I just purchased some furniture recliners, but a spring popped on one after only a month. I called the customer service line, but got no answer for a week. When I finally talked to someone, they told me I had to contact their repair service. Of course I got the run around from these people as well. Now do you think I will ever give this company my business again?

Recently I bought a new car buffer and had a question about one of the pads that came with it. Their customer support was friendly and helpful. They of course will get my business again, and I will be sure to tell my friends about their products.

This is why even if you run an offline pro skateboards shop or a big online company, it is important to project an image of prefesionalism at all times.

Are you ready to start an online business, but don't know what steps to take first? Here is a fast start plan anyone can use to get started quickly:

Do your research

This is an amazing place to find hot niches:. http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends

Here you will find an unlimited amount of ideas by seeing the “hot trends” that people are searching on. You will be surprised at what people are searching on. From a <a href="http://babydollstroller.net/">baby doll stroller</a> to the season's hottest <a href="http://campingtable.org/">camping table</a>, to <a href="http://babyonesies.org">baby onesies</a>

Get yourself a quality domain name and hosting

Don't skimp here. Register your domain name and be sure to use a reputable hosting company.

Start a niche blog using WordPress

Then simpy add some unique and original content. Promote your blog, add some adsense, and stick to it. Over time, you will see that your blog is rising to the top of your niche. Be patient. Results will come if you work hard!

Marketing online takes hard work and dedication. People who fail in our industry love to use excuses such as:

My life is just too busy to start an online business!

Have you ever watched people at an airport, running along with their backpack with wheels off to some fabulous destination, and felt jealous? Wishing you could have their life and travel to exotic locations. But yet you don't want to work for it. Very few people have ever been successful without hard work and sacrifice.

I don't have the kind of money to invest in a new online business

Many of the best online marketers I know of, started out with very limited budgets, and slowly grew their business. Patience and prudent planning always win the race to success.

Marketing online has to have one of the lowest risk factors you will ever encounter for starting any business. So why would you deny yourself of this opportunity?

My expertise is very limited!

You don’t have to be an expert like a multimaster tool to start marketing online. There is so much information out there, that you can easily become an expert on any number of topics within a few short months. As an example, if you so desired, you could become an expert on boy shoes, if you studied enough about the subject.

Don't use excuses like the ones above to stop you from achieving your dreams!

Have you stopped to consider how far we have come in only 15 short years? Ecommerce today is one of the most powerful evolutions in human history. Yet we have barely scratched the surface!

Today people can develop blogs around anything they choose. A <a href="http://skinningknife.net">skinning knife</a> an  <a href="http://myarteasel.com/">art easel</a> or a <a href="http://hanginglamps.org">hanging lamp</a>. If you can think about it, I bet you there is a site dedicated to it.

So what do you think the future holds another 15 years from now? Will blogs be old news? How fast will the Internet be?

I am truly excited to see what changes we have ahead and how it will affect ecommerce!

Something a marketing friend once told me has been just about the best advice I ever received: Most people with a problem will gladly pay for a solution to it.

Now when I brainstorm for product ideas, I am always looking for problems and the solutions to those problems. Of course you can always develop a product around your passion, but that isn’t feasible at times.

People have various passions such as:. Some people are into a  <a href="http://crystallamp.org">crystal lamp</a>, others not so much. Some people want fancy <a href="http://pillowinserts.org">pillow inserts</a> and <a href="http://couchpillows.org">couch pillows</a> for their houses. Others couldn’t care less.

However, all of us have problems.

This is why the best way to brainstorm product ideas is to find problems people have, and then think of a solution.

Did you know that for every 10 great customers, you will always run into that one rude customer who will drive you insane.. The one that tells everyone your organic shampoo doesn’t work because they don’t have a full head of hair after a week.

To be frank, you can only control how well you treat your customers. You can’t control how they will react to you. I one had a big argument with a customer over a cat tower she claimed injured her pet, when it was in fact her own fault. But no matter what I said, she couldn’t be reasoned with.

This incident helped me to see that no matter what I did, some customers just want to be confrontational. To move forward I had to grow thicker skin and learn how to separate the good customers from the bad ones.

This revelation more than tripled my income. I began to speak more with my customers and learned they were not just data on a screen. Every customer was a real person with hopes and dreams. I even managed to get many unhappy customers to apologize for their behavior and many of them happily gave me their business again and again. I even had one customer who had returned a broken ceiling fans with lights become one of my best customers.

Dealing with customers takes patience and understanding. But in the end, you will be rewarded, believe me!

Many new marketers ask me what a canonical url is and how it effects their site. A client of mine had a coin purse blog and was using different urls to promote her site. This is a big no no.

Search engines use canonicalization to determine the best url for your site, using a variation of the examples below:

www.yoursite.com
yoursite.com
yoursite.com/index.html

Search engine spiders view all of these as different links..

