This is because an Internet Business promises the things that we all want:

1. Leverage
There are close to 2 billion Internet users now with many millions more joining every single month. If we’re doing business on the Internet, the entire world is truly our oyster. We can reach out to many more people we never could otherwise.

2. Freedom
Anybody can now use the Internet to start their own business and make money doing so, in the comfort of their homes. We answer to nobody but ourselves and all we need is a computer, an Internet connection and the desire to do so.

Of course, we’ll also need some know how, which we can acquire along the way.

3. Cost-Effectiveness
It’s cheap. A domain name costs only $10/year, and hosting can be lower than $5/month. There aren’t many businesses we can start and maintain with that sort of investment. It’s truly easy to say goodbye to our bosses, although we want to be making our money first before doing so.

4. It’s A Part Of Life
That’s because the Internet links us to the latest information, and we all need to be updated all the time. It’s also a huge libary of knowledge and the vast majority of the information we want can be found for free. It’s also an entertainment outlet with millions of channels in the form of videos, created and uploaded for all to see by fellow Internet users. As such millions and millions of people use it every single day.

The Reality:
1. Many of us in fact have become successful Internet Entrepreneurs, in one way or another.
I have documented those ways in my classic Mini-Encyclopedia of Low-Cost, High-Profit Internet Business Models:

2. Many of us also failed to succeed as Internet Entrepreneurs
This can be due a number of factors. One of the main factors is the lack of knowledge or guidance. The other is the lack of proper IMPLEMENTATION of the things required to succeed.

In fact, I would rank the lack of implementation or improper implementation of best Internet Marketing practices as the main cause for failure, over and above a lack of knowledge since all the knowledge or guidance in the world is useless without the correct actions being taken.

The Success Factors For Freedom With An Internet Business
Note that we don’t just want to have a successful Internet Business – but one that gives us TOTAL FREEDOM from having to run, manage and maintain on our own.

Otherwise it’s no different from having a JOB – and that’s the very thing we’re trying to get away from.

There are many successful Internet Entrepreneurs who are tied to their Internet Business 24/7. They can’t take a vacation or even go to the movies during their waking hours for fear of missing a sale.

Or they’re overwhelmed with the multitude of roles they have to play that they get nothing done properly.

This isn’t how an Internet Business should be.

At the very least, not for me.

We should get leverage not only in how many people we can reach, but also in NOT having to do everything that is related to our Internet Business, on our own – and still make a handsome profit in the process.

With FREEDOM as the goal, let me now show you the essential elements of an Internet Business so that you know what’s involved to make money online, with the lowest amount of our money and with the least investment of our time.

To do this, I have to bring you back in time and see what are some of the most essential tools that we HAD to use to create a succesful Internet Business.

Then I’ll show you whether anything has changed along the way and if so, what we can do to adapt to the new Internet Business landscape – AND still maintain our freedom with our Internet Business working for us 24/7, instead of the other way around.

Let’s begin.

1st Generation Internet Marketing System
These are the components required:

Website + E-Mail

A website is basically our “permanent” online presence. We got a domain name and hosting account and we then uploaded whatever design and layout we wanted for our website on that domain’s host.

If we were selling products as a Merchant, we could also integrate an online payment system with our website so that we could accept payments directly from our customers via their credit cards, at the point when they decided to buy it after looking at our products.

If we were Affiliates for Merchants, we could set up a website providing useful information on topics related to the products sold by the Merchants, before recommending that they checked out the Merchants’ websites through our Affiliate Links or banners.

This would be our basic setup. We could get by with nothing else if we had lots of marketing money to spend on TV ads, newspaper ads and other places, to publicize our domain far and wide.

But we thought of using the Internet to market our websites too, since it was already being used by millions of people around the world.

The 2 Pillars
We knew Internet users then mainly used the Internet to check out:

1. Websites

2. E-mails

And because of that:

1. On Websites:
* Search Directories (like Yahoo.com, which started off as a Search Directory and later morphed into a Search Engine) and Search Engines (like AltaVista.com) were created to make the process of searching for information found on webpages much easier and quicker;

* Web Page Creators/Editors became an essential piece of software for Internet Entrepreneurs to create their own websites from scratch without needing to know HTML;

* Specialized FTP software to upload webpages to our host server became an essential tool for making our webpages seen on our domain;

* Web design and maintenance services were much sought after since most people didn’t have design skills even if they were willing and able to create the webpages themselves;

* Domain Names became hot assets to own since each one was unique and nobody else could register the same name once it was already registered by someone else

* The web hosting industry exploded and generated billions in recurring revenue.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization
Since search engines got millions of visitors per day looking for all sorts of information found on webpages throughout the world, and the engines didn’t want to create their own content but rather used software to find, index and show our webpages (without paying us a single cent to do this) to display to their visitors, who could see the results for free – we could tap into the Search Directories/Search Engines’ own traffic to get free prospects to our webpages.

And so SEO (Search Engine Optimization) became a popular topic ever since with the entire focus being on getting top rankings for our webpages for searches on keywords we wanted to target. The higher our webpages appeared on Search Engines’ results, the more free traffic we could get since Search Engine users checked out their search results starting from the top listing and moving down.

SEO companies started forming to offer SEO services to website owners who didn’t have the time or knowledge or desire to do SEO activities and tasks on their own.

Banner Ads
We could buy space on other webmasters’ websites too. We could put a banner that linked back to our webpages, and tap into the existing traffic those other websites were getting.

