Since 2003 I’ve documented all my learnings from my own businesses; my marketing agency and now our Internet Marketing coaching business and developed a framework that we call ‘The Internet Ducks’.
This is really one of the most important things that we have ever learned about online business because your ‘Internet Ducks’ really need to be in order, if you want your business to succeed.
Important – What I’ve found in businesses that were failing is that they were missing one or more of the ducks. All it can take is for one duck to be out of line and you don’t have a winning formula. On the other hand all the successful businesses that we’ve worked with have all the ducks.
Watch this short 4 minute video to learn about the 16 internet ducks and see if you have all these lined up in your business right now. If you don’t it may be time to see if it’s fixable or else be prepared to say ‘next’ and pivot to a different business opportunity, product or service.
In particular, I’m interested to know how you’re going with Internet Duck 13, as this is something that I see many businesses struggle with, time and time again.
Below is a summary of what the 16 Internet Ducks are:
1. Want it – people need to actively want your product.
2. Supply – you need to have a supply of your product and at the right time when your customers want it. (is your product seasonal?)
3. Pricing – your pricing has to work for the market and your profit.
4. Logistics – you need be able to make stuff happen without having the business relaying on your to do it. I see many people get stuck in businesses being the packer, shipper and administrator and they end up not having enough time to work ‘on their businesses’ because they are spending too much time in their business.
5. Searching for it – ideally you need people to be already searching for your product.
6. Target them – In addition to having people already searching for your product you need to be able to target them. If people are not already searching for your product then you definitely need to be able to target them.
7. Have money – your customers need to have money and not be afraid to spend it.
8. Motivated to spend – your customers need to want to spend. I had a client once who was on the procrastinator market. As you can imagine his prospects couldn’t be stuffed buying or getting their credit cards out. Which didn’t work well for business.
9. Google and Facebook have to like it – with any advertising you’re doing or website you’re building, Google and Facebook need to like it.
10. Time Effective – you need to have a product that you can scale, without having you in every step of the process.
11. Range depth – you don’t want to just sell one product. you need logical upsells and cross sells. You don’t want one trick pony.
12. Passion/enjoy – you have to either love or at least enjoy what you do. Many people go into business just for the money but from my experience the ones who are passionate about what they are doing are more successful.
13. Energy units – I’ve seen this problem in many businesses. Usually entrepreneurs are doing many things at once and never finishing, instead of taking one thing and driving it the whole way through and smashing it out of the park.
14. Speed – how quickly do you implement something and especially if it’s a new concept?
15. Timing – timing of the market is crucial. I was into podcasting about 10 years too early. I was trying to monetise it back then. Now, people are making a lot of money from podcasting. Timing can be everything.
16. Mindset – 70% of everything comes down to mindset .
Have you got all your internet ducks lined up? What ducks are you missing? Do you disagree with any the 16 internet ducks? Have you had success without all 16? Thoughts, feedback and discussion welcome below.
Sing out if you want us to figure out if you are missing any ducks. If you think we may be a fit to work together to grow your business then checkout Collective.com.au/enquire to touch base.
Cheers Greg