It can be overwhelming trying to evaluate every online business opportunity that comes your way.

It seems there’s another one each day and of course, they all claim to be the latest and greatest opportunity the world has ever seen.

I have been starting and building businesses online and off for over 30 years now and have made 7 figures in both online and offline businesses.

Here’s my quick guideline that will allow you to evaluate any online business in just a few minutes.

For an online business to make any money, you need three things:

1. product(s) to sell

2. traffic to your offer funnel/landing page

3. a conversion process that converts visitors into customers

Let’e address each one separately.

PRODUCT

You really need to have a product line or group of products to sell, not just one product. Ideally, you have a low end, easy entry product under $10 and then other products of higher costs.

The reason why is you need multiple products in order to have a high enough customer value to justify the marketing expense to get traffic.

This is why selling the typical low priced affiliate offers from clickbank, commission junction, etc will not work for you unless you already have a large list you can promote your offers to for free.

The best combination is a business that has low priced products, medium priced products ($100 – $500) and also high ticket products ($1,000 and up).

Even better is if some of the products are monthly subscriptions so you have ongoing cash flow.

Who do you think will be better able to afford the marketing costs to get visitors to see your offers – someone with a one time sale product for $27 or someone with a product line ranging from $10 to $3,000?

One program I’m in has just this – with monthly subscription products at $25, $47 and $100 and 4 more one time purchase products ranging from $500 to $3,500. I’ve seen customer values as high as $800 in this program. See it here.

Who’s going to win in buying traffic – the person who can’t pay more than $15 to get a customer or someone who can spend $500 to get a customer and still make a $300 profit!

So the bottom line in the product section is to calculate what your customer value is and how much you will be able to spend to get a customer.

If the number is too low, you will not be able to buy traffic and therefore have a hard time expanding your business past your current sphere of influence.

TRAFFIC

You are going to need traffic to your offer to make any money.

If you have a large list now and a lot of followers on social media, you will be able to make some money selling anything, but I’m assuming you don’t.

Buying traffic by the click will typically cost 70 cents to one dollar per click/visitor.

The offers you might see to bring your site one million visitors for $100 are worthless – those programs don’t work and you will lose your $100!

Explaining all the different methods people use to claim to bring you cheap traffic is beyond the scope of this post – all you really need to know is that they don’t work!

So, what about free or “organic” traffic?

That’s the best traffic you can get but it takes time and expertise to get it. Learning SEO, social media marketing and other free methods is definitely a good idea but is not going to get you any immediate sales.

All in all, building your own list of people who know, like and trust you is the absolute best long term plan and you should start doing it, just don’t count on it for short term revenue.

But, that said, having the products and the traffic will do you no good at all without . . .

A CONVERSION FUNNEL THAT WORKS

If you bring people – free or paid – to a landing page that doesn’t get opt ins or to a funnel that gets opt ins but no sales, you’re dead in the water.

So, unless you are an expert in building these funnels, look for a program that has a funnel in place with proven conversion numbers.

When you buy cold traffic (from people who don’t know you) you may get 30% opt in at a landing page but only end up with 1% or less in terms of customers.

That tells you right away – if your visitors cost $1.00 each, 30% opt in and 1% of those buy, your cost per opt in is $3.00 and your cost per sale is $300.

So we’re back to what is a sale worth to you – if it’s $500 or more in this example, you’re good. If it’s $15, you’re toast . . .

Naturally, it’s important to measure the conversions at each step of a process and work to improve them over time. The analytics are critical. There are plenty of programs to set up split testing to find out what works best, but you can get a general idea just from the description here.

I’ve had landing pages getting a 3% opt in that with testing and tracking have gotten all the way up to 40%. That makes the difference between making money and losing money.

click here to see the program I’m currently promoting.

We offer a $7 trial of the system we sell so you can see how it all works and decide if it’s something you might like to do.

If you do decide to get involved, I’m here to help you with it each step of the way. You can reach me by phone at 720-890-8760 or by email at joemcvoy@gmail.com

This video was filmed in the Roaring Fork Valley here in Colorado. I saw it on the 9 News mobile app and they said Neil wanted some puppies for the video so went to a local shelter for them.

He and his wife ended up adopting two of the puppies in the video.

amazing!

We haven’t had any recent posts, but this news item I can’t resist sharing . . .

I live near Boulder, Colorado, the town that has bumper stickers saying “Keep Boulder Weird”.  In support of that, the city council is hearing debate on a supremely important issue in the next couple days.

At issue is whether we should require DNA samples of all dogs in Boulder county so we can then identify those whose dogs poop without being picked up by their owners!  Of course analyzing dog poop in open space will have higher priority than analyzing rape victims attackers, but we do love our dogs . . .

Could fecal DNA database solve Boulder’s dog waste dilemma?  

Councilwoman asks whether program would be feasible for open space use

By Erica Meltzer, Camera Staff Writer
POSTED: 03/27/2014 06:08:05 PM MDT | UPDATED: A DAY AGO

Rhea Larsen, of Portland, Ore., puts a leash on her dog Isabel after hiking at Chautuaqua in 2012. A city councilwoman has asked whether it would be

Rhea Larsen, of Portland, Ore., puts a leash on her dog Isabel after hiking at Chautuaqua in 2012. A city councilwoman has asked whether it would be feasible for Boulder to keep dogs DNA on file to compare it to waste left on area trails. (Jeremy Papasso / Daily Camera)

RELATED STORIES
Off-leash dog rule changes move forward in Boulder Clay Evans: When dogs are family members Boulder’s green tag holders may be required to re-apply, take class to walk dogs off-leash Advocates for open space and Boulder officials long have lamented the difficulty of enforcing the law against people who leave dog waste along area trails.

