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If you are looking for the steps to starting an online business there are some things that you should definitely think about before you get started.

Decide what type of online business model you want

There are a number of businesses you can run online. This could even be an extension of your current business. You need to choose a business that suits you.

For example one of the biggest online businesses is selling information, sometimes called the info product business. This is an ideal format if you get into the correct niche because the overhead for online delivery digital products is next to nothing. But if your niche is purple alligators you might find it difficult to sell many products.

Other business models include but aren’t limited too:

• Software
• Services – such as copywriting, advertising, etc.
• Programming – creating scripts for websites
• Web Design
• Graphic Design
• Affiliate Marketing
• Adverting – this includes revenues from projects like Adsense and other advertising networks.

There is more on this in my free ebook Getting Started

Treat your business like a business not a hobby

What do I mean by this? It is simple if you are trying to run a store in a mall you need to be open the hours you state. If you are running your own business online you need to follow this pattern.

No you don’t need to be “open” from 8 am until 8 pm or even answering your support for that time period (but the support does help) but you need to have a schedule of when you are working your business.

This is actually pretty simple to do but can quite often be hard to follow. Let’s say that you have a full time day job and you want to start your own online business. You schedule should be a regular schedule that fits you. Write on your schedule work Monday through Friday 5pm until 7pm, Saturday 10am until 2pm, Sunday off.

Make a list of what you need to get done and try to accomplish this in the time period you have allotted. It is OK for you to work extra hours on a specific day but don’t talk yourself in to a compromise where you say you will work an extra hour everyday and then take Saturday off. If you want Saturday off then take Saturday off. If you have ever managed a business you will know that when the schedules start getting changed, without a good reason, productivity drops.

Do make sure you schedule time off because if you don’t you will probably end up “burnt out” and never finish what you started. I can tell you this from personal experience; you need to recharge your batteries every now and then.

Don’t quit your day job.

I will repeat this one Don’t Quit Your Day Job!

Any one that believes they can make $5,000 in the next week with an online business that they are just starting out shouldn’t even attempt to run their own business. It will take time to get your business going and income arriving on a regular basis, so unless you are independently wealthy or have a large nest egg put aside, don’t quit your day job.

You can get started working part time until you develop some type of income and there will come a time where working your day job will cost you money but until that time arrives keep your income coming in and use any you can to help build your business.

Don’t try to do everything for free

Yes, it is theoretically possible to run a business using only free services BUT I have seen a lot of online businesses over the last 10 or 11 years and I haven’t seen one that makes a regular income using only free services.

You definitely need to pay for a few things, for example your own domain name and hosting for your site. These are two things you should never try to do with free services and the cost is nominal. You can register a domain name for under $10.00 per year and you can get good quality hosting for under $10.00 per month. Let’s face it, if you can’t afford to spend $130.00 per year on your business (less then $11.00 per month) then you shouldn’t be trying to run a business. These are mandatory, non-negotiable items as far as I am concerned.

Here are some other items I recommend you pay for:

An autoresponder service – if you are emailing anybody in your business this is worth the cost (see my post on autoresponders)

A script to run your site – no matter what you are doing there are scripts that will make it easier for you to run your site. These will automate a lot of the routine jobs that you have to do.

Advertising – yes there is a ton of free advertising available online but there are even more paid advertising services. Why are there more paid then free services? Because paid advertising is more targeted and usually will have a higher conversion rate which means more money in your pocket.

Test everything

If someone tells you something don’t blindly believe it. Even if it works for them in their business model doesn’t mean that it will work for you in the exact same way. Track all your advertising, test all your sales copy, test the copy on your opt in forms, test your price point, test the graphics on your site and test anything else you can think of.

You need to know what works best for you and your business.

Hello everybody! This is just a test post. I am playing with a new browser called Flock that has a built in blog editor and I wanted to see how well it works.

For the picture I just dragged and dropped it into the blog editor and like magic it appeared. So that it pretty cool.

The flock browser runs off the same engine as Firefox and it is designed as the “Social Browser” It will take a little while to get used to but so far it looks promising.

Now I am playing with the editor to see how the text can be edited on the fly.

So now I will try some big text

And some Red Text

Now some list

1. numbered list 1
2. numbered list 2
   1. sublist 1
   2. sublist 3
3. numbered list 3

• bulleted list 1
• bulleted list 2
  • bulleted sublist 1
  • bulleted sublist 2
• bulleted list 3

Well I like the way it handles lists much better then the editor built into wordpress.

Still more to learn if you are interested you can get the browser at:

www.Flock.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Flock, Browser

The answer is, yes! Getting customers can be a lot like herding cats.

Let’s define what herding is. Herding is trying to force someone or something to do what you want. Like cowboys herding cattle in the old west.

If you have ever dealt with cats you know that cats do what they want to do and if you try to force them into something they will probably just get mad, hiss and be done with you.

