Everyone goes on and on about how to make money online so I’m changing it up and will be going over the 5 top ways to lose money online!

1) Pay Per Click Advertising and Google Adwords – If you don’t know what your doing, this thing will bring you and your house down. You can effectively blow $50 in 5 minutes with absolutely no result. Most newbies don’t enable their tracking, group their keywords or optimize their site or ads and climb a blind and uphill battle the whole time. When a sale comes in they get excited but have no idea what actually resulted in conversions so they just pump more money into it until they run out.

2) Niche sites – Many marketers like to try a whole bunch of niche sites to test which ones work. Factor in the cost of domains, hosting, programming and design and you got yourself a nice little intravenous drip hanging from your wallet. Drip. Drip. Nice.

3) Not understanding your business systems – Most relevant to entrepreneurs selling physical products. You’ll see this when you sell at a small(ish) mark-up yet forget to factor in taxes, various fees (Paypal) and advertising. I got stung with this when I didn’t correctly factor in GST while I was selling a range of products. For example if I bought a $100 product and sold for $130, I still had to pay my Paypal fees as well as tax (10% for Australian sales) which meant I made about $6 for selling a $130 item! A simple mistake anyone can do when you start smelling profit, no matter how small it is. Next time, make sure its really profit!

4) Information overload – Many a new marketer signs up to multiple training courses in different micro-niches (PPC, Affiliate, Launch, Membership Sites, Copy Writing etc) and ends up being confused out of recognition. Too much information is never a good thing. Stick to a couple of basic systems, test, measure, rinse and repeat the good. Don’t do everything at once. Alternatively get a completely comprehensive course which you can follow step by step covering all the factors. The best complete course going around is the Bootstrapedia course… you like that? A little self serving I know! But get your Free report, you may find it useful.

5) Giving up – If you fall you get up. Don’t crawl a little further then play dead, you’ll get no where. Expect to fail. Know you will. Once you embrace this and understand that there is a real possibility of failure, you won’t fear it and you’ll be more equipped to get up and get back into it. Everyone fails at some point, your no different so just take it in your stride and try again. Why is this expensive? Well you’ve wasted money and time putting things into action but decided to drop it when the going got tough. Little do you know that this effort could possibly turn into a success just around the corner, but you gave up didn’t you?

These are my top 5 tips for losing money online. If you want to try them out feel free, they really work! Guaranteed!

One Million Dollars. For many of us this sounds like a lot of money. However is the concept of this being outdated valid? Does the word millionaire still bring thoughts of luxuries, excessive lifestyles, fast cars, fine dining and waterfront living. Or do we have to “up” it a level where no longer does a million dollars put you on the level of society’s elite.

I’m going to list the things one million dollars will buy you today:

• 1/4 New York Apartment
• 1/2 season in the GP2 racing championship
• A few good diamonds
• 5 yrs off
• 1/2 Bugatti Veyron
• Medium sized yacht
• 1/100 of the way to creating GTA IV
• An investment property (then the value will plummet and you no longer have close to 1million!)
• 2-3 Yrs Medical Insurance (As a practicing Doctor)
• 200,000 McDonald’s Happy Meals
• 500,000 Mars Bars
• 10,000 bottles of Moet
• 1 Law suit
• You business overdraft (Interest only!)

Its a pretty strange list but you’d expect a strange list when your wondering how to spend a million bucks. But after you write the list the only things you can buy substantially are smaller ticket items (ie the Mars Bars). The stuff your teen dreams are made of, or those investment and work essentials, are no longer the calling cards of those who have stumbled upon that magic million.

Yes one million dollars is a crap load of money but the bar has been raised. To shake the hand of a millionaire isn’t what it once was.

In this post entrepreneur Boyan S. Benev from Crimson Kaie examines the topic of business ventures and the relationship between planning, passion and success. You can also check out Boyan’s personal Blog where you can find information about his upcoming books and a bit more of a bio of this great young entrepreneur.

Many budding entrepreneurs struggle to start for a simple lack of inspiration. A great deal of time is spent mulling over ideas, discussing sectors and making models. This has been an issue for me in the past – I would fret over a concept for a long time before taking the plunge.

One free day I decided to look back and see which ideas, out of the many attempted, have been successful. It didn’t take very long to reach two conclusions: 1, there was a very clear, and seemingly inexplicable, relationship between planning and success & 2, the successful enterprises were all niches/markets/products which I personally enjoyed.

Now, the relationship between planning and success was inexplicable because it was inverse: from diamond brokerage to art dealing, the successful projects were ones which I dove into with very little planning.

At this point I would imagine other business writers to frown deeply but I did manage to justify this quite quickly.

I don’t know about those reading this but when an idea comes for a business it is seldom in an industry which I am intricately familiar with at the outset. I may have only scant knowledge of a business sector but still believe that the idea is a solid one with good potential. The courses of action from this point are to either do meticulous research on the sector and come up with ‘solid’ plans or to simply jump in at the deep end and learn along the way.

