How to Start an Online Business – that Really Makes Money!

Introduction

There has never been a better time to start an online business, with a wealth of great opportunities, and so much relevant technology available these days.

Many internet business systems can be tested with a minimum of time and money, and can be grown into something which can generate a full-time income or more (see below for more advantages).

But a lot of people fail doing this, so I’ve written this article to help give you the best chances of success.

Who is this guide for?

This guide is for anyone who might be interested in starting an online business, even if you’re not sure yet it’s a good fit for you (you’ll know a lot more after you’ve read this article!).

Even if you have no business experience or relevant skills, it’s still possible to succeed online. And there are good reasons why it can actually be better to start without any product ideas, and without much money to invest (see below for exactly why).

Advantages of online business

Many online businesses can be started for little or no investment.

Also, it’s often relatively quick to test an online business system, and to learn and improve various parts of the system until it is profitable. Another related factor which goes along with this is that it is quick and easy to make changes to most parts of an internet business, and changes can be split-tested to see which works best in practice.

Most businesses online can be done from anywhere in the world, given just a laptop and an internet connection.

It’s also easy and cheap to outsource most parts of an internet profit system, so, once it is working well, most of the work can be done by others, freeing you to focus on overall strategy as well as having the time to enjoy life to the full.

Having said that, it is often a mistake to outsource areas you don’t understand. For this reason I recommend, for most business systems, doing as much of the work yourself as possible, until the whole system is reliably profitable, and only then start outsourcing parts of the system.

And the ability to outsource a lot of the work, is one of the reasons that it is often relatively easy to up-scale an internet business-system, with another factor being paid traffic (see the third part of this article).

Another great advantage of doing business on the internet is that there are a lot of real experts, who make big money, offering free training in the business systems which they use to make profits. They get some benefits from doing so, since the free training usually also promotes their course, but you can certainly learn a LOT, without spending a penny , from people who are really doing what they teach, and doing it well.

Given all these significant advantages, you really need to start an online business TODAY!

Challenges involved in starting an online business

Having read about all the great advantages, and no doubt having heard about some online experts making a LOT of money, it’s common to assume that internet business is “easy”.

While it certainly is possible to succeed, there are factors which are real challenges to a lot of people, and the majority of people who try to create an online business don’t make a profit.

So this section of the article gives details of some of these challenges, and how to handle them effectively.

For best results, start with yourself

One of the biggest mistakes is hearing about someone else achieving great success with a system (or saying they are, at least) and assuming that you can too, without considering that your personality, skills, experience and situation (such as money and time available) might be very different.

For example, an agency offering online services can be a great way to make big money quickly, but for an introvert with no sales training it can be impossible to actually get any clients.

Another example I often see on forums or discussion groups is someone starting affiliate marketing with paid traffic (such as FaceBook ads or Google ads), and trying to work with items which give big commissions, but only having a small budget. Many “affiliate marketing guides” will not tell you the “rule of thumb” that you need to spend three times the payout per test, and that even the experts might need many tests before finding a profitable funnel.

So, while, superficially, it might sound good to be promoting a product which pays a $1,000 commission, unless you can spend $3k per test, you might just be throwing money away without being able to find out if you were succeeding, or not. And the same applies to time if you’re starting with free traffic . . . the bigger the commission the longer it takes per test.

Once you are honest about yourself, and what you are bringing to the business, this is a huge step forward in handling perhaps the biggest problem of all with online business which is information-overwhelm. If you are really honest, you can ignore most of the methods you come across, and focus on the few which are the best fit for your own unique self and situation.

Who and where to learn from?

Another point, however counter-intuitive it might seem, is that you will typically find much better information from free training, than you will from cheap courses, because a lot of cheap courses detail “methods” which don’t actually work in practice (or include outdated information).

It makes much more sense to learn from those who are really succeeding online, only investing a little of your time to watch free training calls . . .

I recommend you learn from 7-figure online business experts, with my series of FREE training workshops . . . sign-up below, NOW . . .

Having too much money can lead to problem, because it’s easy to believe what others say, make a whole bunch of assumptions, and waste money on things which are not helping. Better to understand what I say in the last part of this article about “lean startup” and only invest more after a system is already reliably profitable.

There are certainly some valuable things to be learned about general business principles from books, such as the common error of trying to make everyone your customer (you need to pick the right size of niche to succeed), or the other very common error I detail in the next section.

However, most of the specifics for online business are best learned online, from courses by genuine experts, or from free advice on forums and discussion groups.

One great place to start would be my own FaceBook Group for Online Business . . .
ask me questions and I’ll give you the best information I can.

Why starting with a product idea is a not ideal

I am giving this specific challenge its own section, because it’s such a common problem in business in general, and even more so with the speed and ease of starting a new business on the internet these days.

This problem consists of starting with an idea for a product, creating the product, and only then starting to think if someone might actually want it.

If you watch TV programs like “Shark Tank” (“Dragon’s Den” in the UK), you’ll often see the investors pointing out the “solution” the product or service provides is for a “problem” which doesn’t really exist, so the whole business will never work well.

It is vastly better to start with a passionate group of people who have a really big problem, or a burning desire. Once you’ve found a solution which gives them what they desperately need, the marketing and promotion aspect of the business (which is one of the most important areas of any business, in this era of over-supply and under-demand) is relatively easy, and you already know where your customers are.

How do you find what big problems or desires groups of people have? . . . ask them! Find a forum or discussion group where they hang out, and ask them what their biggest problem is, or what their biggest desire is in the relevant area.

If you’re not sure where to find a group of passionate people, think of hobbies that people get fanatical about and put a lot of time and money into, or specific things that some people really want to achieve and spend time and money on.

And make sure your niche-size is right for the business-system you’re going to use . . . “weight loss” is going to be too broad for most business models but “keto diet” can be hugely profitable. Or “cars” is almost certainly too broad, but “restoring vintage cars” might be a good focus.

How to choose an online business model

As I mentioned above, I recommend that you start with yourself,
your personality, skills, experience and situation (money and time available etc.).

Do that now . . . write (or type) a list of your abilities and limitations, skills and experience, and your situation such as how much time you can realistically devote to your business each week, and how much money you have to invest.

It’s important that you do this BEFORE you start looking a different types of online business in the next part of this article (and even more so before you look the marketing materials for any course or guide), because it can be so easy to get seduced by the apparent opportunity to make big money quickly, or a system which sounds “hot”, and waste time and/or money because you forgot to check if it might actually be suitable for YOU!

When you’ve done that, make an honest assessment of how well each of the business systems I detail in the next part, matches you personally. Sure, some things can be learned or outsourced, but it makes sense to give yourself the best chance of success by picking a system which is a good fit from the start.

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Any Questions? As me on my FaceBook Group for Online Business, and I will give you the best info I can!

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Common types of online business . . .

. . . read about seven different profitable online business systems, with details, pros and cons and my free guide for each . . .

Click here to continue reading about types of profitable online business . . .

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Or if you are eager to begin right now, and want some great FREE workshops I highly recommend, by 7-figure online business experts. . .

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