Customers are the same way. Don’t try to force them to do something. Just like cats if you try to force them to do something they will do exactly what they want and it probably won’t be what you want them to do.

For example, there are a lot of people that will tell you to put a squeeze page in front of your sales page. I know I am not alone in this but if you try to force me to go through a squeeze page just to see a sales page 99% of the time I won’t sign up to your list or buy your product and I definitely won’t promote your product if I have to send people to a squeeze page instead of an information page about your product.

The way I see this is, what are you hiding? Is your product so bad that you have to get me on your list because you know I won’t buy it? Why should I sign up to buy something? If your product and/or your sales page is any good you will get me as a customer and then I will be on your list as a qualified targeted buyer instead of someone that isn’t interested in your product but only signed up to see the sales page and unsubscribed with the first email you sent.

Yes, you can build your list by setting up this squeeze page but you really need to test this and see how many sales you might be loosing. I can guarantee that you are loosing sales because of this. Customers are just like cats and they don’t like to be herded.

Instead of trying to force people to do something you are much better off enticing them to do something. For example if I try to chase a bunch of cats in to a corner, how much success do you think I will have? Just imagine cat cats jumping over me and each other trying to go anywhere else than the corner I am trying to force them into.

Now tell me what happens if I take the same cats and open a can a cat food and place it in the corner. Guess what? I just got all the cats in the corner because that is where they wanted to be.

Customers are the same way. If I really need something and I have two sites to choose from one site has all the information readily available and at the other site and I have to sign up to get some information then guess which one will get my business? That’s right the one with the information and not the one with the squeeze page.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of good uses for a squeeze page, if you are an affiliate marketer they are a must, but this situation you are trading information for the sign up, you are not forcing people to signup to see a product you are selling. If you are selling a product don’t try to force me to do anything before you give me some information on the product you are selling or I (and others) will be like those cats and jumping over people to get away from your site.

If you want to get me on your list then put an opt-in on your sales page or have it float in and offer me something of value to join your list but DON’T MAKE ME SIGN UP TO SEE A SALES PAGE! You will loose me as a customer and a joint venture partner and I am sure, I am not alone in this feeling.

That sounds simple, doesn’t it? But there are still some people out there that don’t seem to get it.

Question: Who knows what you should provide for your customers?

Answer: The experts on your customers, of course.

Your customers know what your customers want much more then you do. They are the leading experts for what you should be providing.

Question: How do you find out what your customers want?

Answer: You ask them. In other words you create a survey and see what they want.

Question: How do you run a survey?

Answer: You can run a survey as simple as sending out an email and asking them to respond or setting up a formal survey on a web page or you can mail out a physical survey.

Doesn’t that sound easy? In concept it is very easy, but in practical application there are a lot of things that you need to do to make your survey work for you.

When you ask a question you can lead the person reading the question to an answer. This can give you bad information from your survey. You have to be careful when you word your survey questions, if you lead a person to the answer that you want to hear you will end up with the information you want instead of the information you need to have when you create your product.

Remember, you can lead a person to the answer with not only the question but with the choice of answers, if it is a multiple choice answer. For example:

Question: Who do you think is the world’s most peaceful person?

1. Adolph Hitler
2. Osama Bin Laden
3. The Una-Bomber
4. Mike Tyson

As you can see that is a question that most people either wouldn’t answer or if they did answer they would be picking an answer that they didn’t really agree with. This is why it is very important to phrase your questions, answers and the way the questions are answered in your surveys.

Once you have your answers and you have analyzed the results you will know exactly what your customers want. If you are the one that provides the information or product that people want they will gladly pay you for it.

Michael Cheney has done a lot of surveys to learn what his customers want as a result of these surveys he has had a couple of products that have sold over $100,000 worth of product in a very short time. Wouldn’t you like similar results?

Even though setting up a survey sounds easy there are people that get paid thousands and thousands of dollars to create, run and analyze surveys for other people companies and some of the larger companies actually have a survey section of their marketing company.

Besides product development, surveys are also used to:

1. Generate qualified leads for your products
2. Refine your existing product
3. Streamline support issues
4. Check your customer satisfaction
5. To find out almost any information you want on how to make your business, product, customer support, etc., better.

Question: Why doesn’t everybody use surveys?

Answer: Who knows? I would assume a lot of the time it is because they don’t know how to run a survey or they don’t know what to ask or it could be they don’t know whom to ask.

If you are thinking about doing a survey I would recommend you do some research on it before you create. There is a bunch of information out there to be had but I can personally recommend Marketplace Detectives. This is by Marie Kane who made a good living doing surveys for other businesses.  In Marketplace Detectives she gives up all the tips, tools and information she used to become a expert in the survey field.

If you want to maximized your money, surveys are one of the most reliable ways to start and will provide you with the most bang for your buck. Don’t believe me? Ask!