Starting Your Own Internet Business

That's it. The downturn in the economy has frightened you into taking action. You don't want to take a chance that your employer might not downsize you out onto the street. You still have bills to pay, mouths to feed, and savings that are close to non-existant. You've decided that it's finally time to start up an Internet business just in case the paychecks stop coming.

What do you do first? Well, if you have decided to take a trip, the first thing you normally do is decide where you're going to go. Same thing with starting a home based business. Where do you want to go? What do you want to achieve? What do you want to do? You have to decide what kind of Internet business you want to start. Then you have to figure out how to get there.

The Importance of Planning
As with starting any business endeavor, you must have a business plan. Think of it as your roadmap to where you want to go. You figure out the best, and easiest way of getting to your destination. But you also come up with alternate routes. What happens if this freeway is blocked due to traffic? Or if that bridge is closed for repairs. You plan ahead so that if something does come up, you know exactly what you need to do to get around or through the problem.

The same thing applies to starting your own business. You do a little research, you figure out the best and easiest way of achieving what you want to achieve, then you prepare alternative plans in case roadblocks get thrown in your way. There are many books out there that can help you in developing your business plan, but the easiest way to come up with a basic business plan is to ask yourself these important questions, then answer them:

What legal requirements do I need in order to start my business? (For example -- licenses, registration, fees, zoning, etc)
What do I do if my sales revenue isn't as high as planned?
What do I do if my costs are higher than expected?
What related businesses can I spread into in order to reduce the risk of failing?

Plan first. Think everything through as best you can. Learn as much about the business you want to get into before starting. Then build your plan based on the information you gather.

Marketing
In order to be able to sell anything, you have to let people know that you are there ready to sell. With any Internet business, the key factor in your success is going to be "traffic". How many people are coming to your website every day? You can't sell someone something if they don't know that you can sell it to them. And the only way they will know is if you get them to visit your website.

To be sure, there are other factors involved -- your sales pitch, the look of your website, how confident they are in your honesty, and other "conversion" factors. But if no one comes to your site, it doesn't matter how good the site looks, or how well it can convert visits into sales, your sales will still be zero. Website design and pitch writing are vitally important, but marketing your site and your business is even more important.

Fortunately, there are Internet marketing books available that can teach you everything you need to know about how to develop traffic for your website, and other books on how to write good sales pitches. Again, you need both to be a success, but getting traffic is paramount.

Don't stop working
This warning has a double-meaning. Firstly, don't stop working your dayjob until after your Internet business is making at least double what your regular job pays you. Many beginner webpreneurs start their business and quit their jobs right away, assuming that they'll be swimming in money in a matter of days. I hate to break this to you, but it doesn't work that way. Your business doesn't just spring up into being -- it grows. Just like a tree grows from a seed, to a sapling, then to a full-sized tree, your Internet business will be small at the start, and will gradually develop and grow into something marvellous. So don't quit your dayjob too soon!

The other meaning is the reason why the business will slowly grow into something marvellous -- you will need to work at it continually. Despite popular opinion, an Internet business is not something that you work on for a few days, then never have to work on it again. Borrowing Ron Popeil's slogan, it is not a case of "Set it and forget it". You will have to devote time every day to growing your business, either by enlarging and improving your website, or by increasing the amount of traffic your site gets. This takes time, and effort, and sometimes money. A successful Internet business is not a 52-week annual holiday -- you have to work it to grow it. Yes, a successful web business will allow you some personal freedom, but it doesn't allow you to abdicate your responsibility to keep working at it to make it grow.

Realistic goal-setting
Some naive webpreneurs start up with the goal of being a millionaire in 6 weeks or some other ridiculous time frame. While some web businesses can make their owners wealthy -- there are enough Internet millionaires out there to prove that that's true -- don't expect it to happen in the first few years. Remember, like a tree, your business will grow, and probably grow slowly to start. Some people like to keep a chart on the wall by their computer. On the chart they mark off how long it has taken to achieve $x in daily profits, usually marked off in tens of dollars. For example, once you've consistently reached $10 a day in profits (not just revenues), you'd mark the date that it happened. You may choose to make it the number of days or weeks from your start date instead. At $20 a day, you'd mark down the date that that level of success was achieved. And so on. It may sound foolish to do this, but every time you sit down at your computer to do more work on your business, you'll see how far you've come, and how much farther you have to go. If your goal is get double the amount of money you earned from your dayjob (let's say $300), you'll have a visual reminder that you're successfully growing a business from scratch, and the inevitability that you will reach your goal eventually.

But don't stop when you hit that goal. After you hit that mark, create a new chart, marked off by hundreds instead of tens. And so on, until you no longer need to see that you have become successful.

To sum up -- learn, learn, learn, before you start. Plan, plan, plan, until you're ready for anything that might come up. Don't quit your job until it is completely safe to do so. Then work, work, work, to grow your new business to its maximum potential.

Good luck!

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