    |
Mini Starter Course on how to start a small internet businessSo you've been wanting to start a small internet business. Well, we'll talk about that in this Mini Starter Course. What we'll cover is really "mini", it's just to do a quick look to get some wheels going on the process of getting started. Side note: If you landed on this page directly from a search term, please do take time to check out the rest of the site by going to the home page and following the links from there. There is much covered on this site, each page building on the others.
An interesting observation I noticed in my research about the internet business, is that most people who have made it as we see them today, have one particular thing in common. Of course they have a lot of things in common such as the right way to market, the right product, etc. for the niche they serve, but what I'm talking about is something else. They all started around the mid-nineties! That's good information because it places the net business in a specific starting position. Does that mean those of us who decided to start a small internet business later or who are starting now have missed the boat? And does that mean it takes 10 years to see results? No, to both questions, I don't think so. For one thing these folks who started early on, had to learn the hard way. They had a longer learning curve. They paved the way for others today. Now, there's more available to help us and we can learn from the mistakes of these netpreneurs of yesteryears. Is it too late to get on the net to do business? Heck, no, it's just at the beginning.
There are different types of on-line businesses. There are the ones where a business might have a web site as an extension of its conventional service or product offerings. And there are the ones where various types of marketing activities, including multi-level schemes are offered as self-employment opportunities. But the ones we're interested in here in this course, are the online businesses that offer information and e-products that are either presented on a web page or downloaded to a customer’s computer. They can be your own product or products from other merchants whom you represent as an affiliate. What? Did you say "What is an affiliate? OK, briefly an affiliate is a netpreneur who sells other people's products through special programs offered by these merchants. So that makes them "affiliated" with one another. You'll see more on this as you go throught this web site. Many a guru has a testimony to tell about how he or she made it from poverty to a comfortable living or from there to wealth. They say that pretty well anyone can do it. Actually there are some figures available on this. Let me reproduce here an article I wrote on one of the most popular forums on the net: Figures don't lie "I’ve been seeing figures from reports and statistics that, in the Internet business, 70% will do poorly or fail. That means out of 10, 1 will do well, 2 will do mediocre and 7 will do poorly/fail. Well, I personally think that 10% doing well is a little high. As a comparison, some years ago, I did a statistics research (which started off from reports in an international sales training seminar I was registered in) of the general population. The government figures were that 3% of the population is wealthy, 29% is comfortable, 37% needs assistance to some degree and the rest are on full assistance support one way or another -- give or take a few points as demographics change per decade. Now if we look at the Internet figures from above, as is, that means...
out of 100, 10 will do well, 20 will do mediocre and 70 will do poorly/fail;
……etc… which means that out of 100,000,000 individuals (about 1/3 of the population of a 300 million-people country/continent qualified for work – for example),
10,000,000 will do well,
So as an individual, one has a So, optimistically it's harder to fail than to do well -- you just have to pick the group you'll work in! :-) End of article"
Yes you can make it. But it’s hard work. Truly those who are not prepared to work at it, will be in the 70% group. But hard work is ok -- if you work smart! And hat's what this web site is all about. It offers a way to work smart. Back to our mini course.
When I began the process of looking into the internet business, I cautiously proceeded to investigate, learn and sign up for recommended courses on the Internet. During all my training, I came across some top notch people who have been doing business Online for many years. The first thing I want to point out is that you have to be careful whom you will spend time with in this area of Internet business. You have to recognize the good guys from the bad. You know that by their names and reputation and also by those they associate with. In other words when you recognize a group of people associated with familiar professional names – like, for example, Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the Guerrilla Marketing Weapons book, internet teachers like Jim Edwards, Michael Green, Terry Dean, Yanik Silver, Ken Evoy and I should mention this name first because he is the founder of the best site building tool offering all-in-one site-building, site-hosting, and site-marketing solution on the net that I know (am I biased or what?) ;) well that's why I'm so excited about this web site -- hey check it out for yourself at start a small internet business... Build a site that Works - but not right now, finish this course to the end first and then come back up and click on it. And there are many other names that I can't all mention here but, over the months, I’ve come to know many of these people, and folks associated with them, who have integrity and ethics. That’s the number one lesson in getting into online business to start a small internet business. When you start searching the web, Check out the names first, get familiar with the ones that come up often in referrals by others.