So why exactly should you be worried about this? If you are using various forms of your urls, it can have a negative effect on your rankings. You don't want the search engines trying to go fishing for your urls like your site was a koi pond.

If you are guilty of improper url linking, you aren’t alone. A majority of marketers are making this crucial mistake every day simply because they aren’t aware of it. However, this is easily correctable, unless you want to see your rankings fold just like a futon bed.

To dictate to the search engines what url you prefer, you must be consistent anytime you are creating a link to your Website. Choose one format such as yoursite.com and use that link format exclusively for both internal and external links. All this means is that when you link to another page on your Website or you are promoting your site, use the same url structure each time.

As you can clearly see, domain canonicalization is really nothing to fear and is easily within your control. Remember, over time, little changes like this can have a big affect on your overall search engine rankings, so stay consistent and you will reap the rewards.

No matter how many times I explain to people that you can raise prices on physical products such as a double din car stereo or a bamboo cutting board, and even software and, and increase your volume of sales.

My mentor once showed me a perfect example of "perceived" value. He gave away an ebook for an extended period of time, then he turned around and sold it. He was able to sell more copies than he gave away!

The hilarious part is, while he got a only a small amount of comments about his ebook while he was giving it away, he was floored with rave reviews when he sold it. This is because when people had to pay for the content, it became much more valuable to them. It rose in value like an old muscle car.

This kind of behavior from people is not unusual.

This is way I always encourage my clients to constantly test their product prices; especially raising the prices. If a product is selling poorly, something as simple as a price change can boost your sales, as people may perceive it to have more value if the price is raised.

Remember, if you can't increase your sales, there is always the option to lower the price again.

Does the act of giving a young kid a toy guitar, and not a football at such a young age influence what they will become? A small change like this can be extremely powerful. Just like a small change in your sales letter can boost your profits.

Each sales letter has it’s own dynamic and what works in one niche, may not work quite as well for another. Your beauty tip blog dedicated to the straightening iron or discontinued perfume, may not convert as well as a blog dedicated to stocks. With that said, I have discovered three simple changes that are universal and have always helped to increase my sales:

Make your background white

I have tried colored backgrounds and ones filled with fancy graphics on all of my sales pages, but a plain old white background has always out pulled those backgrounds by a wide margin.

Use credit card images by your order buttons

This is a psychological trigger that compels people to buy. It also makes your order button easy to find and tends to set your customers apprehensions about buying from you at ease.

Switch the word "buy" with "investment"

This is another psychological trigger. Don’t tell your prospects they are buying a product from you. Instill in them the confidence that they are making an investment in themselves when they own your product.

A simple way to use this is: “Buy it today for only $79.99!” to “Your investment today is $79.99!”

Do you now see the power in this? You are using one word that people associate with a negative emotion (buy), to one that has a positive emotion (investment).

Using these changes in your sales letters is a great way to increase your conversions and ultimately, your profits.

As I entered into my friend's usually neat home, I quickly became disorientated and started to feel myself feeling ill. I felt my eyes starting to roll back into my head, and staggered to the window to get a breath of fresh air.

"Tim," I mumbled to my usually hygienic friend, "what happened to you?"

My friend lost his thousand yard stare just enough to point to the TV. I then realized that he had become another home shopping junkie who was afraid of missing the next "big deal".

My normal, levelheaded friend had become hypnotized by one of marketing's most powerful techniques: Time sensitive offers. If he didn't order "Peppi the singing fish" within the next 15 minutes, the offer would be gone forever.

The Yoda phone that exclaimed, "May the force be with you" when it rang would disappear into a galaxy far far away if he didn't act now. They only had 100 left in stock. As I sat there watching my zombified friend order useless items he would never use, I decided I would apply this same technique to my own business.

It has always been important to keep a good relationship with my customers, so I was careful of these two things:

- My offers would only be for useful products and services.

- The offers had to truly be time sensitive.

What I discovered blew me away!

The first time sensitive offer I brought to my customers almost tripled my sales. I was immediately hooked.

Now I never make an offer unless it is time sensitive.

For my offers I use a customized script that keeps track of my orders or counts down the time left until the offer expires. When my product is sold out, or the offer has expired, the script then removes the order page. I rarely make exceptions and extend the offer, unless someone had a problem ordering the product.

So how can you implement this strategy into your business?

To have a successful offer you should generally follow these two simple rules:

- Make the offer truly special (give a discount, extra bonuses, etc.)

- Make sure the offer is pulled when you say it will be.

I have tested 72, 48 and even 24-hour offers with impressive results.

These kinds of offers usually pull much better than if I limit the offer to 20-30 packages. However, each list is different. So don't be afraid to test various offers until you find the right formula for maximum sales.

If you want to quickly lose customers, make an offer for 48 hours, then keep it running for a week. People won't trust you anymore, and you will loose sales. Don't insult people's intelligence and lose their loyalty just to make a few bucks. Keep your customer happy, and they will reward you with higher profits.