This marketing method required us to invest some money and while some of us did it, there were more of us who didn’t, preferring to rely on free Search Engine traffic and other free marketing methods instead.

2. On E-Mail:
Webmail services like Hotmail.com and Rocketmail.com were created to make the checking of e-mail possible through the same browser used for surfing websites instead of a separate e-mail software like Microsoft Outlook running on our computers.

This sort of simplified things for the Internet user and made things even easier for them to use, which in turn helped even more users to go online.

Mailing List Software
With e-mail being the first thing users checked when they were connected to the Internet, and being free to use, it became obvious to Internet Entrepreneurs that they needed to get their message into their visitors’ e-mail inboxes somehow.

We started asking for our website visitors to join our mailing list so that we could e-mail them offers to buy stuff, again and again. But of course, unless we were a big retailer of a range of products, nobody on our list would enjoy receiving offers from us in their e-mail boxes all the time.

And so we promised a free Special Report and tips on doing something better in our e-mail communication with them, so that they would continue to receive our e-mails. And we then interperse those e-mails with offers for our products from time to time.

This worked very well. Every time a promotional e-mail was sent out, there were bound to be sales made.

E-Mail Broadcast And Sequential Autoresponder Systems
Because of the need to constantly use e-mail, mailing list software became more and more sophisticated.

Rather than e-mailing our Prospects manually, we could use a special mailing list software called a Sequential Autoresponder System to AUTOMATICALLY e-mail our Prospects for us, with a series of pre-written e-mail messages uploaded to the Autoresponder System in advance.

So someone who just joined our mailing list would automatically receive an e-mail from our Sequential Autoresponder System, thanking him for being on our list and telling him what e-mails he could expect from us in the future.

We could also automatically send out a tip for helping him do something better (related to our topic) exactly 2 days later, and another tip on something else could be set to go out to him automatically exactly 5 days after this second automated e-mail had been sent to him.

We could also greet them by their first name in our e-mails (if we had their first name information in our database through their filling up the name field on our optin form), or have them remove themselves from our mailing lists via a single click on an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our e-mails (which saved us from having to manually remove them).

We could also broadcast e-mail messages at any time to the same list, even as they were going to receive those pre-written e-mail messages from us as scheduled in the Sequential Autoresponder System. This would be useful where we had some new offer to make to our list or we wanted them to have information we didn’t have earlier.

Thus all Sequential Autoresponder Systems will usually come with a standalone Broadcast function as well – giving us the ability to both send out pre-written e-mails to everyone who joined our mailing list, and newly written e-mails on an ad hoc basis.

If we were Affiliates, we spent the time looking for new Merchants to represent so that we could refer the same Prospects we had on our lists to many Merchants selling complementary products – thus increasing our commission earnings even more.

The Affiliate Program

Then Amazon.com came onto the scene and brought with it the concept of the Affiliate Program.

Amazon wanted Internet users to be rewarded for referring customers to its online book store. So they programmed an Affiliate Program software that could create unique Affiliate Links for each Affiliate they had in their program.

Anybody could join Amazon.com as its Affiliate for free. And all the Affiliate had to do was to put up banners that linked to their unique Affiliate Links which in turn would redirect the visitor to Amazon’s bookstore, bringing information about the unique Affiliate Link with it. Thus Amazon would know who referred the customer and reward the right Affiliate accordingly. The reward would be a percentage of the selling price.

This masterstroke of an idea resulted in Amazon.com getting millions of Affiliates all working for it for free, until a sale occurred. By then the money was already in Amazon’s bank account and Amazon could pay its Affiliates their commissions from money it had already collected – thus making this arrangement an entirely risk-free one for Amazon itself.

Amazon’s Affiliates in turn set up their own webpages and relied on Search Engine traffic and other marketing methods to draw in the Prospects. With millions of Affiliates all over the world promoting Amazon’s products, Amazon ended up having a huge referral army it didn’t need to pay to maintain.

Smart Internet Entrepreneurs then started copying Amazon’s Affiliate Program system. Affiliate Program software then became all the rage among Merchants for the benefits it would bring them.

The Affiliate Program software became another important component for a Merchant selling products online and soon many of us had either installed a similar off-the-shelf system on our domain, or used a 3rd party Affiliate Program software provider where we run the Affiliate Program off their server.

To make things easier for Affiliates to market for us, we could create ready banner ads for them and as well as ready promotional e-mail messages that they could load up into their own Sequential Autoresponder System or simply to broadcast to their lists.

To get Affiliates to join us, we could also get our website visitors to sign up as our Affiliates right on our website itself. We would also register our Affiliate Program with all the Affiliate Program Directories we could find.

To serve our Affiliates with a minimum of effort, we would have an Affiliate login on a restricted area of our website where our Affiliates could go to get their marketing materials and check their statistics and sales.

The Affiliate Program could also be automated as we could use a Sequential Autoresponder System to train our Affiliates on what steps to take to properly market for us, including how to copy and paste the banners we had prepared for them to show up on their webpages, and how to link from those banners to our websites using their own unique Affiliate Link our Affiliate Program software had automatically generated for them.

This was in addition to putting up the steps within the Affiliate login area which could be seen all the time by Affiliates who were looking for some guidance.

From time to time, we could run contests for the best Affiliate to win something valuable, to create a spike in sales when we needed extra cash to come into our business quickly. We would broadcast an e-mail to our Affiliates (they would sign up to a separate mailing list for Affiliates) to let them know about the contest – and serious Affiliates would then do whatever they needed to do to get the sales for us.