The reason why I believe the latter approach is over-whelming successful for me over the former is because the real world is not the most black and white of places. Written material, strategies, reviews etc. present a simplified version of the world covering only those concepts essential to the topic being presented. It is important this is done because otherwise every article in a magazine or newspaper would be the size of an encyclopaedia BUT it is not a true reflection on the real world.

An idea can sound great on paper but have very limited application in real life. I’m sure we all know the cliché about ‘the school of life’ but I find is so true for business. We are bound to make mistakes and stumble along the way but the sooner we expose ourselves to that risk of failure, the sooner we start learning and bettering our ideas.

This isn’t a suggestion to skip all the ground work but, from personal experience, I have found that when this is kept to a minimum the exercise is far more dynamic and self-correcting.

The caveat I would put here is that all projects I have attempted have been carefully budgeted so I a total loss of the resources allocated to them wouldn’t hurt. Many people go into business risking a great deal: money they cannot really afford to risk in this way. In such cases research is important to assure the individual they have considered as many factors as possible.

I think my point does largely stand for to those looking at internet business opportunities, often these start from an idea to generate a small side income which can then grow. In these cases I really believe practise makes perfect. There are so many nuances with e-business that it is almost impossible to get a feel for it unless you give it a try. The most important thing is to know from the outset how much you are prepared to invest.. or lose, in the venture.

The second point comes out of the above. The most successful ideas I have realised have been ones which I was passionate about. To give an example; I’m a big art fan. I love art in all of its forms and wouldn’t restrict my interest to one particular style. Whenever I have the opportunity I seek out and buy paintings, largely by emerging artists.

At the same time I meet many people in the daily course of my work. Through initially casual conversations I discovered that people took a great interest to the works I had and were eager to occasionally buy them from me. As I realised there was an opportunity here, I started to collect more pieces with the idea of selling them. Now I represent a few emerging artists from around the world and regularly manage to secure commissions for their work. This ‘enterprise’ grew out of something very pleasurable which has never felt like work.

To compliment it I established Crimson Kaie (www.crimsonkaie.com) as showcase to let the world know about talented artists in all sorts of media and styles. The site has taken off fantastically and it has been such a pleasure to run. As a result I know many of the featured artists have had increased interest in their work and more traffic to their sites.

Again, this project has been a pure pleasure to establish and manage. It came out of a hobby and so has not felt like work even though I have put a good deal of effort and energy into it. Now I see the potential to expand the concept further and if the interest continues to hold I have a couple of ideas up my sleeve for its development.

Everything started spontaneously with no preplanning and little knowledge of the industry. The growth was natural and guided by my interest in the subject rather than financial goals. There has been some financial benefit but it has come by the way – a bonus, in a way.

I’ve always believed that entrepreneurship should be fun – the individual should enjoy what they do. Otherwise they might as well stick with the security of a traditional job.

I now apply these two approaches: skeletal planning and the ‘fun’ factor in every new venture I consider because I have seen, first hand, the benefits of this approach.

As you all know I am giving away a copy of Napoleon Hill’s: Think and Grow Rich. If you haven’t yet seen it, just check out the right hand column and subscribe to my email list and I’ll send you a copy, along with some other cool stuff from time to time.

But I thought it’s always easier to watch something than to simply read it so I decided to post this interview for you to watch. Napoleon Hill’s words are truly inspirational no matter how many times you listen to it. If you like what you see grab your copy of the book, it’s an absolute must read. Enjoy!

The first time your criticized you feel bad. You get down on yourself and take that criticism personally. it drives deep into your soul and festers in your mind constantly.

Every business person or pioneer is criticized especially when they allow themselves to stand out and be noticed. It’s inevitable but still it never becomes truly easy to accept until you successful embrace it. How you manage criticism will affect the way you react to it. The one thing you need to understand is that you NEED criticism. If you are in a position to be criticized then you have elevated yourself above to norm and stood out from a crowd.

There is no time where this is most relevant than in today’s environment where Internet rules and people can hide behind aliases and alter-egos benefiting from the anonymity that the Internet provides. You only need to visit Youtube and have a read of the comments to get a thorough understanding of this. Many people are out there simply to put people down as it covers there own insecurities by giving it to others.

Yesterday I sent out a request for reviews for my new ebook and had a very interesting response from a forum member. You can see the full thread here. Usually I give people the benefit of the doubt because constructive criticism is a good thing and I want to hear what people have to say. Never ignore constructive criticism as its the best way forward no matter what field your in. On the other hand some people take things a little bit too far and when I realize someone is wanting to play a semantics, I just lose interest. The conversation moved from healthy banter through to someone simply out there to put you down, no matter what. Interestingly I did a Google search on the person involved because simply I’ve never heard of the guy yet he seemed to think he was a guru of some sort. I won’t say much more but check out my Google search here and needless to say, the results were very interesting. I won’t jump to conclusions but if these searches are anything to go by, frankly based on his conduct, I’m not surprised!

I’m not alone by any means, in fact, I’ve had it pretty good. There are some prominent examples of this all around us. People openly criticize Bill Gates yet fail to point out that he’s given many billions of dollars to charities over the years and also single-handedly turned computer software on its head. But who cares really, he’s put himself out there so why not point the finger? We criticize governments and head of states all the time, yet the same criticism is someone else’s praise. But we don’t care, we point the finger at the guy at the top. Michael Schumacher was always criticized for his racing tactics, not unlike Ayrton Senna. They dominate so lets chop ‘em down.

