How To Start Your Own Internet Business
You want to make money on the internet, you know that other people are doing it. Some are even making a fortune! But how do you get started…
This is the first of a series of posts where I help you to get started in business on the internet.
Today, I’m going to talk about the one key ingredient to success on the internet and give you an overview of the whole process of setting up your first internet business. The following posts in this series will go through each of the steps in more detail giving you a clear picture of what it is you need to do next.
First of all I’d like to congratulate you on deciding to start an internet business – it’s one of the easiest and cheapest businesses to get started in the world – however it does require some effort and you may need to spend some money. In fact there’s a trade-off between how hard you are prepared to work and how much you spend. I’ll explain more about that later…
Let’s get started…
It’ all in your mind…
Yes, the biggest obstacles most people face in starting an internet business are the ones that are in their own heads – their beliefs and their mindset. I know, I was there once 
You may have read about people making money, lots of money on the internet but do you really believe you can do it? Do you really? Do you have limiting beliefs about money and making money. Maybe your parents were poor and you believe that you can only earn a little bit more than they did.
Are you ready to put in some effort. Or are you one of these people that is lured in by the latest “make money overnight with just two clicks of your mouse” offer. Do you keep spending money on e-books that either are just plain nonsense or that you don’t do anything with…
These are all symptoms of someone who either has a problem with their beliefs or their mindset. If you don’t have the right beliefs or your mindset is not good it probably won’t stop you from succeeding eventually. But you will take a lot longer and find it much harder.
So don’t even start thinking about your business yet. Spend an hour or so examining yourself and finding out where you might trip yourself up. Assume that there will be some sort of problem, you’re like an explorer tracking down negative beleifs in the jungle of your mind!
Being clear on the enemy within will help you to avoid the traps you might set for yourself. For more help on personal development and getting the right mindset, take a look at the achieving your dreams blog .
Know where you’re going
Perhaps the key ingredient to success is in knowing where you are going and what you want to achieve with your business. Here are a few things to think about:
What do you want your new internet business to do for you?
- Be a second income
- Make enough money to let you quit your boring job
- Make you a millionaire
- …
How big do you want it to be?
- Just you – quite normal when you’re starting out?
- A team of employees – you’ll need more people if it’s going to be more than a lifestyle business
How do you think you’re going to make money – you may find you change your mind later, but right now you need to have a good starting point:
- Selling your own e-books and information products
- Selling other peoples e-books and information products
- Selling real products
- Your own
- Someone else’s
- Selling your services as an expert in …
- Selling advertising space on your very popular website
- …
- Some combination of the above
You can see there’s a load of ways to make money on the inernet and you may find that as you go through the next few steps your ideas change, but you should start with an idea in mind.
Some time spent planning before you start will help you be much clearer on just what you need to do and to avoid all the distractions that the enemy of anyone starting a business.
Don’t give up the day job!
Whatever choices you make, you need to be prepared for the long haul.
Now, on the internet, the long haul is not a long as it can be in the real world, but it might well take you a year or two before you start seeing a significant amount of income.
Dealing with the financial pressures of supporting yourself and your family can be very hard, and it can make it hard, if not impossible to get your business going. What’s worse, the pressure of not bringing in money can derail your mindset that you’ve worked so hard on…
You need to be able to support yourself and your family (if you have one!) while you’re starting your business. And it will be really helpful to have a little bit of spare money to spend on your business. At the very least you’re going to need to pay for web hosting and one or two other bits and pieces.
So the best advice you can take is: Don’t give up the day job if you’ve got one. Fitting in starting your business around having to do a full day’s work and the daily grind of the commute can be hard, but with careful management of your time it is possible.
Almost everyone who’s started an internet business has started in this way until they’ve got enough income to cover their basic living costs. Once you get to that point, going full time will be easy as you’ll already be skilled at running your business.
Ignore false prophets
You know who I mean. Those silver tongued salesmen who promise instant overnight riches.
There may be a very lucky exceptional few who have just the right combination of skills, mindset and belief that lets them become instant overnight successes.
And there are always a few people who buy the product and use it to make some money instantly…
Until you dig deeper and find that those people spent years and thousands of dollars trying out endless instant success formulas!
The reality is that the vast majority of people need to acquire new skills, develop the right mindset, and put in some effort before they succeed
So prepare yourself for the long haul and be pleasantly surprised if you manage to get there faster.
For more thoughts on this topic go here.
The ‘secret’ formula that will propel your business to the stratosphere
So far we’ve talked a lot about planning your new internet business. I’ll finish this article off with an overview of the process of taking action and getting your business going. But before I do I want so share one absolutely vital piece of information with you…
It’s THE formula for a successful internet business, in fact for success in the offline world as well. When you first see it, it may seem far too simple, but this formula has profound consequences for your business. That’s why I’m bringing it up here. Look at it and remember it. We’ll be referring back to it throughout the rest of this course.
So here’s the formula for success on the internet:
PROFIT = CUSTOMERS X SALES – COSTS
You want profits – that what is returned to you as the owner of the business. To make those profits you need to find some customers and sell them something. The two ways to make more money are either to find more customers – get better at marketing on the internet or sell them more stuff – either more expensive items or just more items.
Just about everything you do on the internet is aimed at increasing your customers and your sales.
Both finding customers and selling them something will cost you money. It can be a very small amount on the internet, or you can spend a lot, especially if you want to find customers quickly.
However much you choose to spend, you are aiming to make your business profitable. The amount you spend should be less that than the total money you earn from your customers.
When you first start out you may well find that your costs are at least as high if not higher than the money you earn from your customers. However with just a little bit of tweaking your can turn your business around and make it profitable.
So what do I do next?
In the next few posts we are going to be covering everything you need to know to get a business started. In fact there are literally hundreds of choices but I’ve narrowed it down to a few that I’ve used and that I’ve seen other people use with great success.
We’ll start with market research – finding out who your customers are and what you’re going to sell to them
We’ll look at how to learn from your competitors. Yes, it may come as a disappointment to you but you’ll have competitors. Just think of them as a good thing – where there’s competitors there are customers! You’ll need to find out how to set yourself apart from the crowd and I’ll show you how to do this
Then we’ll get into the nitty gritty of setting up your internet shop front – putting up web pages that are going to persuade your customers to spend money with you.
Now you’re ready for some customers in the next post we’ll talk about how you’re going to get customers to your web pages – TRAFFIC. You’ll see that you can spend anything from zero to a lot to get traffic – the choice is yours
Now you’ve got visitors to your web page and those first few sales are trickling in we’ll talk about the other secret to success on the internet – testing, tracking and tweaking. This post will show you how to turn your business into a goldmine.
In the final post we’ll look at where next – you’ll have been on quite a journey to get to this point, but it doesn’t need to end here. The internet is limitless, you can take your business as far as you want.
See you soon for part 2 – marketing