A “How To” Guide To Achieve Better Results As An Online Seller

If you’re a fresh college graduate or a person looking to start a venture with a relatively small capital requirement, online selling is the best entrepreneurship option on offer.

During the last decade or so, the increased use of smartphones and tablets has increased the interest of people towards the virtual marketplace. $ 1922 billion has been spent on purchases made online, alone in the United States and this amount is expected to jump to around $ 2356 billion in 2018, which shows the growth prospects of this industry. (Source Statista)

With online selling being the talk of the town these days, following are a few tips which can help you achieve better results as an online seller:

Carry Out a Comprehensive Market Research:

Market Research is an important aspect of online selling. Analysis of the performances of products which are similar to the product which you are planning to sale plays an important role at the time of making a decision about a product’s potential.

Scan the market and identify the bestselling products of the market. Also make an analysis of different tranches of the market and scrutinize your product portfolio accordingly. Don’t waste your investment on slow moving items and look for dynamic and easy-selling merchandise.

Keep Customer Satisfaction as your highest priority:

Product Reviews are vital in generating sales. Since you are not physically present yourself to endorse your product, product reviews perform this task for you. The algorithm of a number of online selling platforms is designed to rank the products on the basis of the ratings and reviews received by that product.

Identify negative reviews posted about your product. Negative Reviews can have a bad impression about your product on potential purchasers, hence listen to the concerns of your unhappy customers and maintain customer satisfaction as your highest priority. Review analysis is important as it shows the performance and brand-presence of the product among the audience.

Use Keywords And Describe Your Product Carefully:

Keywords determine your product ranking when a consumer searches for a particular product online. Research the best keywords and achieve better product rankings.

Product description must describe what your product is about and what does it offer. Since the product is not physically present for the consumer to check, hence any inconsistency in the product description and the product itself can result in high sales return rates and might even get you banned from selling online.

Evaluate Price Trends:

When it comes to online selling, festive or any other sales comprise a great part of revenue generated throughout the year. The evaluation of price trends gets really important here. Competitions are high when it comes to selling your product online. Keep an eye on the price trend of the products similar to yours and frame your pricing blueprints accordingly.

As witnessed, a dip in prices for certain products is recorded while the prices of certain products get doubled, especially during the “sales period”. This is where the scrutiny of price trend will help you in deciding whether you need to stock your product due to a higher return expectation or get it out in the market.

Maintain a diverse product portfolio:

Offer a wide range of products to the customers. This is where choosing the right niches work for you. While analyzing competition, niches analysis is vital, as it tells you the extent of competition for the product which you are looking to sell.

A product with a lesser niche would mean that the presence of competition for this product is low. Hence, the chances of the customer reaching your product will be higher. Hence, add niche products to your portfolio and witness the results getting better for you.

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A “How To” Guide To Achieve Better Results As An Online Seller

How You Can Achieve Self-Motivation and Why It Is the Key to Success

Everyone has dreams. However, only a few realise them. The question is why? The fact is that self-motivation allows us to control our own success. And there are key principles that enable us to be self-motivated.

Does hard work really pay off?

Some argue that entrepreneurs are born, not made. They say true entrepreneurs learn faster and have greater intuition than those who are not born that way. Such people also have a natural talent for business.

On the other hand, there are those who argue that natural talent is irrelevant. Researchers Ericsson, Krampe, and Tech-Romer believe that success is purely built on purposeful, thoughtful, and intense effort.

There is a study by David Hambrick and Elizabeth Meinz called “Limits on the Predictive Power of Domain-Specific Experience and Knowledge in Skilled Performance.” I believe this study hits the spot.

On the graph below, the vertical axis shows performance. The higher up on the axis, the better you perform. The horizontal axis shows your intelligence. The further to the right, the more intelligent you are. The red line indicates people who work hard, while the blue line indicates people who don’t put in the necessary effort.

The takeaways from this study are:

• Hard work beats talent when the talented don’t work hard.
• If the intelligent and unintelligent both work hard, there is not much difference in performance.
• In a career where only the best performers succeed, such as the Olympics, you need to have a lot of talent. However, in careers (such as business), talent is not as important.

Either way you look at it, hard work puts you right up there with the top performers. So while many people take the view that being successful is all about talent, they are often using this perspective as a defence mechanism to justify their mediocre level of success.