Why? Because we love to find faults in those people who have stuck their head up and stood tall, its human nature. However if you take a look at the people mentioned above these are all people who have excelled without peer in their respective fields. So whenever I am criticised I can’t help but smile because to attract criticism means that you have done something that is being noticed and that can’t be a bad thing. A side note, that little banter I had on the forum actually drove a whole heap of traffic to my blog and had plenty of people sign up to my newsletter. I couldn’t help but smile.

Next time your criticized for your work stand and feel good about it because everyone who has succeeded has at some point in time been exposed to strong criticism, good and bad. Your task is to embrace it and know that in theory, its one of the greatest forms of complement.

I recommend having a read of Yaro’s article about this as it’s another good insight

I was thinking the other day about my business experiences. I then asked myself a question: If I could give a person a single piece of business advice what would it be?  I thought long and hard about this and had a few things come to mind. “Work hard”, “don’t give up”, “stay motivated” and so on. Yet none of these really hit the mark. Of course, this is great advice but it doesn’t really make you think does it? We all know that you need to dig in, work hard and all that other stuff but what’s the catch?

I thought back to my experiences from selling custom designed clothing through to creating a mobile advertising network and one thing really stood out. I have been reluctant to mention this because it’s not exactly the most positive thinking in the world and if anybody knows me, I’m probably one of the most positive guys out there. Yet whenever I thought of this particular aspect it would drum out strong emotions and proved an overwhelming factor and contributor, whether I was running a business or in my earlier years in the corporate cage. That is: don’t think things may go wrong because they will.

What type of advice is that? You might be thinking what an outrageous thing to say and then move on to a more feel good blog about ‘how to set up an Adwords account’ or ‘10 ways to drive instant traffic to your blog’. Feel free, I don’t mind because the day you start doing things on your own you’ll remember what I said and think “that Bakhos guy knew what he was talking about”.

Let me explain a bit more. The top business people in the world understand this theory. Richard Branson is highly regarded as one of the riskiest entrepreneurs around however there is one thing that distinguishes him from the other go getters. Similar to other business people he would look for opportunities by finding a market which has not been given a fair go by current industry players. Then he would deliver great value backed by a profitable revenue model. However it was not until this final step would he make a decision to go through with it. He always made an effort to protect the bottom line. What is the worst case scenario? What if everything failed where will we be? Then if this worst case scenario proved not to be so bad then he would move into the new business venture. It’s this final bottom line aspect I am talking about.

Whenever I was in a position of authority something would go wrong. It could have been while on duty for a $700 million venue when a pregnant lady slips and lands awkwardly. Or maybe reprimanding a public nuisance while his wife falls into a panic seizure within minutes in the same venue? Maybe it might be one of your own company employees approving copyright material when it was yet to be approved by the copyright holder? Then you find out the material has been broadcast live 2 days after the fact then having to work like crazy to sort a potential disaster. Or it could be working on a contract for well over 2 years only to find the other party has decided to hold off for an(other) indefinite period. The reason I won’t mention names is because you would most certainly be familiar with the major groups involved here.

Believe me its scary and nerve racking but the one thing that has saved me has been the ability to understand and embrace the previously mentioned fact. I know that it’s not if something will go wrong, its being prepared for what will go wrong. The other mistake is trying to anticipate what is going to fall through because very rarely is it what you expect it to be. Also if your expecting potential issues in a particular area then sort that out before you commit to anything!

Keep an open mind, look after your bottom line, stay alert and react quickly and assertively to any unexpected challenges that come your way. In business, as in life, good times are easy and this does not attribute to your success. It’s how we deal with unexpected challenges which separates the average from the superstars.

The manifesto is very close to completion and is a bootstrapper’s formidable guide to online marketing and earning a living online.

I have set myself a target for Wednesday 27th May for the release of my eBook. Guess how much I’m selling it for? $297? $197? $97? 47?! $7! How about nothing. $0. I’m not charging a cent for this book at all. I believe the basic principles outlined in this book should be given away so that everyone can learn them and remove any excuse not to try.

I get extremely frustrated when great online markets with valuable information decide to run a course but then charge $497 or $297 a month. This immediately eliminates those who genuinely want to try but can’t because they simply don’t have the money to invest. It doesn’t make sense really does it? You provide a beginners course but then charge corporate rates. By no means am I knocking their product as I think many of these courses are worth many times more than what they actually charge. However it simply does not give everyone a chance to learn not only the basic principles but great marketing techniques as well.

A few things the eBook will contain:

• How to determine what product to sell
• Using your blog to full advantage
• 1 single step to increase affiliates conversions by over 200%
• Drop shipping guide
• The mega profitable eBay loophole that 99% of sellers don’t know
• Loads more.

Once again, all you need to do to get your hands on a copy when it comes out is to sign up to my mailing list. You can do this on the right hand column of this blog (and get your Free copy of Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich) or using the form below. Hope your excited like I am!