I’m going to share some of the things I’ve learned in setting up my Internet business/web-site. First of all, I noticed that every Internet guru I’ve come across during my training, did not mention anything about “doing a business plan” to start a small internet business. That’s interesting. What I found is that wherever I went to these Internet experts, they started you off with how much money you can make with an Internet business – nothing about how much money it’s going to cost you to learn and set it up and how much money you should have aside to keep you going until it’s up and running! Yet, they all offered products that you had to buy. Some of the headlines I’d come across were, “How to Make Tons of Money Online”, “How to Write Your Own E-product to Sell Online”, etc… and they’d get you right into how they made their “enormous” success and how someone set up and made their first sale in one week or one month. So as you're going from one site to another and buying more products, you find that it's costing a lot more than you anticipated. So, keep your day job until you're up and running! If you're out of work, don't think that this is going to make money right away. Get a temporary job, anything until you've got your internet business going.
Many of these sites lure you in with "free e-courses" but they are really sales letters. You can learn a lot from these sales letters, granted. And certainly, you learn about the products they're writing about. But, the problem is that these letters only tell you about and the WHAT about any aspect of internet business or how to start a small internet business, but not the HOW. You're always left without the complete information of what you were searching for in the first place. Now, there are some sites that give you good information. But the point that I want to make clear is that the process takes a long time when you're just starting out. And what you want to do is watch for the difference between one web site to another, one guru to another. Are they giving you good constructive information and offering real-time solutions? Or are they just trying to sell you another product? And there's nothing wring with selling products. But one needs to learn how to decipher what you really need. So when you search, have an agenda. What am I looking for exactly -- just casual information? Or actual material to get going now. And does the site I'm looking at offer me that? Some search term make you wonder if they really represent 'start a small internet business ', because look at some of the terms used for this category that people have entered in the search engine: business home internet, home business money internet... etc. I guess they just key in a term then enter them again in different order. And that's ok, you'll get different sites coming up, the key is don't lose track of what your original agenda is.
Because I’m also experienced with Offline businesses, I happen to know that one of the most important things about starting a business is – can you guess what? Well, you saw the heading, it's not fair. But you got it anyway. Yes, doing a business plan. A lot of people don't like that. They think it takes too long, etc. etc... Are you one of those? I hope not. At least work out how much money you have available to invest into it, how much money you have to keep you going for the time that it's going to take (if you are not working now). Then down the road, what kind of money it’s going to take to start your business. And how much sales you’re going to need to make yourself a salary, and what kind of expenses it’s going to take to operate it. Because, you know what? Operating an internet business has it's operating expenses too, just like an offine business. Watch out for those web site that tell you they make X amount of money a year (i.e. $100,000 or $200,000 or 500,000), everything is relative. First of all, how long did it take to get to that figure? Right. Years. But if somebody says they're making $100,000, ask, "Is that gross or net?" Quite often, they give you a gross sales figure but when you take out the expenses - all the operating expenses - you're left with $50,000 or less. There's a big difference. If you’ve been looking at starting a business – any business – prior to thinking about Internet business per say, you know that the business teachers and money lenders tell you that you need to make a business plan. I mean you can’t even get money from the bank without a business plan. There's no way to cover that in a mini course such as this, but I do have a follow-up to this course if you are interested that covers this in detail. You can get to it through this link: Mini Starter Course... Business Planning but if you are not doing a business plan now, you can go back to the page you were on, that offered this mini course, and continue through this web site.
Well we're done for this mini course. If we continued, it would'nt be mini anymore. So to summarize, here's what we covered in this how to start a small internet business starter course. 1. The internet business "gold rush" isn't over yet. There's still time to get in on it.
2. There are different types of net businesses. Know which one you're pursuing. (More on this at
Turn knowledge into income)
4. Watch who you learn from during the process of internet research to start a small internet business. 5. Know that it's going to cost some money. So know how much you can afford to spend in the process. 6. Know that it's going to take some time. So keep your job or get a temporary one until your business makes the money you need to live on. 7. Do a business Plan for point No. 5 and 6, even if it is a small plan, at least cover the basic budget. So that's it. You've done well. Keep on asking, seeking and knocking and you shall receive ! See you on another page :-) Diane M. Hoffmann build-your-internet-business-now.com
Back to Small business ideas for big business success page
|
