Mythbuster Monday: If You Were A Good Person, You’d Give Your Products Away For Free

Today’s myth, obviously is not true. Whether or not you are a good person has nothing to do with giving your products away.

Unfortunately, there are people in this world who feel they are entitled to your products (and other people’s) and who think that if you are a good person, you will give your products to them for free — at at least at a deep discount.

These people feel that anyone who takes money in exchange for goods has sold out, is dishonest or is trying to oppress others.

This cannot be further from the truth.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with exchanging goods for money. As long as you are providing a good that meets a need, that is of high quality and that does what you say it will do, then I see no problem with asking for money in exchange.

And people who truly understand this will let you know if you are asking too much, by simply not buying. And you’ll know that you are asking too little by your feedback, a look at your competition or the overwhelming number of orders you receive.

So what do you do when faced with someone who insists that you should give away the products you have worked hard to market, and possibly even to create?

I recommend thanking them for their time, telling them that you feel your product is valuable and why. And then tell them that you are standing firm by your price. If they are would like to place an order, they are welcome to.

And leave it at that.

Mythbusters Monday: I’ll start my business small…

Myth: I’m just going to start my business small and if people like it, I’ll (buy a better website/setup a mailing list/hire a writer)…

Truth: If you’re going to run a business, call yourself a business, make a profit like a business and do business, as a business, with other businesses, then you need to act like a business.

There, I said it.

Before we continue this discussion, I’d like to say that if you’re just wanting to sell a few pieces of jewely or a few baby slings as a hobby, more power to you. I have no problem with that.

But if you’re starting a business, it’s in your best interests to behave like a business.

Here are some tips for those of you who are wanting to start a business — or already running one:

1. Behave like a business and you can write off your expenses on your taxes. Can’t do that if you’re just a hobbyist.
2. Acting like a business means trying to earn a profit, which means you’re going to have to mark up your prices above what a hobbyist might charge. After all, if you hadn’t planned on earning a profit, you’d have stayed a hobbyist or started a non-profit organization, right?
3. Set boundaries like a business. Make your terms of service clear and stick with them. As a business, you can’t make exceptions for everyone. You’ll run yourself — and your business — into the ground.
4. Don’t allow people to run over you. You might be a nice person, but that doesn’t mean you have to let people mop the floor with you. Follow the advice in #3 and politely tell the freebie-seeker that she needs to pay for your products or services.
5. Plan to be big. Starting a business that dies because no one bought its products or services is sad. Starting a business that does because the owner didn’t plan for success is a shame. Ask yourself where you want to be in five years and start planning for that now.

And finally, hold on tight, because running a business is a bit like riding a roller coaster — lots of ups and downs.

Mythbuster Monday: Don’t Use Too Much Content On Your Website

After scrapping my jaw off the floor upon reading the aforementioned myth, I knew this bad advice needed to be addressed.

Text content is search engine food. If you are wanting to promote your site through search engines (and if you are online, you should, as search engine promotion is the cheapest and most effective marketing method online) you need to feed them. And the only way to do this is to provide lots of quality content.

Now, please note that word I slipped in there: quality.

Using software to spin 300 versions of one article and pasting the unreadable copies into your website will do more harm than good.

Writing about your baby’s daily diaper changes won’t help much either — unless you’re using your wonderful cloth diapers that you sell on your site.

Writing high quality content that the search engines will index and that other people on the internet will link to is a necessary part of marketing your business online.

Mythbuster Monday: Your Site Should Have Many “Calls To Action”

Before we start in on this myth, let’s talk about what a call to action is. Basically, it is the portion of your content that encourages your customers to take action — usually something like buy the product, sign up for the mailing list, subscribe to the blog.

In some ways, the advice to have many calls to action on your site is correct. But the advice is so vague that it can be easily misused and actually work against the success of your site. Just think: If you go to a website wanting to buy a bracelet, but the site is telling you to do 10 other things on every page, you’re going to get confused fast. And what does a confused customer do? Leave.

To effectively use calls to action on your site, you need to follow these tips:

1. Determine what your overall site call to action is. As a physical product seller, your call to action would be buy my product(s).
2. Choose ONE call to action for each page (one exception may be the home page of a site that sells many products and offers lots of information). But other pages should have just one call to action. Tell the customer what they need to know, demonstrate the benefits of your product and then tell them to click the button and buy.
3. Remember, even your policies pages and contact pages need calls to action: Call us for more information, read these policies before requesting a refund, etc.

Keep these three tips in mind and you’ll make your customer’s shopping experience must more pleasant.