Online Business: Can Mentors Help You Become Successful?

  Copyright © Jerry D Rivera

In sports, a good coach can help you when you need it, give you feedback, and criticize constructively when necessary. All of the great sports heroes have had great coaches, and many of them thank their coaches when they win the ‘big game’. It’s been said that very few professional sports players would be where they are if they had not had a great coach at their side.

A Business Mentor is very similar to a coach, and if you are in business on-line it is a great idea to have an on-line business coach that can help you to steer your business in the right direction and help you avoid major problems and continually grow and prosper.

On-line business mentors are like a mini support group for your company. They help you to keep focused on your agenda, discuss your business with you from a knowledgeable position, ask questions that make sense for your particular business, and provide feedback when you need it.  They can bring a new or different perspective to a problem when you have one, and share their knowledge and experience. They can also motivate and inspire you if you need it (and if you don’t). In short, there are many advantages to having a good on-line business coach on your team.

Let’s face it, if you are a business owner or are a senior executive it can be very lonely as there are very few people that you can turn to for support and help when you have a business problem and need  to make a decision to solve it.  If you are working on-line it can be even harder because many people who work on-line work from home and have very few if any support staff (save maybe their spouse). An on-line business mentor, when called upon, can be your on-line sounding board to listen to your problems, discuss options, challenge you and support you.

Having an on-line mentor can help you to ‘step back’ from a problem and take a look at it from another angle or point of view.  They can enable you to work on your business, not just in your business, and can give excellent advice about your strategy when you want to move the business forward or make a big decision.

A mentor can help you maximize your business and even help you with your personal performance by improving your thinking process, maximizing your efficiency and achieving the potential that you might not achieve if you are working solo. Like a good coach they can tell you what you are doing wrong from an objective standpoint, and can be especially helpful because they have been there before.

When you have new ideas about running you on-line business, changing something, introducing a new service or taking away something a mentor can give you the sound advice that you need to make the best decision. They have the experience and knowledge that comes from having done the same things that you are doing and possibly having made some mistakes along the way, mistakes that you can learn from without having to make them yourself.

When you have a challenging situation (and every on-line business owner will) an on-line mentor can help you to solve the problem faster.  You can use them to ‘bounce’ ideas around, and a good mentor will let you do just that even as practice to help you learn.

Oftentimes, especially when you are working alone on your on-line business, it is hard to stay focused and productive. A mentor can help bring you that focus and give you the clarity that you need to say on-track, get things done, and gain the success that you deserve. A good mentor will review your work regularly and give you feedback based on where you are, where you were, and where you need to be in the future. All of these are very helpful and necessary if you want to be successful and run a successful on-line business.

A good mentor will also challenge you and help you to expand your belief system by asking important and intelligent questions about your business and your decisions. They can help you see where you are making good decisions and, conversely, which of your decisions may be adversely affecting your on-line business. Because they do not directly affect your business they are also very trustworthy and you can rest assured that their advice is always going to be advice that will affect you in a positive direction.

In short an on-line business mentor brings many positives to your business and can be a valuable asset to your business goals. They bring experience, knowledge and a valuable 2^nd opinion to the table, and can help you to stay the course and steer you through troubled waters when you encounter them. In the end, having another person there to help steer once in a while can give you a chance to step back and see where you are headed.

Autoresponder: Can It Help Your Business!

  Copyright © Jerry D Rivera

If you have a web-based business, an e-newsletter, or a large base of members that you keep in touch with through email, an autoresponder is something that would be a good investment for you.

A program that automatically generates a pre-recorded response when it is activated, an Autoresponder historically has been used to respond to emails sent to a specific email address. When the email address holder was not available, away on business or on vacation, the autoresponder let anyone who contacted that person or companies know by way of an automated response. Today autoresponders can be found on many websites also, and can be a powerful communication tool for everything from internet marketing to sales generation, profile management and branding.

Interestingly, the autoresponder was first designed to return an ‘error’ message when an email address was either not correct or was no longer in service. After a certain number of attempts had been made to contact a specific email address with no response the autoresponder would automatically go into effect, ‘contacting’ the sender and informing them that the email address was not responding, out of service, or not valid. Depending on the email address and where it originated the autoresponder could offer up detailed information about the cause of the error.

Within a short period of time this concept was adopted by internet users looking to inform their contacts of a certain number of important facts, including that the email was received, when a reply could be expected, and other important info. On sites that are selling services or products an autoresponder is often used to tell customers that their requests have been received, are being processed, or have been sent. Marketing companies have successfully adopted the autoresponder to keep in touch with possible customers by sending out a quick, automated response that asks for certain basic info and lets the customer know that they have gotten their info.

There are a number of different types of autoresponders. The one that is right for you will usually be based on a number or criteria and certain aspects of the type of on-line business that you have.

A simple or basic autoresponder simply sends an automated response when someone sends you an email. Whatever pre-written message that you want to send can be included in the body of the response, such as that you are out to lunch, away from your desk, or on vacation.

If you use an Advanced or Intelligent Autoresponder things work a little differently. When a customer or contact sends you an email your intelligent autoresponder will reply with a pre-written message and also automatically add the name and email address to your mailing list. It can also be programmed to respond instantly or at a specific time in the future.

Sequential Autoresponders are often used by internet marketing firms that want to send a series of timed responses to a certain group of people. For example, if your company has a particular program that is broken up into 9 parts these 9 parts can be sent out to a specific recipient list at pre-determined intervals like once a day or once a week. The timing can of course be pre-set by the owner of the autoresponder program. Other "follow up" messages can also be sent out after your customer asks for information, asks a question, or buys a product.

Autoresponders can also be used to generate leads. For example let’s say that you sign up for a newsletter because you want to keep up on the latest news about widgets. The website owner can set the autoresponder to automatically send you the newsletter and also to send you other, pre-written emails, offers or information related to widgets. The autoresponder software manages the list for you and automatically sends out the correct email to the correct type of email sent. If you have a web business that is information related this is an excellent way to generate information automatically to many people, bringing in revenue and freeing you up for more important duties.

Finally, autoresponders can also be incorporated into electronic mailing list software and used to confirm subscriptions, un-subscriptions, member posts, and any other list activities that you want to set as a parameter.

Whether you’re an internet entrepreneur looking to increase revenue or just want to let your contacts know that you’ve stepped out to get a coffee, an autoresponder can add simplicity to your daily routine or a whole lot more.