and learn everything you need to know about traffic generation. Just make a goal and write down step by step what you have to do to learn SEO for example and get 50 unique visitors a day in 3 months time.

Especially if we talk about sticky markets where lots of repeat sales are expected. It can take even several years to build a large customer base but once you do so – sales will increase rapidly and you won’t have to worry much about bringing in new customers.

Just remember that the results won’t come over-night, it really takes some time and sometimes results can be seen only after a year of hard work. Don’t give up and keep setting new goals and execute your daily to do list!

Ok, that’s it for today. Hope we didn’t end on a negative note :-) Next week I’ll be back with a Step By Step plan on how to find a profitable niche on eBay!

Until Next Time,

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About the Author Andrew Minalto is founder and CEO of the Web's largest auction templates company SpicyAuctionTemplates.com. Andrew runs successful information publishing business as well as an eBay store and an online retail store. At the age of just 23 he has achieved a phenomenal success in selling both physical and information products online. Hard work and belief in his dreams enabled him to leave a dusty Dublin warehouse in winter 2006 to go full-time online. The recently launched EasyAuctionBusiness.com website is dedicated for all people trying to achieve financial freedom or just to make some extra money by selling on eBay.co.uk

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