I Want Online Now will teach you how to get your business online.

News

Welcome to the first ever issue of 'I Want Online Now' newsletter! This is it! The newsletter you've all been waiting for!

Okay, that's it for the hype. I will try to avoid any hype, whatsoever. If any of you notice me starting to sound like one of those so-called gurus out there, please let me know. I would prefer you do it nicely, of course.

I am hoping to cut through all of the garbage and just tell you everything I've learned. My website is more of the same. I have put a bunch of stuff I've learned over the past couple of years online, for you to go through. This newsletter will basically be ongoing lessons, which will eventually go onto the website. Please feel free to send in any suggestions you have, i.e., lessons you've learned the hard way since you've been online. Maybe between us all, we can help others make the move to the internet without losing everything they own.

This will be a weekly newsletter, which will be published on Mondays. There will also be a classifieds only issue that comes out on Fridays. In addition, we will be running solo ads whenever they come in. Both the classified ads issue and the solo ads will have free ad contests. One of the solo ads each week will contain an ad code. The first person to submit the ad code and their ad to me will receive a free top sponsor ad.

This is part of what you'll be learning when you read this newsletter. You'll learn the basics of how to get your business online and how to market it on a shoe-string budget. I have no idea how to market if you have lots of funds. Ask Amazon.com.

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Publisher's Corner

Welcome everyone!

This newsletter is just a little late coming out - only a few months! I've been concentrating on my other newsletter and website (CopingToday.com) for the past few months. Although the website isn't finished, I have decided to go ahead and put out the newsletter and work on the website as I go.

Please note that I am not yet a successful online business person. I've gotten the basics down now, but I have not started making the big bucks yet. I'm down here in the trenches with you.

So why should you listen to me? Well, I wasted thousands of dollars learning what I know now. I thought I knew enough about the internet to make a killing, when I first started out. I was a database administrator and worked at Amazon.com and Verizon. I worked as a consultant for Oracle for a year and for Redbrick (a now defunct data warehouse company) for another year. I worked on very large databases, wrote html pages, and analyzed sales data. I thought I was smarter than the average person getting online. Wrong!!!! I had no idea what I was doing when I started out. Just knowing computers isn't going to help when you're trying to start a business, and just knowing how to run a business won't help when you try to get started online. Probably the people who do the best are marketers and sales persons.

My plan is to share with you those things that I have done well and those things that I have done badly, to hopefully allow you to waste your thousands of dollars on different mistakes! :-)

The website is a work in progress. I will try to put new stuff on each week, so that eventually all the sections are filled in. Meanwhile, there is some good information available on the site right now.

This Week's Lesson

Getting Online - 1st Step

You've decided you would like to build a business online, either one you already have offline, or a brand new one. You may not even know what you're going to market, but you are sick and tired of your regular 9 to 5 job and you want to try something new. Congratulations, you're exactly where I was about two years ago! I truly hated my job, and I thought it would be fantastic to be able to work from home, using my computer.

I started scouring the internet, looking for webhost providers and products and marketing and .... well, you get the idea. I spent literally thousands of dollars and didn't make more than a couple of bucks. I tried affiliate programs, mlms, resell programs, you name it. Nothing worked. The more things I tried, the faster I went through money and the more frantic I became to find a 'get rich quick' scheme! I wasn't looking for that when I started, it's just that as I got more and more disappointed and more and more sick of my job, the further out I was reaching. It was kind of like gambling. I just didn't want to give up and I was sure something had to work. If I hadn't made as much money as I did at the time, I would have had to give up before I ever figured out what I was doing wrong.

One year ago, I was forced to cut back on my spending, because what I feared finally came to pass - I lost my job. I was finally cut during a rif (reduction in force). I knew it was going to happen eventually. After that, I started to get serious about learning how to market online without spending a ton of money. I pared down my spending to what I absolutely had to have, and started doing everything else for very little to no money.

So, what are the things you absolutely must have? Here they are:

ISP

Webhost Provider

Domain Name

Website

Product

I'll be you're saying 'duh' to some of those, right? Well, you might be tempted to add a whole bunch of other things to the list, but these are the things you are going to have to spend money on first, and the last is questionable.

Get an ISP you can depend on. Sure, you can probably still get a free ISP, but can you depend on it? This is hopefully going to be your livelihood.

If you can afford it, get a cable modem or DSL. You're going to really appreciate it in your business. I went for a couple of months recently without my cable modem. I had to use dialup and I discovered just how spoiled I had gotten! Having the internet always on is marvelous!

I probably shouldn't assume that you realize you also need all of the stuff anyone needs who is starting a small business. If you're not aware of what you need to start a small business, go visit the Small Business Administration at http://www.sba.gov. Talk to an accountant and file for a sole proprietorship. The tax savings alone will make this worthwhile. For more information about starting and running a small business, another great site is the Idea Cafe. You'll get lots of help and ideas here.

Now, on to the basics.