So the 1st Generation Internet Marketing System for the Merchant looks like the following:

Website + E-Mail + Affiliate Program

With a website that didn’t require any updating, Search Engine traffic, banner traffic, an automatic e-mail system, an Affiliate Program and automated Affiliate recruiting and training systems in place, we had everything we needed to make lots of money with online – practically on auto-pilot.

And many of us did.

All we needed to do as Merchants was to focus on our product range, offers, Affiliate and Customer support.

All Affiliates needed to do was to look for more Merchants to represent. (Note they wouldn’t install an Affiliate Program on their domain as Affiliates wouldn’t be selling anything themselves.)

For years, life was good.

Until something else came along that sort of messed up the good life that we had.

Which led to something that I called the 2nd Generation Internet Marketing System.

More on that in my next post!

Cheers
Sen Ze
P.S. Click below to book a seat to my FREE talk on Automated Internet Marketing Systems. I’ll be revealing the 4th Generation Internet Marketing System and what its components are. You really don’t want to miss out on this, because nobody else talks about them the way I do!

As you enjoy the extreme creativity of the people who shot the ads, you may share my view that Amazon has truly wasted its money on them:

The reason for the futile attempt? Here’s just ONE reason out of many:

See how rich and moving the experience really is with an iPad?

At $499 for the 16GB iPad which does a zillion things in full blazing color, which is just $10 more than the Kindle DX which only lets you read ebooks in black and white, would you bet on the Kindle being around much longer, in its current form?

With over 2.5 million users having bought the Kindle over the past 2 years it’s available just to read books on a black and white screen – what’s your guess that there will be millions more who’ll prefer the iPad over the Kindle for reading as well, from this point onward?

Amazon should save its money on ads and funnel all of it into developing an IMPROVED Kindle that is better than the iPad in terms of looks, feel and experience (not just MATCH the iPad – because what’s the point?).

But it’s an uphill battle because Apple has set the bar so high that it’s really difficult to see how much better ANY other tablet can be.

And even assuming that Amazon can create a “better iPad” – by the time it could come up with that alternative, it really wouldn’t matter much anymore.

So the EASIEST AND LEAST RISKY strategy for Amazon to ensure that the Kindle still has a role to play is to simply slash its price.

Even making a loss from each unit of Kindle sold (* gasp *) – so that it can earn from the increased sales of its ebooks (as more users will now own a Kindle due to its cheaper price).

Or Amazon can let it die a natural death and rely on its just-released Kindle for the iPad app that iPad users can use to purchase books from its ebookstore.

At least until Apple decides to only allow ebooks to be purchased from its iBookstore only – assuming this isn’t against any anti-competitive laws in existence…

Sen Ze

In the current economic downturn, some businesses are downsizing. I’m doing the exact opposite.

It’s amazing what can be possible when you set your mind on achieving the “impossible” goals you’ve set for yourself. There will always be the naysayers who say it can’t be done. They’re right – they can’t do it because they say they can’t, so they don’t even try.

I say I can – and so I try. In so doing, whole new worlds of possibilities open up to me when they never did before (or they did, but I didn’t notice). This is my RAS (short for Reticular Activation System) at work.

And lo and behold – I could achieve my goals, just like I said I would.

Like magic.

So go ahead. Say you can’t do it. And you’ll be proven right just by doing nothing. Easy.

But that’s nothing to be proud of.

But go ahead and say you can do it – and find the ways to get it done. And you’ll be proven right again.

Except it’ll take some time and effort. But it’ll be well worth it.

There’s much to tell…

But right now I have much to do. And you have much to gain.

For now, I’ve having the time of my life becoming much more efficient AND much more effective. The two are not the same.

Things get done faster, with less effort, and at a lower cost. Most of all, everybody’s happy – and soon, YOU will be very happy too as I roll out my new suite of products and services that WILL make you money.

Faster, Simpler and More Effective Than Ever.

In the meantime, if you’re a Twitter fan (I’m slowly becoming one, although it’s a long process to get totally immersed with it with so many things happening around me), you need to check out this top-quality video below.

It provoked an almost violent reaction in my gut, resulting in a long fit of uncontrolled laughter. The more you understand what Twitter is and what it can do for you – the louder will be your laughter.

If you don’t quite get it – I highly recommend you get going with Twitter now, by following me there –> http://twitter.com/senze. Get an account, “follow me” and whoever you wish, so that you can be notified via Twitter.com on our updates.

Play around with it for a while, post your updates to it for your own followers to be notified. Twitter is like a mini-blog, except that you only have 140 characters to say your piece, and you’ll get it sooner or later.

Then re-visit this video once more – and your uncontrolled laughing fit will come as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.

Trust me on this.

And oh – the “creators” of this video also managed to market their web site at the same time…

Sen Ze

Technorati Tags: twitter, video marketing, marketing with videos, business downsizing, business upsizing, downsizing, upsizing

You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://SenZe.com/business-blog/twitter/downsize-or-upsize-your-business.htm

Software for Internet Businesses help you do things better and faster like a Web Site Creator, which helps you create web sites quickly and without any HTML or programming knowledge.

Software also do the things you don’t want to do, like sending out a “welcome” e-mail for those who join your mailing list. You can do this manually, but a piece of software called “Autoresponder” can help you do this automatically and save you a lot of time and effort, so that you can better spend your time on marketing activities.

