How I Started My Online Business

Before doing anything, you have to know WHAT your business will be about.

I gathered a lot of ideas. I wanted to implement everyone of them because I was deeply convinced that all would work. I saw people succeeding with similar recipes. However, at the same time, I heard in my ears FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS.

What does it mean? Simply, it means selecting an idea, ONE SINGLE IDEA, and stick on it.

That's what I did.

I took a note-book and wrote all ideas crossing my mind. ALL. It took me around one hour brainstorming. Then, I went through all of them and underlined the ones that sounded more appealing. I did this operation several times until I selected three ideas which I felt comfortable to write about. I remembered a piece of advice I saw in a newsletter (I rarely left them unopened!) and I made a test. I took the first idea and I started googling it to see if I wouldn't get bored learning more on this subject. I did the same with the other two. Then, I checked the competition for each of them (what other marketers are offering, at which price, how many competitors are on each market...) until I felt that I can offer something which could make a difference.

Finally, I took the decision. I choose the idea which gave me the best purpose and which I felt closer to my experience and knowledge.

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Once decided upon the topic, I had to settle a goal and think about how I would accomplish it.

What do I intend to achieve in the first year?

I didn't want to think about a money objective. Even if every business' ultimate goal is to make profit, making money cannot be the purpose of the business. The purpose is to serve other people, to offer them something valuable. Otherwise, they won't pay for what you are offering.

I said I wanted to help people to get started online. Getting through the struggle of preparing to start a business and knowing what someone would need to take a final decision to go and make things happen, I knew I could really help people. I know how it is to feel overwhelmed and to experience the information overload. I was there and I can help people avoid the struggle or at least get trough it smoothly.

I just needed to spread my ideas and find interested people ready to follow me.

It is difficult to settle a quantitative objective at the very beginning, That's why I left it for a later stage. For the moment, it is important to find the way to get the first followers, to build THE LIST.

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Good question!

Find a niche, build a list, connect with the list and sell. Just simple like that. I heard it many times and sounded to me very logical and easy. But, finally, how to do it?

Some marketers talk about article marketing, some others about SEO, or about social marketing, Tweeter, Facebook, blog guest posts, back-linking, directories, Squidoo, HubPages, Wizzley. Each marketing guru has his own guaranteed formula which works no matter what and will definitely change your life.

Guru, experts, specialists, authors, bloggers, all come with a certain recipe which worked for them. I listened, like for sure you did too, to a huge number of offers presenting different business models leading to guaranteed success (with money back, if not!).

And, really, when you don't know what you want, each new offer blows your mind. Listening to it, you tell yourself: 'this is definitely what I need to do!' But, after closing the email message or the video or the webinar connection, you get back into the clutter and don't know which way to go.

I experienced many times that feeling until I realized that all these people are presenting just business models which proved to work for their business' purpose. And would work for similar purposes too.

Deciding HOW to achieve my goal means selecting the business model SUITABLE for my case.

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There are a lot of ways of doing business online. You might sell your own physical products or affiliate's, do drop-shipping, sell information products, blog on different topics, review and recommend products, do online training and coaching, and many other.

After deciding WHAT I intend to do (help people getting started online), now it is the moment to think about HOW I will deliver the solution to my customers. The BUSINESS MODEL is a logical representation of how the value created by the entrepreneur is communicated and delivered to the targeted customers (it includes all aspects: creating the products, promoting them, delivering them, finalizing the sale, customer service).

For each business, there are always several options. Choosing the right path to go is a process of thinking and evaluating several variants. Don't go for and apply blindly recipes recommended by others. It is better to build your own model. Taking this effort will be later on much more rewarding.

If I wanted to build an affiliate business (to recommend products created by other people to my subscribers), I would maybe go for a small website providing (valuable!) insights about the benefits of the products together with the affiliate links. Then I could drive traffic to my site using article marketing, SEO techinques and paid advertising. I might add one (or more) Squidoo pages talking about the products I promote (inserting in my bio a link to my website) and then promote Squidoo lenses through other channels (Digg, Stumble Upon etc).

But because I want to provide an information product, I prefer to go for a blog, where I will offer in a first stage a lot of valuable free information on the subject, I will insert an opt-in to get subscribers into my list (giving them something for free when subscribing). In order to drive traffic I could also use article marketing, but I can do it also by connecting with other bloggers and posting guest posts on their blogs or through social media means.

Another option for me would be to go only on email marketing. I would write articles with links to a squeeze page with opt-in to make the list. Then, I could send to my subscribers newsletters, info messages and promote exclusively my products through emails. I could also go for paid advertising with direct link to my squeeze page (no blog, no website at all).

An another important decision I would take is if I promote my products by myself or chose to market them through other affiliate's or go for some joint ventures...

Knowing WHAT I want to do, It's easy to evaluate HOW can I do it, to outline the STRATEGY and then to select and use the appropriate TOOLS. SEO is not a goal, social media is not a goal, nor is article marketing; they are tools through which I will implement my strategy.

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The perfect business formula is the one which is appropriate for your business.

You'll discover it by analyzing what others are doing and by testing different ways while running your business.

Most people get obsessed by 'how-to' guides. Overloaded with tonnes of information about different ways of doing business online, they feel that what they need to know is how to do things. And their desire to pass quickly from theory to practice is perfect reasonable. But, to implement WHAT?

Before deciding which tools we might need and learning how to do things, we have to see WHAT we want to do, to define the WAY we will go to reach our customers and deliver them value and only at the end comes the time of using TOOLS (which are tactics helping us to follow our strategy). Simple, right?

So, why are people over-complicating things?

What you can do now, after selecting your topic, is to go search on your main keywords and analyze a little bit what competitors are doing. Do they have a blog, a website or a squeeze page, what products do they sell and for which prices, do they use social media? How they convert subscribers - through a pop-up opt-in or through an opt-in inserted on the main page? How much free information do they offer?

Then, take a break and think how would be best for you to do. How can you deliver your solution (offer) to your potential customers? The answer to this question is the best business model for you to choose.

Learning how to think business is crucial when starting your business.

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After outlining the blueprint of my business, evaluating different options and selecting the business model, it comes the time for PLANNING.

I noticed that when hearing about Business Planning, most people get scared. It is a very uncomfortable task to do as long as you haven't yet thought about WHAT and HOW. But if you know what you are going to do and for which purpose and how you intend to do it, planning is, believe me, the most simplest task in managing a business.

Just start to do it and your ideas will flow. You'll find out immediately which tools you need to learn or outsource, which tasks are more important then others, and which costs are involved. The most difficult part is the anticipating the timing required by different tasks. You still cannot evaluate how long would it take to implement the tasks or how long it would take you to learn new tools and techniques.

Once started, you have to do your tasks one by one keeping in mind that all you're doing has to be FOCUSED on your target. You've just started to climb the learning curve. Each day, week and month will bring you closer to your goals.

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