One Stop Web Support Newsletter #68

August 10, 2008

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One Stop Web Support Newsletter #68

Jeff Baas - One Stop Web Support

http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/

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Why Being Both Optimistic and Pessimistic Can Save Your Business

Pessimism can kill your business. Then again, optimism can kill it, too. Sound hopeless? Many people run their business into the ground on pure optimism. They keep a positive outlook that everything will turn out all right. And they hang onto that positive outlook until their business is beyond hope of ever succeeding.

The key is in the way you apply optimism and pessimism to your business.

The benefits of optimism

You want to be optimistic about reaching your goals. You need to have your goals be well thought out, measurable, and attainable. They shouldn't be pie-in-the-sky daydreams, but specific targets that you can reach—step by step.

Once you have those kind of goals and a plan to reach them, you need to be optimistic about succeeding. You'll need optimism to keep you going when things go wrong.

The problem with optimism

But the problem comes when when business owners let their optimism cloud their view of the steps that are taking them to their goals.

There's a saying in the military that "a battle plan becomes obsolete the instant you engage the enemy." In other words, the best thought out plan of attack can never anticipate every single variable will come into play as soon as the other army starts reacting to your plan.

The same goes with your marketing plan. The instant you start to carry it out, things are invariably going to go differently than you expected.

The benefit of pessimism

That's where pessimism becomes an essential tool. When you have only one set of plans and reality doesn't follow them, pushing on as if everything is going according to plan with an outlook of, "Well, things will still turn out all right," is deadly.

Optimism won't change the unexpected setbacks. You need backup plans—and backup plans for your backup plans—to counteract the negative effects of the unexpected.

Using optimism and pessimism together

Be optimistic about reaching your goals. But be pessimistic about the steps it will take to get you there. Expect that some, or even all, of the steps you planned for getting to your goal won't go as you plan. Anticipate all the things you can think of that can go wrong and have alternatives in mind for if they do.

But what about those things that take you completely by surprise? If you've planned enough alternatives, you'll have enough options to choose from and the flexibility to combine them in ways you never would have thought of until the situation inspires you to take a creative approach.

Now keep in mind that there's a big difference between being pessimistic and being fatalistic. I'm not saying you should approach the details of your plan with a mindset of, "This is never going to work; I might as well not even try." That's fatalism. The kind of pessimism you want is the kind that says, "Now how can I fix it if this goes wrong?"

Be an optimist in looking at the big picture. But be a pessimist in planning all the unexpected what-ifs that you'll invariably face. Sure, being both optimist and pessimist sounds like a contradiction. But it's the approach that successful businesspeople have taken throughout history.

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Q and A with Jeff

In this section, Jeff answers your questions about starting a business online. Here's this week's question.

What's a good way to get incoming links to my site without spending any money?

Let's get one thing straight right from the start. Any strategy for attracting visitors to your site will cost you either time or money. Since you're looking for ones that won't cost you money, we'll look at one that will cost you a little time. But it's one that I'm sure you'll find to be time well spent.

I've found commenting on blogs to be a good way of building incoming links. As a matter of fact, I find three benefits from blog commenting.

• First, you get links, although I have to add a disclaimer to that that I'll discuss later.
• Second, you get visitors
• Third, you get invaluable information about what your target audience really is looking for that can help you focus your products more clearly on what they want

My disclaimer about the links is this: not all blogs give you a link that Google counts. Many blogs give what's called "nofollow" links that give you a live link to your site that visitors can follow, but that tells the search engines not to give you credit for the link.

One good way to find blogs that give you full link power for your comments is to use a tool like Comment Kahuna, that searches out blogs in your market that don't use "nofollow" tags. Comment Kahuna is free and it's easy to use.

Don't necessarily avoid other blogs just because they use "nofollow" tags. A popular blog that uses "nofollow" tags can still be valuable to you in the amount of visitors it brings you.

I've found that people check out the sites of people who leave interesting comments. This means, of course, that your comments have to be interesting and on topic of the original post. You won't get visitors if all your comments are nothing more than, "Hey, everybody! Come to my website!"

Finally, I love blog commenting because reading other blogs gives me new ideas I can use in my business. And reading other people's comments gives me valuable information about what my potential customers are thinking and gives me an opportunity to start building relationships with them.

Overall, I've found blog commenting well worth the investment of time. And it doesn't cost a cent.

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HOTTEST OFFERS

Each issue, I feature what I consider the best offers available each week on worthwhile business-building tools. Check here to see what's hot this week.

http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/hot-offers.htm

Or check to see my growing selection of ebooks and training tools that you can use for free to build your Internet business.

Free Ebooks:

http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/dir-ebooks.htm

Free Training tools:

http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/ongoing-bargains.htm

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Success quote

'The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.'

Mark Twain

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This newsletter is published by One Stop Web Support, where our business is helping your business succeed.

http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/

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