Software to run your Internet Business can be installed on your server where your web site is being hosted. This is typically a one-off purchase to own the software outright.

Or the software can be hosted by a third party on their server, and they charge you a fee to use it for your Internet Business. This fee can be based on time, like monthly or yearly. Or it can be based on access where they charge you every time you access it. Or it can be based on every transaction you make using the software.

So which option is better?

Install software on your own web server and pay a one-off fee or use a 3rd party’s and pay a fee for as long as you’re using their software?

I’ve done both – and you’ll soon see which one I prefer.

To do that, you need to understand the 3 main issues that are related to software:

1. Installation

2. Maintenance

3. Upgrades

Installation of software
================

Depending on the complexity of the software and how well the software creator has programmed it for easy installation, this can be done easily, or you may need someone to install it for you.

If you’re technically adept, you could install it on your own.

If you’re not, like most people, you’ll likely need to hire somebody to install it for you. This will add to your cost, but it’s a one-off fee.

Installation can take a few minutes or a few hours. Booking someone to install it for you can take a day or two or more, depending on when he’s free to do your job.

With hosted 3rd party programs, there’s no installation required on your part. The software is already installed, and you can get going in minutes.

Maintenance
=======

Software needs to be maintained to ensure that it’s working properly, or fixed when it’s not.

The more complex the software, the more maintenace it will likely need. If you’re not technically skilled (and most people are not), you’ll need to get someone who is to help you check on your software performance. This will add to your cost.

With hosted software on a 3rd party’s server where they charge you on a continuous basis, maintenance is already provided for whatever fee you’re paying.

And because the hosted 3rd party software is shared by other clients, the maintenance cost is also shared, so the total fee that includes the use of the software and maintenance is usually a very reasonable amount.

Upgrades
======

Software are constantly being improved on so that it can perform better, faster, more effectively, or simply to fix bugs that are almost certain to appear in more complex pieces of software.

Thus new versions of them are constantly being released – and it’s then up to you to decide whether you would like to upgrade to the newer version.

Frequently, however, you don’t have a choice because a critical bug has been discovered that will make your software not work well in certain circumstances.

If you’ve installed software on your server, and you decided to upgrade for better performance, or where you have no choice, you’ll need to either install the upgrade module, or re-install the latest version of the software.

Either way, this can be a pain, and will cost you some downtime, and more money. I’ve done this a few times and I can tell you that it can be a frustrating process.

Software running on a 3rd party’s server will automatically be upgraded without any need for you to do anything on your part, since the server isn’t yours, and the software provider would want to use the best software it can develop for it to have an edge over its competitors. The modest fee that they’re charging you usually includes all future upgrades at no additional cost.

You get the best software to use for your Internet Business, and you can rest easy knowing that all technical matters are taken care of.

The Verdict
========

If you’ve read this far, you’ll know that I’m a bigger fan of software hosted by reputable 3rd party companies instead of installing them on my own server.

While you may be paying more for hosted 3rd party software, it usually isn’t a lot more since the software provider can profit by having more clients all sharing the same software, maintenance and upgrade efforts.

So don’t discount software hosted by 3rd parties. In many cases, they’re what you SHOULD be using for your Internet Business.

Not only that, they can actually cost less than the software installed on your server, overall.

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://SenZe.com/business-blog/software/software-for-your-internet-business.htm

Technorati Tags: Software, Internet Business, Internet Business Software

24 hours, of course.

How much effort can you put in a day to market your web site?

This can be a lot, depending on your attitude and knowledge – but it’s usually not enough.

So how do you multiply your time and effort in a way that will make you more money?

Easy – you find others who are willing to put in the time and effort with you.

And why would they want to help you here?

They’ll do it usually for money or compensation of some kind.

But usually for money.

Which is good for you, since it’s usually very easy to send money to them.

So you’ll have to hire them to help you out without knowing if they’re as good or better than you are?

Well, you can pay them ONLY if they show some results, which is a measure of their performance.

What sort of results should they show you?

This is up to you, but my favorite type of results is for them to show me some SALES of my products as a result of their efforts.

Thus if I’m selling something on my web site as a Merchant, and they want to help me promote that product – then I want to see sales coming from their efforts before I pay them.

Fair enough?

Why would they want to put in all the time and effort to do something that only rewards them when a sale occurs?

Because:

1. If they do it right, the money they make from this arrangement can be a HUGE amount
This can be a whole lot more than being paid whether a sale happens or not, working for you as your employee. They would be paid for the same effort, but with more money as your Affiliate (if they do it right). The commission to them can range from 5% all the way up to 70% or more of the purchase price of the product, depending on what the product is. And prices for those products can range from $10 – $20 to thousands of dollars – so the compensation can be pretty substantial for some Affiliates who know what they’re doing.

2. They don’t have to be a Merchant with products to sell
They can simply represent those Merchants as their Affiliates. There’s no need for Affiliates to pack and deliver products to customers, or deal with customer support issues. That’s the Merchant’s job.

3. There are more “opportunities” for Affiliates
Since no special qualifications are required of the Affiliate other than a willingness to give it a shot following certain rules and policies set by the Merchant, Affiliates have more advantages over a “job”. Affiliates qualify themselves, and can choose from thousands of Merchants to represent.

Awesome Leverage Provided By Affiliate Programs
==================================

The Merchant leverages on the time and effort of the Affiliates to reach out to more Prospects and only pays for performance. When a sale occurs, the Merchant has the money to pay the Affiliate off from the money collected from the Customer, so this is a risk-free arrangement for the Merchant in that he doesn’t have to gamble his money on a non-performing “employee” instead.

