Every day, brand new online businesses start up, but many times they fail just as swiftly, leaving only a small percentage that succeed. How can you ensure that you are one of the select few that will see success? Follow these tips and watch your online business flourish.
1. Respond to Visitors Quickly and Engage with Them
Don’t let potential customers have the time to slip through your fingers through a lack of contact, get back to all inquiries as soon as possible. Even if you are away for an extended period of time, make sure that there is someone available to answer inquiries, even if it is just to say that a clearer response will be given soon.
Social media platforms are the best way to engage with customers. Not only can you quickly post any type of information, you can also comment back just as swiftly.
2. Outsourcing
Outsourcing some of your tasks allows for you to reach customers with compelling tactics and strategies more quickly and more effectively than your competitor can. When you spend less time on a multitude of small tasks to focus on the larger tasks, you will be able to spend your energy working on the things that will grow your business. Outsourcing for marketing will allow your brand to approach a problem with a fresh and new perspective, and will be able to go forward with an innovative campaign.
3. Maintain Your Mailing List
Take the leap and ask your visitors to sign up for your newsletter. Provide an incentive such as a free online course or e-book that is related to your brand. You will need to respect these individuals that sign up for the mailing list by sending out a newsletter consistently, but not too often. The newsletter should only contain quality content that is relevant to readers, while providing an easy way for them to opt out if they need to. Always include sales, specials, and discounts to those on your mailing list ‒ this will ensure that they feel like they should stay on the mailing list to receive the exclusive offers.
4. Try Not to Over Optimize Your Website
Search engine optimization is how a webmaster manipulates a website to rank better in search engines. Some websites go way too far with this and will end up banned from the search results. Over-optimization will make a brand less likable and harder to read. Aim to be straightforward and direct, without a lot of fluff. Potential customers can see right through that and it will even make your brand appear less trustworthy when you over-optimize.
5. Keep Your Website Simple and Organized
Often times, in an effort to make their website stand out, businesses will over-design it ‒ which is a huge mistake. Too many flashy elements or loud music will hurt a website’s traffic. The text should be easy to read, and the website as a whole should be easily navigated. The safest choice is dark text backed by a lighter color background.
6. Social Media Marketing
Marketing through social media has the ability to reduce a brand’s overall marketing cost, it will create a voice for the brand, allow for better customer service, and build trust between the customer and the brand. It is a lot easier for a customer to visualize a person behind a brand when they are being communicated to in a casual manner. This will humanize your online business and make it easier for visitors to connect with you, and then develop loyalty.
7. Discover Your Specialty
Find out what it is about your brand that sets you apart from other businesses that are similar. Is it the type of product that you offer, or the quality of service that you provide? Whatever it is, nurture it and let your customers know that you care about it just as much as they do.
What do you think it takes to achieve your goals? Hard work? Lots of actions? While these are paramount to becoming successful in reaching our goals, neither of these are possible without a positive mindset.
As humans, we naturally tend to lean towards a negative outlook when it comes to our hopes and dreams. We are prone to believing that we have limitations either from within ourselves or from external forces keeping us from truly getting to where we want to be in life. Our tendency to think that we’ll “believe it when we see it” suggests that our mindsets are focused on our goals not really being attainable until they’ve been achieved. The problem with this is that this common mindset fuels our limiting beliefs and shows a lack of faith in ourselves.
The Success Mindset
Success in achieving our goals comes down to a ‘success mindset’. Successful mindsets are those focused on victory, based on positive mental attitudes, empowering inclinations and good habits. Acquiring a success mindset is the sure-fire way to dramatically increase your chance to achieve your goals.
The idea that achieving our goals comes down to our habits and actions is actually a typical type of mindset that misses a crucial point; that our mindset is, in fact, the determiner of our energy and what actions we take. A negative mindset will tend to create negative actions and similarly if we have a mindset that will only set into action once we see ‘proof’ that our goals are achievable, then the road will be much longer and arduous. This is why, instead of thinking “I’ll believe it when I see it”, a success mindset will think “I’ll see it when I believe it.”
