At least once a week or so I love getting out to work at a local hometown coffee shop. It really is a beautiful setting. The shop is right on the lake with a porch for working right in nature on sunny days. It’s nicely designed with every detail from coffee art on the walls, a fancy magazine rack on the wall, comfy chairs next to little fireplaces, marble tops and modern chairs in the table and chair section. They also have great coffee, drinks and delicious treats!

All that in itself is impressive but I think I’ve become accustomed to it. Today I was even more impressed when I went to the ladies room and found this:

It’s just the prettiest little washroom I’ve ever seen at a local business. The picture doesn’t really do it justice, it’s very cute and very clean. To me it shows that the owners take care in the little details. The creativity needed to put this together this didn’t come from someone with short-term profits in mind – it came from a long-term investment in their business and branding.

Ok, are you now wondering – “Yea, great Angela, nice washroom! Who cares?!”

Well I do. The customer. I like a business who things about things that I may or may not see, about the overall and complete customer experience.

How can you do this in online business? How can you pretty up your washroom online? Well here are just a few ideas:

• Pretty up your emails – Whether you use HTML or text emails you can take care in crafting a message that is easy to read and is also infused with personality. You can use *** or ^^ or or any combinations you like to spruce things up a little.
• 404 Error Pages – I’m totally guilty of this one. Sometimes people won’t find what they’re looking for on your site and they’ll end up at an ugly 404 error page. Have your website designer or DIY if you know how and create a warm, inviting reception for those who’ve lost their way!
• Shopping Cart Consistency – Is your shopping cart a messy jumble? Make sure there is a smooth transition from prospect to customer.
• Product Delivery – Are you still showing you care after they pay? Take a look at your product deliver and ask yourself how smooth it is. Is it super-simple for the customer to get what they’ve purchased? Have a few people do test sales for you if you are unsure.

I just think it’s a wonderful lesson in how much it shows when you take care and put the love into your business!

p.s. Now I couldn’t leave this post without telling you where to find this awesome little coffee shop. It’s called Black River Coffee and it’s located on High Street in Sutton, Ontario. Be sure to check them out and if you do tell them you found them via my blog And if you’ve got to go to the ladies room you know it’s all good (men – I’m sure the men’s washroom is just as cool)

I’m a little flabbergasted at the fact that some people will jump into an internet business with alll guns blazing, burn through a ton of money and then blame everyone but themselves for having zero success with it all.

This is coming from a very recent personal experience with a client. Unfortunately this client spent a lot of money in all the wrong places. She was under the impression that if she just did this one thing really well then her entire business would be built.

Well six months, thousands of dollars and hundreds of articles later he website has not made a single penny.

Now she’s threatening to call it quits and cancel it all because she’s out of cash.

This is an all too common scenario in the internet marketing world.

It just makes me wonder why in the world is someone willing spending all their cash on an unproven business if they don’t have the extra cash to burn?!

As I say in my Dear Guru song you can’t just WISH for traffic and knock on wood! It just doesn’t work that way.

It’s SOOO frustrating as a service provider to see new business owner after new business owner expecting that they’ll simply get rich on the internet with a few thousand dollars and no business planning or experience.

Internet Marketing is NOT a Business Plan

You can not simply throw up a website, throw a ton of niche topic articles up, add a few affiliate links and then wait for the cash to roll in – ok?

What annoys me the most is when I tell people the truth they try to tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about, that there must be a simple way, an easy way (a GET RICH QUICK WAY????)

I know your reading my blog because you’re a smart marketer so I’m sure you already know this but I’m on a rant so please bear with me when I say:

The ONLY Person Responsible For Your Businesses Success (Or Failure) Is YOU!

Own up to it! Take Responsibility! Take Action and Get It Right!

As Dr. Phil says: “you can’t change what you won’t acknowledge”

Your business success is not the responsibility of your coach, your website designer, your virtual assistant or your mama! (lol) It’s all you!

Now that may be a hard pill to swallow for some, myself included.

So with all my ranting you might ask if I have any actual advice. How do you make sure you don’t burn through a ton of cash on the WRONG marketing or even the wrong business.

Well it comes down to two things:
1. Time
or
2. Money

1. Nobody wants to spend a lot of time to build a successful business but those who really, really want a successful business will do it. I have been at this for about seven years now. It’s not a short-term plan for me. I know that every day there are new stats to view, new customers to talk to, new blog posts write, new blog posts to read, new trends to keep up on, etc, etc, etc. I’m just fine and dandy with that and in fact I LOVE it. If you don’t have or are not willing to invest the time it takes to really understand your business, your market and your marketing then you should find something you really like instead.

2. If you have the money to try out new businesses then you’ve got to start out smart and ‘sample’ them until they are proven. I was watching the show ‘Shark Tank’ one night and one of the investors said he could take an internet business from zero to $50 million in no time. The thing he didn’t say was that it probably costs him millions to get there and that he’s probably lost a whole lot of money testing! Nobody knows exactly how a market is going to react and what exactly they’ll buy until they test.

As I like to say: “It’s all just a guess, until you test.”

I’ve heard many successful marketers talk about failed business ventures. Read any success story and you’ll hear it sprinkled with failures along the way. You HAVE to be willing and able to fail. You also have to be willing and able to TRACK!

It’s unbelievable to me how many people are actually oblivious to how many visitors they get to their website. It’s like some magical fairy is just going to tell them how to run their business?!

It just doesn’t work that way.

Ok, on to my advice.

Here’s the simplest plan I have for running a successful online business:

1. Work
2. Test
3. Track
4. Repeat What Works
5. Repeat 1 to 4

Basically I’m saying you NEED to figure it out. You need to use YOUR brain, not everyone elses. Yes, consultants and VAs and designers and great for advice but you make a big mistake when you rely on them to build your business FOR you.

Now if all my ranting hasn’t made you run for the hills I have a few more things to share with you:

1. Market From The Heart – it’s a free report all about marketing a business built around your likes, your personality and your true self. That way you attract a market that resonates with the REAL you and you’ll love your business when you do!

2. Free Marketing Tips – When you sign up for the free report above you’ll also get internet marketing tips as well as updates about new fantabulous blog posts right here on MarketersMojo.com

So if you’re looking for someone to teach you how to get rich overnight using the ‘magical’ internet you’re in the wrong spot.

If you’re ready to learn how to run a REAL business on the internet with real sweat and real rewards just enter your name and email below, I’ll take good care of ya!
Just enter your name and email here to get the freebies:

p.s. For the song version of this post, make sure you have a listen:

Last week I went to the Small Business Forum in Toronto and I had the opportunity to listen to W.Brett Wilson be interviewed. W.Brett is one of the investors on CBC’s Dragon’s Den which also happens to be one of my favorite shows.

Brett had a lot of great advice to those who are building their business. He’s also made a lot of money in business, more money than I’ll probably ever dream of making.

However, it seems it came at a high cost.

W.Brett spoke about being a Workaholic and how he’d work from 6am in the morning until 8,9,10pm at night. He said he’d also go weeks without seeing his family because of it.

Virtual Assistants and Workaholism

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