The Affiliates leverage off the time and effort of the Merchant in creating a product that others want to buy and in the Merchant dealing with support issues so that the Affiliates don’t have to. They simply focus on referring the Merchant’s products and services to interested Prospects, and they can get started right away.

Some Customers will only get to buy some really useful products and services when Affiliates are involved because the Merchant himself, even with a team of marketers on his payroll, cannot reach out to as many Prospects as compared to hundreds or thousands of Affiliates all doing their thing, being paid on performance. Customers will be thankful for products and services that add value to their lives in a way that they want which can be fulfilled by the Merchant – but they don’t necessarily know where to look for them without the Merchant’s Affiliates’ efforts.

This is a Win-Win-Win concept all the way, that involves the transfer of money from the Customer to the Merchant, and from the Merchant to the Affiliate.

Which is also the reason why many businesses use Affiliates to help market their products for them, and why there is no shortage of Affiliates willing to help out.

What’s Amazon’s role in Affiliate Programs?
=============================

Contrary to what you may think, Amazon.com didn’t invent the Affiliate Program.

Affiliate Programs have been in existence longer than you think.

That house you bought was probably sold to you by a Real Estate company, represented by its “Negotiator”. This company was an “Affiliate” for the previous houseowner as it was only rewarded for its efforts in selling the house to you. It will then pay its Negotiator from this commission earned, keeping the balance.

That stock you sold last week was executed by your stockbroker. The company that he works for, the stockbroking firm, is your “Affiliate”, earning a percentage of the stocks’ selling price, only when you sold it. A part of this commission goes to the stockbroker for helping the company execute its clients’ trades.

That insurance policy you have was sold to you by the insurance agent of an insurance company. This agent is the “Affiliate” of that company who pays him a percentage of the yearly premiums you pay to the insurance company to keep your insurance policy in force.

That car of yours was auctioned of by an auctioneer some time ago with the auctioneer’s company getting a percentage of the winning bid as its commission. The auctioneer’s company is your “Affiliate”, and pays the auctioneer from the commission earned for the work done, keeping the balance.

The damages won for you by your lawyer in court against the defendant who injured you in a Personal Injury case can be paid from a percentage of the damages due to you, on a “contigency fee” basis. He’s acting as your “Affiliate”, although you would still call him your “lawyer”.

There are many more examples, but you get the idea.

Affiliate Programs work for all parties very well – and what Amazon.com pioneered wasn’t an Affiliate Program, but an online tracking system for Affiliates who want to refer customers to them via the Internet for monetary reward.

Today, there are Affiliate Programs for all sorts of products and services, because of the leverage provided by an Affiliate Program software that tracks Affiliates’ efforts and sales that also doubles up as an “Affiliate Recruiting” software.

We’ll take a closer look at this powerful piece of software in my next post, that added tons of value to every party to a sales transaction.

You’ll discover how it can help the Affiliate and Merchant in ways you’ve never known – even if you currently run an Affiliate Program yourself.

As usual, I’ll serve up something surprising for you to devour.

Stay tuned.

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://SenZe.com/business-blog/affiliate-program/affiliate-program-for-merchants.htm

Technorati Tags: Affiliate Program, Leverage, Amazon, Amazon.com, Affiliate

There are many types of complexities in business.

There is technical complexity.

There is conceptual complexity.

There is implementation complexity.

There is management complexity.

Just to name a few.

They’re bad because by being complex, it’s hard for you as the business owner to start a business that has them for company.

They’ll cost you a lot more money, time and effort than a simpler business that you can do.

And as with any business, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to overcome them all.

Complexity is bad.

But then again, if you’re looking at a business full of complexities that you would like to emulate but couldn’t because of all the hurdles you must go through – one thing start to come to mind.

Complexity is good.

It’s good because if you’ve gone out to overcome those hurdles from the beginning and you succeed, you will have few, to NO competitors.

Just like Boeing and Airbus - the world’s 2 main competitors for commercial airplanes.

Between the 2 of them, they get the lion’s share of all aircraft orders from around the word – totalling trillions of dollars.

Just like Intel and AMD - the world’s top 2 main competitors for computer chips.

And Search Engines, like Google and Yahoo.

Google’s algorithm is very complex and it gets more and more complex by the day.

Google’s quest to return very accurate search results to keep its users happy means that it’ll need to add all variables that will affect the accuracy of those results.

And there are hundreds of such variables, with many more being discovered and added all the time.

Even Yahoo isn’t quite close to Google in terms of the complexity of its search algorithm – thus you’ve seen how Google has slowly but surely pulled itself away from the pack.

Complexity is good in ensuring you get to protect your turf for a much longer period of time – sometimes for decades – before you need to share any customers with another competitor.

And if you constantly innovate and add even more value after having been successful with complexities in your business, you’ll be sitting on your throne literally forever.

Complexity is good.

Here’s the “business holy grail”:

Complexity in implementation and creation of a SIMPLE product that your Customer can easily understand, use and want is the best combination of all.

You’ll have lots of Customers and few to no competitors, for a long time to come.

Just like Walt Disney experienced with his hand-drawn animated full-length cartoon movies – before computers came along and made the process more accessible to his competitors.

But he was the king of animation for DECADES before Pixar Animation, Dreamworks and the others could even try to compete.