The Placebo Effect and What It Shows Us About The Power of Mindset
The placebo effect is a perfect example of how mindset really can be powerful. In scientific trials, a group of participants were told they received medication that will heal an ailment but were actually given a sugar pill that does nothing (the placebo). Yet after the trial the participants believed it’s had a positive effect – sometimes even cured their ailment even though nothing has changed. This is the power of mindset.
How do we apply this to our goals? Well, when we set goals and dreams how often do we really believe they’ll come to fruition? Have absolute faith that they can be achieved? Have a complete unwavering expectation? Most of us don’t because we hold on to negative mindsets and limiting beliefs about ourselves that stop us from fully believing we are capable or that it’s at all possible. We tend to listen to the opinions of others despite them misaligning with our own or bow to societal pressures that make us believe we should think and act a certain way. There are many reasons why we possess these types of mindsets but a success mindset can be achieved.
How To Create a Success Mindset
People with success mindsets have a particular way of perceiving things. They have positive outlooks and are able to put faith fully in their ability to succeed. With that in mind, here are a few ways that can turn a negative mindset into a successful one.
1. A Success Mindset Comes From a Growth Mindset
How does a mindset even manifest itself? It comes from the way you talk to yourself in the privacy of your own head. Realising this will go a long way towards noticing how you speak to yourself and others around you. If it’s mainly negative language you use when you talk about your goals and aspirations then this is an example of a fixed mindset.
A negative mindset brings with it a huge number of limiting beliefs. It creates a fixed mindset – one that can’t see beyond it’s own limitations. A growth mindset sees these limitations and looks beyond them – it finds ways to overcome obstacles and believes that this will result in success. When you think of your goal, a fixed mindset may think “what if I fail?” A growth mindset would look at the same goal and think “failures happen but that doesn’t mean I won’t be successful.”
There’s a lot of power in changing your perspective.
2. Look For The Successes
It’s really important to get your mind focused on positive aspects of your goal. Finding inspiration through others can be really uplifting and keep you on track with developing your success mindset; reinforcing your belief that your dreams can be achieved. Find people that you can talk with about how they achieved their goals and seek out and surround yourself with positive people. This is crucial if you’re learning to develop a positive mindset.
3. Eliminate Negativity
You can come up against a lot of negativity sometimes either through other people or within yourself. Understanding that other people’s negative opinions are created through their own fears and limiting beliefs will go a long way in sustaining your success mindset. But for a lot of us, negative chatter can come from within and these usually manifest as negative words such as can’t, won’t, shouldn’t. Sometimes, when we think of how we’re going to achieve our goals, statements in our minds come out as negative absolutes: ‘It never works out for me’ or ‘I always fail.’
When you notice these coming up you need to turn them around with ‘It always works out for me!’ and ‘I never fail!’ The trick is to believe it no matter what’s happened in the past. Remember that every new day is a clean slate and for you to adjust your mindset.
4. Create a Vision
Envisioning your end goal and seeing it in your mind is an important trait of a success mindset. Allowing ourselves to imagine our success creates a powerful excitement that shouldn’t be underestimated. When our brain becomes excited at the thought of achieving our goals, we become more committed, work harder towards achieving it and more likely to do whatever it takes to make it happen.
If this involves creating a vision board that you can look at to remind yourself every day then go for it. Small techniques like this go a long way in sustaining your success mindset and shouldn’t be dismissed.
An Inspirational Story…
For centuries experts said that running a mile in under 4 minutes was humanly impossible. On the 6th May 1954, Rodger Bannister did just that. As part of his training, Bannister relentlessly visualised the achievement, believing he could accomplish what everyone said wasn’t possible…and he did it.
What’s more amazing is that, as soon as Bannister achieved the 4-minute mile, more and more people also achieved it. How was this possible after so many years of no one achieving it? Because in people’s minds it was suddenly possible – once people knew that it was achievable it created a mindset of success and now, after over fifty years since Bannister did the ‘impossible’, his record has been lowered by 17 seconds – the power of the success mindset!