The Six-Figure Second Income: How to Start and Grow a Successful Online Business Without Quitting Your Day Job (18 page)

search box.

The tool works in a similar fashion to a word processor. If you bought a template for

your web-page design, you can open that page in the HTML editor. On part of your

computer screen you’l see the web page and on another part you’l see the

programming language mixed in with the text that shows up on the web page. When you

change the text that relates to a date, for instance, then you’l see that date instantly

change on the web page on your desktop. You then can click a few buttons and have that

new page sent to your web host to put on your live site.

I would measure the learning curve to be a few hours over one weekend in order to

have a basic understanding of HTML. It may be a fair trade of your time, considering

how it wil give you a greater understanding of web sites and search engines.

Building Block Five: Get an FTP Tool

The term FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. Sooner or later you’l hear this term in the

world of web sites because it’s the main way for web pages, audio files, and other

documents to get from your desktop to your web host and then onto your web site.

For instance, let’s say you just finished recording an interview and the audio file is

rather large. You most likely cannot send it to someone by attaching it to an e-mail. Most

e-mail systems choke with large files and, even if yours does not, there’s a good chance

your recipient’s e-mail may reject the message as being too large.

A tool known as an FTP client wil save the day and al ow you to send huge files over

the Internet. The term client in this context means the same as tool that sits on your

computer.

If you go the template route to build your web site, you’l definitely need an FTP client.

They’re inexpensive—a one-time fee of about $40, a learning curve of about 10 minutes,

and you’l use it for years.

I’l give you my current FTP tool recommendation when you go to

www.sixfiguresecondincome.com and type the term “FTP” in the search box.

Building Block Six: Learn How to Accept Money on the Web

That’s what it’s al about, right? Of course, money isn’t everything, but you did buy this

book so it could show you how to make a six-figure second income.

PayPal

The easiest and fastest way to al ow people to pay you over the Web is to get a
PayPal

account. The PayPal service is owned by eBay, which you probably know is a Web

power-house. That means most customers either already do business on eBay and are

accustomed to PayPal, or they’ve at least heard the name.

From the customers’ perspective, paying via PayPal is not real y different from paying

any other way on the web. They do not need to open a PayPal account but instead can

use their credit or debit cards to buy your product or service. They also are not charged

a fee for doing so. On the other hand, PayPal does want to get paid for the service so it

takes a few percent of the customers’ funds before forwarding the rest onto you.

Opening a PayPal account is very quick and easy. Simply go to www.paypal.com and

fol ow the instructions. After the initial setup you’l be asked for your bank account

number. PayPal wil then make two deposits of literal y pennies each and wil ask you to

go to your bank account and find those deposit amounts. When you then enter those

specific penny amounts on the screen back at PayPal, you’ve just verified that you have

access to the bank account and didn’t simply make up a fictional account.

I won’t go into al the whys and hows of PayPal, but suffice it to say that it’s a great

service for info marketers. Without opening any new bank accounts or going through a

bunch of red tape you can almost immediately take credit-card payments over the web.

You are in for a great treat the first time you get a message from PayPal stating that

someone bought your product and your PayPal balance has gone up by that amount. It’s

even better when the money comes in while you were sleeping because it reinforces the

point that this business can make you money around the clock if you set it up right.

Despite the fact that PayPal wanted to know your bank account number, PayPal

keeps those payments to you in a separate account it maintains so, if customers pay

you, PayPal increases your balance. If customers send back your product and request a

refund, PayPal deducts that amount from your balance.

PayPal wil even issue you a debit card if you want one, so you can go shopping with

the PayPal MasterCard and buy whatever you want with the money in your PayPal

account. This brings me to a very important—and little understood—aspect of PayPal:

Many of your future customers regard their PayPal balances as funny money.

Let’s say you set up an eBay account, sold a number of things around the house, and

now have $233.15 in your PayPal account. Because that money did not come via a

paycheck, it takes on more of an easy come, easy go appearance than does your bank

account balance. It’s almost like finding a $10 bil on the ground or having a bookstore

tel you that you have $20 to spend any way you want in the store—you don’t tend to

agonize over the purchases with this money in the same way as the money you earned

at work.

That funny-money aspect of PayPal is great news for you and me as merchants

because it lowers the resistance to buying our products when we accept PayPal as a

means of payment.

