Are you trying to succeed online without the tools you must have?

Would you bake a cherry pie without cherries? Would you try to mow your grass without a lawn mower? Of course not! Yet every day millions of people confront the business of trying to create a profitable online business without the essential tools they need. Take this easy quiz to find out if you're one of them! * Question: Do you have a listserver? / / Yes / / No A listserver is an ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY online success tool. It enables you to send unlimited non-spam email. With your listserver you can send out a daily newsletter, offers, specials, premiums, information on how to use your products/services, etc. Online your list is your business, your business is your list. The listserver enables you to keep in regular, productive communication with your prospects and customers. Without it you're dead. * Question: Do you have your own domain? / / Yes / / No Hundreds of thousands of people are trying to make money online without owning their own cyber "land," the domain. Ridiculous! Got a self-replicating website? You're nothing more than a cyber-squatter. If anything happens to the company giving you your free site, your business will immediately collapse -- and with it your hopes of online success. Besides, what's the point of having a website you can't edit? The only people making money online are the ones with their own domains. Once you've got it, it's your job to develop it. Without a domain you're going nowhere online. * Question: Do you have a good relationship with a reputable web design company? / / Yes / / No The longer you're in business online, the more you'll understand why having a good relationship with a reputable web design company is absolutely essential for your success. For one thing, web design has become very sophisticated. It's not something you can delegate to Aunt Sallie who dabbles in web design part time when she's not fighting with Uncle Herbie. Web design software and techniques have developed by leaps and bounds in recent years. Amateurs are just not able to keep up. But you MUST have an eye-catching, client-centered design on your site; you must use design to generate sales. Only trained professionals can help you do that. What's more, an ongoing relationship with such professionals is pivital; after all, good design is like good window dressing. It's got to be changed regularly to keep your visitors interested. That's why working with people who have done good work for you in the past and understand you and your business is vital. * Question: Do you have oncall technical support? / / Yes / / No I don't know about you, but I hate it when I need technical support for something I've purchased and I just cannot break through to a living human being. It really irks me. The Internet is a technical environment. Like it or not, things are not always going to work right. You're not always going to understand everything. You're not always going to know what to do and how to do it. That's why you need a relationship with a company that provides you with friendly, accessible, understandable technical support when you need it. Without it, you're on your own -- and that can be a very uncomfortable feeling! * Question: Do you have unrelenting prospect follow-up? / / Yes / / No Unrelenting, systematic follow-up is what distinguishes the people who are going to make it in business from those who aren't. Right now do you have the means available to connect with your prospects up to 25 times in a 90 day period? Can you send them automated, personalized follow-up? Or are you trying to handle your follow-up on a case-by-case, catch-as-catch-can basis, never quite sure who got what and what you're supposed to send today? If that's how you're handling your follow up, you're doomed. Conclusion The Internet is going to be a part of our lives forever. It has already created and will create THOUSANDS of millionaires. These smart people understand the environment and have the necessary tools for online success. Without them, you've merely created a no-win situation for yourself, fraught with frustration, irritation and defeat, like mowing your lawn without a mower, pulling out one blade at a time.