A good marketer knows that as well as having a good product, the worries of any visitor to your website need to be squashed as quickly as possible. All the questions you ask yourself before buying something about the person that's selling to you and the product itself need to be answered and answered well, or you're just going to click off and move along. The major point I'm trying to make here is understand fully what you're getting yourself into. With the anonymity of internet and the people selling products on it, you have to remember above all to be business like and professional at all times. If you create something and don't feel totally comfortable with it, chances are it's not up to scratch and it's not going to do you any favours, money wise, free time wise, long term, or short term.
Here's a good example. During the planning stages, this very report that you're reading has gone through no less than six drafts and different versions because it wasn't good enough. It wasn't professional enough, it didn't hit home the points strongly enough. This site has gone through many small changes, including three designs, one total overhaul, four versions of the scripts running in the background, two different affiliate scripts and some custom work.
I'm not saying you have to go overboard, but my personal belief, based in fact is that if you have put in the extra effort with something, customers will notice, and they will remember you, most importantly though, they will buy from you in the first place. Always, always keep your work professional and top quality if you want to get off the starting blocks, or it just won't happen for you.
Your Personality Gets You Noticed
Here comes the fun part. Taking the above idea of being professional at all times, you may feel that this next point is a contradiction in terms, and that is, inject your own personality. This is really important for the success of any online business, and it sure helps get to know people and meet new contacts and form business relationships. Professionalism is all good, but on its own, it's just not enough. I see this more and more, everyday with the e-zines I get through my mail, the reports I'm sent by people, and the sales letters for new products or services that I read on a daily basis.
As far as I'm concerned right now, you're reading this, and having read the introduction so far, you have some insight into us and who we are, what we sound like and it gives the course some personality. You know the source of them. If we didn't do this, you would just be reading another boring bundle of text that didn't have any background or meaning.
Here's a slightly more direct example for you. Right now, and throughout the rest of the course, I'm writing to you, and talking to you as if I was talking to a friend, but in a professional sense. We didn't want to create a tedious experience for you, otherwise it'd turn into another random and boring faceless block of text telling you what to do, and that's the last thing we want. We'd lose out, and you'd lose out, get bored, stop reading, and take away a negative experience with our names attached to it. Not good, not good for either of us.
I'm sure you're getting the idea now, keep that in mind when you're writing your own sales letters, your own reports, publishing your e-zine, creating your info product or membership site, in fact keep it in mind whatever you're doing, along side the professionalism. Remember, being a professional and respected businessman or businesswoman doesn't mean you have to go about your work in a boring way. Inject your own personality. It will not only help people remember you and build your personal brand, as well as your business, but it will keep your customers reading and coming back to you for more.