Boulder City Councilwoman Mary Young wants to know how feasible it would be to require DNA samples from dogs with city-issued green tags that could be saved for later comparison to waste found on open space.

Young couldn’t be reached Thursday afternoon, but in a note to the City Council’s “Hotline” email list, she said a community member made the suggestion, and asked Open Space and Mountain Parks to report on the feasibility of the idea at Tuesday’s council meeting.

In the “Hotline” message, Young said the suggestion was to “require a fecal sample when dog owners apply for open space privileges or when renewing their dog licenses. The city would keep a file of the DNA and any poop samples found could be easily identified, and the owner fined accordingly.”

If You Go

What: Boulder City Council

When: 6 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Boulder Municipal Building, 1777 Broadway

Info: For more information and to read the complete agenda, go to bit.ly/1o5tz1u. The City Council will hold a public hearing and second vote on the changes to the green-tag program.

Such canine DNA tracking is already offered nationwide by several companies — including one that reports drastic reductions in waste in areas where dog owners know their pets’ poop can be traced.

Steve Armstead, an environmental planner with Open Space and Mountain Parks, responded to Young via the “Hotline” later Thursday, saying the city “did not consider requiring fecal samples and setting up a system to manage this type of information for the enforcement of excrement removal rules.”

He added that Open Space and Mountain Parks staff will only be able to “minimally” discuss implementing such a system at next week’s meeting.

The City Council on Tuesday is holding a public hearing and second vote on changes to Boulder’s voice and sight control program, which allows dogs that receive green tags to go off leash on some open space trails.

Those changes would require all green-tag holders — perhaps as many as 35,000 people — to reapply and take a class explaining the requirements of the program. The new rules also identify certain offenses, such as having an aggressive dog or endangering wildlife, that would result in immediate suspension of green-tag privileges until the owner could demonstrate that the dog is compliant, and raises the fines for violations.

An early iteration of the proposed changes would have had dogs lose their green-tag privileges if their owners received two tickets within two years for failure to pick up waste.

However, Open Space and Mountain Parks removed that language from the final version of the ordinance. Failure to pick up waste has no implications for green-tag privileges under the current proposal.

The prevalence of dog waste on open space trails is frequently cited as one of the most common complaints to the city, but Open Space officials said the problem extends to leashed and unleashed dogs, whereas the changes to the green-tag program have to do primarily with making sure dogs are actually under the voice control of their owners.

90 percent waste reduction

Several companies already provide a similar service to property management companies, apartment complexes and homeowners’ associations.

Eric Mayer, director of business development for BioPet Vet Lab in Knoxville, Tenn., said the company’s PooPrint service is used by private property management companies in 45 states and in Canada.

So far, the company doesn’t have contracts with any municipalities, but officials have been in talks with a half dozen different local governments. He said he expects to sign the first municipal PooPrints contract with Ipswich, Mass., sometime this year.

The process is simple, Mayer said. Owners have to register their dogs, and part of that process is a cheek swab, which costs between $30 and $50. Once a community’s dog DNA is in the database, poop samples can be compared against that database for between $60 and $75 a sample.

“What we find is that pet waste goes down by about 90 percent,” Mayer said. “You’re not going to be spending much money on waste samples because they should be picked up by the owner.”

‘It’s a ploy’

Patrick Murphy, who once earned the nickname “Pooperazzi” for his diligence in documenting dog waste on Boulder’s open space, said he’s skeptical about the proposal.

“In a perfect world, it sounds like a good idea, but since it’s not, I think there are a lot better solutions, like more rangers,” he said.

Murphy said in a community like Boulder, taking DNA samples from dogs is likely to be particularly controversial — so controversial he’s suspicious of its origins.

“Who is going to agree to let you get DNA from their dog?” he said. “It’s a ploy to say they’re crazy and extreme, which makes the other thing — the real voice and sight control — also seem crazy and extreme.”

Contact Camera Staff Writer Erica Meltzer at 303-473-1355, meltzere@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/meltz

Tiger repellant is a must for anyone venturing outside their home.  Do you have some?  It’s available for only $19.95 at . . .

What does tiger repellant have to do with marketing?

Guess you’ll have to watch the video to find out 😉

WARNING to all women readers of this blog . . . .

DO NOT wash your hair in the shower!!

It’s so good to finally get a health warning that is useful!!!

IT INVOLVES THE SHAMPOO WHEN IT RUNS DOWN YOUR BODY WHEN YOU SHOWER WITH IT. WARNING TO US ALL!!!

Shampoo Warning! I don’t know WHY I didn’t figure this out sooner! I use shampoo in the shower! When I wash my hair, the shampoo runs down my whole body, and printed very clearly on the shampoo label is this warning, “FOR EXTRA BODY AND VOLUME.”

No wonder I have been gaining weight! Well! I got rid of that shampoo and I am going to start showering with Dawn Dishwashing Soap. It’s label reads, “DISSOLVES FAT THAT IS OTHERWISE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE.”

Problem solved!  If I don’t answer the phone, I’ll be in the shower!

Enjoy,

Joe