Shop around for a good ISP, one that doesn't put a ton of advertisements up that you have to go through to get to the internet. You want a clean, fast access. You're going to be spending alot of time there! Since I have a cable modem, I use Roadrunner, but I have never had a problem with Earthlink. I don't like the fact, with MSN, that if you configure your email for the web, you can't turn around and configure for Outlook. I want to be able to access my email from either place. If I'm at home, I want to download into Outlook. If I'm on the road, I want to view my email online.

Now, although the webhost provider and domain name are vital, there is no point in purchasing these until you know what you're going to sell. You're going to want your domain name to reflect your product, unless you already have a really well known name. If you don't have a product and/or have no idea what you want to sell, download Affiliate Masters for some ideas. There are basically three schools of thought on the internet, as to how to get rich. The first is to sell products as an affiliate. The next is to sell your own product, and the last is to sell information. Obviously, there are many variations on these, and many ways to combine them. I will go into these more in another issue.

I initially spent hours looking over webhost providers. What are they? They are the people who will host your website. Why would you have someone else host your website? Because you want to be able to move anywhere and access your website from anywhere. You absolutely do not want to have to take care of your own server, do you? To host your own website, you would have to have a PC that was dedicated to the website, always plugged in, on at least a T1 line with a static IP address. If you have no idea what a static IP address is or a T1 line, you do not want to host your own website. Besides, one of the great things about having your business online is that you can go on vacation and still work! If you have to take care of the system as well, you will never be able to leave your house.

As a database administrator, I started looking all over for a provider who used Oracle databases, and I had a huge list of requirements. After a few months, I threw most of them away, including Oracle. If you're a small organization, you don't need the big, expensive servers. You won't need an Oracle database anytime soon, if ever. You do need 24/7 technical support, and you do need to know that they are backing up your data.

You can actually get both your webhost provider and domain name in one place, which may make life easier. If you want to do that, try Godaddy.com. You can get domain names there for the cheapest I have ever seen on the internet. They will also host your website for a very decent price, although I have found cheaper hosts. I use them to purchase and park domains. I use 123-Web-Host.com, which is extremely cheap and also has a reseller program, to host most of my websites. I have a couple of other websites that are hosted elsewhere, because 123-Web-Host doesn't host safelists.

Feature Article

Use Your Head!
by Theresa Cahill
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2003

I know we'd all like to be able to stumble onto that special
something that will make us rich beyond our wildest
dreams, and the internet sure is doing it's fair share of
making us think that is possible.

But, it is not...

Did you know that over 400 new internet users come
online every 40 seconds?

Do you realize that these poor people, once they are
done playing games online will probably at some point
discover the world of internet marketing?

Do you believe they won't be like the rest of us and get
taken to the cleaners time after time after time?

Do you know the phrase "a suc^ker born every minute"
is truly alive and well - on the internet??

I think we all need to reach out and keep that from
happening!

Recently I was contacted with a specific request, one
I'd sure like to be able to implement, but I just don't see
how.

The lure of the quick buck is just that... a lure, and the
only one getting rich quick is the ingenious snake that
thought of the original idea.

Then, to make matters worse, it gets duplicated over
and over and over.

And, each time, even the smartest people I know will
attempt yet again to get something for virtually nothing!

The problem is that the cheapie program isn't at all
cheap! Not only doesn't it deliver what it promises,
overnight success, but it robs you of your precious
dollars along the way.

Think about it... You "invest" $5 and you just know
you're going to cycle through that ol' matrix faster
than greased lightning, right?

Wrong!

Back along the way, in my more gullible stages, I tried
this thing, too (more than once) so I'm speaking from
experience.

I was in a forum for one of these programs and one
voice of reason (who, by the way, bought in too, so what
does that say?) made it plain as plain.

On average, it would take the typical "investor" over
5 years (!) to see any return on their money. 5 Years!
He proved it mathematically, too.

Now, let's all stop and think a moment here... What are
the odds that program is even going to be around 5 weeks
from now, let alone 5 years?

Please... The ONLY people getting rich "quickly" are the
ones that can fast talk you out of your hard earned cash.

The internet can create multimillionaires - and those
people making that kind of cash do one thing that those
doing the $5 quickie scheme just don't seem to catch
onto... they WORK at their goals.

They've created a niche, they work hard filling it, they
provide a service or product. In return, they make
money.

Would you let that con man in your front door? Would
you even know him when you saw him?

There ARE programs out there with the legitimate
means for you to make a living - or consider starting
your own little niche on the web.

But, above all else, use your head!

=====================================

About the Author:
Theresa Cahill is working on her second decade
in marketing and would love to share her free,
brandable ebook with you. Download it, read it, refer
back to it, and share it with a friend!
http://www.mwatracking.com/go/go.php/0047
Related articles can be found at:
http://www.mywizardads.com/ArticleLibrary
Please drop by http://www.thewizworld.com and/or
http://www.mywizardads.com and say hi!

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