Checks and Money Orders

It’s even easier for you to accept checks and money orders on your web site than it is to

open a quick PayPal account. You only need to state on your web site that you accept

checks and money orders. Then tel customers to whom to make out the check or money

order and where to send it. Once you receive the payment and wait for it to clear, you wil

ship the goods.

Even in our twenty-first century cyber age it’s stil a good policy to accept checks and

money orders. Many people are wary of entering their credit card numbers over the web,

despite al the mechanisms in place to encrypt that information.

Maybe they’ve been the victims of identity theft in the past or maybe they’re just old

school—either way, their money is stil good and they want your product. It’s worth

al owing them to send you money in the mode they’re most comfortable with.

Question:

“Should I have the option on my site for people to send cash?”

I would not recommend it. At least with checks and money orders you have a

paper trail of the transaction, but with cash, you could potential y get into a

Answer:
situation where someone swears he sent you cash and you swear you never

received it.

Taking Credit Cards and Debit Cards Directly

When I say directly I mean the ability to accept cards right on your site and not through

the PayPal service.

Sooner or later you’l want to have this feature because it gives you more flexibility. Not

only does the money flow directly into your own bank account but you also have more

options concerning what customers see when they check out. In contrast, once they’re

taken to the PayPal site your options are limited for adding language to reinforce the

sale.

I stil strongly recommend that you get PayPal set up as your first payment-acceptance

option. That wil give you the luxury of immediately being able to accept money on your

site while you work out the process of taking credit cards directly.

And it is indeed a process. Let’s go through each step.

Step One: Get a Business Certificate. Typical y, the road to having an official y

recognized business starts at your local city hal . States differ on this process so you

should of course Google terms like starting a
business in
Iowa to determine your current

rules.

Cities like to know what sort of businesses are being set up within their jurisdiction

and they also like to col ect fees. You’l fil out a page or two of questions asking whether

you’re building a factory, raising pigs, or engaging in other forms of commerce. I can

guarantee you that they wil not have a box for Information Product Creator. The closest

match you’re likely to find is Publishing or perhaps Other. When they realize that your

business wil not be causing traffic jams or toxic waste—and when your check clears

—you’l be good to go.

Question:

“Should I set up a corporation?”

I’m not an attorney or a tax advisor and you should check with the people

you trust to give you legal and tax advice, okay? But if you want my opinion

as a private citizen, you probably should not set up a corporation before

creating your first info product. I’m presuming that your info product is not

Answer:
about a new way to rig a parachute or great ways to mix chemicals found in

your garage so that they cure cancer. I assume your first product is

something nice and safe like
Yes You Can Plan Your Wedding Faster and

Cheaper than They Tell You or Dog Grooming Secrets the Pros Haven’t

Told You About—Until Now.

If I’m correct about the kind of product you’l create then you won’t expose yourself to

much liability. Also, corporations can run into many hundreds of dol ars or even more of

set-up costs. I’m al for enjoying the tax benefits and protection that corporations provide,

but you might start the flow of money toward you first, and then get one set up soon

afterward.

Besides, you need to discuss with a good advisor whether the best structure for you is

a Subchapter
S
corporation, a
C
corporation, a limited liability company, or some other

option.

Step Two: Get a Commercial Bank Account. With the ink stil drying on your business

certificate you can go down to your favorite bank and open a commercial bank account.

It’s pretty much the same as a personal bank account except they’l ask you for your

company name, and you’re required to have one. When picking a name it’s a good idea

to see if a matching domain name is available and to reserve it. Otherwise, you could

run into trouble when someone else already owns your company name.

Step Three: Get a Merchant Account. These are special companies whose whole

business is to be an interface between commercial bank accounts, like your new one,

and al the credit card companies, like MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and so on.

The merchant account is not a bank account but instead a set of agreements between

many parties. You must tel the merchant account provider the nature of your business

like information publishing, hair salon, online gambling service, or whatever. The provider

wil only al ow you to accept credit cards for the activities you list. Therefore, if you’re

approved for a merchant account for information publishing, then you cannot accept a

credit card as payment for that new type of lawnmower you now want to sel .

The merchant account agreement wil also require you to keep customers’ credit card

numbers in a safe place, promptly process refunds when customers are eligible for