If you study successful people, it is clear that talent only plays a small role. Check out this great video of Will Smith talking about talent and hard work:

To me, it is an exciting prospect that someone with average intelligence can achieve a level of success similar to the smartest individuals. Hard work is the variable we can control. If you can motivate yourself to work hard, you can achieve great success. The question is, how do you stay motivated?

It starts with a dream

If you ask children what their dream lives look like, they will often express their hopes with passion and conviction. As you grow older, people often see their dream lives as fantasies that will never come true. The difference is that adults have the experience to know how tough reality can be. So they often put their dreams in the back of their minds.

Successful people, however, actively visualise their dreams. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a great advocate of having a vision. Have a look at this video of Arnold talking about the importance of having a goal:

Conor McGregor, an extremely successful UFC fighter, has recently been in the news because he is the first person ever to simultaneously win two titles in two weight divisions. It would be easy to think that a fighter’s thought process has no relevance to running a business, but you would be wrong.

Successful people from all different backgrounds share the principle of visualisation. Conor epitomises the power of visualisation in this video:

Dreaming about and visualising what you want allows you to see and feel what it would be like to achieve real success. Not only is visualising your goals a fantastic source of motivation but doing so also gives you purpose and direction in your life. Donald Trump is someone else who advises people to dream big.

If your vision is not compelling enough, you’ll never find the motivation to pursue it. If you’re keen to start a business in order to achieve your dream, I recommend you read my article, “The real truth behind finding a viable business idea.”

Make a solid plan

A vision might motivate you, but a plan maps out how you will get to your end goal. As Gary Vaynerchuk says, people love the feeling of being motivated, but few people do anything with that feeling. Having a plan ensures that your motivation is not short-lived. It gives you a clear direction to channel your energy.

When I first founded my business (www.zzaponline.com), my vision was to make ZZap the most valued cash-handling brand. I then wrote out a plan. Then I took the most successful company in our sector and analysed what made it the best. I ended up with a list of points such as great photography, professional website, unique products, excellent online presence, etc. These became my goals for my company.

I then examined how successful companies achieved these goals. For example, they achieved a good online presence through paid search, remarketing, and SEO. So those became my short-term goals. Finally, by searching the internet, reading books, and reaching out to any contacts I knew in the industry, I researched how I could accomplish my short-term goals.

Once I had made my plan, I was extremely motivated. I had a vision and I knew how to get there. All that was left was hard work. To know that hard work is the only thing between you and your dream is enlightening. You can believe with conviction that it is possible to achieve your vision. That is a powerful feeling.

Feed off others

“We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn

We are all influenced by others. People can influence you either positively or negatively. If you spend enough time with successful people, they will start to rub off on you.

Spending time with the right people is perhaps one of the most effective and easiest ways to motivate yourself. If all your friends are motivated, passionate, and hungry for success, your conversations and activities are going to gravitate toward those qualities. This is peer pressure done right!

The hard part is finding and keeping those special individuals in your social circle. For example, spending time with Alan Sugar on a regular basis might not be feasible.

Earlier generations had less opportunities to learn from the best in their fields. But with the internet, we now have access to countless videos and blogs from successful business leaders.

Watching a video might not be the same as spending time with an individual. But if you watch the videos often enough, you will be amazed at how the attitudes of those in them can still start to shape yours. Some YouTube channelers, such as Evan Carmichael, specialise in finding advice from successful people.

Some channels are purely geared toward motivation. And some hugely successful entrepreneurs, such as Gary Vaynerchuk, even record their whole day on camera! You can watch Gary Vaynerchuk every day here:

The internet has made it possible to literally wake up and go to bed watching and listening to the great business minds. This ability has never been possible before. Make use of it. Feed off the energy of influencers each and every day. Doing so is a hugely underrated tactic that will help the next generation of business leaders.

Last word

There are many things that trigger motivation in an individual. Visualise your dream, know what it takes to get there, and learn from the best people in your field. These tactics build a foundation for exceptional work ethic.

Some people are born with natural talent, but most of us are not. Hard work bridges that gap. You are in full control. You determine your own success.

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How You Can Achieve Self-Motivation and Why It Is the Key to Success