And what about IKEA - the furniture retailer?

Without knowing exactly what’s involved – you can SEE the sheer complexity of their operations and business in selling you flat-packed furniture with modern, functional designs that don’t cost you an arm and a leg to get.

Even thinking about being their possible competitor hurts.

Right?

Complexity is good.

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/complexity/complexity-is-bad.htm

Technorati Tags: business, business complexity, Airbus, Boeing, Intel, AMD, Yahoo, Google, Search Algorithm, business implementation, Walt Disney, cartoons, IKEA

Prince is currently doing 21 days in London alone!

And most of those dates have been sold out. In fact, at one point his tickets were selling at 1,000 per minute!

Why?

Because Prince:

1. Is a musical genius
He composes all his songs, writes the lyrics to all of them, sings them as lead vocal AND backing vocals and plays all the musical instruments used for those songs (up to 25 different instruments for one song)!

2. Is a prolific composer
He has composed hundreds of songs in his entire career, including hits for Celine Dion, Sheena Easton and The Bangles. He has released some of those songs on 46 albums so far – with many more yet unheard!!

3. Sells records
He has many hits from his albums and he has sold millions of them all over the world. The Purple Rain album alone (released in 1984) sold 20 million copies worldwide.

4. Is a great performer
If you’ve seen his Superbowl XLI halftime performance, you would have experienced an unforgettable musical performance.

I’m not a fan of Prince, by the way. Not of his music, nor his style – but I do appreciate genius when I see one.

His London concerts were originally supposed to run for 7 nights but when all 140,000 tickets for them at 31.21 pounds sterling (about $63) sold out in 20 minutes (!), he extended it to 15 days.

And when tickets to those extra 8 days started selling out, he extended it a further 6 days – making a total of 21 days!

He grosses an average of $1.2 million per concert ($63 x 20,000 seats) for this current tour if all tickets are sold out. By the time it’s all over, he would have grossed $1.2 million x 21 days = $25.2 million.

Give or take a few million.

Not bad for less than a month’s work.

And there’s still the US Tour to come.

How did this 21-date London concert come to be?

Here’s a combination of factors:

1. Prince’s an established music star whose concerts are a great spectacle
There’s plenty to see and hear. Prince is known for his flashy performances and he’s backed by some of the most talented musicians in the world, all hand-picked by him.

2. It’s summer time in London
Summertime means time out in the park, and concerts to attend!

3. London is home to about 8 million people
The bigger the population, the bigger is Prince’s number of prospects interested in his songs. 8 million is a big number for a city by any means.

4. London is a popular tourist destination
Millions of people visit London every year. Tour companies usually offer special packages that include free concert tickets as well. Prince’s audience will definitely include many foreigners especially when he’s not performing outside of the US and UK.

5. He has announced that this Planet Earth Tour is “The End” of his live concerts
There’ll be no more Prince in person after this, so this is his fans’ last chance to watch him live. Well, there may be a “Comeback Tour” or “Encore Tour” many years later but they don’t know for sure. In case he isn’t planning any in the future, this is all they have.

6. His latest album, “Planet Earth”, was given away for free by the UK’s Mail On Sunday
They distributed 3 million copies of it on July 15 2007 alone. The newspaper paid Prince a rumored 300,000 pounds for the rights to do this. This generated lots of additional publicity for his upcoming concerts in August 2007 (and sold lots of extra newspapers).

7. All ticket holders get a copy of his latest album, “Planet Earth” as well
This makes his 31.21 pounds ticket price a real bargain since the album sells for about 10 pounds in stores. Not only that, the distribution of CDs in this manner counts towards his final album sales as well – which will help it in music charts tracking album sales.

Since there are music lovers who buy albums according to their ranking in the music charts – this will help push sales of the album further.

8. He’s opening up his songs vault to present 150 of them during his London run
Yep, that’s right. He’ll be playing over 150 songs over the course of his 21-date London concerts. He performs only about 23 songs at each concert, which would leave plenty left over for the remaining dates.

Thus many of his hard-core fans will show up for the concerts multiple times over the next few nights just to hear more of those songs, many of which they’ve never heard before!

How’s that for repeat business?

You can do that only if you’re as prolific a composer as Prince…

The combination of all of the above factors – but especially “The End” of Prince’s live tours – makes for an irresistible series of events that hard-core Prince fans find hard to resist.

The US Tour should be even better. There should be one, because Prince grossed over $87 million the last time he had one in 2004 with the Musicology Tour that went on a run of 96 performances.

Talk soon.

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/prince/prince-and-the-new-marketing-generation.htm

Technorati Tags: Prince, Planet Earth Tour, Earth Tour, UK Earth Tour, London UK Earth Tour, music industry, music, tours, innovative marketing, marketing, Mail On Sunday, business profitability, recording industry

I went to a bookstore about 2 months ago and bought 2 books that I had no intention of reading anytime soon.

They’re still on my table and I still haven’t found the time or urge to go through them yet.

I’m not saying those 2 books aren’t worthy of my time. They’re both updated and revised editions, which means that they’ve already gone past their initial print runs, and therefore are doing very well indeed.

The reason for my lack of “involvement” with those 2 books is simple.

I was finishing up on another book of mine with my co-author that would complement the 2 books I’ve found perfectly.

Buying those 2 books simply spurred me on to finish the endless scanning of the text for mistakes so that it could be published.

Otherwise I could go on forever, trying to make a good book as perfect as it could be.

