Do you know what separates the professional gambler from the hack on the street? It’s the ability to know when to walk away from the table. If you’re wondering what this has to do with making a living online, it has everything to do with it. This article is going to explain this, hopefully, in plain enough English so that it’s crystal clear.

Some sites and some businesses are destined to fail right from the start. Sad to say, but it’s true. But why? Why is it that so much promise can be shot to heck right out of the starting gate? Well, there are several reasons for this.

The first one is that many people who do start their own business don’t do the proper research that is required in order to give their business the best chance of succeeding. This starts with the simple task of making sure that the product or service that you’re trying to sell actually has enough of a demand that the resulting sales are sufficient enough to justify your expense.

The second is seeing if the existing competition, even if there is a big demand, isn’t putting out a product that is better and cheaper than yours. Just because you have something great and people want it doesn’t mean it is going to sell if somebody else is selling that same product for less and on top of that, the product they’re selling is top notch. That’s tough to compete with.

Then of course there is the problem with free information. Just because there is a demand for what you are offering, doesn’t mean that people are going to be willing to part with their hard earned money if the same information, or at least a good part of it, is available for free. That’s why so many times you’ll do your keyword research and find that there are many daily searches but very few competing sites and almost no paid ads. The reason is, more often than not, because the information is freely available.

And of course there is more to this, but the point is, when the foundation of your business is shaky because of poor or no research, what is going to happen is that after you launch your business, you’ll see no sales for weeks, maybe months. Naturally, there are other factors such as advertising, but more often than not, it’s the foundation that’s the problem. That’s when it’s time to realize that you need to walk away from the table and try something else.

It’s a tough thing to do, to admit that you misjudged your market. But doing so can save you many wasted months or even years promoting something that nobody wants.

If you’re going to get into the world of Internet marketing, you need to know your rights. I’m not talking about what you can and can’t do. I talking about resale rights. Many products out there come with some form of resale rights and it’s important to know at least the basics of each. In this article I’m going to briefly go over resale rights, master resale rights, and private label rights.

Resale rights are very basic. Products that come with regular resale rights allow you to simply resell the product as an affiliate of the product. Usually you’re given an affiliate link that you send your prospects to and a cookie system tracks where the sale comes from so that you will get credit for it. The most popular affiliate marketplace on the Internet is Clickbank where you have your choice of literally thousands of products that you can resell.

Master resale rights are a little different. With master resale rights, or MRR, you not only can sell the product but you actually get a license to sell it at any price you choose as if it were your own product. Most MRR products come with their own sales page that you can upload to your own domain. In effect, this is very close to creating your own product to sell. The only difference is, the product is not unique as there are many others just like yours out in the marketplace.

Private label rights, or PLR, are the most powerful of all the rights. Not only can you resell the product as if it were your own, but you can also make changes to the product itself. You can change the name of it, redo the graphics and sales page and even change the content itself. This truly makes this product your own if you put enough work into it.

Now, some PLR products do come with restrictions such as you can’t sell them at an auction site or you can’t pass along PLR rights to others. This is why you have to read the rights file that should come with all products that give either MRR or PLR rights away.

Products that come with rights are a great quick shortcut to building your own product line fast.

You know, so many marketers and home business owners are so concerned about just making a buck that they forget about the most important thing when it comes to doing that…customer service. I don’t know, maybe it’s me, but it seems like customer service is an afterthought these days. How many times have you made a purchase, found it unsatisfactory, asked for a refund and got no reply? Sure has happened to me plenty of times.

And the sad thing is, customer service doesn’t have to be time consuming or a burden. Yes, there are going to be those who purchase a $7 ebook from you and then expect $3,000 worth of coaching in return. That’s where you have to make the customer understand that a $7 purchase does not entitle them to $3,000 of your time and if they have a problem with that they should ask for a refund, which I will gladly give. But people SHOULD get what they pay for at minimum.

So here are a few things that I suggest you do once you reach a point where you actually have customers to service.

For starters, make sure that all product deliveries are automated and that the process is working correctly. That means you have to test it out. With Clickbank products they have a test mode and with PayPal products they have what is called the sandbox. Both work very well for testing purposes.

Another thing you want to do is make sure you process all refund requests promptly. I know, nobody likes to give refunds, but if you have a refund policy, honor it. I even go one step farther and offer a free gift for their trouble as my way of saying I am sorry they didn’t like the product. Try it sometime. It makes for great customer relations.

Finally, when a customer asks a question, answer it. It doesn’t have to be a long drawn out email. Just get to the point and give the customer what he or she wants. Most emails can be answered in under 5 minutes.

If you do these three basic things, you’ll be surprised how much ahead of the game you will be as far as customer service goes in comparison to everybody else.

Take care of your customers…or else the consequences could be severe

Marketing is a science in many ways. Sales letters tend to have a certain flow to them, products need to satisfy customer needs and appearance can make or break your whole business, no matter how good your message or your product is. In order to coordinate all of this, you essentially need to know your market, meaning you need to know what makes it tick.

The best way to explain this concept is with a specific example. Let’s for argument sake say that your target market is new people who are looking for earn a living online. What do all these people have in common? Well, if nothing else, they all have never had any success with an online business. That doesn’t meant that none of them have had any success with an offline business. Quite a few people who have successful offline businesses try to bring that success online. But the common denominator is that none of these people have proven themselves online and therefore may be a little insecure when it comes to starting an online business. You will need to approach these people a certain way.

Now, let’s take folks who have been marketing online for a while and let’s say that they are your target market. Well, these people are probably already having success, though it might be at different levels. But they are not new. They are going to need a different approach than the new person. Okay, what about the two different approaches. How do they differ?

Well, for the new person, you might present them with a sales pages that essentially assures them that it is possible to earn a living online and show then proof, both with your own success and with the success of others who have used your product, whatever it might be. With the more experienced person, you might approach them in a manner where you’re telling them that your product will take them to the next level, regardless of where they are. And again, show them your success as well as the success of others. Depending on where each person is will determine how they respond to your message.

The point is, both markets have to be approached differently because each will respond to different things. The new person just wants to make any amount of money to start. He wants to see some results. The experienced person wants to see improvement.

If you keep these things in mind when approaching your market, you’ll give yourself the best chance of approaching them in the correct way.