E-Biz Booster Blog

Many Internet marketing and Making Money Online “Wannabes” refrain from creating and selling products of their own, because

• they believe it were too hard to create products
• they do not want to deal with customers.

They rather get into affiliate marketing, drop shipping, selling advertising, …

“Of course it is possible to make money online without a product of your own, but building a real sustainable business is on the other side of the coin.”

Creating your own products has certainly many advantages that outweigh the so called disadvantages.

• You are in total control of every aspect.
  • Product quality
  • The offer
  • Customer relationship
  • Cash flow
  • Your Affiliates
  • etc.
• You set the rules and you own the customers. They are yours.

Does this sound interesting, “They are yours!”, or scary to you?

What's the deal about customer service anyway? I don't want to talk about product creation today, but rather about the question, “Are you ready for a relationship with your prospects and customers?rdquo;

A great long-term, profitable customer relationship is based on the following.

• Products, services, and value that keeps up with the expectations created during the sales process. That means: High Quality Products (I say high quality, not necessarily overly expensive.)
• Excellent documentation
• Excellent follow-up and customer support
• Respect (*)
• etc.
  
  
• Overdeliver and you won't have much problems!
  

Of course, there are certain types of folks that will try to pull your leg. But when selling a product of your own, you are in control how to handle this and you will learn ways to minimize those negative side effects. Otherwise you leave it to someone else (like your affiliate partner, Google, … to fix the problem. All you get are refund reports, invalid click reports, smart-pricing, …)

The key to long term success is building a relationship with your prospects and customers. Yes, I include the prospects that might be on your email list already, but did not buy anything so far. The terms of such a relationship varies of course with the ticket price, and if you sell to businesses or consumers.

Back to respect (*)

I have observed it in large corporations, in small businesses (though more in consumer markets than in business-to-business markets) that product managers, CEOs or other relevant employees call their customers names and simply ignore their input and signals.

“Any business person that fails to understand the basic tenets of treating people right is most definitely not a genius. It’s very, very disappointing.”
~Ed Rivis

Many companies operate on the edge of what is fair or even what is legally allowed, and not too few have lost masses of clients, credibility, reputation, and fortunes.

“There is no place to hide in todays Web 2.0 economy, you better show respect and play fair in all what you are doing. Otherwise it will fall back on you sooner than later.”

Think twice about how you can support your prospects and customers. Is your business built on arrogance or support?

Yours
John W. Furst