Thus after about 8 months or so from the time the idea was conceived with my publisher and co-author, it’s finally published!

Here’s the third book in the “series”. No prizes for guessing which 2 books have been sitting on my table unread, and which one has been taking up my time for the past few months:

Yep, “The AirAsia Story” is my 3rd book in print format. It’s a book that had been begging to be written for quite a while.

And together with my wonderful co-author Jayne Ng, it’s finally done.

I was involved in almost every aspect of its production including coming up with the title and sub-title, back cover description, conceptualizing the cover design, overseeing the layout, discussing with Jayne on the content we would like to present, proof-reading and editing – in addition to writing parts of it.

We have an Editor to edit our work too, but there were quite a few last-minute additions that we simply had to fit in that resulted in some editing being done on our own as well.

It isn’t the way other publishing companies would follow – but it is ours’. Our publisher, Adrian (of Kanyin Books) gave us full creative control with some awesome ideas of his own to boot – and the result is a book we’re proud to be associated with.

We timed it to coincide with the launch of the last Harry Potter book 2 Saturdays ago (this is another Pajamas marketing lesson for you), but some last-minute delays ensured that it was not to be.

Nevertheless, it hit the bookstores just a few days ago.

And word has it that its sales are making Adrian a very happy puppy.

Here’s what the back cover says:

Since bursting onto the scene in 2002, AirAsia has become one of the most successful budget airlines in Asia today.

The book traces AirAsia’s eventful history from its humble beginnings as a small-time player with only two aircraft to its credit and $40 million in debt from Day 1 of its operations, to its present-day success as THE trendsetter among Asian low-cost airlines. It now carries millions of passengers every year, making millions in net profits in the process.

This happened in the aftermath of 9/11 and despite very stiff competition from many other budget airlines in the region as well as leadership from a CEO who was unfamiliar with the airlines industry.

Yet AirAsia’s journey to success has been anything but smooth.

This book reveals its challenges, hurdles, bumps and how it overcame them all in more detail for you to have a fuller understanding of just how remarkable its achievement really is.

Get ready to be blown away by the resilience, daring and imagination of its founders who all bravely took on the brutal circumstances they were in (and still are) that resulted in AirAsia becoming THE brand on the lips of budget air travellers all over Asia in just a few short years.

You’ll also discover some of the people behind AirAsia who you don’t normally hear of, and what their roles are. It’s a fascinating read that takes you into the realm of a real business with real challenges.

AirAsia fully practices Pajamas business and marketing principles to reap its millions of dollars in revenue every year – starting from year 1 of its operations.

It’s a sexy overnight success story that is quite irresistible to not just me, but anybody who has been exposed to parts of the AirAsia story these past few years.

Go to any major bookstore if you’re in Malaysia and look for it.

If you’re living outside Malaysia, click below to order it and have it delivered directly to your doorsteps within a few weeks:

Quantity 2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA) is an authorized retailer for goods and services provided by All Net Profits Center.

Postage and handling costs have already been included in the price. While this will cost you more than if you were to buy from a bookstore, I’ll make it up to you by giving you a head start over everybody else with a NEW, yet-to-be-released Special Report of mine that covers some of the most interesting and profitable online business models you may have come across without realizing their significance in terms of generating millions of dollars in revenue – with the least amount of work possible.

It’s a brand new Special Report, but you’ll get it first even before I officially announce it to my list.

Completion of this Speical Report is only a few weeks away at most (probably within 2 weeks or so).

This Special Report may make you a millionaire many times over as it will generate BIG money-making ideas for you that you will never be able to come up with on your own. Those business models certainly have made their owners very rich indeed. Put your own twists on them, or combine a few together…

This Special Report is different from my classic Mini-Encyclopedia Of Low-Cost, High-Profit Internet Business Models that has been selling very well over the past few years now. There are an additional 20 examples of just ONE type of Internet Business Model which I have not included in the Mini-E yet (the Mini-E itself contains 19 other different Internet Business Models with numerous examples of their applications in the real world. It’s a MUST for your Internet Business and Internet Marketing library!).

Some of those 20 examples require sophisticated programming and infrastructure capabilities, while others are so simple you’ll laugh yourself silly as to why you didn’t think of them or do them on your own first.

To get the new Special Report (when it’s ready) before everybody else does, order “The AirAsia Story” from the link above.

Now that this is done, there are quite a number of other print and electronic books in my head that I need to give life to in the months ahead, some of which will absolutely delight you.

For sure.

Talk soon!

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/AirAsia/the-flying-trilogy-of-profits.htm

Technorati Tags: Air Asia, Tony Fernandes, Ryanair, Easyjet, MAS, airlines, aircraft, travelling, Kanyin books, profitable business model, internet business models, internet marketing, Sen Ze’s Mini-Encyclopedia Of Low-Cost, High-Profit Internet Business Models, Mini-E

But regardless – what could J.K. Rowling do to make even more money now that her boy wizard’s adventures have been systematically put to rest in her last book in the series? (She’s worth over $1 billion right now, which will soon increase.)

Well, there are still 2 more movies to go – ending with “Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows” in a few years from now (probably in 4 years’ time).

She earns royalties from them and the other 5 movies made so far.

The movies in the series are reproduced on DVDs after they’ve finished their run in the cinemas and another serious round of money-making takes place.

Her books will continue to sell during that time and beyond.

All in all, expect to see a few hundred million dollars more to be added to her bank account by the time it’s all over.

