My Online Business

After being asked too often about my online business I plan to refocus my blog from general business info to how to earn a living online. It is possible, just like any other industry. The problem with Internet Marketing (IM) is too many people are selling ‘how to make money on the Internet” or how to make money at home when they are not actually doing it…just selling how-to pubs.

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I integrated the Internet into my business before the World Wide Web. That was in the ’80s when managing networking hardware international distribution channels from CA. Since then I’ve expanded my consulting practice via the Internet along with adding peripheral business along the way. Fortunately, I saw early on the commercial value of the Internet, especially domain names.

In the ‘60s a fellow in Monaco made quite a living registering trade names. He made up likely trade names companies would want for future use. When ESSO changed its name to Exxon that fellow in Monaco owned that name and sold it to Standard Oil for a princely sum.  I still register domain names and resell later. Buyers are usually those wanting to bank them for resell later. I’ve traded domain names for many years, but the smart guys made a fortune. A couple of years ago sex.com sold for $10 million or more. My advice is if you own any domain names do not let registrations expire. The names have value to someone and at less than $10 a year to keep the registration your investment is better than most.

Another way I’ve earned on the Internet is setting up a website, monetizing it, and then flipping it. There is always someone wanting to buy a business. These days I spend (waste?) time trying to convince friends, at no charge, how the Internet will help their businesses. One is a commercial real estate broker who absolutely has no patience with anything digital. Sadly, he is so slow-moving into Internet marketing that many opportunities are lost.

An interesting thing is how folks continue flogging a small local market when they have products for offer to the world. I’m not suggesting shutting the brick and mortar business, but for $39 a month, you can open a store on Amazon.com and easily pick up ancillary income. Are you really against selling to someone hundreds or thousands of miles from your strip mall location?  If you have products that may be sold across state lines the Internet is waiting to add to your bottom line.

Many decades ago my father-in-law had a prosperous retail eyeglass business in a major east coast city. His walk in retail operation paid the rent on what was really a robust wholesale operation. He bought discontinued merchandise from major chains and wholesaled to ‘mom and pop’ operations throughout the Midwest.

I remember him coming across a large supply of reading glasses like those on sale just about everywhere today. Back then they were a novelty item. He bought a small ad in the New York Post that ran once a week. Filling the orders via mail until the supply ran out brought in several hundred dollars a week above the cost of stock and advertising.  And his business was not located in New York. He was smart enough to go to a large market.

These and other lessons led me to look to the Internet and sell via phone. Several years ago when the director of marketing and sales for a major aerospace company I put together an outbound telemarketing team that called an assembled list of 34,000 potential customers. Our calls offered printed material explaining our products and how they allowed for faster, more reliable digital communication. The calls introduced us to the prospect and verified the listing information.

We mailed catalogs to the targets along with regular ‘checking in’ calls. These follow-up calls allowed us to keep information flowing. Many of those we called were in government installations and could not make long-distance calls. Rather than have an 800 number we chose to make outbound calls, constantly putting the ball in the other guy’s court.

Our products were leading-edge local area connectivity devices…those ‘black boxes’ folks needed but did not understand. This was the beginning of LANs and connecting PCs to IBM mainframe computers.

Well, business was so good we started hosting networking tutorials around the country with our regional sales managers and manufacturing representatives. These sessions gave us valuable entrée and made sure the Reps knew the product line and how to explain what plugged into what. Now consider this, what is different from those classroom tutorials and a webinar?

Remember the song, “Everything old is new again”. Every day I employ lessons learned years ago to further my Internet business. Dusting off old practices is little different from digitizing old documents or photos for sharing online. What I do is simply digitize best practices from days gone by.

You can do the same.  Just think about it, then do it and ask for help when you get stuck. Check once a week and learn more about doing business on the Internet at www.joearo.com.  Follow me on Facebook at JoeArodotCom. Use Twitter #joearo and LinkedIn at Joe Aro.