Menu

• Dictionary
• Hot Shots

Directory

• Sponsors
• Billing Options
• Content Providers
• Web Hosting
• Traffic Counters
• Website Designers
• Resource Sites

Do you ever look at the big guys in the industry and think that you can't compete with them? Do they look too big, too important, too experienced or too well-connected?

Appearances can certainly do a lot for a business and appearances can certainly supress the completion. Why would anyone want to waste time and money trying to compete with an online business that looks, and acts, like they're huge?

Why would you want to compete with a business that looks so much bigger than you? After all, you're operating out of your basement or garage or maybe even your bedroom so how could you possibly compete with the big guys who have offices and staff?

Just the look of the competition can be intimidating and off-putting and most people would think that you were crazy if you set out to compete with those impressive looking businesses ... but are they so impressive? Do you really know what is behind that impressive façade of their website?

Is there a big office and a large staff operating behind that website or is it something much smaller? You might be surprised if you actually did have a chance to look behind the curtain. Perhaps your competition's website is nothing but a shiny façade and behind it there's ... well ... maybe not much at all.

Over the fence in mainstream there are perhaps many thousands of people just like you who are trying to make their fortune with various online businesses. Many of them sooner or later come across a guy by the name of John Lee Dumas who, among other things, runs a daily podcast where he interviews entrepreneurs who have become successful.

John Lee Dumas' drive and enthusiasm has helped a lot of people and he has become very successful. He has branched out in more than just those podcasts and today he makes lots of money from advertising, selling some of his own products, and affiliate marketing.

In July, which by his account was a slow month, his income was $166,721 and he discloses that income on the front page of his website at eofire.com. When you look at his website you get the impression that he is very successful ... and he is.

You might also get the impression that there is quite an organisation behind him and, if you wanted to compete with him or achieve the same level of success, you would need lots of staff and an impressive office because that's what he must have.

If you did get that impression from his website then you might be surprised to find out that, by his own admission in a recent podcast, he does most of his work in his bedroom. You might also be surprised to find that his entire staff consists of about six people and most of them are virtual assistants.

When he is working on a special project he brings other people on board for the duration of that project, but for the most part, he and five others run his core business.

Now I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that ... in fact I'm saying the exact opposite. If you want to grow a business into something as big as your biggest competitors in this industry, then you don't need to think big.

Thinking that you need a big staff and a big office to run a big business in this industry is a mistake because anything 'big' comes with big overheads and before long you are employing people to take care of the people you employ. When that happens you have people on your payroll who are not generating any revenue and that's when you can start losing money.

If you want to grow big start looking at ways you can have people working remotely. Start looking at ways you can employ virtual assistants who can do the grunt work for you and leave you free to do more important things ... or to put it another way, to give you time to work on your business rather than in your business.

Never fall into the trap of spending all your time working in your business.

If you want to grow big then start looking at systems and software that will do a lot of the repetitive tasks for you. The more systems and software that you have that can to those repetitive tasks the fewer staff you have to employ.

If you want to grow big then start looking at ways of bringing on experienced staff to work on specific projects ... staff that you won't have to employ forever and who understand that they are only there to get a specific project up and running.

Imagine what you could achieve working from where you are now if you weren't intimidated by those shiny facades that have scared you off up until now.