And then, in terms of milking things for all they’re worth – what else could she do?

Have a “comeback” book/movie of sorts, of course.

And why not?

The British Band, “Take That” came back after having broken up in the 1990s.

The Spice Girls are planning a “Reunion Tour”.

Bruce Willis came back with “Die Hard 4.0″.

Arnold Schwarzenegger came back in “Terminator 3″ after having been melted down in Terminator 2.

And some top Hong Kong singers retired for 10 years or so and then made a comeback with their respective “Comeback Tour”.

(Some would say they actually planned the “Comeback Tour” before they retired.)

When you make a comeback, there’s another round of money-making right there because you’ll have a hungry base of fans who were looking for more of you when you retired but couldn’t get any – until now.

The key is to ensure that you come back before your fan base grow too old to remember who you were. (And you must have been a hit before you retired, of course.)

In the case of a fictional character like Harry Potter – if he is dead now – he could be resurrected somehow (like Sigourney Weaver was in “Aliens 4″) which isn’t that big a deal considering that he’s a wizard.

Alternatively you could always do a “Prequel” like the “Batman Begins“, “Superman Returns” and the first 3 episodes of the “Star Wars” series…

There are many possibilities, and they’re all very logical…

It’s good to know that sometimes “The End” isn’t really the end, especially when the potential for profit is still very much in existence.

However, “The End” can be used to make a whole bunch of money this time (because there’s an end to it all – there’s no more to come), and set up the “Comeback” many years later (hey – there’s more to come after all!) for another whole bunch of money.

The very disappointing “Star Wars” prequels could do with another “Comeback” by virtue of how disappointing those 3 episodes were.

One possibility is to present 3 ALTERNATIVE episodes for the Prequels with the same core characters but totally different story lines, but ending with Darth Vader becoming Darth Vader anyhow.

And I’ll bet the 3 Alternative Episodes would break box office records since there are so many Star Wars fans out there.

Think this isn’t possible?

It has been done before on the hit TV series, “Dallas” in the early 1980s where one very disappointing season (story-wise) was aired (about 22 episodes) and then explained away in the next season as nothing more than one main character’s “bad dream” – leaving the production team to continue from the season before that dream with an alternative (and better) storyline for the new season, as if that bad dream season never existed!

But this would mean having George Lucas admit that his current 3 Prequel episodes are bad – which he wouldn’t do.

Swallow your pride, George – and remake them with better scripts and better actors. Then hear your cash register ringing all the way from the planet Tatooine…

Not only will you get richer from the experience, it’s the right thing to do…

Plus the fans want to pay you for a better experience – so give it to them!

(I’m not a fan, by the way – even of the original Star Wars.)

And then you have the comics kingdom where a main character can exist in many different universes SIMULTANEOUSLY, with different characters surrounding the main character and storylines that don’t cross each universe.

The “Spiderman” series of comic books are done this way. There’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” title, and “The Sensational Spider-Man” title, “The Spectacular Spider-Man” title, “Web Of Spider-Man” title, “Ultimate Spider-Man” title and other titles involving this character, all appearing at the same time at one time or another – as if the stories on the other series don’t exist!

What’s more…

You can also create one single universe for one concept but with different characters in different backgrounds!

After all, we have CSI:Vegas, CSI:Miami and CSI:New York all being shown at the same time, don’t we?

Not only that – you may run into broadcasts where one episode from each CSI series is shown back to back! You get a total of 6 murders in 3 hours, solved by 3 different CSI Teams!

Best of all, Horatio of CSI:Miami sometimes makes an appearance in CSI:New York to talk to Mac Taylor on a case that involves their “mutual” victims…

Whether it’s the world of fiction or otherwise – you can print money again and again if only you want them badly enough.

All that is required is your own desire and plenty of creativity.

Both of which human beings have in abundance – as you can see above.

Right?

Talk soon.

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/business-profitability/profits-rising-from-ashes-and-different-bodies.htm

Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Spiderman, Spider-man, CSI:Miami, CSI:New York, CSI, CSI:Vegas, Star Wars, Die Hard 4.0, Spice Girls, Take That, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sigourney Weaver, Aliens 4, George Lucas, Business Profitability, Authors, Entertainers

Check it out below:

www.OMNICITI.com

It lists some unique occupations too. There’s a Lexicographer, a Polar Expeditor, a Calligrapher and an Apologist (!).

What’s an Apologist? Somebody who apologises for a living?

Here’s the definition, as found in wikipedia:

Apologists are authors, writers, editors of scientific logs or academic journals and leaders, who during their lifetimes were known as radicals and extremists for taking on the points in arguments, conflicts or positions that were during their eras either placed under popular scrutinies or viewed under persecutory examinations. The term comes from the Greek word apologia (απολογία), meaning defense of a position against an attack.

Interesting, no?

And click on –> OMNICITI Personal Domain Name Directory Search to find one such Apologist!

Do you know of anybody with his own domain name consisting of his own name who should be listed? Let him or her know about OMNICITI now. It’s also a great resource if you’re looking for people to work with you on your projects as they take themselves seriously enough to have a personal domain for themselves.

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://www.SenZe.com/business-blog/personal-domains/omniciti-breaks-the-1000-mark.htm

Technorati Tags: OMNICITI, Personal Domain Name Directory, Web Site Directory, Domain Name, Personal Domain Name, Lexicographer, Polar Expeditor, Calligrapher, Apologist, web site, blog, URL, Domain Name Registrar